Ask CCP About EVE Online

The week after next, the annual Game Developer's Conference is happening in San Francisco. I'll be there providing coverage on the keynotes, and some of the talks that I think will appeal to the Slashdot sensibility. I've also been digging to see if there's any folks willing to speak with the Slashdot community 'in person'. The fine folks at CCP, makers of the Massively Multiplayer game EVE Online, have kindly agreed to take some time out of their busy conference schedule to answer your questions. So, what do you want to know about the present and future of this fascinating MMOG? One question per comment, please. I'll present your questions to CCP, and pass their answer back once I'm home from the event. Update: 02/22 19:51 GMT by Z : I asked Sharon Howell, the PR rep for CCP, who I might be speaking with at GDC. Unfortunately, they're still nailing down schedules. We'll be talking with one of the following: Hilmar Veigar Petursson, Chief Executive Officer, Magnus Bergsson, Chief Marketing Officer, Nathan Richardsson, Senior Producer, Halldór Fannar Guðjónsson, Chief Technology Officer. One of these members of the top brass will be available to answer your questions.

Comments

real sense of loss

[Digitus1337]

If you lose a ship in EVE it's gone, no free respawn once you walk back to your body. Diablo 2 is the only other game that offered anything like this. Why haven't other games caught on?

Come clean and do the right thing..

[Taelron]

Will they ever give the game community a satisfactory resolution to the incident where their staff have cheated in the game? Any other game company would have fired those employees... Theirs kept their jobs and simply created new accounts, that with their developer access, can just quickly ramp back up... The way they treated the whistle blower was much harsher than those actually guilty of deceiving and betraying their player base. I know I will never purchase any additional services or titles from CCP as a result of this gaff.

Employee Players

[Vrallis]

Given the recent events (mainly surrounding Band of Brothers) of employee misconduct, have you considered changing your privacy policies in cases where an employee is involved?

I understand the privacy policy concerning the average player, and not wanting to discuss GM actions. However, when it is an employee involved who has been found guilty, some things need to be aired out in public in order to instill confidence in CCP by your playerbase.

We aren't looking for their real names. We want to know:

1) What exactly was the offense?
2) How was the offense corrected? (ISK or items removed)
3) What characters were terminated as a result of the investigation?
4) Is the person still a CCP employee?

*avoided mentioning BoD even once!
**oops!

Re:Physics, the Legal System, and Geography

[LakeSolon]

First of all, why is there no Mac OS X or Linux client?

Short answer: Microsoft's DirectX. Slightly longer answer: this comment.

The second thing I'd like to know is why the physics are all screwed up

Simplicity. I couldn't tell you if it was simplicity for the purposes of the physics engine/network coherency or game balance that came first, but both contribute. Trying to balance the gameplay without an over-simplified speed model (I can't actually think of any games off the top of my head that respect real-universe physics in a space environment, though I imagine someone has tried it) would be excruciating if not impossible. Even in the simplified model there have been issues and several overhauls. Just the other day there was a dev blog that mentioned the issue of the "Nanophoon" (a particular ship+configuration that's hard to counter in PvP).

Thirdly, what's up with the seemingly bizarre layouts of the solar systems, as relates to the legal system?

You might be referring to something else, but my first guess is that you're trying to get from one empire's hub to that of another. There are barriers of low security between center of each of the Amarr, Caldari, Minmatar and Gallente empires. There are higher security paths available, but you'll likely end up going slightly out of your way. You can adjust your autpilot to prefer safer routes.

The construction of a station would require a massive investment, making it highly unlikely that any entity would choose to locate such an expensive piece of hardware in such a place, unless they felt they could defend that space easily, which almost by definition would make that space relatively high security.

Actually, there are many player-constructed stations in EVE these days. Every single one of them has been (and must be) placed in "zero security" space, purely controlled by players. You're right, they're not cheap.

I suppose that you could some up my questions here by saying that I'm really requesting that the game be made much more realistic than it is.

Warp Drives, Jump Drives, wormholes, tens of thousands of years in the future... but you want realism you say? =)

Why not ban SirMolle?

[X.25]

Why you ignore any questions in regards to banning SirMolle, for posting someone's real-life information on forums? Yet you decided to ban others who did the same?

Is it because he's the CEO of alliance that houses biggest number of CCP developers? Or he is also developer, and they don't need to follow rules that we mortals need to?

Thank you.

Why do you keep a cheater in-house?

[X.25]

Why is it that developer who has been found to abuse privileges can keep his job, while you permanently banned person who exposed the whole thing?