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EVE Online Answers Your Questions
Last week at GDC I had the privilege of sitting down to speak with a representative from CCP, the folks who maintain EVE Online. The week before, we'd asked for questions to pass on. I had the chance to put them directly to Magnus Bergsson, CMO at CCP. He very directly tackles the recent scandal involving a CCP developer, the reason why EVE's hardcore gameplay is so appealing, the balance between casual and hardcore players, and some information on the future of the game. Read on for his answers to your questions in a transcript of the interview, as well as audio live from the GDC Expo floor.
Note: This interview was recorded live on the show floor of GDC 2007, at around 2pm on March 7th. The transcript here has been edited to eliminate repeated words and 'umms', and to provide a clear reading experience. If you'd prefer, the full, unedited audio recording is available for your listening enjoyment. (reduced bitrate: 48 kbps, 32 kbps)
Slashdot: So, for the record could you say who you are?
Magnus: Magnus Bergsson, the CMO at CCP.
Slashdot: Excellent. Thank you sir. The way that we got these questions, basically, was we spoke to the Slashdot community, and the way that we do interviews is we ask people what they're interested in hearing. So, most of these questions are basically directly from the readers, what they want to know. So, if they're bad questions, or you get angry, don't get angry at me. (laughs)
Magnus: I don't get angry.
Slashdot: That's good. There was that scandal thing ... (laughs) Unfortunately, I'm going to start with that one. There was that scandal thing that happened recently. Could you sort of ... explain to folks I guess, what happened, so we can hear directly from you what your take on the situation is?
Magnus: Ahh ... people need to know when the issue with this one developer happened, which was last summer, all of the management team was actually on a summer vacation. And the people in charge then they basically decided to handle it the way they handled it. And they just made a really bad decision the way they managed that whole thing. But they did the best they could, because we had never done anything, nothing like this had ever come up. And this goes so much against the CCP mentality, and the corporate culture that, in our naiveness, we never really thought that anything like that could actually happen. Because CCP is our baby, and this basically is like hurting your own baby, which you just don't do. And the person that did it, which I know really well, he doesn't understand himself, it just doesn't make any sense. Anyway, they mishandled it, absolutely, and we've stated so in our blogs. From that came a number of rules that we have now for our own employees. We have an internal affairs department that does nothing but monitor our employees, to ensure that nothing like that will ever happen again. But some still think that CCP as a whole is trying to help one alliance in-game. And, it's so ridiculous for anyone to think that. Why would anyone at CCP want to do something like that? So, we just mishandled it and we tried to correct it, and we I think we handled it as best we could, and that's what it basically was. We made a mistake, we'd never dealt with something like this before. It's part of growing up, getting a bigger company, we have people in shanghai, we have people in Atlanta, we now have all these rules and regulations in place that we've set for our employees, they're good. People have to realize that we're working on EVE because we have a passion for the game, we will be playing the game. It would be horrible for the community and the game if CCP employees were not playing. Because the game gets created in the hands of the players. It's critical for us to have people playing the game just to know what's going on. We actually did a survey, and we found it's an even distribution of CCP employees in the top ten alliances. And those people would never allow somebody to be working against their alliance, so ... it's a mess, in the end we came and did the right thing. People know at the company, people know that if you were to do something like that you'd basically get fired. We couldn't double judge in that case, you know, double jeopardy if you want to compare it to that. You know, and that's basically the short of it.
Slashdot: Well, thank you. Thank you for going into that. I know it's probably not something that you guys want to touch on a lot right now. Do you think with the internal affairs department set up right now, and the action you've taken against the people involved, do you folks consider this matter closed right now? I just know that some of the comments were in the area of there is still some mixed -- and since it's still so fresh in people's minds -- there's still some mixed feelings there. Do you consider this matter closed at the moment?
Magnus: That case, from our end, is closed. I mean, we've done all the investigation, we know it was only one person and not the whole company like some like to believe, and ahh there's nothing more that we feel can be done, um it was just an unfortunate case, and in the overall scheme of things it didn't affect the game in that like some people like to thing. And, in the end, we're just damn sorry and it hurts our feelings to see some of the players say some of the things about us; we love this game and we'd never do anything to hurt it, and to have people think that this is a widespread thing within CCP: that's as far from the truth as it possibly can.
Slashdot: Right, okay, so I think one of the things that people were really frustrated by with that, is I guess, the hardcore ... EVE has this reputation as a very 'tough' game, and obviously there are a lot of people who really enjoy that. Why do you think the hardcore nature of the game appeals to so many people?
Magnus: Uhhh wow, that's a big question. EVE can be very hardcore, and it can be also a very casual game. It really depends on how you play it. But most of these people who are commenting on the forums and so forth are the hardcore players, they've been with the game for many years. If you live in 0.0, it's very hardcore. It's a very you know, dog eat dog world, and I for one, I live there, I am one of those hardcore players. You know, it's just the threat the, big death penalty and the amount of strategy you have to employ and the amount of thinking you have to do, and I think it's a big big challenge, and I think these people really enjoy the challenge.
Slashdot: Yeah, um, so you in your estimation the fact that it's not more like a World of Warcraft, where death is not really a big deal, you guys see that as a definite strength for the game?
Magnus: Absolutely. The reason that people team up in corporations and then corporations team up in alliances is because there is this inherent big threat of dying and losing a lot of money. You can lose months of work in 30 seconds, and this forces people because of human nature, to band together and form relationships. I'm saving somebody's life, saving their three, four, five, six months of work, so you create very strong relationships, where you don't have an opportunity in real life to rescue your friends from death.
Slashdot: Right, hopefully.
Magnus: Yeah, hopefully, but you get to do that on a daily basis. And that's what creates these really strong feelings, the really strong relationships, that are such a big part of this game. And because it's so totally open ended, so totally different from a game like World of Warcraft, which is a really structured game experience. A great game, but it's just different. So when people have done that type of game, it's kind of a natural progression for them to step into something that's heavier and deeper, and more rewarding in the end.
Slashdot: Totally. So, another thing that came up a lot in comments were the um, the sort of backseat designers ... you mentioned the folks on the forums who have been playing this for a number of years now, and they obviously have very strong opinions on where the game should go. How do you balance making those folks happy with attracting new players, people who might be looking at the more casual aspects of the game?
Magnus: Well, we have to satisfy most people, so it's always a balancing act, sometimes we take an upgrade, and we say now we're going to focus on this part of the game because we haven't done it before. And often when you dive into one part of the game, there are a lot of associated things that come with it. So sometimes we might actually be focusing a lot on the newer players, sometimes we might be focusing a lot on the hardcore players, but we try to do our best to have our expansions so that they touch on something for everybody. But sometimes we do more for the other, we always try to do something for everybody, it's a balancing act, and there's a big group at CCP that discusses this on a daily basis. Of course, we get input from the CCP employees that are playing the game at every single level. We have empire dwellers and people living in 0.0, let's call them Carebears, I like to call them that. Everybody has their input, in the end some features get selected as the best ones, it's a long process and a difficult one.
Slashdot: Could you point out a feature that was added recently, or with the last group of features, that you thought was really good for the more casual players?
Magnus: Yeah, the new player experience, which we spent a lot of time and effort on. That was just for the new players, just to make it easier for them. We are still working on adding a lot more to that, we have a team that is just dedicated to that aspect of the game.
Slashdot: Really?
Magnus: Yeah, so we're always trying to improve that part. Because, when you get thrown into a game like EVE, which is so open-ended, and there's no hand holding you really need to ahh, help those people. Those people are going to see a lot of new things this year. There' s a lot of new things were working on helping them getting into the game and understanding it. Of course, you don't really see it - you get thrown into this world, and if you don't already have a friend that's already playing it can be a little tricky.
Slashdot: Yeah, that's interesting, because a friend of mine was recently trying out some games and she tried out your game, and she was a little offput because EVE has this reputation for being such an intimidating game, but she found the new player experience very intuitive. In fact she said it was more intuitive to her than like an EverQuest 2, which is ... well, it's directed, but in EVE it's like a step-by-step thing. So this is going to be a focus in the future, is there's going to be a team that stays on the new player experience?
Magnus: And it's been on there for a long time, this team. So we are always extremely aware of, and we're always trying to make it easier. It's not easy trying to make those first steps real easy without making them real boring. But I think the new player experience is really good, it takes people in the right direction. It shows them a lot about the game, but as with EVE in it's nature you have to bring something to the table. You have to take some action, you have to take responsibility with what you're doing, just as in real life. There's no manual for this side of the screen, so we'll do our best, there's a lot of things we're going to be doing from now on to get people in ...
Slashdot: Can you give an example?
Magnus: Ahh, for instance, just helping people in the tutorial, just pointing things out to them in the email. Ahh, staying in touch with them, that's a huge thing because right now you might skip something in the tutorial but there's nothing that really pulls you back, nothing that points 'you why don't you check this out?' So we're going to be tracking what people are doing and sending them appropriate notifications about, hey you should be trying this out.
Slashdot: Okay. I guess just to pull back and deal with, obviously Slashdot's a very technology-oriented site, and some of the questions were very much on the technology. There's been PvP wars in the past few months that in the opinion of the posters highlighted some server limitations, some hardware limitations. Are there any plans in the future to change the scale of the world at all? Perhaps move to multiple servers?
Magnus: No, we will not move to multiple servers. What we are doing right now, there is actually and has been for the last four or five months, all of the developers are focusing on one thing right now - the need for speed. In EVE you have larger battles than in any other MMO. We had the other day, not too long ago, a battle of 1000 in the same system, and we want to continue supporting that, allowing them to have these large battles, but we also want to create incentives to create smaller engagements, which in the end are more fun for the player.
Slashdot: Right. They're certainly more understandable.
Magnus: Yes, but having 1000 people combat in the same system, is a massive requirement on the servers. Today they weigh two tons, the whole cluster weighs two tons. There's still a lot of work being done, we're still implementing new optimizations for the client and the server, and the hardware it's running on, we can't get any better hardware, so we have to focus on the code, so there's a lot of effort to allow people to have these big battles.
Slashdot: Excellent. I know you're probably disinclined to give out exact details, but for the technology nerds, for the server nerds, can you give any details about what you're running the game on. You mentioned the weight, I mean what are some of your specs?
Magnus: For instance, the we don't have hard disks on our database server. Those are solid-state harddisks, which are only previously only been used for military applications, those are extremely high output, they're called RAMSANS, and that's one applications. We're now moving everything to 64 bit architecture. Everything is running on IBM hardware. IBM has been a really great partner for us to work with, so we get the latest hardware from them as soon as they can possibly deliver it. We're always updating the hardware so we invest and have invested many many millions of dollars just on the hardware side.
Slashdot: And uhh... i'm not sure this is a question you'd be all that interested in answering, but there was one gentleman who was very interested in Stackless Python, and how that's worked out for you? Do you find that it still meets the demands of the many thousands of players that are playing the game?
Magnus: Absolutely, Stackless Python because it's a stateless environment is one of the keys of why EVE is actually capable of supporting all these users. And we have been working very closely with the Python community, we had a Python convention in Iceland that CCP actually orchestrated, and we've supported the PyCon conventions. We want to see more development on that end, and there's some interesting things happening there, so we will continue using that.
Slashdot: Okay, so looking back you definitely wouldn't have done it differently?
Magnus: It's one of the best things that has happened to EVE in the beginning, was to actually select that.
Slashdot: Okay. Do you feel that way about MSSQL?
Magnus: (pause) It has actually worked really well for us. We have worked really closely with Microsoft and ahh, it has performed really well. So that was the right decision, and still is. There are no issues with the database, and no other database would be able to perform better, in our opinion. So there are no issues there. And Microsoft has been really good to work with.
Slashdot: Excellent. Um, so as I was talking about a little earlier ... White Wolf. I know a lot of people are very very interested in what you're planning. I know you can't talk a lot about plans right now because you're very much in the initial phases. First of all, can you shed some light on why you folks got together? What was the rationale there?
Magnus: White Wolf has some assets we didn't have. They are extremely good storytellers, they have a lot of expertise in physical distribution, they can create board games, they are now writing the EVE manual, the EVE strategy guide. They're going to help us getting EVE into physical distribution, into stores, Then they have this fantastic IP, which we are converting into an MMO. But, ahh, I don't have any more information on that because it's early stages. We're still designing the gameplay and everything else, but we're very committed to making that into an MMO, so that relationship has been fantastic. The team at White wolf is actually working on some aspects of EVE online. To add more storytelling missions, and so forth.
Slashdot: That's very interesting, do you know when we might see that stuff in the game?
Magnus: I don't know the release schedule for the missions and so forth, but the strategy guide and the player guide which is badly missing right now, that is an ongoing project and should be ready as soon as possible.
Slashdot: I know you really can't .. you're already in the planning stages, but I have to ask. Are there plans to use the whole World of Darkness license or, is right now thinking moving more towards one of the specific parts of the World of Darkness, moving there?
Magnus: We just don't know yet, this is exactly what we're doing right now, is thinking about how the game will play, so anything I would tell you about that right now would probably be a lie. I don't want to make a liar out of myself.
Slashdot: I appreciate you not lying (laughs).
Magnus: That's something we are working on right now, we just don't know yet.
Slashdot: Okay, ahh, I know you folks, you spoke with Brent from VirginWorlds the other day, and I know he was very impressed with some of the Avatar elements you folks are putting in the game. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Magnus: Sure. The project is called Ambulation, and what it does it will allow the pilots to step out of their spaceships and walk in the stations and in the stations you will have corporate meeting rooms, you will have services like recruitment centers in certain stations, people will be able to make and sell items like clothing. We are not going to turn that like into a first person shooter, people will not be able to shoot each other in the stations, that's a whole different game. But the gameplay in the stations, works well with what happens outside of the stations. We put a lot of work in Iceland into behavioral analysis, they have a specialized team that has been studying that for years. And our AI is going to be quite interesting, you won't see avatars going through a routine of animations when they're standing still. They're actually going to be emulated out of human nature, human behavior, so we are doing everything we can to make the avatars as human like as possible. We're going to put a lot of work into making them realistic. Hopefully we'll be something of a breakthrough in avatar development. At least, we have some ambitious goals for it.
Slashdot: Okay, alright, when you talk about gameplay on the station, does that mean there will be more than just meetings and recruitment, there will actually be gameplay elements as well?
Magnus: Yes ... we're still deciding exactly ... some of them have been determined. Until it's finalized it's better to let the designers and developers have some leeway to work with, but yeah there are definite ideas of what will be allowed in station. There will not just be you stepping out into the station and that's it, there will be something else in the stations.
Slashdot: Good deal, usually, when I do an interview in person I like to ask, is there something that you want to say to the people you're working with, the customers, is there something about EVE that you find particularly interesting that you want them to know about?
Magnus: Well, I think anybody looking for a game experience that is, let's call it smart gaming without sounding arrogant, if people are looking for something like that, I think they'll find eve quite interesting, it's a very strategic game, some people hate it but I hope more people actually love it and try it. It's the type of a game that you grow with, it's probably more of a commitment than most other MMOs right now, and it's the type of a game that leaves a lot behind. It's quite rewarding because all of the things you accomplish in the game are the results of your actions. It's more than a game in that sense. We at CCP then don't really consider ourselves so much as a game developer, we are more like a service provider. We are providing a sandbox, or a universe for these people to live in and we are very much a hands-off company on what happens in game. We don't want to be caught up in what users do , we just want to influence a little bit here and there and respond to the users.
Slashdot: Alright, great. Well, I think that pretty much covers it, so thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate it.
Magnus: Thanks! Good questions!
Slashdot: So, for the record could you say who you are?
Magnus: Magnus Bergsson, the CMO at CCP.
Slashdot: Excellent. Thank you sir. The way that we got these questions, basically, was we spoke to the Slashdot community, and the way that we do interviews is we ask people what they're interested in hearing. So, most of these questions are basically directly from the readers, what they want to know. So, if they're bad questions, or you get angry, don't get angry at me. (laughs)
Magnus: I don't get angry.
Slashdot: That's good. There was that scandal thing ... (laughs) Unfortunately, I'm going to start with that one. There was that scandal thing that happened recently. Could you sort of ... explain to folks I guess, what happened, so we can hear directly from you what your take on the situation is?
Magnus: Ahh ... people need to know when the issue with this one developer happened, which was last summer, all of the management team was actually on a summer vacation. And the people in charge then they basically decided to handle it the way they handled it. And they just made a really bad decision the way they managed that whole thing. But they did the best they could, because we had never done anything, nothing like this had ever come up. And this goes so much against the CCP mentality, and the corporate culture that, in our naiveness, we never really thought that anything like that could actually happen. Because CCP is our baby, and this basically is like hurting your own baby, which you just don't do. And the person that did it, which I know really well, he doesn't understand himself, it just doesn't make any sense. Anyway, they mishandled it, absolutely, and we've stated so in our blogs. From that came a number of rules that we have now for our own employees. We have an internal affairs department that does nothing but monitor our employees, to ensure that nothing like that will ever happen again. But some still think that CCP as a whole is trying to help one alliance in-game. And, it's so ridiculous for anyone to think that. Why would anyone at CCP want to do something like that? So, we just mishandled it and we tried to correct it, and we I think we handled it as best we could, and that's what it basically was. We made a mistake, we'd never dealt with something like this before. It's part of growing up, getting a bigger company, we have people in shanghai, we have people in Atlanta, we now have all these rules and regulations in place that we've set for our employees, they're good. People have to realize that we're working on EVE because we have a passion for the game, we will be playing the game. It would be horrible for the community and the game if CCP employees were not playing. Because the game gets created in the hands of the players. It's critical for us to have people playing the game just to know what's going on. We actually did a survey, and we found it's an even distribution of CCP employees in the top ten alliances. And those people would never allow somebody to be working against their alliance, so ... it's a mess, in the end we came and did the right thing. People know at the company, people know that if you were to do something like that you'd basically get fired. We couldn't double judge in that case, you know, double jeopardy if you want to compare it to that. You know, and that's basically the short of it.
Slashdot: Well, thank you. Thank you for going into that. I know it's probably not something that you guys want to touch on a lot right now. Do you think with the internal affairs department set up right now, and the action you've taken against the people involved, do you folks consider this matter closed right now? I just know that some of the comments were in the area of there is still some mixed -- and since it's still so fresh in people's minds -- there's still some mixed feelings there. Do you consider this matter closed at the moment?
Magnus: That case, from our end, is closed. I mean, we've done all the investigation, we know it was only one person and not the whole company like some like to believe, and ahh there's nothing more that we feel can be done, um it was just an unfortunate case, and in the overall scheme of things it didn't affect the game in that like some people like to thing. And, in the end, we're just damn sorry and it hurts our feelings to see some of the players say some of the things about us; we love this game and we'd never do anything to hurt it, and to have people think that this is a widespread thing within CCP: that's as far from the truth as it possibly can.
Slashdot: Right, okay, so I think one of the things that people were really frustrated by with that, is I guess, the hardcore ... EVE has this reputation as a very 'tough' game, and obviously there are a lot of people who really enjoy that. Why do you think the hardcore nature of the game appeals to so many people?
Magnus: Uhhh wow, that's a big question. EVE can be very hardcore, and it can be also a very casual game. It really depends on how you play it. But most of these people who are commenting on the forums and so forth are the hardcore players, they've been with the game for many years. If you live in 0.0, it's very hardcore. It's a very you know, dog eat dog world, and I for one, I live there, I am one of those hardcore players. You know, it's just the threat the, big death penalty and the amount of strategy you have to employ and the amount of thinking you have to do, and I think it's a big big challenge, and I think these people really enjoy the challenge.
Slashdot: Yeah, um, so you in your estimation the fact that it's not more like a World of Warcraft, where death is not really a big deal, you guys see that as a definite strength for the game?
Magnus: Absolutely. The reason that people team up in corporations and then corporations team up in alliances is because there is this inherent big threat of dying and losing a lot of money. You can lose months of work in 30 seconds, and this forces people because of human nature, to band together and form relationships. I'm saving somebody's life, saving their three, four, five, six months of work, so you create very strong relationships, where you don't have an opportunity in real life to rescue your friends from death.
Slashdot: Right, hopefully.
Magnus: Yeah, hopefully, but you get to do that on a daily basis. And that's what creates these really strong feelings, the really strong relationships, that are such a big part of this game. And because it's so totally open ended, so totally different from a game like World of Warcraft, which is a really structured game experience. A great game, but it's just different. So when people have done that type of game, it's kind of a natural progression for them to step into something that's heavier and deeper, and more rewarding in the end.
Slashdot: Totally. So, another thing that came up a lot in comments were the um, the sort of backseat designers ... you mentioned the folks on the forums who have been playing this for a number of years now, and they obviously have very strong opinions on where the game should go. How do you balance making those folks happy with attracting new players, people who might be looking at the more casual aspects of the game?
Magnus: Well, we have to satisfy most people, so it's always a balancing act, sometimes we take an upgrade, and we say now we're going to focus on this part of the game because we haven't done it before. And often when you dive into one part of the game, there are a lot of associated things that come with it. So sometimes we might actually be focusing a lot on the newer players, sometimes we might be focusing a lot on the hardcore players, but we try to do our best to have our expansions so that they touch on something for everybody. But sometimes we do more for the other, we always try to do something for everybody, it's a balancing act, and there's a big group at CCP that discusses this on a daily basis. Of course, we get input from the CCP employees that are playing the game at every single level. We have empire dwellers and people living in 0.0, let's call them Carebears, I like to call them that. Everybody has their input, in the end some features get selected as the best ones, it's a long process and a difficult one.
Slashdot: Could you point out a feature that was added recently, or with the last group of features, that you thought was really good for the more casual players?
Magnus: Yeah, the new player experience, which we spent a lot of time and effort on. That was just for the new players, just to make it easier for them. We are still working on adding a lot more to that, we have a team that is just dedicated to that aspect of the game.
Slashdot: Really?
Magnus: Yeah, so we're always trying to improve that part. Because, when you get thrown into a game like EVE, which is so open-ended, and there's no hand holding you really need to ahh, help those people. Those people are going to see a lot of new things this year. There' s a lot of new things were working on helping them getting into the game and understanding it. Of course, you don't really see it - you get thrown into this world, and if you don't already have a friend that's already playing it can be a little tricky.
Slashdot: Yeah, that's interesting, because a friend of mine was recently trying out some games and she tried out your game, and she was a little offput because EVE has this reputation for being such an intimidating game, but she found the new player experience very intuitive. In fact she said it was more intuitive to her than like an EverQuest 2, which is ... well, it's directed, but in EVE it's like a step-by-step thing. So this is going to be a focus in the future, is there's going to be a team that stays on the new player experience?
Magnus: And it's been on there for a long time, this team. So we are always extremely aware of, and we're always trying to make it easier. It's not easy trying to make those first steps real easy without making them real boring. But I think the new player experience is really good, it takes people in the right direction. It shows them a lot about the game, but as with EVE in it's nature you have to bring something to the table. You have to take some action, you have to take responsibility with what you're doing, just as in real life. There's no manual for this side of the screen, so we'll do our best, there's a lot of things we're going to be doing from now on to get people in ...
Slashdot: Can you give an example?
Magnus: Ahh, for instance, just helping people in the tutorial, just pointing things out to them in the email. Ahh, staying in touch with them, that's a huge thing because right now you might skip something in the tutorial but there's nothing that really pulls you back, nothing that points 'you why don't you check this out?' So we're going to be tracking what people are doing and sending them appropriate notifications about, hey you should be trying this out.
Slashdot: Okay. I guess just to pull back and deal with, obviously Slashdot's a very technology-oriented site, and some of the questions were very much on the technology. There's been PvP wars in the past few months that in the opinion of the posters highlighted some server limitations, some hardware limitations. Are there any plans in the future to change the scale of the world at all? Perhaps move to multiple servers?
Magnus: No, we will not move to multiple servers. What we are doing right now, there is actually and has been for the last four or five months, all of the developers are focusing on one thing right now - the need for speed. In EVE you have larger battles than in any other MMO. We had the other day, not too long ago, a battle of 1000 in the same system, and we want to continue supporting that, allowing them to have these large battles, but we also want to create incentives to create smaller engagements, which in the end are more fun for the player.
Slashdot: Right. They're certainly more understandable.
Magnus: Yes, but having 1000 people combat in the same system, is a massive requirement on the servers. Today they weigh two tons, the whole cluster weighs two tons. There's still a lot of work being done, we're still implementing new optimizations for the client and the server, and the hardware it's running on, we can't get any better hardware, so we have to focus on the code, so there's a lot of effort to allow people to have these big battles.
Slashdot: Excellent. I know you're probably disinclined to give out exact details, but for the technology nerds, for the server nerds, can you give any details about what you're running the game on. You mentioned the weight, I mean what are some of your specs?
Magnus: For instance, the we don't have hard disks on our database server. Those are solid-state harddisks, which are only previously only been used for military applications, those are extremely high output, they're called RAMSANS, and that's one applications. We're now moving everything to 64 bit architecture. Everything is running on IBM hardware. IBM has been a really great partner for us to work with, so we get the latest hardware from them as soon as they can possibly deliver it. We're always updating the hardware so we invest and have invested many many millions of dollars just on the hardware side.
Slashdot: And uhh... i'm not sure this is a question you'd be all that interested in answering, but there was one gentleman who was very interested in Stackless Python, and how that's worked out for you? Do you find that it still meets the demands of the many thousands of players that are playing the game?
Magnus: Absolutely, Stackless Python because it's a stateless environment is one of the keys of why EVE is actually capable of supporting all these users. And we have been working very closely with the Python community, we had a Python convention in Iceland that CCP actually orchestrated, and we've supported the PyCon conventions. We want to see more development on that end, and there's some interesting things happening there, so we will continue using that.
Slashdot: Okay, so looking back you definitely wouldn't have done it differently?
Magnus: It's one of the best things that has happened to EVE in the beginning, was to actually select that.
Slashdot: Okay. Do you feel that way about MSSQL?
Magnus: (pause) It has actually worked really well for us. We have worked really closely with Microsoft and ahh, it has performed really well. So that was the right decision, and still is. There are no issues with the database, and no other database would be able to perform better, in our opinion. So there are no issues there. And Microsoft has been really good to work with.
Slashdot: Excellent. Um, so as I was talking about a little earlier ... White Wolf. I know a lot of people are very very interested in what you're planning. I know you can't talk a lot about plans right now because you're very much in the initial phases. First of all, can you shed some light on why you folks got together? What was the rationale there?
Magnus: White Wolf has some assets we didn't have. They are extremely good storytellers, they have a lot of expertise in physical distribution, they can create board games, they are now writing the EVE manual, the EVE strategy guide. They're going to help us getting EVE into physical distribution, into stores, Then they have this fantastic IP, which we are converting into an MMO. But, ahh, I don't have any more information on that because it's early stages. We're still designing the gameplay and everything else, but we're very committed to making that into an MMO, so that relationship has been fantastic. The team at White wolf is actually working on some aspects of EVE online. To add more storytelling missions, and so forth.
Slashdot: That's very interesting, do you know when we might see that stuff in the game?
Magnus: I don't know the release schedule for the missions and so forth, but the strategy guide and the player guide which is badly missing right now, that is an ongoing project and should be ready as soon as possible.
Slashdot: I know you really can't .. you're already in the planning stages, but I have to ask. Are there plans to use the whole World of Darkness license or, is right now thinking moving more towards one of the specific parts of the World of Darkness, moving there?
Magnus: We just don't know yet, this is exactly what we're doing right now, is thinking about how the game will play, so anything I would tell you about that right now would probably be a lie. I don't want to make a liar out of myself.
Slashdot: I appreciate you not lying (laughs).
Magnus: That's something we are working on right now, we just don't know yet.
Slashdot: Okay, ahh, I know you folks, you spoke with Brent from VirginWorlds the other day, and I know he was very impressed with some of the Avatar elements you folks are putting in the game. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Magnus: Sure. The project is called Ambulation, and what it does it will allow the pilots to step out of their spaceships and walk in the stations and in the stations you will have corporate meeting rooms, you will have services like recruitment centers in certain stations, people will be able to make and sell items like clothing. We are not going to turn that like into a first person shooter, people will not be able to shoot each other in the stations, that's a whole different game. But the gameplay in the stations, works well with what happens outside of the stations. We put a lot of work in Iceland into behavioral analysis, they have a specialized team that has been studying that for years. And our AI is going to be quite interesting, you won't see avatars going through a routine of animations when they're standing still. They're actually going to be emulated out of human nature, human behavior, so we are doing everything we can to make the avatars as human like as possible. We're going to put a lot of work into making them realistic. Hopefully we'll be something of a breakthrough in avatar development. At least, we have some ambitious goals for it.
Slashdot: Okay, alright, when you talk about gameplay on the station, does that mean there will be more than just meetings and recruitment, there will actually be gameplay elements as well?
Magnus: Yes ... we're still deciding exactly ... some of them have been determined. Until it's finalized it's better to let the designers and developers have some leeway to work with, but yeah there are definite ideas of what will be allowed in station. There will not just be you stepping out into the station and that's it, there will be something else in the stations.
Slashdot: Good deal, usually, when I do an interview in person I like to ask, is there something that you want to say to the people you're working with, the customers, is there something about EVE that you find particularly interesting that you want them to know about?
Magnus: Well, I think anybody looking for a game experience that is, let's call it smart gaming without sounding arrogant, if people are looking for something like that, I think they'll find eve quite interesting, it's a very strategic game, some people hate it but I hope more people actually love it and try it. It's the type of a game that you grow with, it's probably more of a commitment than most other MMOs right now, and it's the type of a game that leaves a lot behind. It's quite rewarding because all of the things you accomplish in the game are the results of your actions. It's more than a game in that sense. We at CCP then don't really consider ourselves so much as a game developer, we are more like a service provider. We are providing a sandbox, or a universe for these people to live in and we are very much a hands-off company on what happens in game. We don't want to be caught up in what users do , we just want to influence a little bit here and there and respond to the users.
Slashdot: Alright, great. Well, I think that pretty much covers it, so thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate it.
Magnus: Thanks! Good questions!
Dear Slashdot,
We don't need a literal translation of every sound made during the interview.
Thank you,
LK
Kind of a coincidence for me that this article came out today since I'd already planned on canceling my account tonight. I skilled up to get a retriever and whooot I can strip mine now. I've got 50 days left to get my Covetor and then....what exacty? I have found no meaningful group activities and mining is boring.
It's back to DaoC for me while I wait for Warhammer.
I would never allow this excuse to come from any company where I am paying from something.
For example, what if there was a major server issue where the replacement management had 2 choices
1) Cut the capacity of players in half and queue the rest
2) Allow all players, but the performance of the game would be reduce
Well since management is on vacation, and since this "never" happened before, the replacement management thought #2 was the best option. It doesn't really matter what they pick, the community is going to be pissed. Then management gives an interview afterwords, and tries to use the excuse they were on vacation? Are you f-ing kidding me? No matter how this "cheating employee" issue was handled, a big chunk of the community will be pissed. The worst thing you can do is blame on it summer vacation.
It was originally published in The Escapist. There's three parts to it.
Basically, a player gained access to the private forums of one of the top alliances in the game, Band of Brothers. After sifting through chat logs and tracing IPs, he then alleged that the head of BoB's Capital Ship force used to be, in fact, a CCP employee. He also claimed that the same employee gave himself valuable Tech 2 original blueprints which he eventually donated to his corporation after he left.
After a big brouhaha that resulted in the "hacking" player's banning, the employee in question revealed himself as T20, one of the developers of EVE Online. He also confessed to have illegally spawned the Tech 2 blueprints for himself.
Eventually, CCP set up an internal affairs department headed by an impartial and well-regarded GM, Arkanon and placed the improperly spawned blueprints into the lottery pool (Tech 2 blueprint distribution relies on a lottery system which I'll skip explaining). The "hacker" remains banned, T20 remains employed at the company and the profits that BoB gained from the blueprints have yet to have been stripped.
What a statement. Maybe he should take a month long holiday to "find himself". Hes certainly the one WORST affected by this scandal isnt he. The only thing that doesnt make sense is that this guy still has his job.
And zonk, please, pauses in speech do not warrant a literal "ahh" translation. English probably isn't this guys first language, or he is merely pausing to compose his thoughts.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
There's always gonna be a market for "hardcore" MMOs. I don't think EVE is in direct competition with WoW -- they're different subgenres, really.
There are MMO players out there that *want* death to matter. You're right, they're the minority, but they're out there, games like EVE cater to them, and that minority isn't going to dissolve.
The guys who are out there in lowsec space (the most dangerous areas) every day don't *want* to play World of Starcraft. It'd bore the hell out of them.
You're obviously not familiar with European - especially Scandanavian - vacation practices.
It's quite common for an entire company to go on vacation for the same several weeks of the year.
I experienced this directly several years ago with a simulation (physics simulation, that is) software company based in Sweden.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
I suppose you're one of those bitter EVE players that got your mad l3wts blowed up!!!! while having a casual relation to any of the parties involved in the employee "scandal." While I can't really blame you for being angry at a mis-managed situation, I can blame you for being a short-sighted twit that needs to get out and see the sun once in a while.
And, yes, that was a rather personal attack against you but I figure its alright because you seem perfectly justified to attack another stranger's character with absolutely no evidence. Maybe next time you could actually attend the GDC, speak with some of the developers, and possibly be able to create a more accurate rendition of the situation.
Have a wonderful day.
"Don't feel bad for me child; I'm the monster that hides under your bed."
I quit the game due to the scandal and how it was handled. They just delete posts on forums that are damaging to them. I know a forum isn't free speech, but I have never seen a company so heavy handed about removing people's posts.
And the group that benefitted from the corrupt CCP employee got a huge advantage by this despite his denial. He is either clueless to how his game works or he is just trying to cover up (clearly the latter). The amount of in-game money these items allowed them to generate made them most powerful alliance in the game and the balance will be forever skewed because of it. The took the items away, but the damage is already done...they didn't take away the money those items generated to allow them to take over a large part of Eve. And since they only have one shard that everyone plays on, the game will be forever screwed for everyone in the game.
They didn't fire the corrupt employee, they didn't reverse all the damage he did, and I am sure things like this will happen again...they will just cover it up better.
Seriously, if you are looking for a new MMO, move on. Eve has to be one of the most boring, time sink filled game I ever played. Yes, their skill system is brilliant and removes one time sink...but with losses being so high, you have to spend tons of time grinding to make sure that you can replace what will get blown to bits. CCP is tainted and the taint has not been removed.
I hope you see this CCP. Thank god you can't delete posts here.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I flat out refuse to give CCP another cent, ever. They have moronic, technically inexperienced GM's and lousy customer service.
I played EVE for probably 4 months, and had terrible experiences with their customer service reps.
To make a long story short, a player thought I was macroing Escrow Missions, and reported me. Well anyone who played EVE with the old Escrow system knows there's no point in macroing it, it just doesn't take that much time to do legitimately. We're talking 2 to 3 minutes of work.
Basically the scenario devolved into my trying to defend myself, and explaining that I was merely copying/pasting Escrow text-lines from an outside text file. Not a real huge technological marvel, copying/pasting, eh?
Well, I got banned for 1 month, and every petition I filed was answered with a canned reponse that showed very obviously no one had spent more than 10 seconds reading my extremely detailed account of the situation, and suggesting that hey, duh, if I'd macroed, at the very least the server log timestamps for the escrow submissions would have been on even intervals. They had to have been completely random, in truth, as I myself know I wasn't macroing and I'm not a robot, I was only copying-pasting lines from a text file.
I re-activated my account about 3 months after that, (this was last September `06), figuring I'd give CCP one last try. I got bored of the game very quickly at this point, and decided to file a NEW petition on the GM that banned me (GM Arkanon, I believe he's pretty high up in the company, whatever.)
I read on the forums that if you believed you'd been mistreated, then file a harassment petition on said GM. I did so. I waited 1 month, and finally got a 1-sentence response from their GM's that said, essentially "there's no way you're telling the truth. You could not have copied and pasted this from a text file. We are banning this account permanently."
Must not like their customers' money very much. Not another cent, idiots.
Whether your not you are in a corp (or even an NPC corp) has no bearing on whether your not you can get into a cool ship or 'something'. You train up for it and buy it on your own and *pow* you're in your cool ship or 'something' as soon as you can afford to buy it and no one can stop you (as long as the ship is for sale somewhere). The game is soloable to a large extent. I've been playing for just over a year now and the only time I join gangs are when I want to do so, usually to help a newer pilot out finishing a mission, inviting newer players to join me on tougher missions so they can make some money and have fun shooting bigger npc ships, or when we gang up to go hunting in lowsec/zerosec for other players.
Sounds like you may have spent that four months waiting on someone to hold your hand and give you stuff. That won't happen unless there's some reason to do so and/or you are somewhat trusted already. You can't expect to join a corp and get access to the coffers right away because there's too many spies and corporate thieves around. You have to earn trust before you'll get handouts. So yeah, you were wasting your time.
You seem to hate people so much, you'll rant at them about asking a damn question. A question you could have easily ignored.
Cluebat:
Slashdot is a community.
People in communities usually like to communicate within that community*
It's a simple question.
Many people would rather communicate then use google.
Everybody uses Google, you don't need to be a nerd. In fact If you think you are a nerd because you use google, you are wrong.
FInally, and most importantly: Fuck you.
*Thay also have trolls and asshats like you
Have a nice day.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sure there where a 1000 players who where ready to be part of that battle but CCP's servers cannot handle it.
The entire Lotka Volterra Alliance (2000+ players) lost a titan under construction, an outpost and a very nice system because every member of the alliance who was able to stay up until 3am had to look at a login screen for 4 hours! (guys thats right we as group could not play the game or defend while our enemies where destorying years of work and well over $12,000 USD (in ISK terms) of assets.
The node crashed 4 times and allowed our enemies to enter the gate while we where still looking at the 'logging in' screen because their code and servers gives priority to those jumping in thus stopping others from logging in.
This has been known for years and alliances take advantage of it, CCP servers are very unstable and cannot take any kind of battle over 200-300 players at the best of times. There was no 1000 player battle just a 600 player rape while the defenders could not log in.
Examine every battle report on the EVE Online forums everyone complains about massive lag, buggy behavior, node crashes etc, etc, etc.
Frankly EVE is not scalable up, only down. Magnus needs to work on this problem as the highest priority or see subscriber numbers fall due the fact we cannot play the game!
For me the biggest problem with the scandal was that there certainly was more than the T2 BPOs handed out.
Information has no price tag.
Information about which regions are getting the 10/10 plexes (dungeons if you will) before they're in the game. Information about the next 'secret event' so your corp can be ready long before anyone else. Information on where your enemy bases are (whatever happened to the GM ship that was found scouting BoB's enemy system less than 24 hours before BoB declared war on them?)
Let's not also forget decisions that can be influenced by corp loyalty.. Where should we put that new 10/10 plex? In our enemy's territory or ours?
BoB has a long, LONG and well documented history of abusing bugs that the average person doesn't know about (using passive targeters to shoot through enemy PoS shields). Who would have first hand access to all the bug reports filed by honest players?
Oh, that's right, a dev.
I also think it is funny that BoB has NEVER been punished for metagaming (using pretexting to be able to post enemy message boards onto the official EVE forums and/or disrupting enemy TS/Vent channels during a war op, etc) yet Kugutsman (the whistleblower) gets banned for metagaming BoB's message board (obtaining and looking through a sql dump of their messages).
Having been in that actual situation several times, I can say that's a distinct feeling you cannot find in most other games. Maybe it really is a bad thing, it certainly feels bad when it happens. The extreme sense of loss and 'wasted' time when you watch in horror as a Vagabond with T2 and faction items fitted explodes, well... there's almost no way to describe exactly how that feels but it's very bad indeed.
However I can say being on the other side, the extreme sense of victory and triumph is also something you cannot find in most other games. I guess it's just the full knowledge of the amount of pain, agony, and destruction you just inflicted on another person's in game existence. Obviously to experience this very opposite feeling requires that hardcore game play setup needs to be there. It's like the bitter / sweet analogy.
I've won countless battles in the WoW battlegrounds and none of them have left me even near the satisfaction of getting a great kill in EVE. In EVE I know that my opponent has been deprived of his ship, its items, and possibly even his implants. To top it off, I even get to further my own characters wealth by scavenging through what was left of the opponents ship. In WoW, I get the nice little medals which, if I grind through the exact same battleground, doing the EXACT same battle day after day, I might get something worth actually equipping, at least as a secondary item anyway. I also can rest easy in the knowledge that nothing was really taken over, and nobody really died or lost, or gained anything at all, other than a few cheap medals which are actually worth almost nothing. Yea... nice-warm-bath is just far too much to compete with.
Fear is the mind killer.
We had the other day, not too long ago, a battle of 1000 in the same system, and we want to continue supporting that, allowing them to have these large battles
Strange example to pick, if this is the battle I'm thinking of then it pretty much finished off one of the biggest alliances in the game due to the server being unable to handle the load.
The server crash disconnected everyone in the system (the defenders) but when the node eventually came back online it gave priority to people jumping into the system (the attackers). The end result was the defenders lost the system and all of their assets within it and were unable to do anything to defend it. You may think "so what it's only a game" but the assets lost equate to around $20000 at current rates. This was all earned by the work of the thousands of players in that particular alliance.
"We actually did a survey, and we found it's an even distribution of CCP employees in the top ten alliances." I'm sorry, but that's not a reassuring fact. Does that suggest that many of the top ten alliances have devs and GMs in them? Oh, well then surely there can't be any misbehavior going on there! "And the person that did it, which I know really well, he doesn't understand himself, it just doesn't make any sense." And just what the Hell does this mean? "He doesn't understand himself"? What, was he working late one night when he accidentally clicked on the "Abuse Position and Give Ph4t L3wt to Teammates" icon on his desktop instead of Microsoft Outlook?
Posters demanding to be modded a certain way should always be modded "-1, Self-Important Nitwit."
The scandal that blew it all into the open has already been posted. However, Magnus insinuates that this was an isolated event - a single dev doing a single naughty thing. Unfortunately, that is not true in the least. There have been numerous incidents of CCP employees' favoritism exhibited in-game, some of which have been noted by the eve playing public - scorp with all officer equipment spawned by a gm for instance that was blown up by a player gatecamp for instance.
I, personally, have been involved in numerous actions over the course of 3 years, including outright wars, against the corp and alliance of which t20 was a member and have seen first hand some very questionable events and decisions.
For instance, a corporation was involved in an event - essentially "Take back NOL-M9" which is the alliance in question's home system. The event coordinators within CCP assisted this corporation with a SINGLE carrier and a few other actors in faction battleships. A carrier can't take down pos - a fleet of a hundred carriers couldn't - yet they were supposed to take back the alliance's home system. Of course the attempt failed and the reward for the corporation involved was a few tier 1 battleships and some tech 1 cruisers.
ok, no big deal you say. True, but for events that transpired a few weeks afterwards. Essentially the same event but against a different target - a different alliance in the North - and the corporation involved is one of the founding corps of the alliance in question. For their event they received the assistance of several (I've heard variously 5 through 9) dreadnaughts, carriers and numerous faction battleships to assist them. On its own, the fleet provided by CCP would've been enough to do significant damage and take down many pos. In combination with the player forces it was unstoppable. I don't know the specifics of the rewards given to the corp involved but my understanding is that they received a few capital ships as well as several faction battleships.
This sort of lopsided favoritism is blatant and rampant in the game, unfortunately. After 3 and a half years of telling myself it couldn't be that bad, I've come to the realization that it is. CCP's bungled handling of this situation and the ones that preceded it and lack of acknowledgement of the scope of the issue constituted the final nail in the coffin - I cancelled both of my 3 and a half year old accounts already.
"In the end, there is simply no weapon more devastating than the truth, delivered in just the right way." - tnk1
Every time you get the opportunity to interview a game developer/company you do the same thing. That is, you ignore the highly modded questions about the possibility of game ports to OSX and Linux.
Why?
It's a question slashdot reades want to be asked, yet you ignore it every time.
We can guess that the answer has something to do with market size, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
This one might actually get a port, why not bring it up or ask about the progess?
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
There are a few problems here tha CCP still ignores.
1: It isn't one employee. It's that since the game's beginning, a majority of the employees have been playing as part of BoB, and it has created a snowball effect. They mysteriously know about special events and spawns first, they know what skills to train for the upcoming patches first, they get blueprints and ships first...
It's not MUCH, but getting a 1-2 week jump on everyone for three years has created a situation where they are easily twice the size that they should be.
See, 9 months ago, player-owned stations didn't exist. There was no way to take and hold areas/territory. Now there is, and the jsmp they got during the summer(and trust me, it's not just one employee - he's just the fallguy here) translated into a massive boost that allowed them to roll over a huge area of the map prtty much unopposed.
My alliance at the time was front and center in the conflict and the running joke was that BoB was like some Hydra - you'd blow up a (capitol - the big ones) ship and it would be replaced almost instantly. Their supply of ships and intel was essentially inexhaustable and nearly perfect. At a very critical time in the game's development.
As of yet, nothing has been done and BoB still has the goal of taking over the whole map - and likely will accomplish it, since most of the Devs still are members(though are much more careful about diong things that they can get caught for) Note - the official response at the time was in effect "we'll take steps so that we're more stealthy from now on", since the official corporate rule is that you can play online as long as you don't get outed or caught. (abuse potential is patently obvious).
2:Eve still routinely edits, censors, and punishes players for raising a stink of any kind on their online forums or in-game. This is unacceptable, since the problems still exist.
3:When their error/problem cue gets to be too large to handle, they jsut delete it and say "re-submit it". This is a errible corporate policy and both of these "points" were repeatedly brought up by members here and yet never made it into the interview. Forget about the cheating, the way they handle feedback and problems is apalling to say the least. It almost reminds me of Microsoft's oblivious attitude. Once you buy their program, well, who cares - they have the money and if you don't like it, tough. Even WoTC is better with this sort of thing.
4:While the newbie tutorials are good, there is virtually no manual of any kind for most of the new areas. Take exploration(new skill/money making area in the last patch) - it was 100% up to the community to figure out how to do it - CCP made no attempt to even give a primer on it. This is true for most of the game - if you want to know how to actually do anything, you have to go offline to some third party site to read a FAQ. this shows a serious lack of willingness to support the community. This also wasn't brought up in the interview. This would be like valve creating a new game and saying "you figure it out..." almost like a typical coin-operated video game(rows of buttons and nothng else).
5:The items in the game are all there. Just they are controlled and fixed by cartels and groups of developer-led individuals(for the most part). They generate huge sums of money. While this is legitimate and proper within the game, there is to date no method to address the fact. Blueprints for these items are still rare and largely unavailable. The "lottery" is a disaster and remains to this day the #1 problem in the game. Yes, they routinely shut down and delete discussions about this on their forums, as expected.
6:Lastly, the interview cold be summed up by one sentance:
"We have taken these issues under consideration."(roundfiled them in plain English)
I like it better when Slashdot submits written questions to the interviewee and gets back a set of written answers.
The questions are clear, the interviewee has time to ponder the answers and then write something coherent (and sometimes also brief). I found the transcript of the audio interview very difficult to read, and believe it's of lower quality than a written interview would have been.
We know you can record sound while you're out and about. Very impressive. Now, do it the other way.