Growing Pains?
But how do the new staffers fit into the equation? With over
100 spots to fill - both in Atlanta and Reykjavik – the CCP
staff had an interesting job of having to deal with an expanding staff
along with trying to release content for the game.
“We’ve had an incredibly great response to our
request for more staffers, and we’re still in the process of
putting the new people into their positions,” Peter said.
“We’re in no rush to fill these positions
– we want to take our time – and we also know that
being on the east coast of the United States lends a certain amount of
difficulty to getting people to move as well. It’s going to
take a long time to fill all these positions, and we’re
steadily working on winnowing down the number.”
It’s a long process to expand, especially when your team has
already made such a popular game.
The EVE Online team will not shrink because of
development of the WoD MMO.
Popularity and a high player base also has its pitfalls
– first and foremost among these is the secondary market. ISK
transaction on gold-selling sites is a HUGE business, seemingly
rivaling gold on World of Warcraft and other monetary amounts of other
games. Peter, who had just finished talking about online markets, was
eager to make sure that the community knew that EVE was not a
gold-selling game. “Our game wasn’t built for the
secondary market in mind,” Peter said. “So
obviously we can’t allow it. It ruins economies, when
it’s allowed, and we just aren’t going to go that
route.”
Perhaps my biggest issue with EVE, as a fairly new player to
the game, was the tutorial. It’s an incredibly thorough
walk-through of the game’s functions, but it is also
incredibly LONG. I’ve made a few characters, and while I can
skip through parts, every time I fire up the game I’m amazed
that the tutorial takes so long to complete. When I asked Peter about
it, he noted that this is a part of the game that’s always
being tweaked. “I think it’s necessary,”
he said. “But an intro tutorial is something that really
exemplifies the new player experience. I don’t know for sure
if changes will be made anytime soon, but it is something
that’s always being looked at and worked on.”
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name="photo_j" border="0" height="150" width="100">
Peter and I trade stories about our initial EVE Online
experiences.
One thing that Peter was excited about is the addition of the
White Wolf writing team to the CCP staff. While the content for EVE has
always been of a high quality, the team at White Wolf has been in the
storytelling business for decades. Though the content that is already
in EVE won’t be changed, Peter looks forward to working with
the White Wolf staffers to accentuate the storytelling atmosphere of
EVE. “They’ve been doing this for so
long,” Peter said. “I hope players are getting
excited to see what’s coming down the pipe for
EVE…it’s an exciting time to be an EVE
player.”
A Truly EVEntful Experience
Since Peter and I were both fairly new players to the game, we
traded a few of our more harrowing experiences in the EVE universe. The
most infamous of these was going into negative space (where players can
get PKed) and trying to travel through those areas without getting
totally blown away. “I’ve never played a game where
I was afraid for such a long period of time,” Peter said.
“My palms were sweaty as I went through the various space
areas. Each time I came through a gate, I could feel my heart racing. I
knew I was going to get blown to hell if I stayed around too
long.”
In the end, Peter really just wanted to assure players that
things were going to keep improving. With
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/620">ambulation,
DirectX 10, and
other improvements coming down the pipe, EVE players should be
extremely excited for the future. There’s very little to be
worried about, but a whole host of things to look forward to.
Make sure you check out all
of Ten Ton Hammer's
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/235">OGDC
'07 coverage!
Don't forget to view the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/620">EVE Ambulation
Video hosted exclusively at Ten Ton Hammer!
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