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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.”

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 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.

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