Largest player battle ever in Eve Online - I was there

So in case your games site hasn't told you yet: Yesterday on July 28th the largest player battle happened in Eve Online with over 4000 players participating.

Coverage of the Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/28/4565558/eve-online-biggest-space-battle-in-history

And the Mittani report: http://themittani.com/news/live-reports-battle-6vdt-cfc-victorious and an aftermath report of it of the same site: http://themittani.com/features/6vdt-cfc-battle-report.

We won. Our enemy, the TEST alliance, retreated to Delve, another area of the universe. Their retreat basically give us the region "Fountain" under control.

If you ask how it feels to be there let me explain: if you haven't done this kind of mass battle yet you will get frustrated, annoyed even. The reason is that the only way CCP can run such a battle is to slow down time. They call it TiDi which makes all actions slower than real time. In our case TiDi was so bad that all actions took 10x longer than normal. That doesn't sound much but imagine targeting a ship takes 3 minutes ... and shooting it up to 10 minutes. The whole game runs in slow motion in this one sector.

The advantage of such a TiDi is that the game doesn't lag or crash, it only slows down. If you are used to it and learn to cope with it its actually fun. I finished GoT season three while fighting in it. Yes that's how much time you have.

You might argue that this isn't fun but you need to know that Eve is not an action game, everything in Eve is slow so slowing it down even further to fight crash lags is no problem at all. Many players complain about it who never fought in these battles, but they work and you must work them because otherwise you can never defend against .... 3000 players invading your system you worked years for.

There will be a time when server architects know how to run 4000 players in one "arena". But so far there are still physical limits to overcome and Eve sets a record here.

Now that the news is spreading even the BBC covers it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23489293

What bothers me in most computer games

Yesterday I answered an interview of the magazine Spiegel about Eve Online and one of the questions was "What do find so fascinating about Eve?"

When I answered I realized what the single thing is what bothers me on most games to date: they tell me what to do and how to do it. The freedom is so limited that you feel like a game on rails. Worst invention of the industry in this regard: QTE. Yes I mean you Call of Duty.

The one single player game I played recently for longer was Dishonored. I could pick up my mission when I wanted, still could roam around my base afterwards and went to the boat which dropped me in the mission area. Even there I could approach my goal as I wanted, there was no timer, path or QTE telling me how to do it. I love that game.

In MMO's its similar: World of Warcraft has a path of success. You level up, then you do your attunement quests (old times), then you did 5 man heroics until you get bored and finally you raid and progress until you beat the end boss of the current expansion and have the ultimate gear ... until the next expansion made it worthless. What a waste of time? What a way to be masochistic?

In Eve Online you are a pilot of a space ship. So there. Thats it. What do you do? Well what do you WANT to do? Simply do it. Pirate? Diplomat? Spy? Trader? Logistics? Flying missions? Troll? Scammer? Being part of large scale war? Explore the universe for alien artifacts?

And here is the problem why those "sandbox" games aren't as big as World of Warcraft: in order to enjoy the scope for the game you have to know what you want, you need to motivate yourself. And exactly here most players fail: they want to be entertained but not work for it. They are lazy.

And game developers are lazy too. Because producing a game on rails is easier than creating a sandbox. Otherwise we would see more of them as they are very successful even as single player games.

Eve Online - post two

CCP held their yearly fanfest last weekend and also celebrated the 10th anniversary of Eve Online. So CCP showed Dust514 and also details about the next expansion Odyssey.

That's where I come in with my rant. As in the last years all we get is graphics and data edits. We get "new" ships which are nothing else then modified existing ships with new data and texture, the latter even taken from existing ships.

Again: we get re-balancing in mining and ore, manufacturing materials and some UI improvements which are overdue.

What surprised me is stuff like in their keynote video they were surprised how well received the UI changes from probing were. Didn't they know what we were fighting with their sucky interface all the time?

To summarize: all changes they announced as an "expansion" is work from a small team, very small team. And that is where CCP is intelligent about their propaganda that a major team is still maintaining Eve. Its not. All their eggs are in one basket and that's Dust 514.

I think the community of Eve is being mislead and they don't even realize it. CCP is overspending on a genre they don't have experience in: a f2p shooter on a console which just is in its last year and dying. That is great business (not!).

And to top this off they announced a 10th anniversary collectors edition of Eve Online for fucking 149 Euro. What?

Eve Online - post one

If you ever wonder why MMO's are so vastly different to "multiplayer" or "single player" games read this. Simple as that:

http://kotaku.com/the-extraordinary-mischievous-too-short-life-of-sean-481060252

Eve Online - the future of online games?

Many people ask me why I use Eve Online as a reference for game mechanics, even though most players who tried Eve know it basically is a hardcore game for old farts. Its accessibility doesn't exist, the tutorial still sucks even though it has been revamped multiple times now.

Still Eve Online hit the 500.000 subscriber mark - after 10 years. Compared to World of Warcrafts 11 million Eve must be a failure, right? 10 years and only 500k subsribers?

Well it isn't - as it solely finances CCP's Dust514 f2p PS3 game (thats a lot of abrev right there) and also finances their Vampire game in development.

Why Eve is so important is that it is a sandbox. A nice interview what this means to your player base is found here, and it will push away some of you who might just have thought trying the game:

You will hear that CCP doesn't do anything against scammers or even Ponzi schemes within the game. So beware, space is a dangerous place as its inhabited by the most dangerous creature known to man: himself!

So back to topic: Sandboxes are important as they seem to be a solution to the content dilemma MMO's have. Developers never catch up with the speed of players consuming content. So making a sandbox is an obvious choice.

The funny thing is that MMOs then come around full circle as they started out being sandboxes: Even Ultima Online was one, and one of the best.

The problem is that sandboxes are not understood by many developers. The easiest thing you need to learn is the hardest: let it go. Do not control. Something the designers of todays quicktime event games have a hard time to adapt to. Or managers. Even worse.

The challenge of going digital

I remember the time when publishers all were looking forward going digital with distribution. "It's here" they said and most of them were too early.

Now as digital is here there is a resistance going digital as they finally realize what it means: it means your product is visible worldwide - all at once - and if its quality is not good enough everyone is going to know about it.

In the old economy retail played a major role. It allows you to control sales by controlling shelf space. If you were good at doing this you could sell a minimum viable number of copies of your games - even if they are under average quality. There is always the 1% impulse buyers.

Now that is gone if you go digital. Visibility is no longer under your retail sales control. Someone else tells his audience whether your product is cool or not. No wonder the big guns try to establish their own digital distribution portals like Origin or U-Play and clone Steam - to control the "digital shelf".

Take a look at Steam: estimated revenues are 1.5b US$ in 2012 excluding micro transactions.

This means Steam is huge. In fact their revenues are larger than most publishers. And this does NOT include item sales! Check out the footprint: Steam is as important as retail. So yes digital is here and publishers are cautious what it really means.

It means it will be harder to get attention as suddenly all products available - worldwide - are fighting for attention. Before only your local markets did, and many smaller companies didn't even enter your home turf. Now everyone can. A good preview how hard it will be to get visibility is the App Store.

"Wait a second - what about consoles?" you might say. Recent rumors and leaks suggests that the next generation console will offer all games digitally and on disc with both offering instant play, with the disc merely replacing the necessary download. This means digital will be 100% there for all games - circumventing retail. And we know that digital trumps retail for many users as you can buy when and whatever you want independent on distance, time and location.

Time runs fast

I can't believe it is only three years ago that Apple announced the iPad. 66 million sold in 2012 alone, the 100th million unit sold in October 2012. The iPad is responsible for the change in computing and even gaming.

It single handily destroyed the Netbook market.

It made the Notebook market suffer.

It changed the gaming market.

 Even my boss carries around an iPad 4 now - 24h a day.

Studies show that iPad gaming happens mostly on the couch and in bed. That iPad players are more core than we might think. That iPad gamer has more disposable income. That console gaming time suffers as soon as there is an iPad in the house hold.

And the best as last: the iPad is the only wife compatible gaming device so far.

And it just has started 3 years ago. How will the tablet market look like in 3 more years? The power of the console in your hands on 8 hours battery on a resolution larger than most monitors in your household.

Update, you should follow Asymco for recent data: https://twitter.com/asymco

I didn't know the iPad outsells the iPhone by performance relative from the start. Amazing.

The "Bottomless Bag" problem

The bottomless bag is an item from World of Warcraft and refers to a classic D&D item called "Bag of Holding" which could store items larger than its own size. Even Eve Online has containers which store more than their own size.


When designing online games there are certain limitations you have to be aware of like data base size. Databases tend to grow over time when operating an online game. This growth is not bad unless you hit a certain limit where maintenance of that database takes simply too long and can shut down a game for a day.

So why do databases grow? Because designers are lazy and too generous.

Let me give you an example: the in game mail in Settlers Online.

In Settlers you can send mails to other players. you can also attach items to mails and send stuff around. You get your rewards from certain quests via mail with the items attached. You get your trades via mail and you get some event items or gifts via mail.

Over time you stack up considerable amounts of mails in your inbox. Multiply this by thousands of players and your mail database can explode to immense proportions. This is made worse as "deleted" mails aren't usually deleted but only flagged as being deleted (there are reasons for this).

The reason for the exploding database? Because the designer was to generous: he gave you unlimited mailbox space!

So here it is: limit the users mailbox space. But how?

Expiration Timers
This method was made popular by MMO RPG'S like World of Warcraft. You attach a timer to a read mail (note "read!") and the mail gets deleted after that expiration timer (usually days or weeks). This self cleans the mail box of read mails.
Problem: assume there is an item attached: do you delete that mail as well? That's a no go.
If your answer is no then I attach a crap item to all my mails so they never get deleted - exploiting your system.
So what now?

Mailbox hard limit
If you limit the mailbox to lets say 50 mails, what do you do with mails being sent after the mailbox is full? Delete? What about mails with important items attached like compensations or trade? Exception? Then you can exploit the system - again.
So no mailbox hard limit. What then?

Auto Accept & Expiration Timers
So lets say we use expiration timers and auto accept items attached to expired mails. Where do we put those items? Into the users inventory? What happens if that is full? Oh god, why can't the world be easier.

Aftermath
Of course there are solution which will fit your needs. But I just wanted to explain that this simple designers decision not to limit the mailbox can have dire consequences to your game operations.
And fixing this problem can cause a myriad of additional work for your programmers, designers or even support.

Take Away
Generally do not give anything out for free in an online game. Not even mailbox space. Or number of items you can collect. Or number of horse you can have. Or anything - only if the player invests time, skill or money - yes money.
Limit numbers is a key design decision to any mechanic which involves "gains" in an online game.
The positive side effect is of course that you can monetize those limits suddenly by loosening the limit for paying players. Why not pay for larger mailbox sizes? Or inventories (which many games do already) or even pay for having the ability to collect more treasure maps than anyone else.

p.s.: the easiest solution to the mail problem is not to limit the mailbox but to incentivize the user to delete mails himself - like Ultima Online did to clean up their database from trash items.

CCP Dust 514 and Eve Online

(warning, contains some fanboy talk from Teut)

One of my favourite bloggers of Eve Online Jester Trek wrote an article about Dust 514 and CCP. He is right of course but still writes an "if CCP finds an audience for Dust 514". He still has hope.

Let me explain what Dust 514 is: it is a f2p Sci Fi first person shooter on PS3 connected to the Eve Online Universe.

Let me decloak (eve insider!) that sentence:

f2p: Free to play, the first of CCP. They never did a successful f2p business strategy.

SciFi: Niche, few female players, i.e. less reach. But for f2p you need to maximize reach to get revenue. Risky genre and setting for f2p.

FPS: CCP never did a FPS. Many people think developing an FPS is easy, but if it was there would be more successful ones besides Halo, CoD and Bf. Oh did I mention this FPS runs on console?

PS3: Yes, Playstation only. This means more restrictions in terms of technology. Oh did I mention this is the first console game of CCP? Did I mention that this is also the first f2p title on PS3? And Sony's payment systems really suck, i.e. less revenue as f2p live from a variety of payment systems?

Connected: This is the interesting thing. No one ever did something like this. If this works great, if not major fail as it is the ONLY innovation Dust has. But: it never has been done before = risk.

So there are a lot of risks there and I see no mitigation from the side of CCP. Knowing the history of CCP they often fly blind until they get a community backlash and then fix it. If they fly this tactic then Dust 514 will fail really fast - and might even hurt Eve Online, their only cash cow which currently pays for all of this.

And what do Eve Online players get in return while CCP spends all money on Dust 514? Shiny new graphics and some new ships. Thats all.

Wake up Eve Online players, CCP fools you currently with shiny graphics and no new game play.

Online Games are made of people

Sometimes life reminds you that the people you play with in online worlds - like Eve Online - are real people. Sometimes someone like this never comes online again.

Yesterday was such a day in Eve Online when one of the most important diplomats of my alliance went offline forever - having been killed in yesterdays attack on Americans in Libya.

Cheers mate, fly safe wherever you are:

http://themittani.com/news/rip-vile-rat