Better late than never right? I wanted to take a few minutes and share a few of the points discussed during the EGC's February 10 Virtual Worlds Lunch, which focused on Eve Online. We're hoping to record future sessions, but for the moment, my notes are the best you get =)
If this is the first you've heard of the Virtual Worlds Lunch, then a quick shameless plug! Roughly once a month or so, we (Penn State's Educational Gaming Commons) host a presentation/ discussion lunch which focuses on a particular virtual world (which includes massive multiplayer online games). About half of the time is devoted to a demo and basic overview of the environment, with the remainder of the lunch devoted to discussion. Basically its a great opportunity to learn a little more about virtual world environments, network, talk with like minded individuals within the Penn State community, and brainstorm potential educational or research opportunities. The meetings are open to everyone, and we even provide lunch, so if it sounds interesting, keep an eye on the gaming.psu.edu - the next lunch should be on the books soon! End plug =)
Now for a quick hitting review of Eve:
Playing Eve (at least early on) amounts to accepting and undertaking computer based missions which encourage either combat or exploration. Eventually, the computer missions fade, as mining, taking on contracts, or working to better the interest of your corporation become more paramount. Like many MMOs, playing alone will only get you so far - eventually working with others become key to growth and progression. However the core of Eve remains the same - amass wealth, continue to purchase bigger and better ships and components, and eventually achieve interstellar domination.
Managing the economy is the game within the game. For players not interested in combat or resource harvesting, there are a myriad of player created opportunities (some of which will be discussed later) such as banker, stock broker, contract manager, etc. That stuff will blow your mind =)
Interfaces
Though graphically, Eve continues to hold its own, despite resting on a 6 year old core, its interface leaves much to be desired. For starters, Eve does not scaffold itself, giving the beginning player access to every tool available in the game from the moment you set foot into the universe. Without a scaffolded approach, the interface quickly becomes overwhelming, and is only partially intuitive. A beginners tutorial and computer based quests help to guide you through some of the basic functionality of the game, but your curiosity quickly outgrows Eve's helping hand, leaving you to an enormous amount of trial and error - in a bad way. For example, at the beginning of an early mission, my computerized agent recommended I upgrade my ships weapons, but neglected to tell me that my new weapon was kinetic, not energy based, and thus would require ammunition. My mistake was not realized until I dropped into an enemy system, and fired air at a squadron of well armed enemy ships, bent on killing me.
The game is also very mouse intensive, which can be extremely problematic for a new player. Space, in case you are not aware, is quite vast, and so when the game forces you to target an opposing ship by clicking on it (keeping in mind that both you and your enemy are moving, and distances are conveyed rather well) the experience is about as satisfying as trying to hit a grain of sand with a dart from 50 feet away... while intoxicated. I'm sure there are interface shortcuts or quick keys, but they were not readily apparent, which is, as we say in the bidness, no bueno. Take a look at the screenshot below - if it looks confusing, it is =) And you too could see a screen like this one, after about 10 minutes of game play.
The rest of the interface is somewhat windows-esk, presenting users with the familiar close, minimize, stretch, drag standards we've come to learn from most operating systems. It works, and it allows for a fair degree of interface customization, but its not particularly elegant and most certainly isnt pretty. And for some reason, everything is written in absurdly small print.
Oh, and I don't know how many stellar cartographers we have in the audience, but Eve's map system made absolutely no sense to me what so ever.
The Economy
Though I mentioned earlier that amassing wealth is one of the tenants of Eve, the complexity with which that occurs is unlike any game I've ever seen. A few examples.
For those of you not familiar with MMOs, there is a process known as "vendoring" which basically means selling unwanted items to the computer instead of to other players. Vendoring items often offers speed and convenience, but will often yield less money than meticulously finding a human buyer who would be willing to pay more. In World of Warcraft for example, vendoring an item would look something like this:
In Eve online, vendoring an item looks more like this:
So what if you've like to sell to other players instead of the computer? Glad you asked.
What you are looking at here is a price index table for a random product over a 3 month period (though the chart duration is variable based on user preference). Feel free to dissect the chart at your leisure, but lets just say this is intense. I had convinced myself that a Donchian Channel was a made up phrase... until I found out its actually a real economic term. And all of this information is available to every player interesting in selling or buying anything from anyone else. The result is an entire universe of players who must learn to navigate a commodity market in order to maximize their potential. And let me reiterate... this is what people do for fun.
Oh, and there is also an entirely player run Eve Stock Market. Yes, a real stock market. <head falls off>
Insurance
In Eve, loss of property is a big deal. A band of roving pirates destroying your ship can wipe out months of effort in a flash. This metric not only helps to create a deep routed sense of investment (and encourages players to rely on each other) but it has also created a market for ship insurance. Purchased in 12 week increments, ship insurance can cover anywhere from 40% to 99% of your ships value in the event it is destroyed Of course the varying levels of coverage do not come without cost. Should you sell your ship, the insurance is non transferable, of course.
Contracts
In all MMOs, agreements between players or guilds take place. However these agreements are almost always informal. Eve allows players to formalize these agreements in the form of a contract. Say you'd like for someone to transport a particular commodity from one point to another for you. In Eve, you create a contract, which stipulates the clear terms, payment for success, and even the collateral needed to take on the mission in question. But perhaps most interestingly of all is that at the end of the contract, both parties must decide on whether or not the contract was properly fulfilled or not. Though this is not tied to an official enforcement agency of any kind, it is tied to a reputation system (think Ebay). Voting on the success of a contract also allows a degree of flexibility in contract terms. For example if you agree to pay someone with a ship instead of cash (which was initially agreed upon) and the contractor accepts, the contract can still be considered successful.
There are 5 types of contracts - auction, item exchange, courier, loan, and free-form (which is a misc type), each of which includes slightly different terms. Contracts can be issued privately between players, or publicly to give any interested party a chance to accept it. Contract templates can also be created, if you have a particular type of contract that is posted frequently.
Contracts issued to or from corporations, are only considered valid if agreed upon by approved "contract managers" - the equivalent of an Eve corporate lawyer.
Banks
Commodity trading, insurance, contracts, a stock market - sounds like we're just a banking system away from having a full fledged recreation of a real world economy here. Funny you should mention that...
Eve also has player run banks available to store and invest your money. Dynasty Bank, for example, offers players standard and limited access savings accounts, as well as 2, 3, and 4 month CDs which offer between 3-7% interest. And just like a real bank, the player run banks of Eve make money by investing holdings. Another Eve bank, EBank, maintains over 10,000 individual accounts with holdings of over 6 trillion ISK (in game currency). The banks even go so far as to put out annual reports. Take a look at this thing, and keep in mind, one more time, that this is someone people are doing for fun.
EBANKAnnualReport07-08.pdf
Player run banks do not come without risk, however. Earlier this yea, a financial manager for Dynasty bank took off for more than 80 billion ISK in investments, leading to a small run on the bank. But in Eve Online, its all just a part of the game. Not so different from the way things play out in the real world, is it?
Eve TV
Starting in 2006, player vs player matches in one of Eve's annual tournaments were broadcasted, with analysis, through Eve Tv. For a sample of one of these broadcasts, check out the video below.
Obviously this doesnt quite meet the Todd Blackledge standard to which I hold all competitive event broadcasts (seriously, is anything better than Todd's Taste of the Town?) but I do think there are two important takeaways.
First off, if you've never taken the time to watch a coordinated MMO event, then it might surprise you just how much strategy, premeditation, communication, and on the fly decision making it takes to pull off a victory (regardless of whether or not the opponent is human or computer). The content may be fake, but the value in what you're seeing here is very real.
Secondly, this speaks volumes to the investment that the player community has in this game. These video are not being produced by CCP - they are of the community for the community. Voluntary strategic analysis. Hmmm...
--------------
This has likely been an overloaded, incomplete (and very scattered) overview of some of the topics discussed during the Virtual Worlds Lunch on Eve Online. But I hope, whether you are a gaming enthusiast or not, you get a feel for some of the incredible complexity associated with this game - particularly when it comes to the economy. Hopefully you'll be hearing more about Eve and the EGC, as it is an area ripe for further educational exploration.
If this is the first you've heard of the Virtual Worlds Lunch, then a quick shameless plug! Roughly once a month or so, we (Penn State's Educational Gaming Commons) host a presentation/ discussion lunch which focuses on a particular virtual world (which includes massive multiplayer online games). About half of the time is devoted to a demo and basic overview of the environment, with the remainder of the lunch devoted to discussion. Basically its a great opportunity to learn a little more about virtual world environments, network, talk with like minded individuals within the Penn State community, and brainstorm potential educational or research opportunities. The meetings are open to everyone, and we even provide lunch, so if it sounds interesting, keep an eye on the gaming.psu.edu - the next lunch should be on the books soon! End plug =)
Now for a quick hitting review of Eve:
- Eve Online is a space themed Massive Mutiplayer Online Game that has been around since '03 and is currently under the control of the Icelandic company CCP. A series of computer based missions can get you started, the majority of the game is focused on player vs. player combat, amassing wealth in an extremely intricate virtual economy, and eventually working with your corporation/ alliance to control regions of space.
- Unlike games such as World of Warcraft, which partition users onto different servers, Eve is a singular online universe which spans several thousand star systems.
- There are currently around 240,000 active accounts, with the most concurrent users clocking in at ~51,000 in February '09.
- The game client is distributed for free online and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can try out the game with a 14 day free trial. Standard subscription fees run $14.95/ month.
- Players can choose from 1 of 4 playable races, each with 3 separate "bloodlines" which influences the starting skills and background story for your character. Additional customizations such as physical appearance and an RPG-like skill point allocation system are also available.
- The guild in Eve is known as a corporation. Corporations form, not only for protection and expansion, but to to gain control over finite resources (ranging from rare and expensive ship building blueprints to physical regions of space).
- Corporations can group together to form alliances. Alliances and corporations can then specialize in different areas such a mining, security, piracy, etc. To give you an idea of the scale, the largest alliance as this is being written is Goonswarm with 89 corporations and more than 6,300 members. Each of the top 10 alliances in Eve have more than 1,500 members.
Playing Eve (at least early on) amounts to accepting and undertaking computer based missions which encourage either combat or exploration. Eventually, the computer missions fade, as mining, taking on contracts, or working to better the interest of your corporation become more paramount. Like many MMOs, playing alone will only get you so far - eventually working with others become key to growth and progression. However the core of Eve remains the same - amass wealth, continue to purchase bigger and better ships and components, and eventually achieve interstellar domination.
Managing the economy is the game within the game. For players not interested in combat or resource harvesting, there are a myriad of player created opportunities (some of which will be discussed later) such as banker, stock broker, contract manager, etc. That stuff will blow your mind =)
Interfaces
Though graphically, Eve continues to hold its own, despite resting on a 6 year old core, its interface leaves much to be desired. For starters, Eve does not scaffold itself, giving the beginning player access to every tool available in the game from the moment you set foot into the universe. Without a scaffolded approach, the interface quickly becomes overwhelming, and is only partially intuitive. A beginners tutorial and computer based quests help to guide you through some of the basic functionality of the game, but your curiosity quickly outgrows Eve's helping hand, leaving you to an enormous amount of trial and error - in a bad way. For example, at the beginning of an early mission, my computerized agent recommended I upgrade my ships weapons, but neglected to tell me that my new weapon was kinetic, not energy based, and thus would require ammunition. My mistake was not realized until I dropped into an enemy system, and fired air at a squadron of well armed enemy ships, bent on killing me.
The game is also very mouse intensive, which can be extremely problematic for a new player. Space, in case you are not aware, is quite vast, and so when the game forces you to target an opposing ship by clicking on it (keeping in mind that both you and your enemy are moving, and distances are conveyed rather well) the experience is about as satisfying as trying to hit a grain of sand with a dart from 50 feet away... while intoxicated. I'm sure there are interface shortcuts or quick keys, but they were not readily apparent, which is, as we say in the bidness, no bueno. Take a look at the screenshot below - if it looks confusing, it is =) And you too could see a screen like this one, after about 10 minutes of game play.
The rest of the interface is somewhat windows-esk, presenting users with the familiar close, minimize, stretch, drag standards we've come to learn from most operating systems. It works, and it allows for a fair degree of interface customization, but its not particularly elegant and most certainly isnt pretty. And for some reason, everything is written in absurdly small print.
Oh, and I don't know how many stellar cartographers we have in the audience, but Eve's map system made absolutely no sense to me what so ever.
The Economy
Though I mentioned earlier that amassing wealth is one of the tenants of Eve, the complexity with which that occurs is unlike any game I've ever seen. A few examples.
For those of you not familiar with MMOs, there is a process known as "vendoring" which basically means selling unwanted items to the computer instead of to other players. Vendoring items often offers speed and convenience, but will often yield less money than meticulously finding a human buyer who would be willing to pay more. In World of Warcraft for example, vendoring an item would look something like this:
In Eve online, vendoring an item looks more like this:So what if you've like to sell to other players instead of the computer? Glad you asked.
What you are looking at here is a price index table for a random product over a 3 month period (though the chart duration is variable based on user preference). Feel free to dissect the chart at your leisure, but lets just say this is intense. I had convinced myself that a Donchian Channel was a made up phrase... until I found out its actually a real economic term. And all of this information is available to every player interesting in selling or buying anything from anyone else. The result is an entire universe of players who must learn to navigate a commodity market in order to maximize their potential. And let me reiterate... this is what people do for fun.Oh, and there is also an entirely player run Eve Stock Market. Yes, a real stock market. <head falls off>
Insurance
In Eve, loss of property is a big deal. A band of roving pirates destroying your ship can wipe out months of effort in a flash. This metric not only helps to create a deep routed sense of investment (and encourages players to rely on each other) but it has also created a market for ship insurance. Purchased in 12 week increments, ship insurance can cover anywhere from 40% to 99% of your ships value in the event it is destroyed Of course the varying levels of coverage do not come without cost. Should you sell your ship, the insurance is non transferable, of course.
Contracts
In all MMOs, agreements between players or guilds take place. However these agreements are almost always informal. Eve allows players to formalize these agreements in the form of a contract. Say you'd like for someone to transport a particular commodity from one point to another for you. In Eve, you create a contract, which stipulates the clear terms, payment for success, and even the collateral needed to take on the mission in question. But perhaps most interestingly of all is that at the end of the contract, both parties must decide on whether or not the contract was properly fulfilled or not. Though this is not tied to an official enforcement agency of any kind, it is tied to a reputation system (think Ebay). Voting on the success of a contract also allows a degree of flexibility in contract terms. For example if you agree to pay someone with a ship instead of cash (which was initially agreed upon) and the contractor accepts, the contract can still be considered successful.
There are 5 types of contracts - auction, item exchange, courier, loan, and free-form (which is a misc type), each of which includes slightly different terms. Contracts can be issued privately between players, or publicly to give any interested party a chance to accept it. Contract templates can also be created, if you have a particular type of contract that is posted frequently.
Contracts issued to or from corporations, are only considered valid if agreed upon by approved "contract managers" - the equivalent of an Eve corporate lawyer.
Banks
Commodity trading, insurance, contracts, a stock market - sounds like we're just a banking system away from having a full fledged recreation of a real world economy here. Funny you should mention that...
Eve also has player run banks available to store and invest your money. Dynasty Bank, for example, offers players standard and limited access savings accounts, as well as 2, 3, and 4 month CDs which offer between 3-7% interest. And just like a real bank, the player run banks of Eve make money by investing holdings. Another Eve bank, EBank, maintains over 10,000 individual accounts with holdings of over 6 trillion ISK (in game currency). The banks even go so far as to put out annual reports. Take a look at this thing, and keep in mind, one more time, that this is someone people are doing for fun.
EBANKAnnualReport07-08.pdf
Player run banks do not come without risk, however. Earlier this yea, a financial manager for Dynasty bank took off for more than 80 billion ISK in investments, leading to a small run on the bank. But in Eve Online, its all just a part of the game. Not so different from the way things play out in the real world, is it?
Eve TV
Starting in 2006, player vs player matches in one of Eve's annual tournaments were broadcasted, with analysis, through Eve Tv. For a sample of one of these broadcasts, check out the video below.
Obviously this doesnt quite meet the Todd Blackledge standard to which I hold all competitive event broadcasts (seriously, is anything better than Todd's Taste of the Town?) but I do think there are two important takeaways.
First off, if you've never taken the time to watch a coordinated MMO event, then it might surprise you just how much strategy, premeditation, communication, and on the fly decision making it takes to pull off a victory (regardless of whether or not the opponent is human or computer). The content may be fake, but the value in what you're seeing here is very real.
Secondly, this speaks volumes to the investment that the player community has in this game. These video are not being produced by CCP - they are of the community for the community. Voluntary strategic analysis. Hmmm...
--------------
This has likely been an overloaded, incomplete (and very scattered) overview of some of the topics discussed during the Virtual Worlds Lunch on Eve Online. But I hope, whether you are a gaming enthusiast or not, you get a feel for some of the incredible complexity associated with this game - particularly when it comes to the economy. Hopefully you'll be hearing more about Eve and the EGC, as it is an area ripe for further educational exploration.
Some of your descriptions are misleading!
What you consider "vendoring" is not selling to an NPC but rather to another player. You can either do this the simple way, go to the station with the best buy order (offerprice) set and sell it, or place your own sell order (thats the interface from your screenshot) and ask the amount of money you wanna get for this item. If you are cheap, others will buy it, if youre too expensive, even rich ppl in need won't buy it anymore :P
There are no NPC vendors in eve, everything you buy from the market is made or looted by other players. Except for skillbooks and original blueprints, they are sold by NPC vendors.
Oh and there are way more tutorials than those you get offered at the start, plus theres tons of wikis, guides etc...
I agree though, getting started is pretty hard.
But it's the complexity of eve that makes this game great! PLUS - It scares impatient, sucesshungry children off because it takes time to achieve something in eve!
Hey Chris,
I'm the Chairman of the Board for EBANK, the largest player-run Bank and also the largest business in the secondary market of EVE Online.
There are a number of other top-tier businesses (DBANK, Block's Mineral Reserve) and about three or four big initiatives coming around the corner;
1) Player created currency backed by commodities
2) A more liquid stock exchange that virtualizes all securities
3) Player-run insurance programs
If you really want to make your head explode, also consider some of the recent discussions on "credit default swap" contracts. Elaborate derivatives that were to blame for the RL housing crisis.
And yes....some of us consider this to be "fun". =) Alot of the "fun" comes from the challenge and from literally creating a working financial system from nothing....WHILE dealing with no real way to prevent scams.
By all accounts....what we're doing should be impossible given the trust issues that come with EVE. Yet here we are.