» Fri May 13, 2011 7:09 pm http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/24/the-making-of-eve-online/
It's a really good article, I recommend you read it. Here are the best bits though:
“People asked us when I told them our plan for EVE, ‘Why even try? You’re going to compete with Sony and Microsoft and EA. Who do you think you are?’ I don’t know, but I just really wanted to do it.” He turns to face the video camera, and smiles. “And we did.”
When Reynir and his friends found their minds consumed by plans for EVE and not their day jobs, they quit. “I thought I could easily hire all the guys from my previous company. The problem was we had no money.” Reynir was drifting without financial propulsion. “‘Where are we gonna get money?’ We decided to make a board game.” They thought it would give them the capital required to jumpstart EVE’s thrusters. Reynir explains how they got that first cash injection. “We mortgaged my friend’s grandmother’s house.” Their game was getting more dangerous, yanking in outsiders on an optimistic theory.
That was where the hard work began. Reynir recalls the early days. “The blood and sweat – and especially blood – that went into creating EVE was monumental. We almost killed ourselves in the process. We lived at the office for almost three years, we worked 15 hours every [censored] day. We slept under desks.” He turns to stare at me, eyes haunted across the ocean. “It was absolute madness.”
When Reynir and his friends found their minds consumed by plans for EVE and not their day jobs, they quit. “I thought I could easily hire all the guys from my previous company. The problem was we had no money.” Reynir was drifting without financial propulsion. “‘Where are we gonna get money?’ We decided to make a board game.” They thought it would give them the capital required to jumpstart EVE’s thrusters. Reynir explains how they got that first cash injection. “We mortgaged my friend’s grandmother’s house.” Their game was getting more dangerous, yanking in outsiders on an optimistic theory.
That was where the hard work began. Reynir recalls the early days. “The blood and sweat – and especially blood – that went into creating EVE was monumental. We almost killed ourselves in the process. We lived at the office for almost three years, we worked 15 hours every [censored] day. We slept under desks.” He turns to stare at me, eyes haunted across the ocean. “It was absolute madness.”
They also discuss major events in the game and how the players have literally shaped the world and its rules.
“We have warfare that lasts for years, involving thousands of people. There’s propaganda!” He tries to remember the largest number of ships involves in a single fleet battle and mumbles numbers. Hilmar leans in and – half proudly, half fearing for the reaction he’ll set off – corrects him. It’s 3,400. Nearly three and a half thousand people sat in their rooms, but also sat in space, watching the same scene unfold from different perspectives, living the same experience from their independent viewpoint. I’m excited just about the verbalisation of the concept.
Unlike any other game, EVE has generated stories. In November 2010, the SOMER Blink Corporation was played out of 110 billion ISK (EVE’s in-game currency) by a longterm friend of the corp’s leadership. The news hit most major gaming sites within hours of confirmation, joining a host of similar stories in post archives. I asked the team for their favourite EVE event, one that pushed outside the game boundaries to reach wider gaming consciousness. Arnar recalls a specific time early in EVE’s life, when a set of hyper-organised bastards camped moon-gates, sniping incoming enemies like highwaymen.
Unlike any other game, EVE has generated stories. In November 2010, the SOMER Blink Corporation was played out of 110 billion ISK (EVE’s in-game currency) by a longterm friend of the corp’s leadership. The news hit most major gaming sites within hours of confirmation, joining a host of similar stories in post archives. I asked the team for their favourite EVE event, one that pushed outside the game boundaries to reach wider gaming consciousness. Arnar recalls a specific time early in EVE’s life, when a set of hyper-organised bastards camped moon-gates, sniping incoming enemies like highwaymen.
The attack of the goons...
CCP’s resident economist – Dr Eyjólfur Guemundsson – sees the arrival of the Goonswarm alliance from somethingawful. com’s forum as one of the biggest surprises. Traditionally deployed into an MMO to break the game, the Goons used EVE’s loose boundaries to develop new combat techniques. “I remember when they came in and started to attack large capital ships with swarms of low-level players. It was ingenious, and it showed us that the fundamental design of EVE was still functional.” The Goons’ rise to a kind of chaotic power was a late-stage proof of concept, showing the rules of the universe hadn’t crystallised around a set way to play.
and finally an uncomfortable truth about EVE and Iceland... (the fact that EVE has more players than Iceland has residents) <_<
EVE’s an electronic landmass, more ethereal than the volcanic gob of rock in the north Atlantic it sprung from. But it’s not going anywhere soon. After all, it took Ingólfr Arnarson 1,100 years to convince 300,000 people to live in his world; EVE managed that feat in only seven.
