Now approaching its tenth year, the EVE Online player
community has matured into an intricate and multi-faceted society viewed with
envy by other game developers, but is frequently regarded with suspicion by the
wider gaming community.
Is this perception deserved? Should "The Nation of EVE"
be concerned by its public identity and if so how might that be improved? What
influence will the integration of the DUST 514 community have on this culture
in the future?
Any
discussion of the Eve community is tricky.
When you think of Eve from the inside, there are myriad groups all work
with and against each other. How do you
succinctly capture a community that includes the CFC, R & K, Rote Kapelle,
Tuskers, Faction Warfare, RP junkies, pirates, miners, inventors,
manufacturers, wormholers, carebears, and traders? Then add the flavors of each in all the
various parts of space. Then look at the
meta community, which adds yet another layer.
I
suppose the common theme to all the players who keep coming back is one of
involvement. The only way to succeed in
Eve is not play, but if you ignore that, you reach a semblance of success by
being involved. Involved with other
players, with the markets, with whatever your chosen niche of the game is. On to the questions: Is the perception of Eve
as a suspect community deserved? Should
the Eve community care about this? Will Dust 514 impact either of these things?
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be careful."
-Obi-wan Kenobi
The
gaming media loves Eve. It seems the
pace of scandals, scams and general player outrage have picked up pace over the
last year. Some of these things were
intended by CCP, some… not so much. But
Eve is the juicy steak at the MMO table, the friend who you don’t remember
inviting to the party, but always shows up and everyone remembers that one
thing he did. There are two sides to
this reputation.
Almost
every person I have talked to who is a gamer says “Hey, I heard about that
crazy Guiding Hand thing…” or “Wasn’t there some ship blown up that was worth a
lot of money and people made fun of the guy for being stupid?” If the conversation continues, my companion
usually eithers says something along the lines of “That’s awesome!” or “I would
never play a game that risky!”. This is
a good thing. Eve requires a level of
devotion not seen in other games, and the people who say “Awesome” are the
players we, and CCP, want playing our game.
They add to it, and help create the story that is New Eden.
The
other side of the coin is “cyber-bullying”, photo-shopped Tyrano-Dictators,
racism, sexism, terms like “spacejews”, and the unsavory RMT/Botting/Espionage
events that happen in the client and the meta-game. Some of those things are good. Espionage, for example, is a great aspect of
the game. Some of these things, like
racism and sexism, are not Eve-centric, but rather afflict gaming as a
whole. I’ve written about some of these
habits before.
The
gaming media is more than happy to jump on these events, and often “Our Eve”
and what the rest of the world sees as “Eve” can be very different. Accurately portrayed or not, the gaming media
is where a lot of players get information, and informs where players put their
paychecks. Eve thrives on players, and
alienating the gaming public at large is not good for growing the subscriber
base.
“This
speaks to a larger point. We need to revise how we showcase the culture of EVE…
…This solemn effort has already begun. Time for us to grow up a bit.”
–
CCP Navigator
CCP
has acknowledged the power of the media in the wake of Fanfest. As a company CCP has always taken a very
broad view of acceptable behavior in the sandbox they run, but things
change. Creditors are owed money. Subscription bases need to grow. Business partners may not have the same
attitude towards the perceived behavior of the player base. When Hilmar fell on his sword last summer, it
was done late but well, and contrition was and continues to be delivered to an
audience in the hundreds of thousands.
When The Mittani fell on his sword, he did not have any meaningful way
to prove his contrition, and his offense happened on a larger stage – the stage
of media relations and corporate interests.
CCP responded as harshly as possible without passing a death penalty.
This
new approach means that the Eve community does need to care about the perception
of Eve to others, because CCP has decided it matters. A sandbox full of danger can exist without
being offensive. The players have a lot
of power in this. How you carry out an
action is often more important than the action itself. Take piracy as an example. You can be a cut-throat fiend of the spacelanes
without being a douchebag. It involves
not saying things you would never speak to another human in person. Danger and abuse are not the same things.
“The
drink will flow and blood will spill
And
if the boys wanna fight, you’d better let ‘em”
-Thin
Lizzy
Dust
514’s integration will be very interesting in light of recent CCP’s response to
Fanfest. FPS players are a bit of a
different breed, and I hope there is no crouch button in Dust. The games are still somewhat partitioned, as
Dust Bunnies won’t be chatting in space with the Pod Jockeys. But CCP will have fun with the chat language
used in the common console FPS. If
anything, I imagine there will be two standards, one for each game.
Also,
with no PC integration for Dust, the player bases may be different enough, and
partitioned enough, to not really have an impact on each other. The genres are completely different. FPSs and MMOs tend to draw from very
different player groups, as comparing an MMO to an FPS is like comparing French
to Russian. Aside from Sony money, not
launching on the same platform as ALL of your existing users is a bold bet that
a lot of non-Eve players are going to jump on the New Eden train.
“Most of the arguments to which I am party fall
somewhat short of being impressive, knowing to the fact that neither I nor my
opponent knows what we are talking about.”
-Rodney Dangerfield
The
short answers to the questions: Eve’s reputation is partially deserved, but
only if you consider that all games have the same knobheads in them and Eve
just gets the bad press of late. The
players should care about this reputation, both as humans and in regards to
keeping Eve and ongoing concern. And
Dust is a wildcard, bringing a completely new player base into contact with
serious internet spaceshippers, As it
stands Dust needs to stand on its’ own.
Only if the game is worth playing will the perception of Eve matter.
Oh, and the button on an Eve keyboard. I would make a special key that tabs only between Eve instances. Call it the "FAIL" key.
