News Manager Keith Cross attended Fan Fest for CCP's EVE Online. Today, he recounts the story of EVE Online's virtual birth and some of the growing pains that have come along the way between CCP's founding and today.

Last week I had the privilege of attending EVE Fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland, the homeland of CCP. More than a thousand fans from around the world descended on the venue at Laugardalshöll to gather and celebrate all things EVE Online. There was no shortage of things to do at this year’s Fanfest. Between a trip to the renowned Blue Lagoon in the middle of a brisk gale force breeze, and the Party at the Top of the World where the CCP dev band RoXor showed how much they like their day jobs by being good enough to quit their day jobs, there were plenty of panels, seminars, discussions and competitions to keep any pod pilot pleased. For the next few days I’ll be relating the details of the various events, but to ease us all in I thought I’d start with a brief history of EVE, which CCP founder Reynir Harðarson was kind enough to relate on Saturday morning.

In 1997 CPP started up with no team and no money. Since making a massively multiplayer online game is something of a titanic and risky challenge under the best of circumstances, let alone when you’re without employees and cash, CCP decided that its first undertaking would be the creation of a board game. The hope was that this first project would allow them to build their team and generate the revenue they needed to make an MMO.

Read the article here.

You have to take your hats off to CCP because i think the only mmorpg which requires a monthly sub and has continued to grow since launch is WOW. Now for CCP to do the same thing (on a smaller scale) but start off with no money is a amazing achievement, even though myself i do like the game but the server is too busy for me and wish they made more so it don't play it, i do think CCP are great developers. I'd love to see Eve Online on Steam one day, that would be really kool and obviously boost sales but also because Valve are a great PC developer too.

No chance of taking over SWG and releasing pre cu server tho is there ccp? lol.

I dont exacly understand what you mean by busy server. Becasue i never experienced lag in eve since well, since a very long time and that would be like 4 years :) Right now CCP owns prety powerfull servers. IF you are not part of 1000+ war in 1 system or you are not visiting Jita in a midle of Trading day i dont think you will get any lag. Eve universe is so vast that this 30k+ ppl online usualy have more than enought space to play and i say that another 30k could still play there and be happy with the conection :) CCP is constantly upgrading there hardware and code to meet the chalange of sustaining the One and only singe world mmo out there :) And Tbh i think creating 1 world and 1 server is one of the bigest archivments of Eve :) Eve is living breathing virtual world, and not just a virtual game this days :)

Originally posted by miffywiffy

You have to take your hats off to CCP because i think the only mmorpg which requires a monthly sub and has continued to grow since launch is WOW. Now for CCP to do the same thing (on a smaller scale) but start off with no money is a amazing achievement, even though myself i do like the game but the server is too busy for me and wish they made more so it don't play it, i do think CCP are great developers. I'd love to see Eve Online on Steam one day, that would be really kool and obviously boost sales but also because Valve are a great PC developer too.

No chance of taking over SWG and releasing pre cu server tho is there ccp? lol.

and QQ no pre cu SWG server makes me a sad panda, but whats me a happy panda is "SWG"emu"

I just think theres too many people playing it now like when you make a new character theres like 600 people in your solar system and you have to travel sooo far away to stop lag and if you want to mine then forget about it in the noob zones. Also i just don't get the feeling of being alone anymore cause theres just sooo many people about, i prefered when i used to play.

I just wish EVE was like how it was when it launched with only about 2000-4000k online at one time.

Every popular game have populated noob zones. Just go out from them, you have so meny solar systems you can go to. Its almost not even funy. And if you have lag for some weird reason becasue like 1000+ ppl is in one zone go to other solar system and you wont have it anymore.

Beside,  if you want the lonly fealing go to few semi new Regions way way up North. Only problem might be that if you are not realy well prepared you probably will die half way through ^^ They are not oficialy claimed by any corp yeat and you could say they are like wild west of eve ;)

If pvp you seek go to usual War zone, the South ^^ Thats the usual place for Eve great wars :)

Anyway, meny ppl t end to juge eve to fast and to early. Even i made this mistake and i was one of beta testers of eve :)

Originally posted by miffywiffy

I just think theres too many people playing it now like when you make a new character theres like 600 people in your solar system and you have to travel sooo far away to stop lag and if you want to mine then forget about it in the noob zones. Also i just don't get the feeling of being alone anymore cause theres just sooo many people about, i prefered when i used to play.

I just wish EVE was like how it was when it launched with only about 2000-4000k online at one time.

THe solutions quite easy really just leave the Noob zones.

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Originally posted by Khebeln
They are not oficialy claimed by any corp yeat and you could say they are like wild west of eve ;)
If pvp you seek go to usual War zone, the South ^^ Thats the usual place for Eve great wars :)

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Dude, dont underestimate the North. I live there, and we had some major wars (Tri vs. YouWhat, Rzr + MM & friends vs. Bob-Pets) and the systems there are far from unclaimed.

Oh, and you will get shot on sight there. Either by us, or our enemies. ;)

eve 4ever

Originally posted by batolemaeus

 

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Originally posted by Khebeln
They are not oficialy claimed by any corp yeat and you could say they are like wild west of eve ;)
If pvp you seek go to usual War zone, the South ^^ Thats the usual place for Eve great wars :)

---

 

Dude, dont underestimate the North. I live there, and we had some major wars (Tri vs. YouWhat, Rzr + MM & friends vs. Bob-Pets) and the systems there are far from unclaimed.

Oh, and you will get shot on sight there. Either by us, or our enemies. ;)

Hehe well this days you can get shot by anyone anywhere ;) I know that north  had its share of big fights, trust me i know :) Im just saying about what is now but it could change. Wars start and end fast if they go full scale :) Besides i ment that North is less controled compared to South. As you said there are alot of unclaimed systems in the north still :)

Do you think of Venal as unclaimed? because its npc-region.. ;)

All i can say is: The Allainces that fought in the war in the north got their share. Morsus Mihi got Lxwn, RZR took most of Branch, smaller Alliances like Stella Polar got portions of Branch.

Its just not too crowded there, some systems dont get visited often. But you can be sure, if you drop a tower in Branch, you will have a huge fleet taking that thing down..

I also read an in depth interview how CCP and Eve began in the E-ON magazines, but I still enjoyed reading this article. If it wasn't for the dedicated dev team members who continued to work on Eve without being paid for those 3 months, who knows how the game could have went...

I'm just glad it became a reality, and I look forward to it's future expansions.

Yea this company has really moved on and look at this .

That is what the next patch provides a top of the range graphics engine now thats progress!!!

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles

Yea this company has really moved on and look at this .

That is what the next patch provides a top of the range graphics engine now thats progress!!!

Let me top that with this

Edit: better

Must, resist, looking...Going, to, explode.

A very great News Post. I learned alot from that article even though I thought of myself as well-knolwegable of ccp(with there up and coming vampire mmo. I'm guessing that's one of the reasons of the mass increase in employess).

Overall Thanks for the great read.

Originally posted by Khebeln

Originally posted by batolemaeus

 

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Originally posted by Khebeln
They are not oficialy claimed by any corp yeat and you could say they are like wild west of eve ;)
If pvp you seek go to usual War zone, the South ^^ Thats the usual place for Eve great wars :)

---

 

Dude, dont underestimate the North. I live there, and we had some major wars (Tri vs. YouWhat, Rzr + MM & friends vs. Bob-Pets) and the systems there are far from unclaimed.

Oh, and you will get shot on sight there. Either by us, or our enemies. ;)

Hehe well this days you can get shot by anyone anywhere ;) I know that north  had its share of big fights, trust me i know :) Im just saying about what is now but it could change. Wars start and end fast if they go full scale :) Besides i ment that North is less controled compared to South. As you said there are alot of unclaimed systems in the north still :)

I live in the north, and as far as I can see all the space is taken. Only free space is venal due to it being an npc region. And, in both cases it is controlled. The easiest place to take space is the drone regions. Basically because it's not as good as the other space. Thus, weaker alliances live there.

Originally posted by miffywiffy

I just think theres too many people playing it now like when you make a new character theres like 600 people in your solar system and you have to travel sooo far away to stop lag and if you want to mine then forget about it in the noob zones. Also i just don't get the feeling of being alone anymore cause theres just sooo many people about, i prefered when i used to play.

I just wish EVE was like how it was when it launched with only about 2000-4000k online at one time.

I too was there on day one, and played for almost 3 1/2 years after that.

I do remember for the longest time that during the weekdays the server population would be around 400-600 tops and weekends it would be lucky to break 1200.

I also remember someone, maybe Hilmer or Nathan saying; that even after launch (something like at the end of the 1st month) they were within days of pulling the plug.  And had more or less decided on a Monday to shut down the server on Friday. Then they got the subscription check and it was barely enough to cover operating EVE, and the next one they got was a little more, and the next one was a little more than that, and we all know how it turned out.

And even though I canceled my subscriptions almost two years ago now. I still miss the game. I still love EVE.

Love it or hate it, I think EVE is absolutely wonderful in that it proved the little guy can compete with the Blizzards and SOE's of the world. Gives us all some hope that not every small MMORPG that breaks from the EQ/WoW template will always be vapourware.

Originally posted by miffywiffy

even though myself i do like the game but the server is too busy for me

Errr HUH? EvE is huge, if you want to live a secluded solitaire live then there are plenty of systems to find where'd be able to do so and never see a soul.

There is only one system which is extremly busy (and therefor laggy) and that is Jita. The system I lived in had 10 people in it at it's max.

The one world thing (you play EvE or you don't, no which server are you on crap) is one of it's finest things.

@the guy saying he never experienced lag in EvE...

Don't lie, be honest. Or fly to jita.