Forbes: EVE Online's Executive Producer Explains How the Game is Still Growing

Forbes: Why do you think EVE is worth a monthly fee when there are so many other free options out there right now for MMOs?

Lander: Everything you do in this game is persistent and has an impact on the world. Player actions from 9 years ago are still resonating to this day even while new players are making their own name. The single-sharded nature of EVE along with the fact that our players are the ones who create the content allowing them to do whatever their imagination comes up with really does make our world stand out. Being able to be a part of that and for your history to remain is something that our players deem worthy of a subscription. We also develop the game at a very very fast pace compared with the industry and deliver content, free of extra charge, to our players. We just delivered our 18th major free expansion and have also put out countless improvement patches in between.

This article is good contrast to the "it's all going F2P" trends imo.

Age of Wushu has aped some of the EVE model but added F2P - so will be interesting to see how that pans out with a "PLEX-like addition. Not sure what CCP intend with Dust 514 with their F2P??

Originally posted by MumboJumbo

This article is good contrast to the "it's all going F2P" trends imo.

Its only going f2p if it was a poorly implemented p2p game to begin with.

Game dieing because F2Pis the way to go? EVE and WoW, the most content rich+polished sandbox and themepark MMOs on the market, wanna have a word with you...

love it or hate it for its core concepts and playstyle, eve is a high quality product that comes without a high cost.

18 expansions for another game would be ... 400+ dollars. 

then there's PLEX. who else does PLEX ?

EVE is a game I cannot see working with a F2P model. It would change so many fundamentals in the game it would require a major redesign to make it work.

Plus the fact that they do not charge extra for the expansions speaks strongly in favor of the sub model too.

Simply put, EVE is worth the sub (or two).

I've been playing Eve on and off since 12/14/2005, most of my breaks had come from not being able to pay for my sub as other things came up or taking a break to try out other games. But it always drew me back in. No other game has ever managed to keep me coming back since Everquest pre Planes of Power. Actually just got an alt going to make it easier to maintain my PLEX, which I still have to admit is not only a brilliant system to kill off the "gold farmers", but also always a great model to implement into any P2P game.

Giving people the ability to earn free game time should always be an option, as either way that subscription model is still payed for just the same.

Originally posted by tixylix
Growing in ALT accounts.

As long as every account is PAID for, who cares who owns them...

Originally posted by TickleMeHomo
Eve came out when?2005/2006?Serously this game growth and longeliviity is amazing .These people are the one only iv seen mmo wich drastically updates their graphics/shaders every couple years.There is steady population online arround 30k-50k? online all the time.Just imagine this going f2p,i remember whining how there are no sci fi games on market but now Hawken/MechWarrior/Planetside 2?and wtf EVE going f2p.Serously its amazing,all i can say to devs to continue to expand and update.Kudos.

EVE came out in 2003, and has only done 1 big overhaul of its graphics engine. Aside from that, there is no mention/plan for it to go f2p..what are you smoking? lol

Originally posted by doodphace

Originally posted by TickleMeHomo
Eve came out when?2005/2006?Serously this game growth and longeliviity is amazing .These people are the one only iv seen mmo wich drastically updates their graphics/shaders every couple years.There is steady population online arround 30k-50k? online all the time.Just imagine this going f2p,i remember whining how there are no sci fi games on market but now Hawken/MechWarrior/Planetside 2?and wtf EVE going f2p.Serously its amazing,all i can say to devs to continue to expand and update.Kudos.

EVE came out in 2003, and has only done 1 big overhaul of its graphics engine.

2006-2007 was the Trinity graphics update

2011-2012 was the V3 shaders update

There's also been a lot of other major graphic updates across the board, as well. Here's links to some of the more recent ones:

• new nebulae
• new turret , launcher and missile animations

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by doodphace

Originally posted by TickleMeHomo
Eve came out when?2005/2006?Serously this game growth and longeliviity is amazing .These people are the one only iv seen mmo wich drastically updates their graphics/shaders every couple years.There is steady population online arround 30k-50k? online all the time.Just imagine this going f2p,i remember whining how there are no sci fi games on market but now Hawken/MechWarrior/Planetside 2?and wtf EVE going f2p.Serously its amazing,all i can say to devs to continue to expand and update.Kudos.

EVE came out in 2003, and has only done 1 big overhaul of its graphics engine.

2006-2007 was the Trinity graphics update

2011-2012 was the V3 shaders update

There's also been a lot of other major graphic updates across the board, as well. Here's links to some of the more recent ones:

• new nebulae
• new turret , launcher and missile animations

 

I never said they only made 1 update, I stated that they only made 1 huge overhaul (the implication of the post I quoted was that there were multiple huge overhauls, unless I misinterprated it), Aside from huge update in 2006-7, the updates have been no more major than the engine/animation updates made to WoW each expansion. While WoW still looks like shit, turn the settings up full today, and run a video side by side of WoW in 2004, and they like completely different games.

In my view, shader enhancements and new animations do not equate to "drastic updates".

With that said, WoW could use a huge overhaul like EVE did in the late 2000s, but thats another topic all together.