EVE General Discussion

EVE is pretty unique in the sense that we are all sharing one big world. It's the biggest and most open sandbox game available. And unlike other MMOs we only pay for our monthly playtime and all additional content that gets added to the game is always completely free of charge and available to everyone.

But for how long will a business model like this be sustainable? The expectancy of receiving free expansions twice a year is already showing a few downsides, most notably that new content is making way for much needed bug fixing and improvements. The direct cause for that is the age of the engine and the poor coding from the early 2000's that is still part of EVE today.

This is the point where other MMO's reach the natural end of their lifecycle. The game is old, the code is old and updating everything to current standards is too much of an effort for the return. So instead of investing many hours in maintaining old code, the choice is made to simply build a sequel from the ground up and be done with it.

While I'm sure we're all thankful this isn't happening with EVE, one has to wonder for how long we can keep going like this? How long are we going to put up with the truly ancient code before it absolutely needs to be updated? Is it even viable for CCP to keep EVE fresh and modern while also rebuilding the entire game bit by bit from the ground up behind the scenes?

In the CSM 8 minutes a mention was made on how the current growth of fleet fights, as it stands right now, would be completely unsustainable. Fixing it would require constant optimization of old game code. Everything from weapons, damage, drones, navigation is in dire need of an under the hood touch up just to make a node cope with what passes as 'a huge fleet' these days. And what is a huge fleet today is tiny in comparison tomorrow. On top of that there are tons of game mechanics that need fixing as well. The entire sov system, which in turn includes outposts and starbases, all of it needs an update. Either the coding is old or the mechanic doesn't work. In a lot of cases it's both.

CCP, like any game developer, has limited resources to spend on all these things that need fixing. Limited personnel, limited hours in a day, limited budget. So how long can we go on adding new content on top of an already crumbling foundation before the entire thing collapses in on itself?

Would it, for the sake of discussion, not be a better plan for Devs to spend minimal time on EVE Online currently and spend the next 2 or 3 years on building a completely new engine from scratch? And I don't mean a completely new game where we all start from scratch, just a new engine to which all current game information can be ported over. Sure we'd have to live without major expansions for a long time. But after that we'd have a rock solid new foundation that EVE can thrive on for the next 10 -15 years.

Which leads me back to the original question. Is the current business model of releasing new content twice a year by default sustainable in the long term? I don't think it is, because CCP simply doesn't have the resources to do so in conjunction with updating, fixing and modernizing the underlying code. It has to be one or the other and currently they're building on broken support columns that are going to give way at one point or another.

Would be interesting to hear some other opinions on this.

See, even the blind man can see it.

Well it's been going on for 10 years so I say, yes.

F2P is overrated. I leave games when they go F2P.

Posting in stealth "EvE is dying" thread.

No it's not.

You base this on what?

EVE is not stuggling to host the masses now that drones have been sorted. Simple fact remains, EVE is growing after 10 years while all of the other MMOs are not.

Your thread is worse than mine.

While my ugly face is a fact, your post is full of stupid assumptions and guesses.


DO YOU SEE THIS FACE?

DOES IT LOOK LIKE IT'S JOKING??


WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING???????



*runs away crying* D:

In my experience, complete rewrites of something never work as smoothly as everyone seems to imagine.
While it's true that it is easier to lay a more stable foundation for the "big picture", there are often many intricacies and details with little problems and features which are already solved in the current implementation, which will cost more time and effort to solve anew in rewritten code than often is suspected.

As such, a complete rewrite is almost always a bad idea business-wise. Customers are mostly not tolerant enough to give up short-term improvements and updates for the few years a proper rewrite needs. And of those that are patient enough, many will be upset about new bugs, which will inevitably be contained in the new code.

On the other hand it is possible to maintain and improve even a rather bad code base to become and stay viable, and even replace parts of the code with completely new ones on a bit by bit basis. It'll still be a lot of effort, but it's way easier to plan for than a huge "all in one" approach, and you won't have to neglect the current game as much in the meantime.

Of course I don't know how things really are in the case of EVE, and maybe this is a case where a rewrite would make sense. I just wanted to say that it's never as easy as most think, even if they think it'll be hard.

Given the history of CCP I know of, they care for their game long-term, thus they'll have thought about all of this and have made, or will make, a decision with that in mind.

http://office.microsoft.com/

Where do i activate my guns?

The business model is sustainable, to a very large degree in fact.

The question you should be asking is the growth enough to sustain the business model, and like many said it already, EVE's rocky road has been only growth, even more prominent during these past few years.

If you're looking for factors that sustain the growth, one thing is clear; No matter what angle you look it from, EVE is aesthetically pleasing game. There's alot of effort put to audiovisual work and that is what catches the eye of a new customer at first.

The business model itself helps keeping the pocketbooks filled till the laces break. A tad bit more expensive per month than other subscription based MMOs are a tiny price to pay for the full arsenal of free expansions. Not to mention the option to pay with a currency that's merely ones and zeroes, though I have personally advetised it needs actual effort to work it.

What is holding EVE's growth back a bit is not EVE or CCP itself, it's the relationship of the product and the customer. EVE is a verey niche game, a specialized product of entertainment for very special kind of nutty customers. As long as the player is willingly to invest to such product which quite clearly explains its own workings, the growth is, and will remain there.

News alert!

Eve is dying.

…although the rumour mill on the latter is interesting right now.