In collaboration with The MMO Gamer, I recently wrote a guest piece as a case study in RMT in EVE Online. Here's a snippet.

 

To test out the RMT system, I spent the past month exploring various ways to spend my hard-earned money in EVE. First, I decided I wanted some cash. I went to the EVE Online store and picked up 5 game time cards — and promptly ran into my first snag. Game Time Cards may only be ordered in quantities of three or less, meaning I had to make two separate purchases.

The second snag came when I found out that each purchase triggered a $5 international service fee. Wachovia informed me that this is actually a Visa-wide fee, due to CCP’s registration as an Icelandic company (despite their having offices in the U.S.). My next problem came from trying to sell the GTCs through the “Time Code Bazaar” on the forums. While I quickly found buyers, none of them actually went through with the deal.

This is the inherent problem with developer sanctioned RMT. Unless true, unfettered, player-to-player transactions are allowed without developer “regulation”, the market will inevitably be operating inefficiently. Consider gold-farmers for a moment. Setting aside the moral or legal aspects of the trade, and considering from a purely economic standpoint, gold-farmers are the RMT equivalent of large corporations. They operate on the concept of “economies-of-scale”, which basically means that up to a certain point, the larger a company is, the cheaper they can produce that product.

The full article can be viewed at MMOGamer.com.

CCP, creator of the critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online game (MMO) EVE Online, has been recognized for its remarkable year-over-year growth by being ranked on the Media Momentum's Larger Companies List 2009 and receiving a Media Momentum Award. The Media Momentum Awards honor the hottest and fastest growing digital media companies in Europe as judged by European digital media industry luminaries. The industry recognition follows EVE Online's subscriber base topping 300,000 as the game celebrated its sixth anniversary on May 6, 2009.

To support continued in-game growth and creative development of EVE Online, CCP is also increasing its headcount, recruiting top industry talent for about 60 positions over the course of 2009. CCP's CEO, Hilmar Petursson, accepted the company's Media Momentum Award for "Vision and Future Growth Potential" and attended at an invitation-only awards dinner on May 13, 2009 in London. Said Petursson: "CCP is honored to receive this award as it validates our earliest plans of the future for EVE Online a true virtual society that has a real sense of history and intrigue between players. We feel fortunate to have experienced dynamic growth both in our products and as a company and hope to use that energy to propel them further."

Editor's note: Congratulations to CCP and the EVE development team. You've done a remarkable job and created an amazing game that continues to drive much of the scholarship and thinking around the design and theory of virtual worlds.

Reykjavik, ICELAND - March 23, 2009 - CCP, one of the world's leading independent game developers and creator of EVE Online, has announced a strong corporate outlook ahead of this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC), (San Francisco, CA, March 23-27, 2009). The company was recently honored for its innovative approach to development; is announcing aggressive recruitment plans; and earlier this month released the latest EVE Online expansion: Apocrypha, available online as well as in retail stores via a distribution partnership with Atari.

CCP has received two key business awards over the last month, The Icelandic Innovation and Knowledge Award from the Association of Businessmen and Economists in Iceland and the 2009 Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies Award from the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). Both awards highlight CCP's strength and innovation in technical development.

"CCP was founded around innovation and the pursuit of excellence," said CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson, "and those core values have continued to be at the heart of everything we do, even as we've expanded our global reach in the last few years. We feel great pride and humility to have been recognized with these prestigious awards and feel more determined than ever to keep attracting brilliant people and building the best battletested technology to create the most compelling virtual worlds imaginable."

On the heels of these two awards, and with March 10^th's retail box release of EVE Online: Apocrypha, CCP has announced a heavy presence at this year's GDC. Several CCP representatives will give presentations, and CCP is also hosting booth #210 in the GDC Career Pavilion as part of its recruitment drive.

GDC speaking slots include:

• Eyjo Gudmundsson, Lead Economist, and Petur Oskarsson, Researcher: "The Council of Stellar Management: EVE Online Bridges Worlds for a Society"
• Halldor Fannar, CTO: "From Evolution to Revolution: Upgrading the Graphics Engine of EVE Online"
• Ryan Scott Dancey, CMO: "Network Marketing: Leveraging Social Networks to Grow an MMO"

During the expo, CCP will be accepting resumes from aspiring and talented developers as it commences a series of recruitment waves in which the company aims to fill about 60 positions over the course of 2009. The company will also show highlights of the new features and capabilities associated with their latest expansion, EVE Online: Apocrypha, including an eased learning curve for newcomers, unstable wormholes for exploration and modular ships that pilots may tailor-build to suit their own specifications and needs.

"We are excited to be growing our developer team, and it's nice to see the team winning awards from our industry peers," said Mike Tinney, president of CCP North America. "By hiring top talent, and tackling hard problems 2008 became a strong year for CCP. Now coming into 2009 we're looking for more insanely talented and like-minded people to join our team. We will continue to enrich the EVE player experience and continuously develop and improve our upcoming projects as well."

For media briefings with CCP at GDC, please contact:

Valerie Massey at vmassey@ccpgames.com

Or

LEWIS PR at eveonline@lewispr.com

About EVE Online

Set tens of thousands of years in the future, EVE Online is a breathtaking journey to the stars, to an immersive experience filled with adventure, riches, danger and glory. With over a quarter of a million subscribers worldwide inhabiting the same virtual universe, EVE features a vast player-run economy where your greatest asset is the starship, designed to accommodate your specific needs, skills and ambitions. EVE offers professions ranging from commodities trader to mercenary, industrial entrepreneur to pirate, mining engineer to battle fleet commander or any combination of these and much more. From brokering business deals to waging war, you will have access to a diverse array of sophisticated tools and interfaces to forge your own destiny in EVE. Learn more and sign up for a free trial at www.eveonline.com.

Definition of Subscribers
EVE Online subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active electronic time code (ETC) to play EVE Online, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions and expired ETCs.

About CCP
CCP is widely recognized as an industry-leading pioneer of the single-server persistent universe architecture as the developer and publisher of EVE Online, the critically-acclaimed, science fiction-based massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). Utilizing a cross-discipline approach combining cutting-edge technology and artistic excellence, CCP is dedicated to providing vibrant, compelling products that transcend the boundaries of conventional MMOGs and facilitate social networking through virtual worlds. Privately held and founded in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1997, CCP's international reach now spans the globe with offices in Atlanta and Shanghai as well as a base of operations in London. More information about CCP is available at the company's website, www.ccpgames.com

CCP Gangleri from Team Epic brings us a great update on the new Non-Player Character Artificial Intelligence. This dev blog focuses on what the new AI does and how the mechanics of fighting them have changed, and what has stayed the same. There is also a nice question and answer section at the end of this blog.

"Hi there! This is the third and final pre-Apocrypha blog from Team Epic, not to be confused with the epic mission arc teams (we blame Zulupark, he picked our team name). We're the guys and gals responsible for making that spiffy new controlling algorithm being used by the Sleeper NPC entities. There have been a lot of posts on these forums regarding our work, and that prompted us to create this blog aimed at clearing up some of the confusion that exists about the Sleeper NPCs."

Link : What Have We Done!

CCP Greyscale would like to remind you, "Never get carsick in a contraflow" and would like to share some wisdom about the new probing system. If you have not tried out the new exploration system I highly suggest you do. It has been upgraded to be a lot more fun and exciting but has some new quirks that CCP Greyscale would like you to know.

"So, I'm unloading the goods at the Fed Freight station in Rancer - Jimmy came through nicely again, no hassle with cops or customs - when this geezer comes up to me and asks if I'm the owner of the Heron in bay 8B. That's where the Stork's parked, so I says, yeah, that's my boat, what of it? And it turns out that he's some science type or something, and he's dead keen to have a look at one of those wormhole things what've been showing up all over space in the last few days, since that nasty business on the 10th.

Now normally that's not my sort of thing, but it turns out he's got a fat pile of research funds to burn, enough to get the old Stork a new paintjob and some new gubbins, and I can work probes in my sleep some days it seems, so it sounds like an easy way to make a nice pile of cash for myself. So I says sure, I can take you out to have a look, hop on board, and pay half upfront, of course. This is a business, y'know?"

Link : Sick In The Back Of An Astra: A Travel Blog

The candidacy runs are open and CCP Xhagen wants you to know about the upcoming elections. Sign up and become part of the process as to what makes EVE the best MMO on the market.

• March, 17^th. Opening for candidacy runs for the third CSM.
• March, 31^st. Closing for the candidacy applications.
• May, 12^th. Voting for the third CSM opens.
• May, 26^th. Voting for the third CSM closes.
• May, 29^th, Thursday. A permanent announcement made about the results of the third CSM elections.
• May, 31^st, Saturday. The third CSM meets online for the first time.
• August, 19^th - 23^rd or 26^th - 30^th, Wednesday to Sunday. CSM arrives in Iceland to speak with CCP.

Link : Call For Candidates - The Third Council of Stellar Management

CCP Dropbear wants you to know drugs are cool! Just kidding, drugs are bad M'kay? Fortunately in EVE drugs are getting more and more popular, and using them will not end with you in jail married to some guy named Bubba. Not only is EVE making drugs a bit easier to get your hands on but is providing the exploration profession a lot more content to deal with.

"We don't want to open the floodgates and make it easy for everyone to become a pill-pushing Space Pimp overnight. Rather, we want to encourage the gameplay and the industry around it to grow. Grow means many things here; more locations to scan down, more diversity in the sites you explore, and more content in those sites."

Link : Getting High on Your Own Supply

CCP Abathur writes about an exciting new subject for us capsuleers, Wormholes. Looks like Wormhole space, or W-Space, is going to randomly be beneficial or detrimental for whatever reasons unknown to us. Get ready for some real exploration.

"Now, it might be that this particular wormhole takes you on a trip directly to another K-space system but bear in mind that the end destination is going to be random. It will most likely to take you somewhere within the same security class as you started (hisec, lowsec or nullsec) but there is always enough of a random chance that it could land you anywhere. A wormhole stumbled upon in Jita might link to New Caldari (bah!) or to Rens (profit!) or to Rancer (yikes!).

The other place you can end up is what I'm sure you all really want to hear about: W-space."

Link: The Darkness At The End Of The Tunnel

Miners will be thanking CCP VanishingPoint for this new dev blog on mining. Bringing us "over 70 unique looking asteroid and ice styles" CCP VanishingPoint and his team are giving mining a face lift. Asteroids will now not only be visually identifiable by type but also show visually the approximate volume.

"I am CCP VanishingPoint and I am directing Team Hot Rocks the team responsible for delivering the new Asteroid and Ice content for Apocrypha. The team has been hard at work creating new meshes, normal maps, textures and shaders that work to communicate the complex composition of each Ore with a unique style. Our artists have been painstakingly sculpting new meshes from which we are rendering all or of our Normal Maps, Ambient Occlusion Maps, and Depth Maps while others researched and built textures to represent the minerals peeking through the cracks of each rock."

Link: Miners Rejoice!

CCP Caedmon would like to let us know that they do not use machine translations to localize EVE. Unfortunately they have still come across problems translating EVE into other languages based on the fact that EVE was developed with English in mind. So now CCP needs your help and CCP Caedmon is asking those of us who are lucky enough to be bi-lingual to log into the testing server and test out the Russian and Japanese languages.

"Since the Russian public testing we held last year, we have been localizing over 700,000 words of both new and changed content that came with Empyrean Age, Quantum Rise and Apocrypha releases. To put this in context: the average console game averages around 100,000 words. So that's a lot of content!"

Link: Machine Translation's Bad, M'kay?

CCP Flatboy brings us an update to the new character experience. CCP Fear told us of how they are reducing the starting skill points for new players and now CCP Flatboy is here to inform us that new players will actually be learning at a faster rate.

"How much faster? We toyed around with all kinds of beautiful graphs for this speed, based on SP or time, from the formula for the water saturation of a sponge gourd (tanh * (4 /h) * SQRT(Dr/Dt)), as suggested by Hellmar, to an elegant 3rd order exponential formula, to a beautiful logarithmic function."

Link: A Virgin Mind

GM Guard brings us a dev blog about how the GMs will be preparing for the launch of Apocrypha. New patches means new rules, new systems, new players. These are all things that the GM staff must prepare for.

"I want to tell you what us GMs have been doing down in our dungeons while the scrumbags upstairs have been busy creating greatness. Many might think we‘ve been spending more and more time at the bar every night, crying to a bewildered bartender about the upcoming influx of petitions on artificially intelligent NPCs and lost T3 ships. That is not the case however, as we bravely cling to the hope that we will still be smarter than those NPCs and we've been spending our time proactively preparing for what is up ahead."

Link: Caring Is Preparing

CCP Fallout brings us news of a new EVE chronicle.

"Before you lies the ship that Jamyl Sarum used to destroyed the Minmatar at the Battle of Mekhios, surrounded by a rogue drone hive, mysterious minerals and, to make things worse, there's a Blood Raider ship nearby. Imagine being a Thukker captain making this realization... what would you do? Would you risk your life and that of your crew to destroy this monstrosity?"

Link: Player News
We Humans

Due to some database issues the implant group and statistics have been taken out of the EVE API. It is not known when the features will be reimplemented at this time.

"Due to issues that were having a detrimental effect on the database we have temporarily suspended the display of implants within the EVE API. The basic impact of this change is that the EVE API will report that all characters have no implants within third party software like EVEMon. EVEmon currently displays character attributes (charisma, intelligence etc.) and implant groups and will therefore now report incorrect abilities and skill training times. Skill training times on Tranquility will not be affected by changes to the API and all implants will still work correctly in-game."

Link: Player News
Forum Post

His name is Molock, CCP Molock, and Molock wants their mission shaken not stirred. This DevBlog is about the new epic story arcs being introduced with the new Apocrypha expansion.

"Epic Arcs, on the other hand, will be available only from unique agents (or strings of agents); they are linked together in an ongoing story that unfolds over the course of many missions. These missions also incorporate a new branching system, providing players with choices in the path through an Epic Arc. Finally, while the rewards for Epic Missions won't be vastly greater than those for normal missions, they will tend to give out cool new toys (or at least exceptional rewards) at the ends of chapters and, of course, at the end of each complete arc."

Link: ...Should You Choose To Accept It

Looks like the BoB scandal has made its way into the BBC. Not the first time the BBC has run an article on EVE Online but it is always exciting to see us mention on the major news carriers.

"It's a finale that has been compared to "Apple dissolving Microsoft", and led to some players calling for the game's developer, CCP, to "roll-back" the game to the previous day and cancel the change.

"Any one director should not have the power to destroy the work of so many people for so many months and years with two mouse clicks," wrote a player called David on an EVE-related blog.

But CCP is well-known for keeping its hands off action within the game. Since no rules were broken, the changes stood, and thousands of BoB members woke up to a very different world."

Link: BBC Article - "The Struggle Among The Stars"

CCP needs us to help fight the war on Lag! Log onto the logserver and start shooting each other.

"If you want to help, please read CCP Soundwave's forum post for step-by-step instructions on what you can do to help us gather data."

Link : Player News
Forum Post

A little birdie alighted on my window this morning and told me of something pretty over at YouTube. Behold, a leaked intro movie for Apocrypha. Looks like we will finally get a new movie.

Link: Apocrypha Intro at YouTube.

Due to the popularity of the Alliance Tournament the Peak Concurrent User(PCU) barrier of 50,000 was breached during the finals for the tournament.

"Due in large to the Alliance Tournament VI finale this weekend, the PCU (Peak Concurrent User) record was broken the third time this year with 51,675 pilots logging in to the single-shard world that is EVE Online. That's well above the previous record of 48,065 and signifies the largest PCU jump we've ever had to break the 50k milestone."

Link: Player news by CCP Manifest

Tired of having to convert your time cards into PLEX? Well not CCP has is helping cut that step out by allowing you to purchase PLEX straight from them. According to this player news article from CCP Fallout they will be available for as little as 34.99 USD/EURO.

Link: EVElopedia Article on PLEX.