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2003 · Fenris Creations · Flight simulation · MMO

EVE Online

EVE Online is a free MMORPG sci-fi strategy game where you can embark on your own unique space adventure. EVE's open world MMORPG sandbox, renowned among online space games, lets you choose your own path and engage in combat, exploration, industry and much more.

Released: 6 May 2003
Platforms: Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Flight simulation MMO MMORPG Role-playing Simulation Space opera Space trading and combat Strategy Business simulation
Developers: Fenris Creations Simon & Schuster
Publishers: Fenris Creations Simon & Schuster Atari Atari Europe Crucial Entertainment THQ
Modes: Co-op Multiplayer MMO
Perspective: First person Third person Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action Science fiction Sandbox Open world
Engine: CARBON Engine
Country: Iceland
Age ratings: GRAC 19+USK 12 PEGI 12 ESRB T
Languages: Chinese (Simplified), English, Finnish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish (Spain)
Time to beat: 1777hmain story5681hcompletionist

About

Eve Online (stylized EVE Online) is a space-based, persistent-world massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Fenris Creations. Players of Eve Online can participate in a number of in-game professions and activities, including mining, piracy, manufacturing, trading, exploration, and combat (both player versus environment [PVE] and player versus player [PVP]). The game contains a total of 7,805 star systems that can be visited by players.

The game is renowned for its scale and complexity in regard to player interactions. In its single, shared game world, players engage in unscripted economic competition, warfare, and political schemes with other players. The Bloodbath of B-R5RB, a battle involving thousands of players in a single star system, took 21 hours and was recognized as one of the largest and most expensive battles in gaming history. Eve Online was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art with a video including the historical events and accomplishments of the playerbase.

›Story

Set more than 21,000 years in the future, the background story of Eve Online explains that humanity, having used up most of Earth's resources through centuries of explosive population growth, began colonizing the rest of the Milky Way. As on Earth, this expansion also led to competition and fighting over available resources, but everything changed with the discovery of a natural wormhole leading to an unexplored galaxy subsequently dubbed "New Eden." Dozens of colonies were founded, and a structure, a gate of sorts (which bears the inscription "EVE" on the New Eden side), was built to stabilize the wormhole that linked the colonies of New Eden with the rest of human civilization. However, when the wormhole unexpectedly collapsed, it destroyed the gate as well as the connection between the colonies of New Eden and the Milky Way.

Cut off from the rest of humanity and supplies from Earth, the colonies of New Eden were left starving and disconnected from one another; many died out entirely. Over the millennia the descendants of the surviving colonists managed to rebuild their own societies, but by this time the memories and knowledge of humanity's origins, of Earth and the Milky Way galaxy, as well as the history of the settling of New Eden, was lost; what little information that survived transmission over the generations was misunderstood, lost in translation, and/or consigned to mythology. Five major distinct societies rose to prominence from the surviving colonies, each growing into interstellar spaceflight-capable civilizations. The states based around these societies make up the five major factions in Eve Online: the Amarr Empire, the Caldari State, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic and the Jove Directorate.

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The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Players start the game by either selecting a previously created character or by creating a new one. Each Eve Online account allows for up to three characters. When a player creates a new character, they start by choosing one of the four playable races – Amarr, Gallente, Minmatar, or Caldari. Each race is further divided into three bloodlines that give characters different pre-defined appearances, which can be finely tuned by the player.

Unlike many other MMOs, where there are numerous copies of the game universe intended to run at once (i.e., servers), Eve Online is functionally a single-universe game. There are at least four copies of the universe running: the main server "Tranquility", the Chinese-based "Serenity", the test server "Singularity" (also "Sisi") which is a general, public test server, and an event server, "Thunderdome", which is used for tournaments. A new test server was announced called "Buckingham" to replace "Singularity" as the main EVE Online test server while "Singularity" was used for Dust 514/EVE Online joint testing. As Dust 514 is no longer active, "Singularity" is now the main test server again and "Buckingham" is a closed test server for the CCP developers.

Development

According to the developers, Eve Online evolved from the classic computer game Elite, which itself was based on concepts from the science-fiction role-playing game Traveller. Eve combined concepts from Elite with the multi player chat and player-versus-player aspects of Ultima Online. Elite had four single-player aspects: missions, mining, trade routes and combat with random hostile NPCs, all of which are aspects of the first incarnations of Eve Online.

One of the original developers of Elite, David Braben, believes Eve Online is a reimplementation of the 1980s game, not its true successor. Some of the developers (John Cameron, James Cassidy, Joe Chaney) also believe that this game creates a world where players can become someone else only possible in their imaginations.

Reception

Eve Online received mixed reviews at the launch of the game in 2003 but more favorable reviews later in its lifecycle. The original version received 75% on GameRankings and 69/100 on Metacritic. The Special Edition released in 2009 has an aggregate score of 88/100 on Metacritic.

In 2004, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the expansion Eve Online: Second Genesis for "Massively Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year" at the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. Then for three consecutive years, the academy also nominated the following expansions for "Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year": Revelations in 2007, Trinity in 2008, and Quantum Rise in 2009.