New devblog reveals only 54 developers working on EVE Online

Oh sorry. 124 Developers. I would hate to misstate the numbers.

Nothing is wrong with these numbers - especially if they include artists and other asset generation teams. People need to calm down. CCP failing at fixing lag and thinks like rockets/FW it's more likely because of incompetence and beer, NOT pure numbers.

IMO Only thing game breaking right now is hot drop and fleet lag - which apparently no one is getting on Singularity to help test. Maybe what CCP needs is more players working on helping out testing instead of being allocated to QQ'ing on the forums and to the CSM.

Also, spoons? Eve's vocal community is ugh.

Incarna != Eve

No one playing Eve has more then a passing interest in this "expansion". It is ground-world for the Vampire MMO.

The story is that only a tiny fraction of their manpower is working on spaceships. I don't want the same game-killing bugs that are in game today to be in game for 2 years before they see any real attention. Most of the people I know in-game feel the same (I'm in a several thousand player PVP alliance) and these bugs cause us to lose hundreds of millions in ships almost on a daily basis. We'd been hoping that there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that CCP was secretly working for us, but now we find that it's actually like 70% or so of their manpower is going into first person aspects rather than spaceship aspects.

So there you have it. Yes, we are angry.

Well after some thought CCP isn't really transparent about their numbers.

what are each developer?

if the 70 people working on incarna are all concept artists, 3d and 2d artists (of various specialisations), scenario and mission writers and a few programmers and the 22 devs working on the buds are mainly programmers with a few mission writers, then, the scale is way different than 70, 22.


what are the specialities behind that "developer" tag?

Incarna Incarna now now now

Well, regardless of the numbers CCP decided to devote to either feature of either of their (upcoming) products, we have to look at things without any bias.

I have 0 worries about lag in EVE, 0 worries about FW, 0 worries about AFs and -10 worries about rockets. Why? Because I simply don't use them (yet!). So that being said, do I want incarna? Hell yeah. Do I want incarna at the expense of EVE crashing and burning during the next 18 months? HELL NO!

The core of the fame has been and I think will always be the non-consensual PVP side of the game and the largely publicized fleet warfare in massive numbers.

So at the moment, the lag everyone talks about, is NOT caused by increasing demand from players (ie. larger amounts of players showing up to battles), but from a game breaking feature/bug introduced in dominion, which killed all large fleet fights. Reports from battles up to 500 vs 500 with manageable lag are common before Dominion. Now there's reports of fights of 50 vs 50 breaking a node into oblivion and back.

FW, AFs and rockets are those features that were introduced already broken while being "sold" for a complete product. It's like buying a car only to find out it has wheel, a motor, a wheel and pedals but no seats! Yeah, you can use it, but it's a pain to do so and you'll give it up soon enough :D

I can see the obvious reasons for the need for PI, Incarna and even Dust, as I'm totally in-love with the idea of having 1 game which includes almost every type of gameplay in existance, like RTS; FPS, Strategy (sim-city) and the base for it, internet spaceships!

While I love all that, if that comes at the expense of the base of it all (EVE), I can't say I agree with CCPs management regarding these decisions, but my ideas are worth crap as they will decide the path they want, we will decide if we want to give them our money to play along with it.

Fact is, there are plenty of MMOs where you are walking in pixel-land. And if I wanted to stand outside the bank emoting and trying on different outfits, then I would be playing those games.

The reason we play EVE is because of internet spaceships. So please, fix the bugs. CCP is so healthy financially because we like the game design. We like fleet battles. Whatever you have to do to load-balance the nodes, frakking do it.

I'm an old-time Homeworld fan. Remember Relic back in the day when that came out? That was PvE design. If EVE wants to bring in new players, give us some of that. Clean up the interface. Make DED complexes easier to find. Put in scripted events, music, some unique game mechanics. I'll bet Relic didn't have 50 devs.

Ever hear of Gardner Dozois? Since 1985, he's been putting annual collections of the best sci-fi short story writers. I'll bet he and his friends can design some missions to bend your head.

Dust is cool. But EVE Gate? C'mon... and SgtBaker nailed it "World of Twilight". Don't get me wrong, I loved the Vampire Masquerade games, but I get enough of that these days between True Blood and the Underworld movies.

I just like being in out in the black. MOAR SPACE PEW PEW!

I know I don't have complete insight into the production process of this game though CCP tries to be a really transparent company, but these development plans simply do not sound reassuring for us players.

I mean, we always reckoned that the CSM may have been a publicity stunt and marketing trick. Now we know it. CCP doesn't listen to the player base because they don't have the resources - and don't want to.
That's a pity because again, CCP works on more concepts and ideas that sound really cool on paper but they forgot about all those ideas that they threw in before and didn't work properly. They just tend to forget and move on.

As for Incarna - I don't believe that it will add anything really useful to the core gameplay of EVE but I bet that simply the possibility of creating a fully animated avatar will give EVE's subscriber-numbers a boost.
Maybe it's just the Barbie doll effect that a lot of MMOers seek in these games and all those crossdressers already playing EVE will finally get to make their Gallente space-tramps look sexy - swimsuit-style. :)

Someone has to do the work while everyone is making music videos, your subscription dollars hard at work :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q

Interesting thread - and so far - no flamewar.

I think overall there is a good indication here that a strong percentage of Eve players (especially the older base) - and the CSM representatives who did have thousands of players vote for them - and supposedly do have a stakeholder role in Eve development (which is a good thing because they represent the client of the product) - are not too happy with latest dev blog by CCP, and pretty much putting on ice for a year and a half any significant changes to long known issues either pointed out by the CSM in their most recent meeting in Iceland or simply know by fiat: rockets, FW problems, fleet lag, etc.

Hopefully CCP is listening including those who are piloting the CCP spaceship - and can make a few course corrections. I don't think players are asking for the moon here - just asking that not so many eggs be placed in one basket.

To all the people acting like the sky is falling at CCP and that is why they can't hire people:
Location and pay / world economy probably have a good deal to do with it, but when it comes to software engineering one of the main reasons they haven't filled many of those positions is almost certainly because frankly, programmers of a CCP-caliber are rare, if not nearly impossible, to come by. Even moreso if you also want such a programmer to be a fit with the company culture and generally not-an-ass. Have any of you seen the devblogs detailing the kind of tech these guys have developed? It's seriously badass, and it's not the kind of thing your average college graduate can whip up in two weeks.

To the people worried about their internet spaceships being second rate to Team Edward:
Something that you all need to keep in mind is that market *growth* is as important (if not more important) to sustaining a product, company, and industry as keeping the current customer base happy. This is why casual games like Farmville are getting massive cash injections, why CCP is developing a game about vampires that you think only 14 year old girls would be interested in (hint: 14 year old girls have allowances too), and why on an even smaller level CCP is developing Incarna, a game that allows you to become your sci-fi avatar and interact in a space station, for a game that currently only caters to internet spaceship fanboys like us (hint again: some people are much more interested in being a sci-fi character than a sci-fi spaceship).

Anyways, just my fifty cents.

So how do you know they need more people? Frankly some projects (for the amount of work being done) more people doesn't actually make any sense.

The problem isn't necessarily the numbers by themselves, the problem is with a lack of accountability.

"Transparency" is only valuable if what you're being told is honest. CCP has for the past few years told CSM "Don't worry, we're going to address the issues you are bringing up, just give us a little more time. Incarna will not interfere with our ability to work on Eve."

Then, in the latest summit, CSM brings up the fact that CCP said that they would address their issues "soon" as of two years ago. In response, CCP says that all of their developers are already committed and there is no one available to address issues brought up by CSM for another 18 months.

Yes, they are (thank god) supposedly addressing fleet lag, but the lag is a recent issue caused by the company pushing out an wholly incomplete expansion that seems to have caused more problems than anything.

All of the previously promised issues, however, are not being addressed.

Seriously people need to calm down. EVE is dieing eve is being run into the ground blah blah its all you ever hear from forums these days, people in game are busy massacring each other as usual, with no end in sight.

You know iv played eve since 03/04, way back before sovereignty was even implemented. The game has evolved much over the past 6+ years, stuff has been added / changed, nerf but the core foundation and guiding vision and ideals behind the game remain the same since day one. As long as CCP doesn't alter or destroy the core foundation sandbox free space esq universe than this game will not die.

Iv been a pvper / ganker/ pirate / fleet battler my whole eve-career Iv done everything from high sec war deck to 0.0 to low sec pirating.. from noob frigate duel to capital fleet fight in contested space Iv done it ALL.. Its always the same group of people (everyone) bitching about xyz... 140 devs working is a **** load of devs for a mmorpg that is what ? 7 years or more old??? Look at other games in this age range, tell me how many devs they have... heck, I would be surprised if former big names like SOE or Mythic even have 140 devs or even employees in their entire company across all projects/departments... let alone ONE game.

I currently reside in gallente lowesec and you know what? They add some role playing in station stuff that I may not care about to use but it will still benefit me. If it reels in more care-bears that come through the gate in phat haulers and get popped, its only a good thing for me and my corp. Even better is when said care bears try out pvp and eventually become halfway decent, adding another person to Eves bloody and never ending power struggle.

Half of the people I know and associate with in eve, some even in different corps, were care bears at first and then turned to the dark side later on, and became quite efficient to boot.. Heck i was a carebear at first till i realised it was more rewarding to steal other peoples ore in jet cans for isk than spend time to harvest my own. This was even before flagging so I didnt even get to pewpew!

I personally like the direction that CCP takes and if its going to grow the player base even more what is there to complain about. More meat for the grinder!

And if you get bored of eve, the direction, whatever... quit. Take breaks. we all do, very few people have played straight from launch, but for me , eve always brings me back because.... theres nothing like it. What are you gonna play besides eve thats sandbox? Hmm, dark fall maybe, or mortal online if you like paying to beta-test, both games are fantasy though so for sci-fi sandbox I think your stuck with eve for a while.

Go ahead and tell me all about TERA, black rise and next-generation sandbox game X Y Z.... and how its gonna completely change the market and kill eve The amount of MMORPGS that are developed/announced vs the amount that actually cross the launch line and survive more than 6 months while being well received is highly disproportionate. Sandboxes? We have like three that are live, that are considered "mainstream" though CCP adventurine and star vault are all INDIE, even though CCP does AAA revenue and further developments...

Until then.... EVE away

I have studied even now for a while, been my long term project, and I tried to read most of the posts before posting a lot of good stuff all around everyone. I am 4+ years into Eve, have done it all sort of like the guy above me here. I don't agree with the direction Eve development has taken over the past few years, but I understand why it goes the way it does. I have written many pages of comments over the years on many different alts, and could write a 1000 more, and built games for a living 20+ years.

My point, if you are a great player of Eve it is free, how can you complain about free fun like this, I cant anymore. Plex or WH your little heart out build an ISK generating Empire, buy GTC or Plexpass's and use the rest of your time to kill everything you can, it is an awesome game and I love it.

Vote with your feet its human nature, quit or figure out how to work the in-game system to play for free, (not cheating) nothing like that, but just using the market and having 3-4 accounts, you can mine, or WH or plex to do it, its really isn't that hard if you have the time to put in. Once you get the isk gen running on auto pilot learn how to PvP and extend your empire if you have that ambition.

Now to CCP and game development hoopla ((warning wall of text incoming))

If want to know why CCP does what they do go try and make a mod for a game using Unreal 3 or some other free to try game engine and learn the process, making any software is very hard, making a video game is more complicated then launching the space shuttle, its the hardest thing to do but a lot of fun.

Trying to understand game development from the original dev blog is nearly impossible, but that being said a lot of the comments are dancing around the main issue, it is simple CCP doesn't make that much money off Eve, they really don't in the great scheme of things, many VP's from large studios have looked at Eve as a product and CCP as a target to purchase, after the numbers are crunched they are like OMG this makes me sad I thought I found a golden nugget, no gold, ask Atari how well the Box product sold, I think that CEO was already fired last year.

CCP is trying to get WoD finished off the life line of Eve, they need 3-5 x more subs from WoD then Eve has, that is why they work for cheap, CCP pays terrible, I want to work for them and have talked to them many times and will continue to do so, but they don't pay well, they are located in terrible locations for getting great development talent, they get a few here or there but come on, its not like California where Google hires 1000 people a week mostly engineers with PhD's or even scary for me personally all the best game development talent we have in the Bay Area, I mean every great engineer that I know is working at Google, Zygena or Apple now, hard to find these guys to begin with and they are all scooped. CCP has no chance to get them you say Iceland and just hear a click.

You also have to look at who created Eve, how many of the original guys are still working on Eve after what 8 years, nobody wants to work on anything for 8 years, so they go on to WoD something new and use what Eve has given the world and build on it mostly tech, and what doesn't work.

Current team, they have taken the guys below them and promoted them to run Eve while they build the next thing, great for them as the newly promoted guys get to have more responsibility and grow move down the road as their career mature, Zulu was a technical artist when I first met him, nice guy, smart guy but Eve is the only game he has worked on his experience is limited to what he has done at CCP, I tried to explain to him why walking in stations would break the server network when they showed it to me on a laptop 4 years ago, I was excited to see it, and had good answers to my worry's but it dawned on me during the conversation that he actually believed that his engineers could pull off the miracle of getting to work at a large scale with out really any facts to back it up, this is when I realized he would be in store for some pain down the road, as of today no engineer has solved breaking the speed of light which is fast as the data can move across a processor you do hit that limit, he never worked on console games so I had hope that I was wrong some how but left that conversation thinking I just don't think he know how hard this is to do. I have been wrong so many times in my life about so many things I figured hey well I hope I am wrong maybe they have special Iceland water that creates super genius's smarter then the smartest engineers from Old Atari, EA, Activision, that give me my reality checks when I dream big. I asked about solving these issues on my return, they laughed at me which is normally how these conversation go, and said hmm, Carmackian pause I don't think so, hmm, nope, cant be done with the current hardware on this planet maybe another in some other universe or down the road, please consult Elbert Enstien if you run into him.

Basically there is only so much room in the cup, once its full and you have written all the micro code you can and even written code down to the metal of the hardware to fix library issues from Sony, MS or Nintendo you really don't have much you can do but start removing things, been like this forever and it will never change.

I say all this to make a simple point, CCP has their hearts in the right place, but they are taking on challenges no one has ever solved, and I respect them for it, but it hasn't made the game more fun, they have removed more fun then they have added in the last few years, fun is very subjective, but for me its new toys to play with they had a great pattern going but lost it, I have been waiting for tier 2 tech 2 battle cruisers (More command ships a black drake or hurricane) since they added tier 2, skin changes and we have a whole new set of Command ships to play with cheap easy, I know its not everyone cup of tea but that was my little ember of hope to see some day, they went down the T3 path, no T3 mods? Nerf the speed sure, rebalanced all combat but then bring the tech 3 shit back from WH space and give me T3 mods for my T3 ship, like a T3 mwd that would give you the speed of pre-nerf but would melt your ship as you went that fast, good excuse for having people litterly blow themselves up from speed, cause them to buy more ships, keep the economy going, would be funny, eve at its core is suppose to entertain us.

I expected these things because they followed the CCP pattern instead I got a Facebook page for Eve, I LOL at this sadness because it indicates that the person who made that call is following what ever trend the world is flopping around about and not what made Eve the great Eve we have know. My hope is that they asked for more funding and they had to do something like this to appease the bankers, but its a terrible guess.

Anyway if you have read this far then I thank you, I figure encouragement is needed as this a long dam post, so pat on the back, and let us continue.

Dust 514 why, oh god, why:
Simple, they made all this content for Walking in Stations, well we know that never came to pass, this data was finished and sitting on the server for about a year, HEY why don't we take it and use it to make an FPS game because those sales will at least recover the cost of doing it all and we cant use it for Eve with out breaking the entire game or changing it. Well we can write an FPS engine we are smart, 6-18 months we could ship this by next year, and boom we recovered our costs that cant be used in the core Eve product and Hey we get to make an FPS games, you guys like FPS games right? YES we love FPS games. Dam this is great lets do it, we can do it in China where the labor is cheap like the women, and maybe we could visit them too, and bang a few, right, right, you know its warm in China? This was done over several beers, and boom Dust 514 was born.

18 months later, hey none of that content works for an FPS game its too big scale wise, and doesn't have the detail level need to compete with the other products on the consoles, FUCK. Oh yeah and our engine doesn't work, ok FUCK me with bloody chain saw we announced this to our board already and showed them pretty mock ups, ahh...

Ok no problem stay on target, praise Jesus, cross myself, let's get the Unreal 3 engine and build the content from scratch to fit that engine, engine changes are always a good excuse and now we will expand the plan to include our core product as you will be able to fight over Eve online "resources" ok well sounds like a better plan and we have learned stuff, ok go go go, feet don't fail me now. Oh hey can we expand the China studio, well sure more hookers to bang we are tired of the old ones anyway they turned 18 this year, gulp more beer please, and on we go. Hey before I pass out let's re-release the game as a box product, someone will ship it for us, and maybe we can pay for this, ok I like that idea too. EA please go away, Activision sorry son don't you realize we just bought Blizzard please go fuck yourselves your call has wasted our time, THQ, what is Eve Online, hello Atari? ahh sure we got nothing but love for you guys and fuck we need stuff to ship we are going against EA's EAP group and want products, where do we sign, click, click, what I am inflating the forecast so it actually makes sense, one sec, click ok, done.


The game industry is a very hard industry, I hope you can take the comments above in the humor they are intended, I have hope that CCP can get back on track, I love Eve, and hope they can add to it in a way that keeps me interested, it is by far the best game I have played in my life. Putting the entire company back on Eve to get it working again is the best way to go, you don't have enough talent to split it up, focus finish, then make the next game.

Good luck gentlemen!