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EVE launches in Japan, adds multilingual search tool

Jef Reahard — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items, Sandbox

Japanese sandbox fans are saying domo arigato this morning as CCP and Nexon have officially launched a localized version of EVE Online in the land of the rising sun.

Japan boasts the world's fourth largest gaming community, and CCP has added it to an impressive list of conquests that include English-, Chinese-, Russian-, and German-speaking markets. The company is handling all of the game-related conversion tasks via its in-house localization system, while Nexon is responsible for various marketing and support initiatives.

CCP has also added a multilingual search tool to the EVE client. The new functionality "helps weld the disparate language groups present in EVE into a more global and unified game experience -- truly demonstrating the impact and value of the single shard server model," says senior producer Jon Lander.

[Source: CCP press release]

EVE launches in Japan, adds multilingual search tool originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP acquires new FCP hardware to fight EVE Online lag

Jef Reahard — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry, News items, Dev Diaries

Insomnia can be dealt with in different ways. Some people count sheep. Others pop pills. For those of us whose eyes are prone to glazing over upon hearing computer-related techno-babble, reading a dev blog such as the new network performance-related piece from CCP might be just the thing we need to start nodding off.

All kidding aside, though, EVE Online is continually waging a war against lag, and unlike multi-shard MMOs with servers spread across different physical locations, CCP's sci-fi sandbox is beset with numerous technical challenges stemming from its one-server setup. Making matters worse for the IT nerds at the Icelandic development studio is the fact that tons of people like EVE, and those people are constantly setting new concurrent user records and pounding the heck out of Tranquility.

CCP Mort's blog entry details the company's newly purchased Flow Control Platform (FCP), which "ties in closely with our Edge routers; it monitors all traffic to and from the game cluster, has a BGP peering relationship with the Edge routers, and monitors the pipes to our providers for bandwidth and errors." The short version is that FCP is CCP's latest offensive in the ongoing lag wars saga, and the company remains committed to perfecting the EVE Online experience going forward.

CCP acquires new FCP hardware to fight EVE Online lag originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earthrise going with single server worldwide

Jef Reahard — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, New titles, News items, Earthrise

The team at Masthead Studios has provided a bit more information about Earthrise's recently announced February release date. While Monday's press release revealed that the sci-fi sandbox is coming to European retail in a few short weeks, it conspicuously left out any mention of an American launch or an American server.

As it turns out, this is because Earthrise will feature a single shard for gamers all over the world according to a forum post sighted yesterday on the official boards. "There will be one global server for Earthrise when the game goes live in February. There is one server for all players, no matter where in the world they are located," says Kuliani, Masthead's community manager.

Earthrise going with single server worldwide originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: The war on lag

Brendan Drain — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry, Patches, News items, EVE Evolved

It seems as though everywhere I go to read about EVE Online, someone is complaining about lag. Throughout the game's seven-year history, developers and server engineers have waged a constant battle against the lag monster. Frequent upgrades and code overhauls have ensured that the capacity of each server cluster increased at pace with the growing subscriber numbers. When the Dominion expansion came, something in it caused lag to get a lot worse. The issue has yet to be corrected and has even spurred some players to put media pressure on CCP to correct the issue.

Until recently, the developers at CCP had been very quiet on the topic of lag and their efforts to combat it. Aside from the occasional fleet-fight mass testing event on the test server and the news that there was actually an entire team dedicated to lag, players were left largely in the dark as to what was being done to address the issue. In the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, many players began to assert that EVE's developers weren't working on lag at all. Earlier this week, we posted that CCP was planning a series of devblogs on lag to showcase the progress it's made. In a surprisingly rapid turn-around, four devblogs on lag and another on CCP's core technology groups have already been posted. They cover such topics as server scalability, the results of recent mass testing events, and CCP's new "thin client" testing tool.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I introduce each of CCP's four recent devblogs on lag with a quick summary.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: The war on lag

EVE Evolved: The war on lag originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A look into the nuts-and-bolts of EVE Online's single-shard architecture

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics

Have you ever wondered why MMOs have multiple servers and limitations on the number of people that can be squeezed onto each? It's a good question, especially when you consider EVE Online's impressive single-shard (single-server) setup, where tens of thousands of concurrent players can log on in the same environment.

CCP's Kjartan Emilsson wrote an article for Gamasutra explaining why most MMOs choose to separate their population onto several severs. The main problem, Emilsson said, was the issue of avatar density. Too many players in too small of a space creates a miserable experience for all involved. So either the game has to put limits on how many avatars can be in an area, or create a playing field that is so large as to render this issue null.

Emilsson went on to argue the case for single-server games that create a united society instead of a fractured one. He detailed the setup of EVE's server architecture, which is held together by a single database at its nucleus and has been steadily growing and improving over time. If you love to read the nuts-and-bolts of the underlying technology that makes games like EVE run, then do yourself a favor and give this article your time.

A look into the nuts-and-bolts of EVE Online's single-shard architecture originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online turns 7 today, BIG corp runs huge anniversary lottery

Brendan Drain — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry

On May 6th 2003, a little online space game by a relatively unknown independent Icelandic games company was officially released. Fast forward seven years down the line and that little company is a megalithic giant in the games industry. Spanning four countries and leveraging hundreds of staff, the company has begun to expand its portfolio with a console MMOFPS and a new MMO based in the World of Darkness setting. Under CCP's development, EVE Online has stood the test of time and enjoyed a steady increase in subscriptions. At EVE's sixth anniversary last year, they announced having reached 300,000 active subscriptions with a peak concurrent user total of 53,850. Some time in December of last year, the number of EVE subscriptions finally surpassed the number of citizens in CCP's home country of Iceland. That number rose to 330,000 active subscriptions by March of this year, with a peak concurrent total of 56,021. With the Tyrannis expansion around the corner, EVE is sure to see the same characteristic growth this year too.

CCP took the time to start a congratulatory thread on the EVE forums to mark the day. To celebrate, they're also donating massive prizes to EVE's oldest and most respected player-run lottery. The BIG lottery's anniversary draw is open now for entry and closes on Sunday, May 16th, with a live prize drawing the following day. The first place winner takes home a colossal 25 billion ISK prize, with the second place reeling in a huge 10 billion ISK. CCP is sponsoring prizes of a year's free game time, a battleship model from the EVE store, a copy of the new EVE: The Burning Life novel and an EVE T-Shirt. Not to be left out, E-ON Magazine is offering the latest four issues of the magazine plus a copy of their EVE Strategic Map booklet. Finally, EVE player "Ash Tre" is sponsoring the contest with a pack of faction cruisers. From all of us here at Massively, happy birthday EVE Online!

EVE Online turns 7 today, BIG corp runs huge anniversary lottery originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 06 May 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

EVE Online sets new peak concurrent user record

James Egan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items

The sci-fi MMO EVE Online set a new record this past weekend for users logged in at a given time: 54,181 pilots, up from the previous record of 53,850 set in March of this year. This new peak concurrent user (PCU) count is a significant milestone for the single shard setting of New Eden, where all of those players can (potentially) interact with one another. New Eden is a big place though, a galaxy with thousands of charted solar systems and thousands more uncharted, accessible through wormholes. Given the size of New Eden, those 54,181 pilots may not interact directly but their actions can impact everyone else in the game, regardless of whether it's through trading, establishing or toppling industrial empires, or alliance warfare on a massive scale.

The new PCU record comes in the wake of EVE Online's Dominion expansion launch on December 1 which focuses on revamping the game mechanics of territorial control, or sovereignty, in New Eden's lawless tracts of 0.0 security (nullsec) space. CCP Games Senior Producer Torfi Frans Ólafsson told Massively: "With Dominion, we've made zero security gameplay so much more engaging. We're seeing a lot of people are taking the leap, updating their clones and jumping into the deep end of the pool. They are realizing that taking risks can bring big rewards, and lots of adrenaline pumped moments as well. Co-operation and having good allies is the key to success in the dark and brutal world of zero point zero space. We're seeing players communicate more, team up more and generally have more fun. Each day since release has been exciting for the developers as they watch this expansion unfold and take on a life of its own, in the hands of our ever-creative playerbase."

[Thanks StMistaken!]

EVE Online sets new peak concurrent user record originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online gets rework of 'Destiny' simulation engine

James Egan — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Game mechanics, PvP, PvE

EVE Online is notable among the MMO titles on the market for having a game with a single shard setting. Whether you're an industrialist mass producing exhumers or fighting in fleet battles for a large 0.0 PvP alliance, you're active in the same setting rather than shards. Keeping as many as 50,000 concurrent users active in one vast galaxy has been a challenge for CCP Games, and of course there have been numerous growing pains along the way. Namely, something called "desync".

Desync has been a catch-all term to describe the various things that can go wrong during gameplay, but in short it's been something that has plagued a number of EVE's subscribers. In the words of EVE Software Engineer CCP GingerDude, desync is "the situation where the server and client disagree on the position of an object in space at a given time." Although it's been an issue for years, the problem has just recently been solved, according to CCP GingerDude's dev blog "Facing Destiny".

Continue reading EVE Online gets rework of 'Destiny' simulation engine

EVE Online gets rework of 'Destiny' simulation engine originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online turns 6 today, announces over 300k subscribers

James Egan — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry, News items

EVE Online is the first massively multiplayer online title from CCP Games, one that's redefined what we can expect from a sandbox game. They created the gritty far-future setting of New Eden, a place where EVE's players can do as they choose in a vast galaxy comprised of thousands of solar systems, both mapped and unexplored. Today CCP Games celebrates EVE Online's sixth birthday. They state, "A 6 year persistent history. A living history where truly brilliant strategies have unfolded. Truly terrible betrayals unveiled. We are excited to see what will happen next."

CCP also announced their new subscriber milestone: EVE now has over 300,000 active subscriptions (not including trial accounts), up 22% over the past five months alone. Their peak concurrent user record has also climbed to 53,850 players interacting in the same space, a record we've noticed they seem to shatter with increasing frequency. "That is exponential growth," CCP says. "We couldn't think of a better birthday present than having more people play EVE Online than ever before. It is another sweet reminder of EVE's boundless potential."

Congratulations to CCP Games from the team at Massively, and here's looking to the next six years.

[Via Warp Drive Active]

EVE Online turns 6 today, announces over 300k subscribers originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 06 May 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP Games lead economist on social structures in EVE Online

James Egan — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, Opinion

Phil Elliott from Gamesindustry.biz recently conducted an interview with CCP Games Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson (known as CCP Dr. EyjoG) titled "Star Bucks." While the interview discussed the importance of social structures in EVE Online given the game's single-shard nature and of course the game's economics, he was asked questions about gameplay and some of the core foundations of the game -- namely the freedom to act and the consequences that result (or the perceived lack of consequences).

Dr. EyjoG was asked about the concept of trust in the sandbox game, how some players feel there's not enough reciprocity in terms of consequences for one's actions in EVE. "Should we provide more security, more traceability -- that would help it out, but it's definitely a game design and balance question. For us we see the universe as it is, we don't see that need... at this point at least," Dr. EyjoG responded. The interview also hinted at some of the as-yet unrealized possibilities in the game such as player-requests to tie sovereignty in with rules that govern those regions of controlled territory and what the game might be like years down the line.

CCP Games lead economist on social structures in EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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