EVE Online's Torfi Frans Interview

Page 3 of 3. Page 2

Eurogamer: You've been talking a lot about technology this Fanfest. Is it fair to say that CCP and EVE Online are driven by technology first and game design second?

Torfi Frans: Hmm, I think that's got negative connotations if you just say that, that we're feature-creeping engineers. However, I see technology in games as a tool to empower the player - be it fancy graphics, or a complex market system, or whatever. So our approach to game design has often been one more towards systems than story.

So we build systems rather than linear storyline flows that the player progresses through - although as we've moved along our missions and our PVE environments, we have made it less sandboxy. But As game designers and players ourselves, we find non-linear gameplay so much more rewarding and exciting. So we try to focus on systems that allow emergent gameplay to happen, rather than dictate what it's supposed to be.

Eurogamer: How have the changes you've made to the starting experience gone down? Have they really made EVE more accessible?

Torfi Frans: I think it made it better, but we are working to make it dramatically better, and that's actually going to be announced tomorrow. We are dramatically going to change the first experience when you're popping the cherry as a new player, to partly alleviate the steep learning curve of EVE.

However, the game is complex, there is no way around that. It is a complex game, our players are a stratgeically-thiking, intelligent, clever bunch of people who like to be challenged by a game like that. I would never want to dumb it down just to get more bodies through the door. Sure, I want to make it easier for people to understand what's in there, but I think it would be very counter-productive and not what our players want and not what we as developers want to make, you know, Hello Kitty Online.

Although we play Hello Kitty Online. Or somebody was playing it the other day.

Eurogamer: There seem to be a lot of capital ships, and even quite a few Titans in the game. Is it healthy to have that much high-end content? Isn't it just too easy to make money in EVE now?

Exotic dancers, like everything else, have to be hired at market rates.

Torfi Frans: That's more of a question for Dr Eijor [Gudmundsson, CCP's chief economist], actually... I just want everybody to be happy and make money and kill people.

It's a balancing question, it's a question of politics. Let's say we make it harder to make money and harder to make capital ships, that means less crafting for those who enjoy it; if we make it easier then it's an inflation of technology and currency. It's just one of these endless balancing issues and questions that we take, working closely with our research and statistics division, led by Dr Eijor - and by interacting with players on the forums and monitoring play styles. There's no simple answer to it. It's such a non-linear, complex, intricate system, it's just like a regular economy of a country.

Eurogamer: Can you give any indication when do you expect to deliver Walking In Stations?

Torfi Frans: No actually, I can't. It's closer than it was at last Fanfest. We have an internal date, but we don't want to release it until we're happy with it. However, we're going to release it before we start feature-creeping on it. So we'd like it out the door sooner, to get people's reactions then iterate on it, than over-engineer it and have it come out in ten years and then be perfect.

Eurogamer: So. Next year?

Torfi Frans: Possibly.

Eurogamer: Although EVE isn't the biggest MMO in the world, it's known for steadily growing its subscriber base ever since it launched. Will you ever reach a point where it plateaus?

Torfi Frans: Well, theoretically of course there is a ceiling, because there's a limited amount of people in the universe. In the known universe. But I think if we continue to reward the players with new features and functionality in the same manner as they reward us with their subscriptions, then there's no end in sight. I don't see why it's not going to live for another five to ten years.