COLUMN: 'Play Evolution': EVE Online's Eve-olution
[“Play Evolution” is a bi-weekly column by James Lantz that discusses the changes that games undergo after their release, from little developer patches to huge gameplay revelations, and everything in between. This week: the shifting rules of EVE Online.]
Ever since its inception, EVE Online has harbored a tight-knit community consisting largely of hardcore players. The small size of the community allowed developers to retain a certain intimacy with the evolution of their game and the opinions of their player base that most developers cannot afford to have. As the developers released patches and the players began to grow familiar with the intricacies of the game, they revealed several problems that were woven into the core design of EVE. Some of the issues EVE found itself facing remain unsolved in any MMO to date.
As EVE’s developers released their first content patches, they decided to create new and more powerful ship classes instead of expanding the uses of those currently in the game. However, only the most experienced players at any given time could fly these new, freshly minted ships. Experience in EVE has nothing to do with player skill or decision making, it’s simply a matter of age: the older your player character, the bigger ships you can fly. With its complex interface and ham-handed tutorials, EVE was already unfriendly to new players, and the content patches weren’t helping matters.
However, the main draw of EVE is its massive galactic wars and these new patches did nothing to diminish the innate draw of deep space antics; EVE’s player base grew steadily, albeit slowly. As the players began to explore the game’s limits and poke about its soft bits they found a wealth of powerful strategies and profitable exploits. The developers, however, were tied so closely to the game’s evolution that they began to patch out any imbalances as soon as they arose.
Now, it is all well and good to try to keep your game balanced. After all, a game with a single dominant strategy dies quickly. However, to try to make each individual strategy equally viable is counter-productive. If you do not let certain strategies dominate, then your game will never evolve. Playing a game is trying to find a strategy that is better than your opponent’s. If all strategies are perfectly balanced, then you are not playing a game at all, but simply making a series of arbitrary and ultimately pointless decisions with pretty pictures attached. This was the danger EVE’s developers courted with their overzealous tuning.
This problem is not limited to EVE, either. This whack-a-mole style patching system is present in almost any MMO. The issue is, at its heart, a complicated problem that is tied to any persistent world. The player is asked to make a series of complex decisions, the meaning of which is obscured in flowery flavor text, between classes, races, hairstyles and eyebrow ornamentation. Some of these decisions are critical, some mean very little. The player is then asked to dedicate several dozen hours to developing this character. During that time, the game is essentially a single player RPG with the occasional group, rather than a multiplayer game. This is especially true in EVE, where neither your skill nor the time you dedicate to the game has anything to do with your level.
Of course, once you reach your maximum level, you become acutely aware that you are playing a multiplayer game, and it begins to get competitive. If a player has spent fifty hours leveling a Troll character, only to discover that Ogres are far superior, they’re going to get pissy, and rightfully so.
The problem is not a simple one, but it is possible to solve. If the core gameplay is deep enough, the game will continue to evolve with only minimal balance tweaks. That is to say, in a deep game, like Starcraft or Street Fighter, one player will develop a dominant strategy for a certain character type, and a counter-strategy for another character will emerge, which in turn is destroyed by an early strategy that had been considered weak, and so on.
Players in these games are encouraged to develop strategies in part because the developers will not release a patch that renders them useless. The problem, therefore, stems largely from the sense of entitlement that most MMO players have, the notion that the developers owe it to the player base to keep the game perfectly balanced and the eagerness of developers to agree.
EVE’s developers not only scrambled to keep the game balanced, but also began to introduce squishy rules. These rules governed actions that were impossible to remove from the game, but that the developers had declared unfair in the terms of service. Players could perform the action, but if they were found out they could get anything from a slap on the wrist to a permanent ban.
In abstract the idea is not bad, but in EVE it began to extend to anything the players complained about. The developers would decide on one occasion that bumping ships outside a protective bubble was perfectly reasonable, and then later on decide that it hurt the game. The developers began to reimburse players who complained that they lost their ships due to lag, or other circumstances that were unfair in one way or another. These constant petitions put another strain on the game.
However, internet-wide space glory is still universally appealing, and EVE’s player base grew steadily. Even though the game was constantly changing, the players still explored it, and it became evident that there was a meta-game within the game: reality. Immense lag was prevalent in almost every large scale battle, and occasionally entire solar systems lagged out under the weight of player traffic. Eventually, lag became integrated into fleet tactics, forcing commanders to rely on slow, safe strategies rather than try anything quick and flashy. Additionally, time zones became crucial as the game grew larger – certain alliances possess incredibly power simply because they can attack in full strength while the enemy is fast asleep.
Of the many evolutions that EVE has undergone, the meta game is one of the most fascinating and strangely enthralling, largely due to the sense of reality it adds. While the constant content patches have made the higher levels of gameplay all but a distant dream for new players and hampered thorough strategic exploitation, and while the squishy rules are enforced according to the whims and moods of the developers, the meta game showcases some of EVE’s incredibly appealing qualities.
To lie in wait for a player to log in, to attack under the veil of night, to log in on top of an entire enemy fleet, or to slip out of a system undetected at 4 AM – these are the kind of interesting tactics that emerge when players are forced to deal with the hard limits of reality.
[James Lantz is a starving writer who runs a part-time hippopotamus milking service on the side. He also writes a blog, of course.]
Comments
Players do not have an abstract sense of entitlement. Players want game balance because MMORPGs are essentially a service to entertain you. If certain options fail to be engaging, players get upset and quit. Developers strive for game balance in order to keep the continued support of their customers.
Posted by: Velops | October 4, 2007 2:48 AM
Velops - I think that this problem stems from an inherent design difficulty in any MMORPG: player investement. In Call of Duty 2, it was widely believed that the Garand was a stronger weapon than the Carbine, so players who found the Carbine less enjoyable than the Garand just started using a different weapon, and those who stayed with the Carbine began to develop strategies to make it stronger than the Garand. This is the way game balance works in most competetive multiplayer games.
However, in an MMORPG, players have invested dozens of hours into their weapon. Therefore, players tend to have a very strong sense of entitlement, as they will be incredibly frustrated if they find that their weapon is considered less powerful, and rightly so. However, this strong sense of entitlement makes the developers overexcited in their patching. Often, MMORPG developers will mistake standard variance for a balance mistake - that is, the popular equipment for one ship might be stronger than the popular equipment for another ship, but that does not mean that the one ship is better. All it means is that players have not yet found the sweet spot for it.
However, developers think that this statistical variance denotes a flaw in the game itself. So, overzealously, they'll begin to patch out the perceived imbalance, creating new imbalances, and new strategies (which are immediately patched), and trying to keep everyone happy with a frenzy of patches, instead of letting the game's strategy progress normally.
It's hard, though. MMORPG developers are under a lot of pressure from the players who invested all this time into their classes. There is room, though, to be a bit more patient, and to seperate the true imbalances from the standard variance that will always be in any multiplayer game.
Posted by: James Lantz | October 4, 2007 7:07 AM
I think this piece revealed several very good points, which I haven't read about anywhere else - thanks!
A question -
"If all strategies are perfectly balanced, then you are not playing a game at all, but simply making a series of arbitrary and ultimately pointless decisions with pretty pictures attached."
Could you please explain this? It seems to me that in such a case, winning depends on choosing the best strategy for the given moment, and executing it better than the opposing player or faction. So it would be still a good game, provided that a player's avatar (be it a paladin or a spaceship) or a group of players (party or fleet) is able to execute several different approaches.
Or do I misunderstand you there?
Posted by: Krawall | October 4, 2007 8:58 AM
James,
You seem to have played EVE for a while (I just read your 2006 blog article as well.)
I've been tempted by this game for a while. Can you recommend any sites to read more about EVE Online to help someone understand what they're getting into?
NOTE: I haven't ever played any MMOs other than UrbanDead.
Thanks, keep up the great articles! I look forward to reading many more. Have you posted anywhere else aside from GSW and In Machinam?
-qwip
Posted by: qwip | October 4, 2007 1:33 PM
Qwip -
Unfortunately, many of the guilds password lock their wikis in order to keep spies out, and those are the most interesting to read. Briefly: you're going to want to find a corporation. Most EVE players play in what's called "highsec": space that is patrolled by the NPC police. However, if you're like me, the real meat of the game lies in "0.0" space, space outside of the jursidiction of NPC police which can be ruled by players.
All the stories you hear about EVE come out of these systems, and all the PvP battles are out there as well, but you won't survive very long out there without a corporation behind you.
Also, expect a huge learning curve.
If you want to get yourself pumped, though, there are a ton of great articles on EVE. Check out:
http://www.metafilter.com/51605/Keep-your-friends-close (the PC Gamer stuff)
http://shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=527
http://www.wirm.net/nightfreeze/part1.html
I haven't written anyhwere else, but I'm glad you like my stuff. Send me an email if you want any more help with EVE, it's complicated.
Krawall -
I guess what I'm saying is that there's some inherent hypocrisy in the idea of perfectly balancing a game. If all strategies are perfectly balanced, then there is no reason to use one over another, and, therefore, no reason to even have multiple strategies.
For example, if you are taking down an instance boss in World of Warcraft then you are going to be looking for the strategy that defeats that boss quickly and safely. If coming in from the front yields exactly the same results as coming in from the back, then that decision is meaningless.
Similarly, let's say that someome discovers a perfect setup for an Amarr battleship that makes them much better at ranged combat than a Caldari battleship. Let's say that 99% of players in EVE PvP at a range, so Amarr battleships now destroy Caldari ones in PvP.
Now, if EVE was not patched very often, this would force players to figure out a new setup for Caldari battleships or, more drastically, a new way to approach PvP altogether. However, in EVE (and most MMOs) developers will immediately see this as an imbalance, and patch it so that the two are equal again. The way players PvP stays the same, the popular setups stay the same, and now the decision between Amarr and Caldari battleships is a pointless one, as both are equally good at PvP - that is, until someone finds another dominant strategy, and it is patched out.
Posted by: James Lantz | October 4, 2007 3:11 PM
Excellent article. Its worthwhile reading what David Sirlin has to say on game balance at http://sirlin.net
He's also put up the complete text of his book Playing to Win online which discusses a lot of what you've raised here.
Posted by: Andrew Doull | October 4, 2007 9:56 PM
Thanks for the suggested reading. After polishing off those articles, I really hope my older PC *can't* run EVE.
But I'm about to find out...
Posted by: qwip | October 5, 2007 6:13 AM
Actually one of the respondant's made a very good point.
In Street Fighter II, if I decided that Blanca is overpowered compared to may favorite character, I can switch immediatly to Blanca. If I decide to stick with Sagat, it will only be because I enjoy playing him.
In an MMO, if I get to the cap with a class or races that sucks or is inferior to something, I can't really start over. To get back to where I was with a different set of initial choices would require an investment of 100s of hours. For this reason, MMO players expect, and should receive imo, better game balance than players of most games.
In areas where you can change things up at will (for example "respecs" in many games) I don't think it's as critical. But any important decision that you will not be able to see the repercussions of until you have invested literally days of time played should be one option among rough equals.
Posted by: Yeebo | October 5, 2007 3:58 PM
I think you mistake devs doing this for player's whining to community liasons, who complain to the marketing bosses, who complain to the CEO/Product lead who then asks the developers to change it. Same end result, but blame the players and whiners for starting the ball rolling. once the ball rolls around, it ends up squishing everyone.
Posted by: Blamewhereblameisdue | October 8, 2007 3:32 PM