All about EVE.

So, lately, I've been playing this massively multiplayer online game called EVE Online. It's not your normal MMO, because there's not a whole hell of a lot of running around, bowing and being social about it. In fact, you don't have a little avatar, you just have a ship and a big old galaxy to conquer with your ship.

A lot of people probably won't dig EVE because, as I already stated, it's not what we'll call a "chat-room social" game. There is, indeed, a lot of socializing going on, but it's pretty much all aimed toward business. You see, the heart of EVE is that's it's an economy simulator. Economy of cash, economy of goods, economy of space and, ultimately, economy of power. You establish business relationships with other players in order to function more efficiently within those economies.

In order to be truly effective in EVE, individuals must join into corporations. Corporations are not just loose associations, they have hierarchies, defined roles for corporation officers, voting procedures, internal security procedures and clearances, the ability to make legal 'war' on other corporations ( which I'll discuss sometime in the near future ), and even the ability to be publicly traded ( although the mechanisms for the stock market aren't yet online ). With a corporation, it is much easier to coordinate mining, refining, production and trade operations. It's also easier to mount large scale operations, like capturing and administrating space stations.

The player-formed corporations of EVE have also created another level of resolution above the corporation, called the Alliance. An alliance is simply a semi-formal collection of corporations that are working toward a common goal, such as to control a particular portion of space, or to prevent another alliance from achieving some end. For example, there is currently a player-run pirate alliance that is holding sway over large parts of the galaxy and have recently expanded their operations at an alarming rate. Their members commonly waylay and/or destroy innocent civilians who wander into their territories, or who happen to inhabit systems they have targeted for their expansionist campaigns. Thus, almost naturally, another alliance has sprung up to counter the pirate Alliance threat. As of this writing, the two large alliances are battling each other and the outcome of that battle will determine the climate in which the rest of us do business.

I used to play a game called Space Trader for my Commodore 64, back in the mid nineteen-eighties... it was a game about flying around in space and trading different goods. You could buy different ships and outfit them with different weapons, so you could go into other parts of space and trade for more lucrative items. EVE is basically a very advanced, multiplayer version of that game.

There are infinite ways in which EVE could be made more complex and compelling. The good thing is that, since EVE is an online game, the developers are able to constantly upgrading and adjusting the world for the better. For example, the last major patch ( upgrade ) added a system that allowed players to take control of certain space stations. Some of these stations are very valuable, due to their positions along certain trade routes or in certain mineral-rich parts of space. That upgrade alone added an amount of complexity to the game that is very difficult to fathom.

I know that some academics have already started to examine the social and economic dynamics within certain games. Hopefully, someone will take the time to study EVE. An analysis of its complex and evolving systems would make for a very interesting read. For me, anyway :D