EVE Online: 100,000 served

CCP Games' MMORPG still holds record for concurrent users in a single game universe, hardware overhaul scheduled for this month.

EVE Online is putting the "massively multiplayer" in its massively multiplayer online role-playing game, EVE Online. The game, from Icelandic developer CCP Games, now has 100,000 active game subscribers, and currently holds the record for concurrent players in a single, persistent game universe at 23,178 simultaneous users. To help accommodate its growing population, CCP will complete a hardware overhaul, allowing the game to handle more users, expand its universe, and to run more smoothly. EVE Online allows players to explore a world thousands of years in the future and make their living through a variety of methods, including trade, mining, or combat.

23 Comments

  • SandwichPowder

    Posted Jan 16, 2009 8:09 am PT

    to the comment about Wow having several shards with 20K per server. Even if that was the case, people move and can move from shard to shard. Eve never has less than 35K anymore, and is regularly exceeding 40k. And it's the same players. One universe.

    To the comment about "only 100,000 objects, it's just outerspace"

    With the new Trinity expansion, the graphics and shaders for eve include hdr lighting, and far exceed any other MMO. We also now have more people than ever. Personally, if you don't like the game, good. Stay out. It's a niche game, and I like it that way.

  • smiffy2005

    Posted May 3, 2006 3:19 pm PT

    I've played EVE, WoW and Guild wars and the only one that has kept me playing is EVE. I thought guild wars was just a complete rip-off of WoW and a fairly badly done one at that. I didnt like the whole idea that the majority of the game occurs in instances, with you and only a couple of other players. I played WoW for a while but got bored of the same old running from place to place and the training time that was needed, plus the fact that once you get to the max level, you dont really get any better from then on, you just come to a bit of dead end as far as skilling up goes.
    With EVE, you can be playing for years and still have things to train for and get, plus the way in which the game is structured allows for a much more player run game, where alliances can control a number of systems one day, then have another alliance declair war and take over from that alliance. This means the players control all the events in game, aswell as the market and manufacturing side of it. Oh, and I have only been mining asteroids once or twice, all the rest of the time is spent participating in the hugely varied combat side of the game, whether it be pvp or missions.

  • LostPower

    Posted Feb 17, 2006 11:58 am PT

    Keeep in mind guys. The Beta / Retail reviewed by gamespot version of this game is long gone!!! It USED to be all astroid mining (trust me, I was there) but I just starting playing again a little over a month ago. Have worked my way up in the game quite fast (Flying a Battlecruiser + 30mil in the bank) and havent mined one single astroid!!!

    U know what I did? Combat missions! This game is the ****

  • Recluse

    Posted Feb 13, 2006 12:12 pm PT

    "Eve is a "game" unlike any other. It does not lead you around by the nose going from pointless quest to pointless quest, endlessly chasing virtual items to move you higher on a pointless scoreboard. In fact, the software oncluded in the client & resident on the server is not really a "game" at all. It has no arbitrary goals, no league tables, no real boundaries of acheivment you can cross to turn around and say "I won".

    There are two types of MMO - "Narrative" and "Sandbox". Narritive games (like Planescape: Torment, NeverWinter Nights, EverQuest et al, and to a lesser extent WoW) dictate the social interactions of the players very tightly. Strict rules of conduct are enforced on gameplay by the content of the game. You are herded along certain paths & made to feel acheivement by reaching arbitrary and clearly delineated goals.

    Eve is not a narritive game. The only time you can say "I win" is in an individual duel with clearly stipulated win criteria. The core concept of Eve is sandbox. The game is a playground filled with sand and tools for us, the players, to make whatever game of it we will, limited only by the uses our imaginations can put those tools to. Some of us choose to use some tools to throw the sand at each other, some of us use other tools to make obsticles for our opponents and enable our playmates to throw more sand. The NPCs, the roids, the Cstations, the outposts, the ships - everything on the map is part of that toolset.

    Whatever way you play, indy or fighter, researcher or scientist, big corp, small corp or freelancer, empire or 0.0, you're in that sandbox playing with the other kids. No amount of stubborness or ignorance of this fact will change it. Like it or not, you're leading a virtual life and affecting the virtual lives of others in possibly the most extensively realised virtual realities.

    But the most fascinating, compelling & rewarding facet of Eve is not provided by the sandbox. It's not the graphics, or the cool ships, or the backstory. It's what has got many psychology, sociology and economics majors using Eve as a science lab for a paper or the subject of a dissertation. It's what keeps a Ph.D of Mathematical Physics (with particular emphasis on chaos theiry) utterly fascinated with and devoted to the "game". The thing about people is their chaotic nature. Throw 'em into a melting pot like Eve, and chaos ensues. However, over time, patterns start to emerge from a chaotic system. And in Eve, that chaotic system is a big-ass crowd of people.

    The patterns that have emerged and continue to emerge from the chaotic sandox of Eve Online are relationships. These relationships manifest themselves as communities. Real, tangible, familial communities. Underneath all the smack and flames on the forums and the 2-day battles of old lie these real human relationships. Military, commercial and socio-political systems emerge from the interactions between these communities and, unfettered by real world constraints, they continue to evolve, adapting to new tools and resources, but more importantly to new relationships and communities. "
    -Quoted from Zzazzt of Millenium

  • brofar

    Posted Feb 8, 2006 10:06 am PT

    I've played EVE since Beta until about this Christams .. the game has really grown from what it was when it was first released. Those saying that game is only about mining asteroids, havent played in a long while, or never spent enough time with the game.

    True you do start mining asteroids, but if you find a good corporation to help you, you could be doing very well in a month. EVE's unique leveling system prevents people from creating ultimate characters that cannot be defeated something short of their own supremacy. In fact, in EVE a month-old character has a very good chances of winning a battle aganist a year old one.

    EVE's Economy is run almost exclusively by players, NPC corporations dont sell ships larger then basic frigates in general, which introduces a lot of opportinuty to people who do mine asteroids: they could either make ships for sale or sell the ore to producers.

    The game's universecan be divited into two sections, the NPC run Empire space where the four great NPC nations run. Outside that is what was once the Lawless space, but which is mostly home of player created Alliances that banded together to gain access to the vast riches of the lawless space. While attacking players in secure space will meet with almost certian doom, the fighting is not prohibited at all in the lawless space. However factions can declare war on one another to allow for combat in secure space.

    EVE is an interesting game but unlike games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, making progress in EVE is extreemly slow. This is what turns away a lot of players.

    Personally I play World of Warcraft now but I keep my 3 year old character on EVE still running.

  • corned

    Posted Feb 8, 2006 9:46 am PT

    I have to agree with NagaSadow. I have been an EvE Player for nearly 3 years now. It IS without a doubt the best MMO that I have played. If you are not part of a Corp / Alliance, then you cannot rate this game.

    Fleet battles in low security space and PVP is what keeps me coming back to this game. Yes it is complicated and that is the beauty of this game. It gives you options, you need to think. It is not a rush in and kill everything type of game. It is for the more mature gamer.

    Also, when you loose a pvp battle, you die...you loose your stuff (ship modules and maybe even your pod) and that is where this game excells. I sometimes get such an adrenaline rush during pvp that I can't hold onto the mouse ...why, because you have something to loose. Then if you loose your ship and modules, then you might have to go back to mining for a couple of days to build new stuff....but don't take my word for it. Download the free trail and try it

  • azizrulez

    Posted Feb 8, 2006 8:40 am PT

    thats nothing compared to WOW

  • NagaSadow

    Posted Feb 8, 2006 1:53 am PT

    Well, its structured so that you`ll only see a large amount of players at the same time when there`s a fleet battle in progress (It has 5000+ solarsystems). This is the game where you have alliances spanning 100`s of members ( the largest one having 2500+ players) mobilising their forces of frigates, cruisers, battleships, carriers and dreadnaughts defending/conquering vast territories spanning 100`s of star systems and thousands of planets. Its like a slow version of real time Master of Orion II. Endless customisation of ships, enormeus amounts of ship classes and modules to fit on those ships. This game is quite complex and open ended. Someone saying this games is only about mining roids, obviously is retarded! This game is designed to weed out people with short attention spans and a low IQ. The images found at gamespot is very old and not representative of how the game looks now. That goes for the review, as well.

  • aomalley11

    Posted Feb 8, 2006 1:51 am PT

    WoW has around 20000 ppl per server, theres over 50 servers, not 2-3 thousand as someone posted.
    I play WoW and thats all i need.
    WoW > all.
    Played Eve trial, was boring as hell imo. Im more for action.
    Ty.

  • RageSet

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 11:29 pm PT

    Great complex game. Almost as complex as my favorite MMO Game...Anarchy Online. Play both if you have the time and brain mass.

  • magirouard

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 5:06 pm PT

    I have played the trial, and I can't believe there was 23000 on one server because I rarely saw large amounts of other people. The game has alot of different things to do, if you haven't tried the trial, go ahead it free!

  • nuclearaddict

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 5:04 pm PT

    this game sucked during beta and i'm not quite sure if they made it somehow fun, but judging by some of the comments on here it's still the same old asteroid mining that is years ago during closed beta. i was so excited about this game, too, because the screenshots looked so pretty and "epic", but then i played it and i almost fell asleep in my chair. another game i was hugely disappointed by was world of warcraft. man, that game sucks and it's incredibly easy, most game end content can be done in a month. oh, and the WoW player base is downright awful. it's like they're always arguing over who is the bigger jackass.

  • ffe_neo

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 4:48 pm PT

    I just picked this up the other day and I have to admit I wasn't impressed. I thought it was overly compicated and really aimless in comparison to some other MMOs available which I have recently played (CoV, WoW, etc.) and after playing a few hours on my first day I pretty much thought I had made a huge mistake but I came back the next day and tried it again and gave it a bit more time and it has really grown on me in the last few days. I love playing it now and I've even got a couple of friends trying it too. The best part is you can play it windowed! So I can play and read Gamespot at the same time hehe.

  • Khimarhi

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 4:14 pm PT

    never even wanted to try it WoW is more then enough for me

  • Ronin_87

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 4:09 pm PT

    I trried it free a while ago and really liked it. Didn't stick with it though as I'm cheap. I got Guild Wars instead .

  • alchemda

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:38 pm PT

    It is a space combat game, but its much more than that. You should try the free no hassle no credit card 14 day trial. It may change your life haha. 100,000 isnt alot, but it is quite a few for being a moderately no name game. The main thing that this game has goin is its concurrent single server architecture. The EVE universe is HUGE. imagine cramming 23000 people into a single persisant un instanced world. most WoW or DAoC or EQ2 servers on average have about 2-4 thou on them

  • chibi-acer

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:36 pm PT

    I hate this game. It's sooo boring. I have a friend who plays it all the time, but all he does is mine asteroids so that he has cash to buy bigger ships and can now mine more asteroids simulanteously. Woo hoo. EVE can support a massive universe on one server because there's only 100,000 objects in it (it's outerspace!). It's not like other MMORPGs, where there are rocks, trees, hills, etc.

  • DonArmageddon

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:31 pm PT

    I used to play it. It was great, because everyone played in the same universe, which by now has been carved up into multiple player-run sovereignties. I stopped before a ton of new content was added to the game; it's really amazing now, apparently.

  • toadhjo

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:25 pm PT

    My friend plays, it costs $15 a month. Also, keep in mind, unlike many MMOs, this one has everybody on one server, it doesn't have multiple servers. I guess it's alot more opened ended than some other MMOs as well.

  • frankeyser

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:20 pm PT

    100,000 may not seem like much but if they are even only charging 5 bucks a month that is still 500000 thousand dollars and operating costs at most can only be 10k to 20k a month i would think. so you are banking atleast 400,000k... hmm.... i need i program and mmorpg me thinks...

  • tenorio_rotc

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:15 pm PT

    100,000 doesnt sound like many, and perhaps some may still be with the free trial. I always thought it was some space combat game.

  • Donkeljohn Site moderator

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:01 pm PT

    I guess there are still more asteroids to mine.

  • mikey050591

    Posted Feb 7, 2006 3:01 pm PT

    never heard of it before, seems popular though

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