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Q&A: CCP's Nathan Richardsson

By Staff, GameSpot UKPosted Jan 11, 2007 10:45 am PT

EVE's senior producer talks Revelations, the future, and acquiring infamy within the game.

At the end of 2006, CCP Games applied the first patch in its new Revelations expansion for its space-based MMOG EVE Online. We caught up with senior producer Nathan Richardsson to find out how that deployment has been going and what the future holds for the game.

GameSpot UK: Firstly, how do you feel the first part of the Revelations expansion went?

Nathan Richardsson: We were pleased before we launched it, not afterwards. There were problems, which we've been addressing, none of which were as major as we've had before, but we're always trying to be perfectionists. I'm still happy that it's out, though.

GSUK: Run through the key additions in the expansion.

NR: Contracts is one of the biggest additions. They allow people that have a limited trust relationship to work together more smoothly. Combat organisation allows groups of people to be better connected when fighting, and we've put in some new customisations for people to add rigs to their ships.

GSUK: This is the first of a couple of patches in Revelations, right?

NR: Yes, the feature list for Revelations is so huge--it was insane to try and put it all out together. The second patch will have graphical improvements and some more warfare additions, and the third one will be used to address any issues arising out of the first two parts, to make sure it's all balanced and working well.

GSUK: Your highest number of concurrent users hit 33,000 recently, which is about 50 percent of your capacity, is that right?

NR: Yes, it's actually about 47 percent, but that's the general capacity overall. The issue is that we have population dynamics, which means there are more people in certain places--certain systems are overcrowded--which affects performance. Also, when there are battles with 200 ships on each side, there are problems. So we're looking at improving the infrastructure to handle warfare more effectively and also encourage smaller groups to fight without needing to resort to huge fleets. Of course, warfare does escalate, but the big battles should be the climax rather than the starting point.

GSUK: EVE's population has doubled year on year since launch, which means that in 12 months you'll hit the maximum population possible. What will you do then?

NR: Yeah, though we do have a couple of solutions. Firstly, we're always optimising the code itself. A lot of it is three years old, it's not the best scalable code, so we'll rewrite a lot of that. Number two, we have more hardware that we can cluster, so we can increase the general capacity. Another problem lies with the content and it being consumed too quickly, so we'll come to that in the future, as well.

GSUK: Will you ever get to the point where you'll have to turn people away?

NR: Possibly, but it's not an issue that we'll come to any time soon. We need to manage the population so that people are spread out more evenly across the galaxy--but it could happen, yes.

GSUK: Most companies look at the MMOG concept and try to attract as many players as possible in order to make the most money. EVE is more self-selecting, but does it matter to CCP if you hit a limit?

NR: No, CCP became a profitable company two years ago--we're just looking at increasing the development team, which we've done as we've had the funds. Also, we're not trying to achieve 7.5 million people in EVE--I'd be happy with 300,000 maximum. I like to see new people around, but not at the cost of the game's overall offering. For us, it's not necessary to have a lot of people, because we just want to have fun with EVE. The single-shard universe will probably not scale up to 7.5 million people, after all...

GSUK: You've said that EVE with 150,000 people is much better than EVE with 75,000--will that trend always be true?

NR: To a point. After a time you will hit a ceiling, because there would be too many people chasing the same content. The space in the game is infinite, we can continue to expand the galaxy in any direction, but there will come a point where somebody will be getting in your way. There are diminishing returns.

GSUK: You changed character creation recently, and much has been said about the importance of user interfaces in MMOGs. Do you think that UIs should ever be difficult to use?

NR: No, never. We've got people working on that all the time. It's not about dumbing down the game, but making it easier to learn and making people more aware of what they can do earlier on. But MMOGs tend to be complex games by their nature, and there's a huge amount of difference between them. World of Warcraft, for example, is much simpler than EVE--the two are at opposite ends of the spectrum really--but I think that part of EVE's charm when you get into it is the complexity. But we do want to make each aspect of the game easier to understand--not to take away from the depth of those aspects, but just to make them more accessible to begin with. We're not doing a good enough job right now at easing people into all the information.

GSUK: You channel people into player organisations (corporations) as soon as possible in the game. Why?

NR: Absolutely. It's about getting you to a point where you build strong bonds with the other people in the corporation, but it's also the best possible way to learn the game. The other people there will teach you about the game, and you'll have common goals as a result.

GSUK: Is there much you can genuinely achieve playing EVE solo?

NR: There is, but it's much, much harder then playing with others. It takes a lot more effort doing it alone and not utilising the universe around you.

GSUK: When will there be a place in-game where you can find out exactly what all the thousands of different items really do?

NR: We'll be adding that at some point, a kind of encyclopedia. You'll be able to look up an item and it'll be cross linked with other items like it. Also, there'll be a lot of the game's history in there, both player-created politics and the lore of the game itself. It'll have the whole lot in there, like Wikipedia on steroids...

GSUK: Some of the stories about player politics in EVE have become pretty legendary; tell us about the year-long corporation infiltration.

NR: Yeah, the really short version was that the Guiding Hand Social Club (a corporation) was contracted to take down another corporation, and it took them 10 months to infiltrate it. At the appointed time, they assassinated the corporation's CEO, destroyed their most expensive ship, and they also got away with all of their assets. What they came away with was a huge amount of in-game effort, from a whole number of players, and they took out the whole corporation effectively. It was a pretty infamous act, and one that's gone down in game history now.

GSUK: Thanks for your time.

10 Comments

  • Ironwulfen

    Posted Mar 13, 2007 12:13 pm PT

    You should hunt down the avatar video for EVE, guys. It is a video of actual in-game footage at GDC. It shows how the in-station aspect of EVE will come to look like

  • Ikthog

    Posted Feb 2, 2007 12:48 pm PT

    It's nice to see Eve still thriving... so many MMOs seem like a long road to a quick cash grab, followed by a gradual fade into irrelevance. It's proof that you can do something really innovative and succeed, a lesson other developers and publishers need to learn.

    I will admit that, despite being a huge fan in the couple of years leading up to its launch (my corporation Web site even made it into the Eve art book that was a pre-order bonus), and even though I have tried to get back into it with every expansion, I've never really gotten into the game. I tend to be more of a solo player, or to play with small guild groups, and Eve never really seemed to have much to offer beyond a certain point unless you were willing to play the larger corporate game. That's not a criticism, exactly, and I think it's awesome that so many things are possible in Eve, even if I'm not so into the more cutthroat aspects of the game.... plus it remains one of the most atmospheric and visually impressive games out there. But you really do need to network and form alliances (and maintain them) in order to get anywhere, and I don't think it's as conducive to occasional, casual play as most MMOs. I hope it continues, and I'll be interested to see what CCP comes up with next.

  • gruby

    Posted Jan 23, 2007 2:40 pm PT

    Why ppl don't post here?
    Because there is no reason.
    Why there is no reason?
    Because if you didn't try to play it you won't understand.

    To make it simple here is an example.
    If you would be born somwhere where there is only one thing to eat and you live all your life eating this bread or sth. Then suddenly you meet somebody that ate almost anything and he will try to describe to you the taste of chocolate, you won't have a clue what he's talking about because you never had anything sweet in your mouth. So there is no point of saying anything about chocolate, you have to taste it to understand.

  • Luminous

    Posted Jan 21, 2007 11:10 am PT

    I agree with Dominico. EVE is quite complicated, but all the more rewarding for it. It's complexity drives away the WoW-hordes (with the exception of some, like Ironwulfen, and a friend of mine, who like the contrast between the two games), but instills a level of maturity that other games don't have. It's also nice, after many years of EQ, DAoC, Shadowbane, EQII to have a non-high-fantasy based MMO gaming experience.

  • Sidrat2004

    Posted Jan 18, 2007 10:43 am PT

    I've played this game on and off (real life permitting) for the last three years. Yeah, there's a lot of depth to it, but it's more about interacting with people. Do you trust them?

    An alliance has had 8B isk stolen from it as well as assets worth another 3B, by a disgruntled vice president. Suffice to say the corp and individual is on that alliance' SL.

    You can't really do that in any other game. Eve has espionage and infiltration as it's core, like it or not. There is no other game that comes close to providing political intrigue for good or bad and if that's what you're into there's plenty to go around. This isn't the same as scamming, it's much bigger and doesn't involve renaming a ship in the hope for a quick profit.

    To other people it's just a nice graphical chat room, which is fine as well. With the new character creation a specialised character can do pretty well from the starting blocks and if directed over the first month can be almost as strong as a one year old character who's more diverse.

    Give it a go - Golden Rule is to TALK TO PEOPLE.

  • Dominicobaggio

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 3:13 pm PT

    It is a great game. So complex its too much for many people to grasp with short attention spans. But put some time into it and you get so much more back!!!

    Amazing game. Every pc owner should try it.

  • Ironwulfen

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 2:25 pm PT

    this game rules! I play this and WoW and I never get bored

  • cjcr_alexandru

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 11:02 am PT

    Not too much interest for this game, as I can see. Even if it has a 9.2 from users reviews.

  • whoisduley

    Posted Jan 11, 2007 2:23 pm PT

    no one's posted yet?!? wow

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