This game never fails to amaze me. I just wish it was more accessible and I had more time to squeeze something good out of it.

In the last weeks the devs have released a series of “sneak peaks” about a massive content patch that is coming somewhere in the future:
Sneak peaks part I
Sneak peaks part II – COSMOS
Sneak Peaks Part III – Needful things?
Sneak Peaks Part IV – Outposts

Between one of those things I was planning to write there was a follow-up to my ramblings about the “mudlfation” as a process of development that is going to kill these games by making them sink progressively till it’s too late to save them. Eve-Online is the example of how it’s possible to invert that process. This game is flourishing now and is going to become better and better as the time passes. This because they are developing it in the “right way”.

My point is that the mudflated design brings the designers to get tired, to finish the ideas and to struggle to think something new to add. It’s a straining process that DETERIORATES with the time (both the game and the developers). When, instead, you design a game to add depth and a “vertical” direction instead of making it just “fatter”, the game itself will flourish. You will reach a point where you have SO MANY IDEAS that you don’t know anymore how to order and prioritize them. The game will design itself and will tell you exactly what it needs. Because what you build here is the base of what will be built next. You do not need anymore to plan an infinite list of “optional” features that can be bundled in an “optional” expansion. This because the game is kept cohesive (healthy in an holistic way) and the idea of detached extensions simply doesn’t work. Guess what? Eve-Online hasn’t expansions if not in the form of integrated evolutions that are part of the monthly fee and nowhere “optional”.

Now go read those sneak peaks one by one, till the last, impressive one. I’m absolutely sure that they will tickle the interest even if you do not play the game or have considered it nothing more than a pretty (boring) screensaver. What they are doing is moving toward that direction that I preached on this site more than once: give back the game-world to the players.

Eve-Online is constantly sperimenting in a way completely precluded to the ambitious but derivative commercial projects. It is FAR from being an optimal game but they are slowly moving toward a positive direction that isn’t progressively killing the game but, instead, progressively realizing and expanding its potential.

Remember, when we enable players to build infrastructure which they make money on from other players, this won’t only benefit the Alliances, this benefits the whole universe. Ultimately, you will be able to work for the new empires or work against them. Heck, you can build your own! It should be up to you, not us.

They will, indeed, taxi to victory.