[creamyhorror]

Among virtual economies, EVE Online's economy is the real deal. The EVE game economy is I dare say more developed and complex than nearly any other games' - it has many kinds of input factors and stages of production, and many of the production facilities/resources are player-controlled and their fate determines on political maneuvering, war and sabotage between player corporations (guilds). The price of most items in EVE (ships, weapons, components, structures) is determined by the state of production and speculation in the economy, so CCP has to consider the economic impact of nearly every single change they make to the game world. (They hired their in-house economist in 2008 IIRC.)

If any of you folks are interested in reading about a truly fascinating, active digital economy, you have to read the EVE economic reports and other investigations of EVE. It's like reading about mining, manufacturing and stock markets - against a background of eternal war between corporations - in far-future space.

EVE Quarterly Economic News, by CCP's economist Eyjólfur Guðmundsson (link courtesy of xb95): http://cdn1.eveonline.com/community/QEN/QEN_Q3-2010.pdf

edit: links to additional content ----- http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/eve-online/855380p1.html

>>> EVE Online was developed to have a very dynamic economy from the very beginning. It was decided that "time" would be treated as a valuable player resource: for that reason, raw materials were spread all over the galaxy map, which takes hours to traverse. This created regional pricing. Interestingly, there were no trade hubs built into the core game design -- players gradually settled into certain areas and made their own pockets of population where trade thrived.

>>> Gudmundsson had some fun examples of how intelligent virtual economies can be. He showed a graph displaying the prices of a mineral in the game known as Zydrine. Zydrine is hard to find in the EVE universe, but players had discovered that killing a certain class of drone often leaves behind Zydrine in the wreckage. This hole in the market led to lots of drone-farming, and subsequently the price started to drop. Drastically.

The developers decided to tweak the drop rate and this change rolled out onto the test server, unannounced, and mixed in with all sorts of other tweaks. Still, clever players noticed the change. Word got out. And suddenly, even though nothing had yet been done on the live server, prices for Zydrine spiked dramatically. Markets make for great predictors of future events!

----

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/06/21/real-economist-tak....

>>> One of his team’s first big findings is somewhat sensitive. Confirming decades of gender research by economists, sociologists and anthropologists, Mr. Turpeinen’s group found that the same biases that have historically favored men in the real world exist in a virtual economy. Their research demonstrates that both women subscribers and female avatar characters operated by male subscribers in EVE are biased toward a slightly lower chance of success in competition with their male counterparts.

[creamyhorror]

[The linking of EVE Online and Dust 514]

I wasn't intending to mention this, but I might as well since people are looking at EVE:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/122/1221463p1.html

CCP has built a PS3 MMOFPS game called Dust 514. Players play mercenaries battling on planets. The utterly amazing thing is, this game is actually integrated into the EVE universe. Dust players are actually mercenaries being hired and fighting in real time on the planets in the EVE galaxy. EVE players will be able to put up contracts for Dust mercenaries to assault other corporations' facilities, and Dust mercs will be paid by the EVE pilots for their services. What's more, Dust mercs can request live orbital strikes from EVE pilots who are above the planet -- this was demonstrated in March this year and blew the crowd's minds. And surface artillery can hit EVE pilots.

There's even economic integration. The weapons, tanks, equipment used by Dust mercs will be bought from markets supplied by EVE players' production facilities. It's not fixed prices and unlimited item spawning here: mostly everything can be manufactured. And the facilities Dust mercs fight over may include actual factories and labs -- meaning that they will indirectly influence the prices of things and the fates of corporations in the game. Heck, I'm expecting cross-game corporations to form - elite mercs partnering elite pilots to dominate swathes of star systems.

It's literally two games with completely different playstyles built in the same universe, and I haven't heard of anyone pulling this off before. I'm terribly excited to see what the future holds for EVE, Dust, and multiplayer gaming.

----Further reading----

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/03/24/dust-514-presented-a...

>>> During the DUST 514 keynote speech, developers demonstrated orbital bombardment of a DUST match by EVE players in realtime. We saw the orbital command center and surface command centers that enable communication between the two games; we also saw the orbital artillery that let DUST players retaliate against players in orbit.

>>> In addition to PvP matches organised by NPC corporations, there will be co-op PvE survival missions in which players fight off hordes of rogue drones -- living machines with a collective consciousness. The PvE mode will be released in 2012, and there are some exciting plans for expansions scheduled for the year after.

>>> 2013 will bring in e-sports and competitive gaming, with gladiator arenas in which players compete in capture the flag, deathmatch and custom game modes. The matches will be a true spectator sport, with live viewing from both the EVE and DUST game client and even betting on matches. Battles on hostile worlds are also due for release in 2013, with tactically different terrain that may require vehicles to get around. CCP confirmed that the highly requested MTACs (mechs) will also be introduced in 2013.

[Spectator bloodsports, with betting? Crazy!]

[hef19898]

I tried EVE once for a trial, but due to time constraints wasn't able to continue. But it was exactly the reasons cousing this time constraint that are making EVE such a brilliantly stuning game. And this real time inclusion is just marvelous! To bad I don't have a PS3...

[neutronicus]

I'd be worried either about games of Dust being one-sided due to events in the EVE world, or to advantages in EVE becoming meaningless in order to ensure that individual games of dust are competitive.

[creamyhorror]

That could definitely be an issue. Balancing dynamic systems is hard, especially when you bring an entire new section online and connect it with the existing structure.

The EVE universe is imbalanced by nature and by design, but hopefully Dust's mechanics will make the actual gaming experience for Dust mercs fun nonetheless. I'd expect an equilibrium to eventually emerge where warring parties employ mercs of matched number, armament and skill, and no one can gain an upper hand. That's what tends to happen in EVE anyway -- the starmap reaches an equilibrium of victors and losers, and borders are quiet for some time until a large disruptive event occurs, upon which alliances go to war, conquer or collapse, and the starmap changes and resettles again. So I'm hopeful that the micro-experience will still be fun during these transitions, even if the odds are clearly against one side.

[creamyhorror]

[Market PvP and Cartelization]

An interesting quote from the EVE Economic News report jumped out at me:

----

>>> The most interesting high-end mineral this quarter was Nocxium. It was the only mineral that rose in price in June, despite the insurance changes, and continued to rise in July and August. The most drastic increase came in September, though, when Nocxium prices jumped by 52%. The changes made to drone compounds in June reduced the supply of Nocxium, which naturally raised its price.

>>> Realizing that a long-term price increase was taking place, one which would likely create a short term shortage of Nocxium, some enterprising traders played a clever market manipulation. By buying up large parts of the Nocxium available they ensured that a serious shortage of Nocxium was created – or, rather, that the foreseeable shortage was greatly amplified. This took much of the market by surprise, with many a lamentation heard from manufacturers of Tech I goods. This is market PvP at its finest. (emphasis added)

----

While I wouldn't necessarily agree the move was especially clever or unexpected, I think it's interesting that EVE is probably the only game where the term "market PvP" has come to exist. PvP is "player-versus-player", as opposed to PvE ("player-versus-environment"), and normally refers to players engaging each other in combat (duels, raids, etc.). In EVE the concept has been extended to players exploiting arbitrage opportunities in the marketplace and depriving other players of profit.

I think markets have generally been are too large for any group of producers to collude to push up prices, but the domination of certain regions of mineral-rich space has recently resulted in an attempt to game the market and form a cartel: the Organization of Technetium Exporting Corporations, or OTEC. [ the following quote is from http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/230860/page/2 ]

>>> "Technetium, the fabled conflict diamond of the North ... only comes from the northwest regions of the galaxy, and the brutal defenestration of Raidendot from Tenal and Vale finally has brought about something that savvy market-watchers have dreaded since the Technetium bottleneck was first created - a cartel. This OTEC - the Organization of Technetium Exporting Corporations - comprises representatives from the CFC, NCdot, Ev0ke, and PL, the four nullsec entities that control 90% of the Technetium moons in the galaxy. Rather than trying to restrict supply, OTEC has coordinated price-fixing, jacking the price of Tech past 200k per unit - and in doing so driving up the price of every T2 ship and module on the market. ... the nexus of incentives from Escalation, Hulkageddon, and OTEC, macroeconomic extortion of Empire for profit will rapidly transform from a gleam in a nullsec financier’s eye to a brutal fact of economic life in New Eden."

This isn't your typical micro-market-PvP, but an outright exploitation of a privileged position by entrenched corporations. One could argue this is game PvP extended to a new arena (the market) on a macroeconomic level, or one could view it simply as the natural dynamics of an unfettered market economy that is real in all aspects except the virtual nature of its commodities.

[wtracy]

It would be fun to see someone do a blog on "Lessons from Eve that can be applied to entrepreneurship."

[creamyhorror]

I think EVE is the ultimate lesson in sandbox gamification. Many MMOs have successfully plunged their players into alternate worlds and kept them addicted, but almost every one offers a pre-defined carnival-type experience rather than a sandbox. The chief reason why EVE and Minecraft are so popular is the freedom they offer to create entirely new things.

EVE, however, goes a step further in allowing players to organise themselves and engage in projects of even greater scale. The sandbox becomes a sort of construction workshop, where players are given tools to deploy their real-life knowledge and skills to build ever more complicated structures. Furthermore, EVE's rules encourage trade and competition - key aspects that keep players engaged and spur them to build, plan, organise, act.

The more EVE comes to resemble Real Life, the more it turns into a reasonable alternative to the latter (and you can even earn real-world money from EVE). This is the ultimate immersion, and if it became possible one day to support yourself from playing EVE, I have no doubt people would start doing it.

Maybe one conclusion for entrepreneurs to draw is that the combination of freedom + tools + competition on web services helps evolve them into true platforms, in which people 1) invest their egos, 2) build social networks that keep them coming back, and 3) organise and engineer to far greater extents. APIs and open interfaces amplify the impact of platforms - a principle wisely perceived by Facebook and many other platforms. EVE is just another example of the same.

There are also lessons to be drawn directly from experiences running corporations in EVE. I've read posts by people who started and ran small corporations and also those who ran megacorps/alliances, and they describe experiences rich in management and strategic principles. Strategy underpins the success of all but the least amibitious corps. Everyone has to plan how to deal with their ever-shifting, aggressive neighbours and protect their own holdings and profits (or expand their turf). Further, corp leaders have to learn to work with their growing membership and build HR/resource-planning systems to support them.

Playing EVE as a corporation manager/founder is definitely an educational experience for young people who eventually intend to manage teams in the future.

[taliesinb]

Has anyone here played EVE online? I keep hearing about how intricate and rich it is, but I've never met anyone who played it. Is the complexity interesting? Or is it 'time-sink' complexity in the vein of Diablo 3 -- as in rather mindless optima-seeking?

[xb95]

I've played off and on since 2003. The corporation I'm part of now has built an ERP and manages a trillion ISK (which at the legal rate is $35,000 USD in assets).

We have production facilities -- several of them. We have distribution facilities. Transportation units (local and long-haul). We have combat pilots to protect the transportation. And we have the final delivery points where we actually sell goods -- both retail (on the market) and bulk (contracts to buyers).

To manage all of this, we have built an ERP system. It tracks our inputs, outputs, and processes. It makes procurement decisions (build vs. buy) and submits orders to the various groups of people who actually make things happen -- the producers, researchers, haulers, marketers, etc. The game is very manual on that front, but we use an automated system to actually submit very small, easy to understand orders that people can do in a few minutes usually. In aggregate, it powers a rather complicated machine.

As an example... let's say somebody places an order for 10 Widgets out in the edge of space. We live out near the edge -- actually, look at this map:

http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Verite/influence.png

That's the sovereignty map. It's updated daily. My alliance is Intrepid Crossing in the top right in green. That's 0.0 space (null-security aka no police and lawless -- players own and control everything). Now, let's go through that example of a user ordering 10 widgets.

* Delivery order is submitted if we have it in stock. If so, someone will deliver it via contract. Done. * If not in stock, start the decision tree for this item. * Do we have this in stock in production/stock facilities? If so, submit a transportation order. When it gets transported, the system detects this and submits a delivery order. * If we don't have it in stock, check the market prices for the goods required to build this item as well as the cost to purchase it from a reseller. * If it's cheaper to buy, we submit an order to our procurement team. (Automatic, still.) Once they procure it, the order goes to transportation and then finally delivery. * If it needs building, we do another process of seeing if we have what we need -- or if we have to buy minerals, blueprints, etc. * If we had to buy things, those orders are submitted to procurement and transportation. * If we have it (or the minerals arrive), the production order is submitted. * When we finally have the good, then transportation and delivery happen.

The entire thing is mostly automatic. We carry out the whims of this machine and we supply (rather efficiently) a pretty large alliance. It's a really impressive system.

Yeah, it's a video game. Sort of.

I love it.

And I haven't even touched on the politics, wars, and everything else. It's a beautiful, wonderful, maddening thing.

[jeffool]

For those who find the map interesting, I recommend a time lapse from 2007.08.09 to 2012.04.12:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7CHVR-Mxk

There is an appeal for UNICEF donations in the beginning, so the video pauses long enough for you to read and close it.

And when you see drastic changes in color/influence? Serious crap just went down. Those are likely the events that even non-gamers read about on news sites.

[creamyhorror]

One cool thing is that even the map linked in the post was auto-generated by a player's program, and populated I believe by API data. The color hulls/bubbles are all algorithmically drawn, and this was done back in '06 or so before the popularization of visualisation libraries. That's the level of innovation made possible by open APIs and a very dedicated and skilled playerbase (average age is apparently way above 20, unlike virtually every other MMO).

[Simucal]

I think it would be interesting to build a game like EVE which maps the management of spaceships and cargo to the management of real world businesses like a toilet seat manufacturer in Iowa.

While users of the game are creating distribution networks and building custom ERP solutions they would really be managing businesses (without their direct knowledge). If you were really successful in the game then you would find yourself managing the logistics of a much larger real world company.

I guess the challenge would be to create game mechanics that mapped in a way to real world business constraints that made sense.

[jwoah12]

Sounds a lot like Ender's Game to me, except you are tricked into managing a business instead of wiping out an alien species.

[Tossrock]

This was actually touched on in Neal Stephenson's novel REAMDE.

[primitur]

May I ask what platform/language your ERP is coded in? Is there a sufficiently well-evolved in-game development environment for such things, or is it just your corporation membership have hacked something together in ruby or .. ?

[xb95]

EVE Online has always had what we call the "in-game browser". It used to be this rather terrible system that was a custom built environment that had maybe 15 HTML tags supported. It was not a very good system.

Eventually, CCP made a deal with someone (I forget which framework they went with, I want to say it's webkit based?) and they embedded a modern browser with JavaScript support.

They've also done some modifications of the system -- when you are in-game, you can instruct your browser to "trust" the remote web site. If you do that, the browser starts sending along headers that include information like your location in-game, your character name/ID, what corporation you're in, etc. It's a rather abysmal system of authentication, but it works OK for basic things.

They also added some JavaScript APIS so you can do some things in-game from the browser. I.e., display "show info" windows, do some UI stuff, etc. This makes you able to build web sites that are slightly more interactive and useful and actually connect with the game you're playing.

The ERP we've built is, unfortunately for me, in .NET. It's an ASP.NET system (maybe C#?) and so I can't really work on it. (I'm a Perl/Python/Go guy mostly.) I have built some other systems that my corporation and alliance uses, though, that are not part of our ERP or EMC (corporation management application).

A screenshot of the production view of our ERP:

http://xb95.com/pics/eve-erp.png

Note that it has order priority, build location, item, quantity. The icons on the right allow the producer to handle the order -- "resources ordered" (turns out we didn't have it, so I had to order stuff), "build started" (it's in build, wait for it to finish), "buy instead" (turns out it's better to buy it, resubmit this to procurement), and cancel, comments, info, etc.

[saraid216]

WebKit is open-source and yes, that's what the IGB is run off now.

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/IGB_Development

[primitur]

Wow, that is really fascinating. Thanks for explaining it to me - its a very interesting thing to see a whole sub-internet exposed in such a fashion, predicated around a virtualization of galactic trading/warfare. Of all places to observe a sub-/-sub-internet ..

[JonnieCache]

I see that reddit no longer dominates to anywhere near the same extent.

(Reddit is "test alliance please ignore." Also, "goonswarm federation" is the Something Awful forums. They used to absolutely run the show as well IIRC.)

[lclarkmichalek]

One fun note on Test is that they initially tried to find space as far away from goonswarm as possible, but had the map upside down, so ended up very close by. However, they ended up as close allies, so all's well that ends well.

[creamyhorror]

Awesome, you guys have taken it to the next level. I played a bit over 2006-2008, but was only ever a grunt. I do know the logistics guys in big corps/alliances have to do a ton of work. It sounds like you put IT properly to work for yourselves, as proper hackers would.

For those observing: There's an in-game internet of sorts, but the real-life Internet plays the same role in EVE as it does in Real Life: it lets players chat, trash-talk, coordinate activities, steal information (hacking and "social engineering"), maintain databases and wikis, write web apps to organize their businesses and optimize their ship fit-outs, and keep track of all the info in the game through APIs (yes, APIs).

For many serious players, EVE is a huuuuuuge time-sink. It's mind-numbing at the micro-level but engaging on the macro-level, and crazy fun/euphoric at the peaks. Some people put more effort into running and expanding their corporations than they do into their real-life jobs.

It's a second job and a second social circle. Essentially a second life. I'm not saying that's a good thing, not at all - it consumes many players' lives and well-being - but the results of all this human labor unleashed in an unfettered free market are fascinating to watch.

[primitur]

I believe it would be interesting to use EVE as the front-end for real management. If we get robotic space-probes off in the near asteroid fields in the next few decades, and little doubt EVE will still be around by then, well .. maybe a robotic-space explorer plugin to EVE will result in something even more awesome.

[vl]

Re: map

Why center is not occupied? What do long red lines represent?

[kevingadd]

The vast majority of the unoccupied systems are unclaimable space - they're owned by non-player (NPC) factions and are effectively a 'neutral zone' that any player (with a few exceptions) can visit. The center area is all NPC space and there are a few patches of it in other places.

[rcxdude]

The lines on the map represent stargates which link between systems. systems are organised into constellations, constellations into regions. blue lines are intra-constallation, red are inter-constallation, and magenta are inter-region (and often the longest ones).

[kevingadd]

I played it for a year or so, starting near the bottom of the complexity rung (flying around in ships with a USD value of something like 1 cent, shooting AI-driven space pirates) and moving up to piloting one of the largest available ships in the game (A 'Supercarrier', which essentially acts as a huge mobile support vessel with the ability to deploy fighters - with a real-world USD value of probably around $500). I was playing in one of the largest player-run alliances in the game at the time - we had a section of space carved out that we shared with various allies and fought regularly to defend.

The game is definitely full of time-sink complexity: Resources used for construction in EVE only come from a few sources, all of which are directly or indirectly player-driven - if you want to get raw materials to manufacture things, you have to either get them by mining asteroids (manually), killing AI-driven pirates and melting their wreckage down for scrap (manually) or by maintaining a setup of 'planetary interaction' stations that harvest resources from in-game planets.

On the other hand, the actual space combat - which is still a cornerstone of the game even if it's very abstract and strange to the casual observer - is often extremely engaging, has lots of room for high level tactics and coordination, and can actually handle groups of thousands of players all competing for control over a single star system. There's nothing else like it.

The best way to describe it is sort of like playing chess in outer space: Every action you decide on needs to try to anticipate your opponents' reactions and you need to apply that level of tactical thinking a few steps out. Likewise, in general fleets and vessels in EVE cannot move very quickly and battles can often become very drawn out, with much of the actual victories and losses occurring in a purely tactical sense (poor decisionmaking, incorrect information from your scouts, poorly chosen positions for your fleet, etc).

One of the other interesting things about EVE is that at a high level, the design team tries to make it a game full of balances and counterbalances. Even once you've 'made it' and acquired one of the biggest, most powerful vessels in the game, you have dramatic weaknesses - a pilot in a supercarrier worth $500 USD can, despite his mighty defenses and arsenal of fighters and point-defense weapons, be undone by a single opposing player in a ship that is literally worth nothing. The way it essentially works is that the smallest, weakest vessels are dramatically more agile, which (as an extension of the game's physics model) makes it impossible for huge, slow-moving, heavy-hitting vessels and weapons to cope with them. The end result is that a viable fleet for combat in EVE needs to contain a mix of cheap, disposable vessels (to confront and 'tackle' the opposing fleet's big supercarriers and other heavy-hitters) along with a mix of larger, more expensive vessels to do the work of actually dealing damage to opponents and providing logistics support (scanning, repairs, etc) to the rest of the fleet. It creates a really nice equilibrium where, when the game is working right, new players end up being just as important as veteran players.

On the other hand, arguably EVE's biggest problem is that it is 'appointment gaming' at its worst. As an active player, you will spend probably close to 95% of your in-game time waiting for something interesting to happen. There are lots of things to do to fill that time, but none of them are particularly interesting; they're all preludes to that huge, pitched space battle that (if you're lucky) might happen every few days, if you're awake and around to participate. For people with flexible schedules it ends up being a great fit, but for me, it was hard to fit into my schedule and I ended up with few opportunities to participate in the 'fun stuff', so I ended up giving my accounts and ships away to other people who would actively use them.

[InclinedPlane]

I don't personally but I have close friends who are or have been very heavy players. To me it definitely seems to have an interesting level of complexity, Eve seems to generate more unique and epic stories of gameplay than other MMOs, for example. You can basically decide what sorts of gameplay you want to engage in. If you want to work cooperatively with a bunch of friends and build cool stuff you can do that. If you want to be a soldier in a war you can do that. If you want to be a spy or a pirate or a fraudster you can do all of that too. And if you get tired of one you can switch.

[kahawe]

I have played EVE for some time as a rather unimportant pilot battling in a big corp in a huge alliance that was fighting the back-then biggest alliance in the game.

EVE is nothing short of amazing in terms of what CCP is doing. They are one of the few companies actually evolving gaming and technologies involved. It is one of the very few "role playing games" where you instantly and automatically take on a role and play it both in and outside of the game - you decide to be a warrior, you play, act and talk like a warrior; if you want to produce or be a freighter pilot, you can also do that at just as much depth. There are no quirky flame-wars over what is "in character" or not, like in WoW on RP servers. In EVE, anything you do is automatically in character and perfectly suitable, at least to some degree. You can actually play a freighter pilot or a producer or miner/gatherer and nothing but that and be just as successful as a fighter, if not more! EVE really offers a lot and each route offers a lot of depth especially when compared to market-leaders like WoW. WoW's economy and crafting is quite frankly kindergarten compared to EVE's economy. Even the first, lowest items you craft in EVE have a purpose and will make you money while in WoW, you are actually just crafting to make it to the top-items and anything below is by and large useless. The battles you can find yourself in can be wild, imagine flying with a few hundred or thousand people from all over the world!

There are downsides to EVE, for me: it can be too much and get too real quickly. It has a LOT of depth and a LOT of that is happening outside of the game, so you will definitely have to invest more thought and reflection on what's going on, it can take time to learn just one thing. This outside-of-the-game is an integral part of EVE and one of the reasons it can offer so much. This can also make it very frustrating as a beginner while people in good corps and alliances have mentors or require you to spend a lot of time reading online. At the same time, anything you do is "real" and has actual consequences. Yes, you can loose days or weeks of progress if you do something very stupid. Yes, players have lost what can be estimated to be four digit real-world USD values. To really get full access to what EVE is really all about, you pretty much have to play in a corp and then special rules will apply of what you are and are not allowed to do. If you are a fighter, there will be a military-style drill of some sort. On this level, your actions can easily have even more consequences on a larger scale. To sum it up: EVE is no idle pastime and you do not just log into EVE and "zerg" through a few battleground inebriated without any consequences or danger. But if you like that, it is pretty much the best game around! Don't let the strange UI scare you off at first. Another downside might be that you will be very unimportant and expendable for quite some time; unlike in e.g. WoW where you get that satisfaction of really having killed some mob or a player, in EVE battles can be frustrating and drawn out, often without a clear 100% winner and seldomly do you get that same satisfaction of really having killed that one important enemy... you will be much more of an unimportant zerg; later on you can develop into a very highly trained and knowledgeable commando or a very well geared but strictly regulated and commanded fighting force. This might not be "fun" for everybody but it definitely offers you a lot of things that no other game can offer.

On the upside, a lot of that outside-of-EVE gaming gives TONS of fantastic opportunities for little software projects! A lot of EVE players with programming skills are developing something somewhere for themselves or their corp/alliance and CCP created a few APIs and services to openly interface with some of the game's information!