Whenever disaster strikes in the world, we can always count on the charitable hand of the gaming community to help those in need. Last month saw Nepal and surrounding regions struck by two massive earthquakes. The devastation left thousands dead and even more injured and without shelter or basic resources. The Eve Online community, as they always do, called on CCP Games to start another charity drive.
And they did. Between May 1st and the 24th, players raised $103 thousand dollars, amounting to slightly less than seven thousand PLEX. The donation includes $500 from ISD volunteers as well as 365 PLEX from an auction. The check for the donation was presented, in large form, to the Icelandic Red Cross.
Once again, here at CCP we are finding it very difficult to choose words that express our gratitude to the EVE Community for the incredible generosity you have all shown over the course of this fundraiser. The Community Team does however have an amazing display on the windows of our office as a constant reminder of the fact that we serve what is, without a doubt, the finest gaming community on Earth.
CCP and the Red Cross would like to thank the EVE community for its generosity.
When it comes to cash shops in MMOs, player opinion is split. There are players who don’t mind cash shops as long as the items are obtainable in-game (or at least the equivalent), while others will only tolerate vanity items being sold. There are players who are opposed to a cash shop in any form, players who will only tolerate a cash shop in games without a subscription, and of course those that are complacent with cash shops as a whole. The players who do not like cash shops in any form might not be sticking with Eve Online.
In an interview with Eurogamer, CCP’s Tori Frans Olafsson was asked if a cash shop was in the books. Tori responded that:
“Yeah, we are looking at introducing virtual goods within the game, but we feel those things should be vanity items rather than those that give you a clear benefit over other players in-game.”
Vanity items? I hope I can get chrome thrusters for my shipping freighter, although heading into 0.0 sector space is likely to get me shot on sight, regardless of what I’m carrying on me. Of course, this might lead to a surge of death squads, as some other MMOs have seen, where players actively hunt down and grief players who visibly purchased cash shop items.
On the topic of a sequel, Tori had the following to say:
I don’t see any purpose in rebooting EVE or doing EVE 2. We have a magnificent community, we have a devoted player-base, we have a vibrant economy, we have the ability to update graphics and game systems and software and hardware – and have been doing so progressively since launch.
The longer CCP supports Eve Online, the better. You can read the rest of the interview in the above link.
More on Eve Online as it appears. Eve Online currently plays host to over 330,000 subscribers, alongside a slew of trial accounts.
Silly Eve-izen, that’s not even from the right game. Losing items in a game where you drop everything upon death, is nothing short of not news. Players are killed, hacked, and generally die for one reason or another, on a daily basis and, whether or not we want to accept blame (Lag, account theft, etc), more often than not we are met with a simple “sorry, your stuff’s gone for good,” should we try to retrieve it.
There are three levels of item loss, as I will demonstrate:
If you want to annoy your players, allow them to be killed due to unforeseeable, yet annoying issues. Lag is chief in this category, not to mention players with easy access to exploits in the system, hacks, and other such software.
If you want to piss off your players, kill them via in-game bugs and don’t return their items. In Runescape, it isn’t uncommon for at least one update every four or five months to have some instant-murder effect, or allowing player killing in a spot it shouldn’t be. When Mobilising Armies was released, one player lost an enormous sum of money simply by talking to an NPC, and was not reimbursed despite confirmation by a Jagex employee.
And finally, if you want to get players to quit, take the items right out of their possession, by process of one of your intended features going haywire.
If you were logged into Eve Online today, or even if you weren’t, you may have logged in to find that one or more of your items were missing. Due to an unintended issue, the Eve Online ItemID recycling system ended up deleting a mass amount of items. How many? Up to fourteen thousand, to be exact. But how exactly did this bug happen?
In Eve Online, every item has its own procedurally generated ID (The ID is created when the item is created). In order to prevent items six years from launch being labeled #34054083489534890583890459348, Eve Online recycles ItemID’s back into the pool once the associated item is destroyed, or stacked with another stack of the same item. The retrieval system failed, causing items to not receive an ID when created under various circumstances, and thus disappear.
Although CCP is not returning lost items (they have no way to, the data trail is literally gone), they will be reimbursing players. Players affected are asked to file a petition with the list of items they lost due to the bug. As for how well players will be reimbursed, MMO Fallout will be listening in.
More on [MMO name retrieval failed. Deleting portion.] as it appears.
Silly Eve-izen, that’s not even from the right game. Losing items in a game where you drop everything upon death, is nothing short of not news. Players are killed, hacked, and generally die for one reason or another, on a daily basis and, whether or not we want to accept blame (Lag, account theft, etc), more often than not we are met with a simple “sorry, your stuff’s gone for good,” should we try to retrieve it.
There are three levels of item loss, as I will demonstrate:
If you want to annoy your players, allow them to be killed due to unforeseeable, yet annoying issues. Lag is chief in this category, not to mention players with easy access to exploits in the system, hacks, and other such software.
If you want to piss off your players, kill them via in-game bugs and don’t return their items. In Runescape, it isn’t uncommon for at least one update every four or five months to have some instant-murder effect, or allowing player killing in a spot it shouldn’t be. When Mobilising Armies was released, one player lost an enormous sum of money simply by talking to an NPC, and was not reimbursed despite confirmation by a Jagex employee.
And finally, if you want to get players to quit, take the items right out of their possession, by process of one of your intended features going haywire.
If you were logged into Eve Online today, or even if you weren’t, you may have logged in to find that one or more of your items were missing. Due to an unintended issue, the Eve Online ItemID recycling system ended up deleting a mass amount of items. How many? Up to fourteen thousand, to be exact. But how exactly did this bug happen?
In Eve Online, every item has its own procedurally generated ID (The ID is created when the item is created). In order to prevent items six years from launch being labeled #34054083489534890583890459348, Eve Online recycles ItemID’s back into the pool once the associated item is destroyed, or stacked with another stack of the same item. The retrieval system failed, causing items to not receive an ID when created under various circumstances, and thus disappear.
Although CCP is not returning lost items (they have no way to, the data trail is literally gone), they will be reimbursing players. Players affected are asked to file a petition with the list of items they lost due to the bug. As for how well players will be reimbursed, MMO Fallout will be listening in.
More on [MMO name retrieval failed. Deleting portion.] as it appears.
Inspiring rivalry between companies is one thing, but if given the opportunity, I would probably spur on a competition of who can think of the best way to get players giving to charity. To say that such a competition exists is probably morally reprehensible, but one can dream, in the form of “This is How You Charity.”
If there is one thing Eve Online is known for, it is the combat of real money trading by the ability to spend ISK on actual game time. A successful player can essentially play the game for free. Back in 2004, CCP held a charity drive where players could donate to the Asian tsunami relief. Now in 2010, they plan on doing the same for the Haiti earthquake relief.
Between January 29th and February 15th, players have the opportunity to donate their PLEX (30-day game cards that can be bought with in-game cash) to the “CCP PLEX for Haiti” character, which will be converted into cash, and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to charity. The Red Cross, specifically.
So get your Eve Online on..line, and get to donating!
MMO Fallout 