The Icelandic indie rebels of the massively multiplayer scene, CCP, have revealed their plans for the future of their long-running MMORPG (…) EVE Online.
They are looking to incorporate more social aspects into EVE, partly to make it more appealing to women. Not being able to walk my avatar around a space station felt too alienating to me when I tried the game (sidenote: goddamn the WordPress search function sucks). As it is, they’re adding that feature next year.
In addition to the ladies, CCP is also looking to push EVE’s player count way up – past Iceland’s population count, at least. I’m intrigued to see how they intend to go about this, because EVE is a poster boy for not designing for the mainstream.
An interesting tidbit was the fact that through CCP’s White Wolf connections, they’re putting the game’s client on a DVD for distribution in eastern Europe. I was wondering why they would do this, but it turns out the reason is that it’s still common to bill by downloaded megabyte over there. Sheesh, so stone age-ish!
Speculation is rife with what they’re going to do with the World Of Darkness online RPG they’re planning. I’m thinking the potential for a truly new kind of game, centered on social relationships, is absolutely stellar. Then again, if I need to “level” my vampire by killing rats, there is no chance in hell I’ll touch the thing. Actually just by doing away with items, loot and kill-based experience they could steer the game into a very interesting direction. Oh well, they’re saying we’ll see in another 4-5 years. No, really.
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