The Biggest Takeaway From The EVE Keynote

I woke up this morning with the sun shining through the curtains of my room for the first time this Fanfest. Clear skies for the eclipse? I guess sometimes a plan does actually work.

At the peak of the eclipse

As we learned on the first day of Fanfest, the plans to hold the event during the eclipse this year were laid by the old, pre-Incarna CCP. The bunch that had grandiose plans that often came out of the oven half-baked. See also, Incarna.

But not all the ideas that came from CCP were bad, or even done poorly. I think one of the main things that players wanted was for CCP to carry-through on their plans and do ALL of them well. If something didn't work right, fix it, don't just leave a mess. Over the past few years, CCP has spent a lot of time and effort fixing and cleaning up their systems and code.

I sat in the front row during the EVE keynote yesterday. I think some people were underwhelmed by the content in the keynote. The biggest news for many is the introduction of the new structure system, but we won't hear more about that until the session on Saturday at 1300. But for me, the biggest takaway from the keynote is that, at least for the EVE Online team, the swagger is back.

I think the swagger shows the most on the technical side. According to CCP Seagull, the six week release cycle is now too slow and CCP will release minor features in-between the major release points. For years, MMORPG players pointed to Blizzard as a company that would not release anything until the game was ready. CCP is aiming to gain the reputation as a company that releases content as soon as it's ready.

In addition, CCP plans to implement technology in the near future that will bring the company back on par with the latest innovations in the industry. Things like the "download on demand" feature for the EVE client, two-factor authentication using Google Authenticator, and the option to download high resolution images are all good technical steps that should make new players feel like they are playing a current generation video game, not one that launched 12 years ago.

I should add one additional note that is probably the most important factor of all. EVE Online is one of the few MMORPGs left that relies on the subscription model. At this point in time with the developments in the industry, perhaps I'll soon call CCP's business model "The EVE model", since even Blizzard is moving WoW to the PLEX model. But as part of that model, CCP is looking to continuously update the game. If players see that they are receiving fixes and new content every month, I imagine that players will find paying the monthly subscription more palatable.

I guess, as an EVE player, finding the monetary aspect of the keynote was inevitable. I'll probably continue on with that analysis in the near future after hearing all the presentations. But for now, I need to run back to Harpa and more presentations.