steven on July 18th, 2007
History
On June 3rd, Crowd Control Productions, better known as CCP, turned 10 years old, and my-oh-my how they’ve grown. In honor of the anniversary, I wanted to write something about the history behind CCP, and how they got from where they started to where they are today with over 200,000 subscribers worldwide.
The company was founded in 1997 by Reynir Harearson, who wanted to make what would eventually be EVE Online. Unfortunately, as most of us know, the idea of making an MMORPG and the reality are two very separate things. The story though, of how EVE came to be is actually an interesting one, and one that should be noted in an article about the company’s anniversary:
In order to help to finance the game to come, CCP, in its first three years, developed a board game. Available only in Iceland, the game was described fondly by Hilmar Petursson, CCP’s CEO as a “PvP” game that could cause fights on family vacations.
By 2001, the company had raised 1.6 million dollars toward making their game, but still needed more. By the end of that same year, the team had worked two thirds of the way through the game, but were totally out of money. In the case of most companies, that would likely have been the end, however, the team stayed on - without a paycheck - for three months in an attempt to get the game done and the gamble paid off.
In 2002, CCP signed a deal with publishers Simon & Schuster. Again, that could have been the end of the story had Simon and Schuster not decided after the deal to leave video game publishing. Obviously, this left CCP in a bit of a bind. With S&S still holding the publishing rights, CCP had no way to distribute their game until 2004 when they re-acquired the publishing rights from S&S, allowing them to begin their own distribution which they accomplished through digital download.
That brings us much closer to the modern day, and the big year that CCP had last year, both in launching EVE Online in China, and in the merger with White Wolf, one of the biggest names in pen and paper role playing with the World of Darkness series under their belts (Vampire: The Masquerade being their most famous product).
Today, CCP has around 210 employees between their three offices in Iceland, Shanghai and now, Atlanta and are continuing to grow, not only with EVE Online, but with a new project being developed (did I mention the number of t-shirts I saw that said “There are no such things as vampires?). As such, they are continually hiring (more on that later) and continuing to grow as a company.
Random Facts
- Between the game’s launch and today, Hilmar estimates that over 3 million people have tried EVE Online.
- Last year, 30% of all exported software from Iceland was for EVE Online.
Philosophy
Hilmar told the gaggle of reporters in attendance that the key to the growth of EVE Online (a game which continues a visible curve of growth since launch) to the fact that they view their game as a service, and that they are constantly looking for ways to try to improve their service and “evolve it with the people who use it”. That doesn’t mean they always get it right the first time, but it does mean that they will try to address and fix a problem when one arises.
He went on to talk about the idea of Virtual World Societies, which Hilmar feels are an evolution of MMORPGs. He defined it like this:
“If you look at the events that have happened in EVE for the first weeks and years, it doesn’t really look like the people that are a part of the game, experience it as a game. It feels real to them and they react to it and they talk about it and have feelings about it as if it was real. If you have 200,000 people being a part of something that they regard as real, it is real… There are real feelings, there are real friendships, and there are real enemies.”
That may be especially true of a game like EVE Online that fits so nicely into the category of MMORPG traditionally known as a “sandbox” game. Hilmar, however, threw out a slightly different analogy to describe the two categories of MMORPG.
The first kind of game is the “Theme Park” game. Theme parks are essentially organized fun zones. Patrons are told where to go, and what lines to stand in, in order to have a good time on all of the rides that have been specifically designed to produce a certain kind of fun.
“A theme park,” says the CEO, “is a carefully constructed experience which is supposed to be fun, condensed, easy to access. It’s entertainment, it’s really well-defined. You always know what you’re supposed to do.”
Conversely, the playground approach is more free-form. Again, according to Hilmar, there are some toys scattered around, but usually fewer toys than there are people. People make their own fun.
“Someone is trying to build a sandcastle,” he explained, becoming quite animated in his analogy, “but the others are trying to mess it up all the time…”
The part though, that Hilmar seemed to be making was that at the playground, people tend to make friends. That’s a big part of the point in going to a playground. At a theme park, that isn’t as much a focus. People go, often with their own friends or families, but don’t really talk to anyone else, even though there might be thousands of people doing them same things you are, right beside you.
In the playground, you need to make friends to enhance your fun and to help protect your sand castle from bullies. In the guided fun of the theme park, that isn’t as important.
Both of these are wide categories, and no game falls specifically into one category or another, but EVE definitely looks more like a playground than a theme park.
Growth
Growth is a good word to use when describing CCP. EVE Online has continued to climb in both total user numbers and concurrent user numbers. CCP as a company is also continuing to grow, with the White Wolf merger, and the inevitable World of Darkness MMO.
After a brief tour of the office (as made apparent by the pictures that line this article), I had a chance to sit down with Helgi Mar Thordarson, the Human Resources Manager for CCP and we talked about some of the opportunities that are coming up within CCP:
They are looking to add people in all development areas, from artists to engineers, to everything else in between. On the website currently, there are approximately 40 positions available, covering most development areas in China, Iceland and the US office in Atlanta.
I asked Helgi what it was like to work for CCP, and he told me that I should take a look at the white board that was located just inside the office’s entrance. When I went back later to check it out, I found that it was full of people answering that exact same question. The answers ranged from totally nonsensical (which in and of itself says something about the morale of the people working there) to the glowing. One employee wrote that “CCP is a cmpany full of talented and very cool people.” Someone else wrote that “I have the best job in the world”. Clearly, those people who are currently working at CCP are happy in their jobs. The attitude seemed to prove itself in everyone that I talked to, to a person, they are enthusiastic about their jobs and talk passionately about the game.
Wrap-Up
Sure, CCP has come under some pretty heavy fire in the last month regarding their handling of an incident of accused cheating. Still, that issue has been discussed again and again on our forums and elsewhere. All that I can say on the subject is that the people who worked there (at least those who I spoke to) seemed to be genuinely hurt by the accusation that they would purposely cheat in the game, and that unlike the picture that some would paint of CCP employees, they are not sitting at their desks cooking up schemes and scams, but rather appeared to me to be people who were fully engaged with making their game as much fun for everyone as possible.
Do CCP employees play their own game? Yes, and the game can only be better for it. Do CCP employees occasionally make friends with players? Yes, and in and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. It is the perception that some individuals might take advantage of that situation that causes a problem.
My experience at their offices has suggested to me (and I would pass it on to you to do with what you will) that the folks behind CCP and EVE Online are genuinely trying to make the game as much fun for its players as possible. Sure, mistakes can be (and have been) made, but they are learning from these mistakes and seem to be taking steps to assure that similar incidents don’t crop up again.
It’s like Hilmar told us: They see EVE Online as a service as well as a game, and they really are trying to “evolve it with the people who use it.”
steven on July 18th, 2007
After months of hype, pushed back release dates, countless banner ads, and lots of forum hype, the Burning Crusade has finally come out. Boys and girls, I wona€?t over romanticize this and make it long winded in the beginning. I am going to cut straight to the chase and then go into detail. Okay are you ready, here we goa€|Burning Crusade is a€|the same World of Warcraft as before, just more of it. There, I said it. You can click the minimize button and stop reading, or follow along while I start my long winded comments.
I waited in line for The Burning Crusade at 12 am on January 16th. Yes, I was one of many gamer geeks to get their copy that night. I even had the next four days off work, so I had plenty of time to sit back and get into Outland. It is funny putting faces to the many types of people that play WOW. Most of the crowds at the store that night were typical gamers. You could even pick out the a€?hard corea€? players based on how similar they looked to the South Park incarnations. A few others in the crowd didna€?t fit the bill at all. There were a few older players, even one old enough to be my dad, a guy very much into hip-hop, and about five female gamers as well. After listening to various stories from the people I was in line with, I asked the crowd what they wanted out of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Answers came back varied, but after one person said a€?more funa€? they all agreed they wanted more a€?funa€? out of this expansion. Having myself played MMOs for the past 15 years wanted a little more a€?funa€? out of the game as well. Here was my chance, I stepped up in line and got my copy and raced to my car to get home for the install.
I must congratulate Blizzard Entertainment. The transition to The Burning Crusade was flawless. It was the smoothest install that I have seen in quite some time from a gaming company on a release date. No servers crashed, no horrid downloads, I simply logged in, downloaded two quick patches, and I was inside Hellfire Peninsula by 12:30 am able to begin my fight against the Burning Legion and the Alliance.
The first thing I see as I zone through, yellow con orcs. Wait a minute, neutral faction orcs? Ok, ita€?s a faction-based starting town, thata€?s not a problem. We had faction in the old game. The graphics in the starting zone look and make you feel like youa€?re in the movie Mortal Kombat. The quests are fun and plentiful. With the bombing runs being the most fun. However, I decided that I was here to explore the whole game and not just the first zone of Hellfire Peninsula, so I moved on to the second zone which is a lush blue marshland named Zangarmarsh.
I enter Zangarmarsh and what is the first thing I find as I walk into the zone? You got it, another yellow con town, named Cenarion Outpost. Once again, I start out having a neutral faction there. Did Blizzard not learn anything about the pain of faction grinding in the first two years of the game? I played a few hours and already two new factions to impress, yikes! I press on to try to get to the next zone, named Terokkar Forest. But, before I leave Zangarmarsh, I trip over a small town full of unfriendly fuzzy little spore-like people who wona€?t talk to me, yet are not attacking me either. Wait a second; *DING*, yet another faction slot pops up on my bar!
I press on and finally get to Terokkar Forest. This is the zone I am playing in now. The first city I come to is, guess what sports fans, something new! It is a blue city in which all Horde and Alliance are friendly (boy doesna€?t that fit in with the story of the Warcraft Universe really well?) and not one, not two, but four factions inside of one town. The town is called Shattrath City.
Each town that had its own faction will offer its own rewards and gear. Faction, faction and more faction! This expansion is 80% about the faction grind. The quests are also the same as before. It is the very typical quest, kill fifty swamp rats and then kill ten evil swamp rats and collect their tails. Once done, return all the tails to a specific NPC in the faction based town. Swamp rats are plentiful and drop tails often, EVIL swamp rats on the other hand are very hard to find and are spread out all over the zone, combine that with a low drop rate and DING you are questing for hours. Taking a page out of Dark Age of Camelot, you also have a lot of a€?seek out this huge elite boss and slay hima€? type quests, where the bosses you are looking for spawn randomly and wander around an area. The problem with this type of quest is that these bosses and areas are usually camped (especially in the beginning), so actually getting a kill can take a long time. Heck with eight million players in the zone across various servers, these bosses have become public enemies of the population and are on the highest hit list.
Even the PvP is now based on the faction grind (not like it wasna€?t before), by taking general strong points in the zone you will give people from your side who are leveling in that zone a bonus to damage, experience, or critical strike rate. Taking the strong points, as they are called, will also let you earn credit for repeatable quests. These quests again allow you to gain higher faction so you can buy the gear you want.
Every one of the first four instances I have finished was faction based as well. From the Hellfire Ramparts to the Slave Pen, gaining rep with said faction and working up to one day become exalted will get you the items. The items are very much needed, as what you get in The Burning Crusade far outshines what you gained in poor old Azeroth. I replaced my old items within 2 days. Yes, even my Epics. I have almost double my starting hit points and four times my old spell effectiveness. I truly feel sorry for anyone who did not buy The Burning Crusade that still plans on playing this game. In most games, the expansion is optional and you in theory can still play using the old client, just minus a few bells and whistles. That is not the case with this expansion. If you want to stay in the arms race of Warcraft, go buy The Burning Crusade now.
One thing that has changed so far, ita€?s very funny to see the raider vs. non-raider fights break out. I play on a PvP server and the guilds who were notorious for having a large advantage because of their item power level are now constantly being assaulted by guilds that formerly where powerless against them. Because the gear is so strong in the expansion, players in green items can beat some of the old players in their epics.
It leads me to wonder, even though ita€?s the same type of quests and same faction grind, it will be a lot of fun to see the new order of players rise as old guilds fall. I find this story more compelling than Illidan at the moment.
All in all, I find the expansion interesting, but ita€?s still too early to tell exactly what is going to become of World of Warcraft. I myself am only level 64 at this point. So there is a lot of the game left for me to explore. I will say this though, with all the new factions, objectives, and recipes, this game is twice as deep as the original was. It will take two years for people to get bored with this product due to lack of content. Too bad the game may lose many players due to the repetition and unimaginative nature of the game mechanics.
Despite the new look, because the questing and grinding is the same, Burning Crusade is just Warcraft plain and simple.
Were they prepared?
steven on July 18th, 2007
Here we are with one week to go left in Azeroth before the Dark Portal opens and millions of players enter the world of the Burning Crusade. Normally in my editorials I question Blizzarda€?s choices in game play and call attention to the issues in Warcraft. However with only one week to go before the first expansion of the biggest MMO in the world, I thought wea€?d look at what to do with our last days in the old realm before the new one is to open. Here are some suggestions on how to spend your final week in Azeroth.
Level up that Alt you have been ignoring. Why not take time to push another character to level sixty who has been stuck in the forties or fifties? Sure you may not have epic gear when walking through the Dark Portal, but youa€?ll have another character to play.
- Build up those Profession skills that you have been slacking off on. Take time to reach three-hundred in crafting or gathering so you can search for new materials in the next realm. Also it is a way to earn some extra cash; those flying mounts wona€?t be cheap!
- PvP, PvP, PvP! With the new reward system you may be able to get one or more epic pieces into your inventory before the portal opens, even with the 30% nerf. Who knows how tough the monsters and dungeons will be in the Burning Crusade? Perhaps giving a last minute boost to your arsenal will help in the long run.
- Go back through old instances and run them in record time. When was the last time you were in Scarlet Monastery? Grab your guildies and time your team on how fast they can complete the instance. It is also a way to make a little money on the side.
- The last thing to do with this week isa€|.play another game! Face it; wea€?ll all be pushing the limit on the Burning Crusade once it comes out. Why not take this last week as a break from Warcraft and try something new? For those who have only played this one MMO there are lost of free trials out there for different games. Expand your MMO knowledge past Orcs and Elves.
That being said, I am looking forward to the Burning Crusade. Not as much as I am looking forward to some other upcoming MMOs, but there still are some fun elements to this expansion. The Caverns of Time looks very interesting in that youa€?ll be able to see different parts of Warcrafta€?s past. I am psyched for the part when you help Thrall. Also Outland does have some unique features and designs to it that will only enhance the game. I do hope Blizzard gets the instance dungeons back to normal so you dona€?t need giant raids to get good gear and the playing field is better equaled between casual and hardcore players. But for that wea€?ll just have to wait and see.
So when January sixteenth roles around and everyone is trying to log in at once with queues in the thousands and crashes galore, just remember that ita€?s only a game and the race to level seventy will be longer than you think. For now, I ask all the Warcraft players, what will you be doing over the next week to get ready for The Burning Crusade?
