Eve Online: Interview With Nathan Richardsson
Moriendor, 2005-07-05

1)Using bots/macros ingame is not authorized by the EULA, which is fully accepted by majority of players and considered as a "balance rule". Don't you think having the "Station Exchange" could be a potential risk to break this balance ? I'm thinking for example about fortunate players which could have an advantage here, compared to others.

Nathan: Sony's "Station Exchange" is certainly a big risk and potentially exploitable for wealthy players. It remains to be seen what the effect of it will be on their game worlds in the long term. We closely follow what is happening with the Sony Station Exchange and other games in Asia which have been doing similar things. We keep an open mind to all changes, but at this point in time have no plans to do an "exchange" for EVE.

2) We heard that with next patch, a new skill will be introduced and will allow players to  extract implants from "frozen corps". Is it something on the way ? If so, do you already have more details about how this skill will work ?

Nathan: It's been discussed a number of times to find something to do with the corpses, but I'm afraid that there is no such thing in this patch. We don't have any plans of adding a mechanism to use corpses in the future … well, at least not yet.

3) We know that one of the most important priority is to keep a balance in the game, with bloodlines, ships and objects. With the last news we got, we heard that you plan to reduce the power of missiles power, when we fight against larger ships. Some players, specialy Caldari people , think that it will affect a lot the soloing part of the game, against NPCs for exemple. Do you think it will be so?

Nathan: We are changing missiles so that large missiles such as Torpedoes and Cruise Missiles are less effective against small ships such as Frigates and Cruisers. They are still effective against big ships, even more effective in many cases. Smaller missiles will still hit all ships quite well.

I should also point out that it works both ways if you are NPC hunting. If you are in a cruiser for example, NPCs shooting Torpedo's and Cruise missiles will damage you less. The Raven has been a very good solo NPC ship - far more powerful than most of the other battleships. After this change, it will still be a powerful solo ship, just not as powerful as before.

In addition to that, we are releasing Tech 2 missile skills and missile launchers in the same patch, so there are some good additions coming at the same time for Caldari players ;)

4) Do you have anything planned with player's stations ? new features ? I'm thinking  about having the possibility to surrender, trading with another player's station and playing with allied corporations standings.

Nathan: In the next patch, players will be able to build their own conquerable stations. They are a smaller variant than the current conquerable stations, called Outposts and come in four different types. There is a refinery station, an administrative station, a factory and a research station.

We have not added any mechanics to exchange stations between corporations or surrendering them, but it's something which we are considering for the war declaration system, an option where one corporation can surrender, and as part of the surrender agreement, hand over Stations. We also want to add the ability to have open markets and escrow in the player owned stations to encourage trade in the outer regions.

5) We are very curious about the planets and features they will offer (like colonization) in the future, we would be glad to get some more information for this interview :-)

Nathan: We have been so busy with creating the Cold War Edition that we haven't gone into very much detail on planets yet. We're still in technical prototyping and proofs of concepts. The results of those will dictate what will be possible and what not.

In general, planets will most likely be made available in steps, such as flying around planets and NPC encounters would be separate from directly interacting with the planets themselves. Planetary Interaction could be something like building up infrastructure on them and managing their population. At this point in time it's really too early to go into further detail.

6) Some players reported to us that a new object looks like useless: "Target painter", is it something intended or does it has any hidden features?

Nathan: The target painter is actually very useful if used correctly, especially against smaller ships which have low signature radius. It makes them easier to hit and in fact, it is becoming so useful that we have to decrease its effectiveness. I agree, many of the modules are not straight forward to use but that is also a big part of what makes them interesting.

7)Some new players, which are mining in protected systems to be familiar with the game mechanics, are complaining about the fact that anyone can steal their mineral without having the possibility to react (or they be will shooted by Concord police), what is your feeling on this?

Nathan: We have planned to implement that if a player jettisons a container and somebody "steals" from that container, the owner is allowed to shoot the thief. CONCORD will not show up to shoot the thief, but it will not engage the miner if he shoots at the thief.

8)We heard having a new bloodline ingame is planned, do you have any new information on it? When could it be available, how it will be played?

Nathan: At the moment, there is a new bloodline planned for each of the races. Creating the characters, artwork and the historical background takes considerable time but we will hopefully see them this year! They will be quite similar to the current bloodlines, except they have a more Asian look. They will be quite similar to the current bloodline from a game play perspective, but we have some ideas which we want to try out to make them more unique.

9) Ho, a lot of french-speaking players are wondering about Gallente and why they are descendants of frenchmen. Any historical or particular reason for this choice by CCP team ? But we know we are cool people :o)

Nathan: Hehe, well no, there is no single particular reason for it, more a general design direction where we used French design and architecture, the general look and feel, and the French names. Well, and as you state, the coolness factor ;)

10) Eve is very appreciated by mmos players but it's still considered like a confidential game. What is your feeling today with Eve and other mmorpgs competition? Do you have any plan to export Eve in more countries? I'm thinking for example to translate it into several languages.

Nathan: EVE has never really had any serious marketing campaigns, it's primarily the community which have been telling their friends about EVE, they are the real reason why we are successful. We have been steadily increasing our marketing efforts and we have an extensive campaign scheduled for the launch of Kali.

We have also been working on making the client easier to translate. Players can now chat with Cyrillic, Asian and other specific fonts. We are also looking for partners in new markets, most recently in Asia and Russia.

Lastly, would you like to say anything more and/or deliver a message to the french-speaking fans ? :)

Nathan: We just hope you keep enjoying EVE as much as we do! And of course, keep on telling your friends to check out EVE ;)

Thank you for all your answers.

Please note that this interview was originally first published on MMORPGs.info - original version (the article above has been provided "as is" and has only been subject to minor editing by the MMORPGDot staff).