Should EVE use the word “expansion”?

Posted on 2011-01-17 by Ecliptic Rift

This Tuesday, EVE Online will get its latest update: Incursion 1.1. We’ll get a new character creator, a redesign of the planetary management interface, and the new Sansha incursions. CCP has not yet made the patch notes available for our review, sadly, but I will definitely take a close look at them once they do so.

However, I feel the need to engage in a bit of EVE heresy:

CCP needs to stop using the word “expansion” so much.

The updates they provide twice a year rarely match the scope that that term generally implies. Some, of course, really do feel like an expansion of the universe: Apocrypha comes to mind as a great example. Adding 50% more star systems and elevating exploration to a full-fledged playstyle truly enlarged the game. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Quantum Rise that mostly consisted of backend changes and a new ship.

Incursion 1.1 comes close to fitting the term, though 1.0 certainly did not. The Sansha events certainly expand the world (in depth if not in breadth) and introduce so many new mechanics that PVE will receive a much-needed shot in the arm. A big batch of bug fixes, while incredibly welcome, isn’t an expansion in any meaningful sense. CCP marketing dilutes the impact of the really cool awesome (another overused word by our Viking overlords) stuff by using the same label.

I certainly don’t think CCP should go to the model of putting out an expansion every two to three years with bug fixes and some minor content additions happening every three to four months in the interim. Nor do I advocate focusing on big new features at the expense of fixing the little things (though the opposite approach would have at least some merit). Smaller, more frequent deployments would actually live up to the much-hyped agile development framework and allow more accurate expectations for both CCP and us players.

But let’s get real: when we EVE players go chat with our non-EVE friends and talk about “two free expansions a year”, every MMORPG player in the group will roll their eyes. The scope of most of these updates would be a minor revision (0.x) in most games.

Again, I don’t say that as a criticism of the development methodology. In 2010, we players made our desires known and CCP has clearly shifted course in response. I’d just like to see the Marketing department within CCP start to move away from overusing a loaded term that creates false expectations and leads to disappointment. Save the word for the really big stuff like Exodus, Apocrypha, and Incarna.

Related posts:

  1. OOC: My EVE weekend and return
  2. Winter expansion predictions
  3. Apocrypha 1.5
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  • http://freebooted.blogspot.com/ Seismic Stan

    Aah, this is why you got me thinking about this in the Tweefleet, you seed-planting intellectual gardener.

    I agree with you on the subject of the undue pressure and false expectations that CCP create with their release schedule. I would be far more comfortable with a single ‘true’ expansion per year with a supporting ‘patch season’ for improvements and iterations. I would right more, but this disqus text window doesn’t seem to scroll in Firefox, so I can no longer see what I am writing….

    …however, now I’ve posted, the ‘edit’ window does have a scroll bar (although annoyingly the bottom line of text is partially obscured by the bottom line of the window.

    To reiterate what we spoke about on Twitter, I’m looking forward to Incursion as I believe there could be a stroke of genius behind it’s design. I am hoping that the requirement to fleet up to repel the Sansha threat will encourage dedicated solo missioners to be more sociable and give them a taste for fleet combat and player competition. So all those nay-sayers who feel that they are having PvE rammed down their throats might be able to find a silver lining in that.

  • Silver Night

    I think some of what CCP has billed as ‘Expansions’ might be over-hyped. At the same time, on the balance, they don’t charge extra (for all that Eve is a ‘premium’ MMO). I think that considering how much content has been added to the game over the years, Eve compares favorably with games the same age in terms of added content – whether or not any *specific* content addition would really qualify as an ‘expansion.’

  • http://twitter.com/EONmagazine EON

    I stopping thinking of them as expansions years ago. I think of them as “phases”. We are in the midst of the Incursion Age. Of course I must refer to them as expansions, just I must refer to cargo ships as Industrials, in spite of the fact they don’t have any industrial capability whatsoever.

  • Silver Night

    See, I think that most of the ones that would qualify as ‘phases’ could also – maybe with a little generosity – be termed expansions. There are some, like Quantum Rise which Casi mentioned, that added very little other than a name and a splash screen, though.

    You’ve been around long enough to remember a time when ‘Industrial’ ships were just the only non-combat ships. So moving stuff around was the only non-combat activity that you did in space with a non-combat ship. Hence the name. That’s my theory, anyway.

    I stick by my ‘expansions by average’ position, though.

  • Silver Night

    See, I think that most of the ones that would qualify as ‘phases’ could also – maybe with a little generosity – be termed expansions. There are some, like Quantum Rise which Casi mentioned, that added very little other than a name and a splash screen, though.

    You’ve been around long enough to remember a time when ‘Industrial’ ships were just the only non-combat ships. So moving stuff around was the only non-combat activity that you did in space with a non-combat ship. Hence the name. That’s my theory, anyway.

    I stick by my ‘expansions by average’ position, though.

  • http://rift.chromebits.net Casiella Truza

    The “phases” comparison is useful, and I while I understand the “expansions by average”, I think that that actually moves in the direction I’m noting here. That is, why not reserve the term for the few updates that really expand the universe (whether in breadth or depth)? Everything else is a minor update, though some are larger than others, e.g. the .x releases.

  • http://rift.chromebits.net Casiella Truza

    “Intellectual gardener”? I’m definitely going to use that again. ;)

    Incursion does seem to herald more of a move to phased releases, which is a step in the right direction. Releasing early and often will allow CCP to tweak based on feedback and actually enjoy the benefits of agile development. Because, yeah, releasing a web site once and then waiting a YEAR to update it despite the fact that it receives almost no usage is the sort of thing that gets people fired in other places. (I’m not exaggerating.)