What EVE can learn from WoW
Put down the pitchforks. Not only would CCP never move in the general direction of Blizzard’s game design philosophies and implementations, I’d never even think such a thing. We have a few abortive attempts in the game anyway (think COSMOS), and they never went anywhere for good reason. We don’t want their stinking theme park in our sandbox.
But that doesn’t mean Blizzard has nothing to teach CCP. As I’ve started to dabble in World of Warcraft lately so as to run dungeons occasionally with work mates, already I’ve noticed at least three areas where I wish EVE Online did seem a little more WoW-ish.
Attention to detail
Okay, I don’t want to dog pile here, but after the recent controversies about “excellence” and “eighteen months” and whatnot, playing WoW did show me just how much taking the time to put out something really polished can add to the experience. WoW has some very nice environments, excellent sound effects, and things just seem to work as expected. For more reference, pick an EVE forum thread over the last two months at random and you’re bound to find someone braying about how EVE doesn’t have it.
Environmental graphics
No, seriously, WoW looks gorgeous. It has an unconventional art style and low polygon count, and it still has a definite sense of “placeness”. Different regions look different, and each city looks unique. Ironforge particularly stands out, with something like a fantasy cyberpunk feel to it: all dark corners and alleyways, technical and magical geegaws everywhere, teeming with shady activity. Great stuff.
In EVE, one system tends to look like another. We have a few crummy-looking nebulae seemingly at random, and wormholes have had some work done, but in general it doesn’t go any further than that. Some deadspace environments look pretty cool, but I’d like some way to look at the sky and realize I’m in Verge Vendor or Metropolis or Stain.
Authenticators
If you think EVE has trouble with account compromises via phishing and such, imagine what happens with a market larger by at least an order of magnitude and no legal RMT (PLEX trading in EVE’s case). In response, Blizzard has implemented two-factor authentication. To log into the game, players who have enabled this option need something they know (a password) AND something they have (either a key fob or their phone running a particular app). The fob or app, called the Mobile Authenticator, displays an eight-digit code that changes every thirty seconds or so.
Phishers could conceivably still log in once, assuming they can use your credentials within that short time window of receiving them. This reduces the risk immensely, in addition to cutting way down on account sharing and the ensuing drama.
Personally, I have the Blizzard app running on my Android phone. I’ve used this technology at work for over a decade across multiple different organizations and I can’t understand why CCP hasn’t yet implemented it. I’d certainly pay a few extra bucks for this sort of thing, though free is better.
What else could EVE learn from WoW?





