CCP have always been very good with their understanding of the community; there are no other games that I can think of where the features have been driven quite as much by what the players started doing with the game instead of what the designers intended. Part of this was the whole Alliance idea, which was added after corporations started unofficially forming alliances for mutual benefit. This July there is a tournament between the alliances and CCP are taking it just a little further. EVE already has the best dedicated radio station with Eve Radio, something that benefits from everybody being in a single universe, and they're going to cover the tournament as you would expect them to. The twist is that it's now going to be EveTV as well as they're streaming video as well. There was a question about them charging for it, but I assume that this has now gone away because people said they didn't want to pay for high res video.
Now the way I see it there are three possibilities here. The event and coverage is boring and this never happens again. I think this is unlikely. The second is that the event is boring but the commentary makes up for it by being entertaining. The last option, which is the one that I hope happens, is that the event is not only entertaining but also educational from being able to see the alliance champions fighting it out and pick up some nice tips as to how to do better ourselves. One thing is for sure, it's going to be a very interesting experiment that is only really possible because of everybody being in the single universe. I can't see something like this for WOW ever happening, even if the PvP was interesting enough to watch there.
Here's the dev blog entry for your consideration:
EveTV - Gonna Happen!: "We’re in full production now of what promises to be the greatest thing to hit EVE since Long-Limbed Roe hit the market. In July, Eve-Radio will be broadcasting right here from the CCP offices and bringing you over thirty hours of video material, absolutely free of charge.
July 14th-23rd will be something quite unique for Eve players. The alliance tournament kicks off, and you will have a chance to see every single match (95 of them) live, with commentary from the DJ’s of Eve radio. Expertise will then be provided by Stavros and Ifni, whom are flying to Iceland specifically to fulfill this task.
Streaming has been taken care of, and you will have a choice of both high (500kbps) and low (250kbps) quality streams. There will also be an audio-only stream provided through Eve-Radio for those with an audio-only preference.
Here are some of the features we intend to show (some are confirmed, others not):
Tour of CCP’s offices
Feature on EVE Mobile
Feature on EON Magazine
Fanfest Preview
Live dev chat
Report on the graphics upgrade
Interviews with various developers
DJ Xyliana will be directing the whole thing, with Urban Mongral as producer. Additionally DJ Xod, DJ Xman, JusJack, SpiralJunkie and Hinik will all be assisting us making this happen.
You will also have a chance to contribute. If you have an in-game video that you would like the world (of Eve) to see, we would be happy to show it. Please see this thread for more information.
Ideas for things you would like to see on the show are welcome. All in all it looks as though this will be a lot of fun."
(Via Devblog.)
posted @ Wednesday, June 28, 2006 9:51 AM