When an MMORPG like Eve Online has been around for nearly 18 years, it’s no surprise that it’ll have experienced some changes. Obviously graphics will have seen improvements, and any developer worth their salt will have improved the playability, interface, and software chugging behind the scenes.
But there are some changes that have a dramatic impact within the game. Updates that introduce new features, patches that alter the very foundation of player-built empires. Over 18 years of history, Eve Online has seen a number of impactful changes.
10 No More Tiered Medical Clones
Originally Clones were tiered. Players with fewer skills could get by with lesser Clones, but as their character’s training improved they needed to upgrade to more expensive Clones or risk losing some of that training upon death.
But with the Rhea update the tiered Clones were swapped with a one size fits all system. This greatly reduced the loss that comes with death. The resulting impact was players willing to take more risks and less rage quits as players no longer lost skills when they forgot to upgrade their Clones. Veterans with years of training were now comfortable flying cheap ships that could be easily destroyed.
9 Mobile Structures
For a while the only way to refit a ship or offload supplies was to find the nearest friendly station and dock there. It was a hassle for PVPers who needed to jump back to safe sectors to swap out fittings and ratters had to make multiple trips to gather all the loot from kills.
The Rubicon expansion changed all of that by introduced Mobile Structures. Mobile Tractor Units could gather wrecks and cargo containers on the player’s behalf, Mobile Depots acted as mobile home bases, Mobile Cynasaural Inhibitors made PVP more interesting, and Mobile Siphon Units introduced a new way to earn ISK. It made solo play more feasible, removed tedious trips, and greatly improved the flow of the game.
8 Resource Redistribution
Resource Redistribution is the most recent change in the game that’s having dramatic results in the game. Patch 18.10 made a small tweak to the game where certain minerals could only be located in more dangerous parts of space. If players want Omber they’re going to have to leave High Sec to get it.
The idea was to drive players to Low and Nullsec to get their resources. While the full impact of this small change is still being realized the immediate results have been interesting. Strictly High Sec corporations have had to alter their fleet designs, Nullsec corps are receiving more and more commissions for minerals, and some miners are venturing into the more dangerous parts of space for the first time in their careers.
7 Wormholes
Traveling Eve Online typically involves traveling from jump point to jump point. This created bottlenecks as pirates would often lurk in the Nullsec or even Lowsec sites located near High Sec sites. For beginning players traveling to lower securities of space was often fraught with danger or going way out of their way in the hopes of getting somewhere safely.
Wormholes introduced in Apocrypha changed this dramatically. Players could now use a Wormhole in High Sec to reach the deeper regions of Nullsec and vice versa. Exploration as a career exploded and traveling the universe could potentially be done faster and without incident. Of course Wormholes work both ways and corporations soon found that their coveted sectors could now be connected to the sectors of their worst enemies.
6 Triglavian Invasions
One of the biggest problems with a game as old as Eve Online is stagnation. Veterans have built up massive fortunes, empires have secured their defenses, and it’s really easy to become complacent in High Sec. The Triglavian Invasions changed all of that.
If an invasion ever reached Final Liminality it would convert the security of that sector to Nullsec with a new faction taking up roots, permanently. Players were forced to abandon their homes, corporations had to contend with enemies in their midst, and travel was severely impacted. When Niarja converted the safe travel time from Jita to Amarr went from 10 jumps to a staggering 45. The introduction of the Triglavians changed a lot of things for a lot of people.
5 Introduce Plex
The introduction of Plex had a dramatic shift on the way many players approach Eve Online. Before Plex players had to pay monthly subscription fees to play using real money and building fortunes was often a tedious and time consuming process.
Plex changed that by giving players a way to pay for their gameplay through success in the game or to quickly build fortunes. In-game wealthy players could use their funds to pay for their gameplay without ever using real money. Cash liquid players in real life could fork over a few bucks to gain instant millions in-game. To this day the economy revolves around this important product and players have seen their fortunes built and destroyed based on Plex.
4 Skill Injectors
Training characters is a long and time consuming process. Estimates by various players suggest learning all skills in the game would take around 18 years with the right implants, remaps, and perfect queue setups. Players found themselves creating multiple characters to train them up simultaneously to try different aspects of the game.
When CCP introduced Skill Injectors this all changed. Players could now inject years worth of skill training instantly into their characters to fly the best ships. Alternatively players with some useless skills rattling in their character’s brains could now siphon them out and sell them for hundreds of millions of ISK.
3 Citadels
Where Mobile Structures revolutionized solo play, Citadels revolutionized empire building. Players now had access to massive player-created cities. With an Astrahus, Fortizar, or Keepstar players could give their super-capital ships a place to dock, store massive amounts of supplies, and hangars that could store the entire fleet of a massive corporation.
Alliances and massive Corporations could now bolster their defenses, establish footholds in new territory, and create staging points for their war efforts. The larger citadels cost hundreds of billions to create but could easily net far more than that if used correctly.
2 Alpha And Omega
The Ascension expansion introduced a major change to Eve Online that’s having a lasting impact to this day. Eve Online embraced the free-to-play model by introducing Alpha Clones. Alpha Clones give players a free trial run of the game, their characters will last forever and have access to basic aspects of the game.
This gave many players a chance to try the game before deciding to upgrade to Omega and pay the monthly subscription fee. Some enterprising Alpha players have managed to upgrade to Omega for free using in-game Plex. Then there’s a few who simply never felt the need to leave Alpha and are doing just fine in various corporations or flying solo on the free-to-play model.
1 Formation Of The Council Of Stellar Management
Arguably the biggest change to ever occur in Eve Online was the formation of the Council of Stellar Management. The CSM is a group of players representing the various powerhouses of Eve Online. They will routinely meet with the developers to discuss various aspects of the game, advocate for specific changes, and lobby for new content.
Formed for the first time in 2008 players now had a means of influencing the future of the game. Over the years this has shaped the game moving forward for better or worse. Many many of the expansions and updates over the years and many on this very list were the direct or indirect result of the CSM meeting with CCP to discuss the game.