EVE Online is an open-ended Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). Most other MMORPGs focus on a structured playing style with predictable outcomes and monotonous leveling. This seemingly innocent fact is why EVE is so different from almost all other MMORPGs, as the players have an incredible impact on how the game develops.

One could compare this to the difference between a playground, such as EVE, and a theme park, which would be the traditional MMOG. In a playground you have access to different kinds of toys and rides, and you are allowed to use your own imagination to figure out how to create games you enjoy. In a theme park all the rides have been created for you and are either good or bad by design. The playground clearly offers more freedom but it requires you to think and be an active participant, while the theme park has taken those responsibilities away from you and you can just go with the flow. As an interesting side-note, “theme park” style MMORPGs commonly develop lines, just like real world theme parks, as players wait for monster spawns, rare items, or quest requirements.

Players that enjoy the freedom and opportunities for creative thinking an open-ended game offers have become mesmerized by EVE, while others that depend on structured, repetitive game style have not. For this reason we don't contend that EVE is for everyone, but for those that enjoy a bit more of a challenge.

A unique aspect of EVE is that it is run on one server. In EVE you can find over 10,000 players at any given time interacting in the same persistent universe. Other MMORPGS are played on multiple servers called Shards; these have a limited number of players on each, usually between 500 and 3000.

The bottom line is that EVE is a rich and immersive universe centered on human interaction. Players can play the game as a simple space trader or endeavor to control the largest, most powerful company in the universe. We provide the rules and tools, but it is the players themselves who create the adventures.

PROLOGue - New Eden , A world beyond worlds

Once space-faring became profitable due to asteroid mining and vacuum manufacturing, it did not take long for humans to settle all the planets and moons of the Sol system. Naturally, this development increased the economic growth of Earth, making humans more capable then ever of reaching further into deep space. The distance between solar systems was a difficult barrier to surmount, but the discovery of Warp technology changed all that. Jump gates, using gravity coupled with negative energy to create stable wormholes between them, allowed instant travel between two points in space. The downside, of course, was that one of the Jump gates had to be physically carried to its destination point, but their advent nevertheless started off the gradual expansion of the human race to other solar systems.

Warp Drive is invented

The next big step was the advancement of Warp technology into Jump drives. The first version only allowed very short jumps within the same solar system, but later versions allowed ships to jump between systems without the aid of a Jump gate. This sped up expansion considerably, and in short time humans had established settlements in hundreds of systems, including dozens of fledged colonies. By then, however, the expansion process was becoming increasingly difficult due to stifling bureaucracy. Almost every solar system within jump range had already been bought or leased long before actual colonization began, and many of those wishing to settle in a new world had to wait years to fulfill their dreams.

EVE - The Wormhole

Things took an unexpected turn for the better, however, with the discovery of a natural wormhole near the system of Canopus . Although the existences of wormholes had long been the subject of speculation, this was the first natural occurrence of the phenomenon ever seen. Probes sent into the wormhole showed it was stable and it led to a solar system in an unknown galaxy. This system could be a far-flung region of our own Milky Way galaxy, another galaxy at the other side of the universe, another dimension, or parallel universe.

The wormhole was christened EVE because of the new worlds and new beginnings that it offered. A decision was made to build Jump gates at both ends of EVE. Only specially enforced ships were able to use the wormhole itself. Scientists predicted that the EVE wormhole would close. Men and equipment were ferried through the wormhole, to set up bases.

The system was soon christened New Eden. The gates at both sides of the wormhole were called “the gates of EVE.” They had to be exceedingly huge, because of the unstable nature of EVE and the unknown distance between them. They were the largest single structures ever made by mankind and took more than 200 years to build. It had been decreed that the new world would be free for anybody to settle on a first come-first served basis. As soon as it opened, hundreds of independent organizations began exploring and settling the new world.

Closing of EVE

The EVE wormhole closed while the EVE gates were still under construction. This didn't seem to affect the gates at all and they functioned properly from the start. But then, after seven decades of working flawlessly, disaster struck. An unexplained phenomenon engulfed the EVE gates, creating a severe disturbance, rendering the gates inoperable and reducing the prosperous New Eden system to rubble. The EVE gate in New Eden still exists, but any ship that tries to go near it is destroyed by the gravity storms.

The effects of Eve's closure were sudden and dramatic, with all the bases and settlements in New Eden being affected. Without the gates, the colonists found themselves cut off and isolated. As most of the colonies had only been settled a few years or decades previously, very few of them were self-sufficient. One by one the colonies died out. The few colonies who survived slowly lost their knowledge and advanced industries due to the lack of tools and the ability to maintain them.

For thousands of years, these scattered human enclaves lived and grew in isolation from each other. As time passed, their different environmental and ideological conditions wrought small changes to their physical appearance, making each distinct.