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Every six months, CCP releases a free expansion to the game, introducing a major new mechanic. The last expansion, Dominion, refreshed the 0.0 sovereignty mechanics. Apocrypha, the expansion before that, added wormholes and Tech 3 cruisers. The next expansion, Tyrannis, is adding something called (dryly) “Planetary Interaction.”
Thus far, planets in EVE have had pretty much [...]

I mentioned in passing in the last article about ratting that some systems are better for it than others. All 0.0 systems in EVE are characterized by “development indices” on three axes: military, industrial, and strategic. The first two indices directly effect how well you can farm in the system. The higher the military index, [...]

Virtual worlds are driven by metaphor. In these new kinds of worlds, we need something to grab on to that helps us make sense of the world in terms of ideas we understand. From this we get notions like “tanking” (having lots of armor that lets you take lots of damage), “pulling” (attracting the attention [...]

Large-scale market economics in EVE are endlessly fascinating to me, but I have very little experience playing those games. I mostly make my money from killing computer-controlled pirates, not mining. People who mine are (understandably) obsessed with the market prices for their minerals because they have to sell their mined minerals to other players; there’s [...]