EVE Online is a leader in online gaming technology, hosting hundreds of thousands of players in the same persistent universe. The latest EVE Online expansions, which are always free for players, introduces a graphic update of gargantuan proportions and a host of new gameplay features. Every ship, station and stargate is rendered in an amazing splendor of spacefaring sights.
Since its inception, EVE Online has achieved milestones in online gaming every year. Highlights include:
2003
- May 6, 2003 – The highly anticipated EVE Online goes gold and comes out of beta to launch to the public.
- August 13, 2003 – EVE Online earns CCP a place as a finalist for the prestigious 'Develop Industry Excellence Awards' in the category 'Best Online Development Studio’.
2004
- April 26, 2004 - EVE Online breaks the 10,000 peak concurrent users threshold, with 10,396 players logged in at the same time in the same world, thus confirming the viability of the “one world” game vision.
2005
- September 22, 2005 – In a little more than two years, EVE Online surpasses the 70,000 active subscriber mark.
2006
- September 14, 2006 – EVE Online implements the massive improvements to its hardware infrastructure, enabling the capacity for up to 50,000 concurrent users.
- November 11, 2006 – CCP merges with White Wolf Publishing, Inc., the world’s second largest developer of offline role-playing, strategy and collectible card games, to become one of the industry’s largest independent developers of virtual worlds.
2007
- June 26, 2007 – CCP appoints the first Ph.D. economist, Dr. Eyjo Guðmundsson, to monitor and report on the status of EVE Online’s economy, track political trends and follow the value of EVE’s in-game currency, interstellar kredits (ISK).
- November 16, 2007 – EVE Online’s subscriber base shatters the 200,000 mark.
2008
- March 9, 2008 – EVE Online sets a new peak concurrent user (PCU) record of 42,711.
- March 19, 2008 – CCP announces the formation of the Council of Stellar Management (CSM), the first democratically elected governing body in a virtual world. Elections for the CSM began on May 5, 2008.
“As the EVE universe has evolved into a sophisticated society, it has attracted and maintained the interest of highly skilled, enthusiastic players at steadily increasing growth rates,” said Nathan Richardsson, executive producer at CCP. “Looking ahead, CCP is focused on making EVE Online even more immersive and invigorating, and advancing the online gaming industry as a whole.”
The next free expansion of EVE Online, called EVE Online: Empyrean Age, is slated to launch in summer 2008 and will give players the opportunity to support one of the four major empires with the introduction of Factional Warfare.