Empires of Eve

Empires of Eve: A History of the Great Wars of Eve is a book written by journalist Andrew Groen^[1][2] about the online game Eve Online.^[3]

Groen wrote the book to explore the realistic immersiveness of a seemingly niche game that was shaped by the 50,000^[4] players and not just the developers as other MMO games were. Groen's book shows more of the 'in universe' aspect of the game.^[5]

History

Empires of Eve was written after a successful Kickstarter campaign.^[6][7][8] Groen spent two years researching the book by talking to over 70 players, combing over forum posts and reading data related to the game. One such forum post from 2003 by a player-character named 'Jade Constantine', which was quoted as "Death to Taggart, Death to Ragnar, Death to the memory of this treacherous night", really gave Groen fuel to write the book.^[9] Groen admitted that the idea of a book about Eve Online was not even taken seriously and that if it wasn't for his book, the history of Eve Online may have been lost forever.

Overview

Groen's book sometimes blurs the line between the fictional aspects of Eve Online and the game itself with a grain of salt approach.^[10] Groen's book isn't a complete history of Eve Online, but it puts into context the 'great war' time period and in the broader scope the 2003 to 2009 period of the game.^[11][12] Groen's prose for the book was more of a 'sci fi Game of Thrones' ^[13] focus, which displays the betrayals, alliances, and leaders of Eve Online. Groen's book shows how everyone, from the miners to the leaders had been involved and how they contributed to the conflict.^[14] Empires of Eve puts an emphasis on the corporations (player-created groups) while also showing the history and never-ending conflict of Eve Online.^[15] Empires of Eve even fits lesser known aspects of the game into the main narrative to show a human side of Eve Online.

Content

The Goon corporation (first of its kind) was destroyed by internal problems but they soon regrouped. At Red Hammer Industries (where they reformed) there was theft which was a major issue for the corporation leading to an internal rift. The Free State Project (another reformed goon alliance) also fell apart due to theft from larger corporations carried out by a goon leading to a cycle of the goons forming and scattering. Eventually some veteran player-goons came together to form GoonFleet with some new players scattered in significantly. These new players were recruited by friends at the Something Awful website and their aim wasn't grandeur but to build 'crappy' ships and to see where it would get them and where it would take them. New players in the GoonFleet were given more on the job training than the previous failed corporations before them. Eventually the new corporation grew to a 'thousand people too large' and fell apart. Eventually this idea of using 'crappy ships' was embraced by the players where their mascot, a cigar smoking bumblebee in a World War I helmet called out their battlecry 'We're terrible at this game'. GoonFleet would buy ads on SomethingAwful.com and a lot of the old guard of Eve Online players had disdain for the GoonFleet. This came to a head when one of the leaders of GoonFleet mocked the real life death of a leader of a rival corporation (Band of Brothers). GoonFleet set out to be a proper corporation, to take territory eventually branching out into new corporations such as 'GoonSwarm' which was an alliance in and of itself. The book tells about their battles with NORAD in the Cloud Ring and how Band of Brothers joined up with NORAD against GoonSwarm via Band of Brother's leader announcing the alliance on Eve Online. Both sides claimed victories in the war.^[11] Some other Eve Online historical moments that the book mentions include the Eve Online player Bad Bobby's huge scam that he ran within the Eve gaming community ^[16] or the 3000 player brawl in 2013 where there was a '24,000 dollar misclick'.^[16]

Promotion

Groen promoted Eve Online inside of the game itself in keeping with his book's unique touch.^[17] In 2017, a podcast based on Empires of Eve was launched by Groen.^[18][19]

Reviews and reception

Some reviewers praised the way that Empires of Eve basically takes seemingly uninterested conflicts of Eve Online and through Groen's work makes them 'a heck more fun to read about than to watch'.^[20] Russ Allbery of Eyrie.org gave Empires of Eve 8 out of 10 stars, writing that the book 'has been very successful within its niche'.^[21] Peter Freeman of Critically Sane gave Empires of Eve 4 out of 5 stars, while stating that the book was a 'special book that deserves to be read by anyone interested in experimental writing alongside a Game of Thrones like tale in space'.^[22] David Andrews of Bookworm Everlasting relayed how you don't have to be a fan of Eve Online to got into the book while also praising Groen for achieving his aim with the book.^[23]

References