He plays what now?

John Smedley might be best known as the CEO of Sony Online Entertainment, and sometimes creator of Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Planetside, but he's also a big fan of EVE Online and even attended Fanfest. You might have known that, but what you might not have known is he took huge inspiration from the game when designing Planetside 2. From his interview with The Mittani:

Mittani: Has your experience as an Eve player impacted your design philosophy as it relates to Planetside 2, and if so, how?

Smedley: My experiences as an Eve Player have had a huge impact on Planetside 2. The concept of Cert Points and the notion of gaining them offline came straight from there, although our system gives you points that are flexible and we also give you more experience when you're online than off. Also our resource system started out very similar to Starcraft but it's evolved a lot into something more akin to what Eve has. Right now it's not going to get as much use as it will in the future when we allow player owned bases that require rare resources that players fight over. Right now we don't have a market but that will come over time. I like to give credit where credit is due and it's fair to say that Eve greatly influenced my thinking as an online gamer and as someone running an online gaming company.

I think we can all agree that EVE Online is most assuredly unique among its kin, but to inspire Planetside 2 before DUST 514 was even out? That gives the spacefaring game some serious weight. 

Julian "Mirai" Williams