During last year’s EVE Vegas gathering, CCP announced a combined effort between the Human Protein Atlas, which involves students from Reykjavik University, and themselves to crowd source the collective power of gamers for real-life scientific research.
EVE Online has become a platform for legitimate scientific research while benefiting players in the virtual universe, creating a strange new symbiosis between gaming and science– and it’s now live.
Project Discovery, EVE Online’s foray into crowdsourcing research, has gone live on Tranquility after the downtime on March 9th. The program functions as a mini-game in which players actively participate in real-world research by helping scientists expand the Human Protein Atlas database. By categorizing the patterns of each protein the players directly contribute to the research. Each session completed turns into in-game rewards in the form of ISK, “Analysis Kredits” and experience points.
The in-game explanation for the mini-game ties in neatly with EVE’s lore. With the Amarr’s embarrassing losses to the Drifters and their subsequent retreat, the Sisters of EVE have taken it upon themselves to study the mysterious ships more closely. Professor Lundberg, who manages the real life research, has her own in-game character under the same name who is a member of the Sisters of EVE, and is the one who gives rewards to the players.
By assisting in the research, players are taking an active role in combating the Drifters and the threat they represent to New Eden.
The initiative has received strong support from the EVE community thus far, sparking multiple Reddit threads, trending on Facebook, and an appreciable amount of community feedback through official forums. The demand on the server was enough that Project Discovery had to be temporarily taken down within the first few hours as a result of the rush of pilots taking part in the research.
Overall, the reaction has been positive though some kinks still may need to be worked out.
The current model of operation gives players an accuracy rating based on consensus with the rest of the community on their results. Some problems have arisen with players burning through the models without actually examining the patterns more deeply. This results in otherwise correct answers being classified as “inaccurate” and taking possible rewards away from those who had examined the pattern correctly. Another possible way of increasing accuracy, and by extension reward, is when confronted with particularly difficult pattern. A player can simply close out and restart the game with a new pattern without adversely affecting their accuracy rating. The game requires an incredibly keen eye to distinguish the different protein patterns and answering all of the questions correctly is a significant challenge.
Besides mechanical difficulties and possible exploits, when I played the game last night some pictures had difficulty loading while other times I had to close out and restart because the game simply wasn’t working. While this has been easily remedied by restarting the mini-game, the player will have to start again from a new pattern. Further complaints revolve around the difficulty curve and the tutorials. New Eden residents were dismayed to find the tutorial lacked content and adequate explanations of how to identify the unique patterns. The tutorial is text-based and consists of about 10 slides that walk participants through the basics of identifying patterns, but largely fails to address the attributes that make identifications right or wrong.
The problems haven’t affected community participation, and the amount of patterns submitted continues to skyrocket. Project Discovery can be found in the Neocom with a brand new icon and can be played from anywhere in game. With each submission, the capsuleers of EVE contribute to the advancement of incredibly valuable research in the real world while benefiting themselves, whether that be peace of mind that they are doing something to improve the real world, or simply filling their wallets. Let us know your experience with the new mini-game in the comments below.
