Eve Online Chat is Moving to ejabberd

I am player at heart. I do not have time to play much, but since my young years, I have always been fascinated by gameplay mechanisms, to the point I am more interested in understanding the game design than by the act of playing the game.

Even if I do not have much time to play, I still follow the game scene. Eve Online has been on my radar since a long time, as one of the true and hardcore massively multiplayer online game in existence. It has managed to gather a community of fans and gather players consistently since its launch 15 years ago.

Eve Online universe is mesmerizing. What fascinates me is the way it had led players through epic moments, gathering thousands of players online in large-scale battles. It is the same kind of fascination I had with large coordinated operations in Ingress.

Being a multiplayer game and massively online, ability to chat between the player is a critical component of the game. It is a service that could strengthen the bonds between the players or severely damage the user experience.

So, Eve is a unique game, and its chat system is a central service. That’s why I am so proud to share that Eve Online has decided to replace its custom chat system by a standard protocol, XMPP, powered by ejabberd server, by ProcessOne. CCP Games will roll out the new service in March:

With the March release, we’ll be updating the chat system in EVE Online, moving from the custom solution we’ve been using since EVE was initially designed, to an industry standard XMPP chat server that will offer better performance and flexibility for the future.

— Eve Online Blog: Preparing for the future — retirement of Eve Voice

That industry standard server is, of course, ejabberd, as confirmed by the development team on Twitter:

ejabberd repository fork is also visible on the Github of the CCP Games, maker of Eve Online.

ejabberd has been used as a key component in many major games, gathering millions of active players online.

We are once again delighted to have written a robust, ubiquitous software stack that makes such large-scale communities possible.

Originally published at blog.process-one.net on February 23, 2018.