Empires of Eve Vol 1 (Vol 2 coming Nov/Dec). If you want a physical copy more are on the way (again, Nov/Dec).
Extremely well sourced, highly detailed book covering some of the most historically impactful events from a very neutral perspective. Gorgeous artwork.
Have you read Empires of Eve?
It's an entire book about the rise and fall of Eve's Corporations and all the politics, espionage and backstabbing that accompanies their conflicts.
While I do appreciate good story - I honestly would be happy if there was no "main stories" in MMOs or at least much less focus on them. Most of them are pretty awful, and even the few good ones are still deficient because they basically have limited amount of choices or no choices at all, same goes for limited amount of story-related NPCs, and the story will be useless once you experience all of it - there's no reason to replay through it ever again unless you suffer from amnesia (and most people do not have amnesia).
The best stories are always the ones that players themselves create through interaction with other players, and well-designed games give players plenty of tools to create such stories and I wish more games would provide such tools for players instead of abusing the dated, lazy, boring "here's another small bit of linear story you must go through in our annual 2-year expansion" system.
If you like this stuff, empires of eve is a great book to read. Imagine a hobbydrama post crossed with a published book.
There might be some edge cases where this is possible/happens.
But honestly it isn't even significant enough to be worth mentioning for actually driving content and the shenanigans that people pull off.
The people interested in rmt are bottling.
The people capable of pulling off big heists are typically far too invested in the game to even consider rmt which will easily get them permabanned etc.
The motivation for people doing things like backstabbing, long cons, espionage, and convoluted plans of bumfuckery comes from how the mechanics of the sandbox allow people to benefit in game from these actions regardless of their "morality". Again, maybe it is a motivator in some edge cases, but rmt is not at all a significant driving force behind what makes eve stand out in this regard
For anyone interested in learning anything about the games history, I highly recommend empires of eve by Andrew Groen (ebook, audio etc.)
Would Empires of Eve qualify for this square? It's a chronicle of the wars that took place in Eve Online from 2007-2009.
In case you're interested, there's a really great "History" of Eve published: "Empires of Eve: A History of the Great Wars of Eve Online." I've never even touched Eve but I found the book really fascinating - well written and full of exactly the kind of political and technical intrigue that I love reading about.
You should do yourself a favor and pick up Empires of EVE by Andrew Groen. All the rad EVE stories you could want, none of the countless hours playing between the cool stuff.
If you go to the Amazon page for the book and click "look inside" at the top left, you can read some of the first chapter, including the table of contents.
Only UK version right now is the Kindle version here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M/
By the way, it's a fantastic book. It covers EVE empires from launch through till around 2009 and goes quite in-depth whilst still offering plenty of explanations for people unfamiliar with the game. Interviews, sov maps, fun tidbits and all!
EDIT: This is not the Mittani's failed book (looking at you, random amazon reviewer). This is a previous book which was kickstarted for $95,000 a while ago.
Yes, what you listed is a part of that, including ability for people to design and share their own dungeons. But also something that happened in EVE Online - even when I did not play it, I still followed it by reading official forums (back when they were still active) and subreddit (when it became more active than official forums), reading all the stories that players posted of their encounters with other players, as well as following drama and fighting between large alliances. And it was so significant in that game that someone actually wrote a history book about it:
https://www.amazon.com/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M/
This is purely user-generated content and is something I've never seen in any other MMORPG (not to such extent).
If you have time and are into reading stuffs try Empires of EVE
You will see that, unfortunately, dishonesty is a very important part of this game.
This is a sandbox game and anything goes. Good luck and have fun. People usually find the niche in a few months of EVE, provided that they find a good group of people to play with.
The best kind of stories are the ones that players themselves create through the tools provided by developers. Stories which are written in books such as this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M/
I hope Intrepid won't waste much time on creating any pre-written stories in game and instead focus more on giving players tools to create their own stories like these.
Between plex and game time, I would say game time. But I would rather give him something else eve related than those. (except if he is really short on cash.) Empires of Eve would surely be a great gift but it seems that preorder is closed atm. You can still get him the ebook version though. There is also EVE: Source and some other eve related books. There are also ship models available by now. And there is the merchandise store. The prices for all those suggestions vary a lot but the ebooks for example are cheap. For some of those things I would try to find out what he (or she) likes. For example which ship, if you might go for the ship models.
How about a book covering 2007-2009 :) Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DONPR0M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0QmRCbCG276RX
not that many people care about the lore, it's interesting but most care about the game itself and the stories the players create
https://www.amazon.com/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M
also someone just posted this on this very sub earlier today, not really novelized reading though like empires of eve (which was made to be accessible by anyone, and as such does tend to lay it on a little thick sometimes).
http://www.gamertribute.com/eve-online-war-stories/northern-coalition-vs-drone-russian-federation/
if you like reading he made a book of the first mayor eve war