One of the strengths of an online computer game is that what you see when it first appears is not necessarily what you get if you pick it up years later.

With most media, of course, precisely the opposite is true. The content of a novel's ninth printing is the same as the first. Likewise, it is considered sacrilege for a painter to lay so much as a drop of pigment on a work once it leaves the studio. "Remastered" is a common marketing hook in the music business, but ultimately that version of "Crosstown Traffic" on the umpteenth Jimi Hendrix compilation is much the same as the rendition that hit the airwaves four decades ago.

Online games are different. Inhabited by thousands or even millions of players, online worlds are constantly evolving, and not merely because of the ever-changing cast of characters within them. For their customary fee of $15 a month, players of what are called massively multiplayer games expect developers to add new features and rebalance old ones constantly.

That process of continual refinement has never been so effective as it has been for EVE Online, the science-fiction game first opened to the public by CCP of Iceland in May 2003. More than four years after its debut, when most games are either a distant memory or provoking burnout among longtime players, Eve is only now hitting its stride as one of the most interesting games in the world