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EVE Online is still primarily one single shared environment, as far as I'm aware. They added instances for some content back in 2018 (from a quick Googling), bu

• hinkley 6y ago
  I haven't looked in a long time, but EVE used to be sharded, which is easy to do when there are gateways between areas of the map. The problem was when everyone decides to hang out in one shard.
• singron 6y ago
  Eve has some advantages that let it avoid some problems. Space is split up into distinct solar systems with a "jump" required to transition from one to another, so a system can be controlled by a single process. Within a system, your area of interest is always the grid you are in, which is equal for all players in that grid. "Grid" despite the name is a dynamic boundary that contains all nearby players that are likely to interact with each other. The game doesn't allow most cross-grid interactions, probably to make implementation much easier. I think they get away with this since solar systems are so large and you have to be relatively close to interact with anything. Some of these designs became problematic. Players can perform "grid-hacking" where they manipulate the shape and position of these grids so that they can suddenly cross a grid boundary to ambush or escape other players. I haven't played in a while, so some of this might work differently now. The lack of server scalability within a system also causes time dilation, which besides making fights slower and boring also gives more people enough time to join and rejoin fights and cause more time dilation.