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EVE Online lead designer summoned to join League of Legends
EVE Online lead designer Kristoffer Touborg announced on his Facebook page yesterday that he will be abandoning the CCP Games ship, as he prepares to join forces with Riot Games to work on League of Legends. "It's been an incredible five years, working for a company I love, on a game I love," Touborg wrote. "Not a lot of people get that opportunity, but I did and I'll always be grateful that CCP let me work at a place where I'd get up every morning and be happy to go to work." Touborg didn't specify what position he would be holding with Riot, nor when his time with CCP officially ends and his time with Riot will officially begin, but he did mention the massively successful MOBA's competitive scene as a driving interest. To all the star-crossed EVE lovers Touborg leaves behind, he wrote he would "happily do it all over again."
League of Legends poaches EVE Online lead designer
It's EVE Online's loss and League of Legends' gain as Kristoffer Touborg said that he's moving from CCP to Riot Games. The former EVE Online lead designer announced the news on his Facebook page, praising his former job while anticipating "something new" with League of Legends. "It's been an incredible five years, working for a company I love, on a game I love. Not a lot of people get that opportunity, but I did and I'll always be grateful that CCP let me work at a place where I'd get up every morning and be happy to go to work," Touborg said. "You can't do the same thing forever though and I feel like after more than five years, it's time to try something new." Touborg has nothing but excitement for his new position: "A few years ago, my overwhelming interest was the EVE universe; now it's League of Legends and the competitive scene there. To everyone at CCP, it's been wonderful and I would happily do it all over again. To everyone at Riot, I'll see you soon."
EVE Online: Odyssey promises huge changes, dual character training
It's time again for another enormous EVE Online expansion. This latest chunk of tweaks, changes, and updates, titled Odyssey and due for launch June 4, marks the 19th free content addition in the space-based MMO's 10-year history. And like the expansions that came before it, Odyssey promises to make a host of changes to the EVE universe -- some big, some small, and some even game-changing. We sat down with CCP to get a look at Odyssey and some of its more major components, including a huge exploration overhaul, more user-friendly controls, and a dramatic change to the way in which resources are distributed across its vast, starry expanses. Here's what we've learned.
CCP unveils EVE Online: Retribution, coming this winter
Earlier this evening at the VETO EVE fan gathering in London, CCP announced EVE Online's 18th expansion: EVE Online: Retribution. Due in December, this latest content overhaul promises to bring some of the biggest changes yet to the space-themed sandbox MMO, which is steadily ramping up for its 10th anniversary next May. We sat down with Jon Lander and Kristoffer Touborg, EVE's executive producer and lead designer respectively, to get a first-hand look at some of Retribution's key features as well as the enormous pile of tweaks, updates, and adjustments players might expect with any CCP-helmed update. One thing is certain: After Retribution, the world of internet spaceships will never again be the same.
Funcom, CCP, Snail devs talk skill-based MMOs
Although the majority of MMOs are level-based, some games are bucking the trend. The Secret World, EVE Online, and Age of Wushu are three titles that eschew the standard system in favor of offering players a more open gaming experience. In a recent interview, GameSpot talked with developers from these games about level-free MMOs. Why should games forgo the popular trend and throw levels out? To give players freedom and allow them to play they way they want is the reason cited by both Funcom Lead designer Joel Bylos and Tyler Rawlins, Marketing Associate for Snail Games. Bylos sums up Funcom's design philosophy like so: "You should not be playing a game to get to the top level. You should be playing a game to have fun." He also admitted that The Secret World changed from level-based to skills mid-development when the team decided that the genre had grown stale in that sense. Kristoffer Touborg, lead game designer for CCP, noted how players get to participate in the gaming experience for EVE even without being in the actual game thanks to the title's far-reaching meta experience. Are skill-based systems on the rise? Watch the full video after the cut to find out.
CCP: It's 'deeply wrong' to assume that repetition is the way forward
CCP's got opinions. This isn't news. The Icelandic developer behind EVE Online isn't afraid to share its opinions, which is also par for the course. MMO developers rarely comment on other games, though, and so we read lead EVE designer Kristopher Touborg's thoughts on The Elder Scrolls Online with some interest. PC Gamer provides the setup, in which the magazine shares a quote from TESO's Matt Firor with Touborg. "At this point in the evolution of MMOs, every MMO has tried something at one point or another that you're going to do in your game. There aren't any more truly innovative features," Firor said. Touborg's response was lengthy and fills out most of the source article listed below. "It's kind of waving a white flag. Like, yeah. I don't like that statement. Because I think that's part of why there's such an attrition with MMOs. People go in and play an MMO for a month and they just want to throw up because they've leveled to 60 in ten different titles," Touborg says before going on to express his hopes that developers try something new. "Otherwise the same [MMOs] are just going to continue on the trend we see every time, where they sell a load of boxes and people play it for three months and then they go somewhere else. There has to be something else out there."
New CCP interview recaps recent EVE turmoil, looks forward
"It's not our game," says CCP's Jon Lander. He's talking about EVE Online, and he makes no bones about the firm's role in the ongoing internet spaceship drama that is New Eden. "We're the janitors of it; we sweep up and make sure the power's still running and whatever, but it's their game. EVE is the sum history of their personal interactions, and we don't own that. We just look after it." The "their" Lander refers to is the game's playerbase, of course, and he tells GamesIndustry.biz that despite the turmoil of the last 12 months, the EVE property is none the worse for wear (and in fact it may be getting stronger due to a design re-focus and the imminent arrival of DUST 514). Ultimately the interview brings no new information to the table, but it does serve as a handy recap of recent EVE events. It also offers up more than a few juicy quotes from both Lander and lead game designer Kristoffer "CCP Soundwave" Touborg.
CCP talks flying in space, says EVE is a healthy subscriber-based game
GameSpot has a new interview with EVE Online lead designer Kristoffer Touborg, and though it's a bit dated (it was conducted at last week's GDC, and obviously prior to yesterday's layoff announcement), it still features some interest nuggets relating to EVE and its immediate future. In terms of CCP's bread-and-butter spaceship gameplay, Touborg confirms what all the company dev blogs have been saying lately, which is that EVE's flying-in-space elements are once again the top priority. "The number of people working on things related to flying in space has probably tripled, so we are ready to start delivering a load of content," he says. The interview also touches on EVE's payment model, and specifically, why CCP has resisted the urge to jump on the free-to-play bandwagon. "We are a really healthy, subscriber-based game," Touborg says. "Does that mean we will be a subscriber-based game in five or 10 years? Maybe not, but as it currently stands, we have 400,000 subscribers, and there's really no reason to turn that bucket upside-down."
