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EVE Evolved: EVE needs real colonisation now
MMOs have absolutely exploded in popularity over the past decade, with online gaming growing from a niche hobby to a global market worth billions of dollars each year. Once dominated by subscription games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, recent years have seen free-to-play games take centre stage. Global MMO subscriptions have been reportedly shrinking since 2010, and EVE doesn't appear to be immune to this industry-wide trend. Though February 2013's figures showed EVE subscriptions have technically grown year-on-year, those numbers were published just after the Chinese server relaunch, and CCP hasn't released any new figures since. Developers have done a good job of catering to current subscribers and polishing existing gameplay with the past few expansions, but the average daily login numbers are still the same as they were over four years ago. EVE will undoubtedly hook in plenty of new and returning subscribers when its deep space colonisation gameplay with player-built stargates and new hidden solar systems is implemented, but time could be running out on these features. Hefty competition is due in the next few years from upcoming sandbox games such as Star Citizen, EverQuest Next, Camelot Unchained, and Elite: Dangerous, and CCP will have to release something big soon to bring in some fresh blood. In this week's EVE Evolved, I ask whether CCP should focus on new players and suggest plans for two relatively simple colonisation-based expansions that could get EVE a significant part of the way toward its five-year goal in just one year.
Layoffs at CCP's Atlanta office confirmed: World of Darkness development affected
Rumours began circulating just a few hours ago about layoffs at CCP Games' Atlanta office. It was reported that an unknown number of staff working on the World of Darkness MMO had been unexpectedly laid off right before the Christmas holidays. The originally unconfirmed tipoff came from several posts on Twitter, and GameBreaker later reported that an anonymous source named the layoffs as Level Designers and various other Producers and Designers on World of Darkness. Massively reached CCP Games for comment and received the official statement below confirming that the layoffs are real and that they are from the World of Darkness team: "CCP today made strategic adjustments to the staffing on the team working on the World of Darkness project in Atlanta that resulted in the elimination of approximately 15 positions at the company. The change was due to our evaluation of the game's design and ongoing development needs. While this was a difficult decision, CCP remains committed to the franchise and our promise to make a compelling, rich, and deep World of Darkness experience."
CCP taps EA's Sean Decker as new VP of product development
Big changes from Iceland today, as CCP announced that it has brought on Sean Decker as senior vice president of product development. Decker is a 12-year EA veteran and recently headed the publisher's free-to-play focused games group, along with previously overseeing DICE and EA Los Angeles. EVE Online, as crazy as it sounds, is entering its second decade of being a game about internet spaceships, and CCP is looking toward the future. The company referenced Decker's extensive industry experience as a valuable asset in helping guide EVE Online through its next 10 years and in ensuring growth through the eventually-maybe launch of World of Darkness and the expansion of DUST 514. Decker will be based out of CCP's Atlanta studio. Massively's Brendan Drain spoke with Decker and EVE's Hilmar Petursson at a press event yesterday. We'll have more information on how the new hire will impact EVE this afternoon! [Source: CCP press release]
World of Darkness 'years away' from launch
If you are hanging your hopes and dreams on World of Darkness coming along to rescue you from the humdrum of life and your precious mortality, well... be prepared to settle in for a good long wait. Executive Producer Chris McDonough said in an interview that the title is still in pre-production and that players shouldn't expect to see it for a few years yet. However, CCP did show a few technical videos to the press to assure folks that the game is still alive. McDonough did have good news to share, however. World of Darkness has a 70-person crew that is currently building the framework for the title, and according to the producer, they are "making phenomenal progress." The team plans to host the entire game on a single server where active combat and politicking between vampires will be the crux of the content. "We're making sure this is a next-generation MMO. It's very focused on movement and motion and capturing what it's like to be a vampire," he said. "People ask about our high level designs for World of Darkness, and we've called this a vampire simulator. What's it like to be a vampire. Not a superhero, but a super-powered individual. The way the characters move around the city feels very vampiric."
The CW app brings full episodes streaming to Xbox 360 a day after they air
The latest entertainment app to launch for the Xbox 360 comes from The CW (the relationship has now come full circle), bringing shows like Arrow, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries to the console. Special to this offering is that it will stream full episodes the day after they air on network TV, and will not require users to verify a cable or satellite subscription. Xbox Live Gold is required, so it's not an entirely free pass to stream away. Still, for fans of the shows it's another way to watch and this Friday's Vampire Diaries episode will feature some exclusive second screen content available via SmartGlass. Not into The CW's teen-centric offerings? Beyond the just-launched Pizza Hut app, XBL Silver sports fans can enjoy a free weekend (25th - 28th) of access to ESPN, MLB.tv, UFC (the 7 pre-fight stories), NHL GameCenter and NBA Game Time. There's also the Hockey Night in Canada app, and an update for Hulu Plus that lets parents search for kids shows based on age group.
CW app lets you watch Vampire Diaries, Arrow on Xbox 360
A free CW app on Xbox 360 allows Gold subscribers to stream full episodes of network shows and other content through their console. Episodes of Arrow, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and other select CW shows will be available the day after airing.The Vampire Diaries supports Xbox SmartGlass functionality, enabling content like an interactive map, character biographies and show lore. The CW app is the third to make its debut recently on Xbox 360, following yesterday's amazing/horrible Pizza Hut app and last week's addition of Flixster.
Make your EVE Fanfest plans with the official program
EVE Fanfest is next week and the faithful are preparing to descend upon Reykjavik, Iceland, for the three-day convention. If you're one of the travelers who are heading there or are just looking to follow along on livestream, CCP has released the full program with the event's schedule. Fanfest will have three keynotes about the past, present, and future of CCP's titles, respectively. There will also be several panels, including one discussing EVE Online's inclusion in the New York Museum of Modern Art. EVE Online also released a new dev blog talking about the team's war on unauthorized client modification and violations of the EULA. Apparently CCP has taken additional steps to beef up detection and prevention, and the team wanted to be clear with players as to what is and is not allowed.
EVE Evolved: Massively's plans for EVE Fanfest 2013
There's just over a week to go until EVE Online's massive tenth anniversary Fanfest, and you'll be pleased to hear that Massively will be there this year to cover the action! CCP is aiming to make this the biggest Fanfest yet, promising huge reveals and announcements about EVE's summer Odyssey expansion and beyond. We can also expect to hear some big news about upcoming console MMOFPS DUST 514, and fans of Vampire: The Masquerade will undoubtedly get to see some of the year's progress toward making the World of Darkness MMO a reality. Tickets to this year's Fanfest sold out in record time, so many players who really wanted to be there for EVE's tenth anniversary celebration weren't able to secure a spot. CCP is running its usual livestream of the main talks for those not in attendance, but only certain parts of the event are being streamed. Here at Massively, we plan to give you an inside look at Fanfest with ongoing news coverage from April 25th to April 27th and in-depth opinion pieces on what each announcement means for players. In this week's short and sweet EVE Evolved, I lay out Massively's plans for in-depth coverage of EVE Fanfest 2013 and ask what you'd like to see reported on.
CCP employees 'losing themselves' in World of Darkness playtests
CCP's MMOification of the beloved World of Darkness IP is still a thing, apparently. CEO Hilmar Petursson tells Eurogamer that a "tiny" glimpse of the horror-themed sandbox will show its pasty white face at this April's EVE Online Fanfest. "We're playing it internally at CCP. It's actually a problem that some of our employees are losing themselves already in the World of Darkness as we go through the playtests," Petursson said. "And we'll be showing a tiny piece of that also at Fanfest. So that is all I have to say about that at this time."
EVE Evolved: Has EVE Online boxed itself in?
When I was first introduced to EVE Online in 2004, it was an empty shell of a game. There were only three classes of ship, no alliances or starbases, and neither exploration complexes nor level 4 missions existed yet. EVE consisted of 5,000 systems of almost completely empty space populated by less than 50,000 players. The user interface was an order of magnitude worse than it is today (if you can imagine that), and the tutorial just dropped you in the middle of space with the ship equivalent of a pea shooter and a less-than-enthusiastic "good luck!" Though much of the game was empty, it sat before players like a blank galactic canvas. Not only could players paint their own stories into the game world, but EVE's highly active development team was updating the game at lightning speed. Players instinctively filled the voids in the game with their hopes and dreams, projecting all the things that EVE could be into the gaps. People shared ideas on the forum directly with the developers, and practically anything was possible. Things aren't quite the same today, as new ideas have to be compatible with over nine years' worth of updates, and developer CCP Games really can't afford to rock the boat and potentially lose subscriptions. In this week's EVE Evolved, I consider whether the past nine years of development has boxed EVE in, forcing the gameplay down an ever-narrowing branch of choices.
CCP wins Best Indie Studio award at Develop
CCP took home some hardware at last night's Develop 2012 awards ceremony. The indie outfit responsible for EVE Online and DUST 514 was recognized as the best independent studio in the biz. CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson accepted the award on behalf of the company and thanked Develop and his industry peers in the process. He also hinted at CCP's full plate, which includes the launch of DUST on the PlayStation 3, the 10th anniversary of EVE, and a World of Darkness event scheduled for September in Atlanta. [Source: CCP press release]
World of Darkness information revealed in open letter to fans
Outside of confirmation that CCP Games is still working on World of Darkness, news on the game has been hard to come by. Some of the reasons behind that were revealed by senior producer Chris McDonough in a recent letter to members of the Mind's Eye Society, a fan group devoted to the tabletop and LARP games in the same IP. While the focus in the letter was not on the MMO, McDonough did still discuss the state of CCP as a company and what it means for the game. In short, after a difficult financial year, CCP is devoting the lion's share of its resources to ensuring that DUST 514 is a successful game on launch. That doesn't mean that World of Darkness is being shelved -- McDonough stresses that development is still ongoing -- but it does mean that the company's first priority is elsewhere. How long that will be the case remains to be seen, but if you're hoping for more substantial news on the game this year, the odds are low.
World of Darkness creative director talks design and the MMO mainstream
A new interview at Gamasutra posits that CCP is gunning for mainstream success with its upcoming World of Darkness MMO. The EVE Online developer has cornered what's left of the hardcore sandbox market, so now it's looking to marry EVE's emergent gameplay with more familiar MMO staples. "The way to drag people in will be traditional themepark-style PvE play. Once players get into the setting, they'll see the appeal of the sandbox play," says WoD creative director Reynir Hardarson. Despite the concessions to mainstream accessibility, EVE's influence on World of Darkness will be more than superficial. "The live-action roleplayers of the Vampire the Masquerade tabletop game play this way," Hardarson explains. "It's really about politics and power plays." Why don't more MMO developers try their hand at sandbox mechanics? Hardarson says designing for emergent play is difficult because you can't test it. It's worth it, though, because MMOs that hand-hold and limit players to a linear path miss the point. "I'm not a five-year-old. If I want to go in the cave and I want to die, that's my problem," Hardarson says.
The MMO Report: Shut up about Mass Effect edition
This week on The MMO Report, Casey tells everyone to stop whining about Mass Effect 3's ending, laments the loss of the "online" part of Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online, touches on the World of Darkness keynote, and outlines The Secret World's preorder plans. He also reveals the identity of one of TERA's key voice actors: Michael Hogan (of Battlestar Galactica fame), who will play Samael in the final game. Finally, he pulls one measly letter from the mailbag and debates which class he represents in TERA. Enjoy the full MMO Report after the cut!
World of Darkness presented at EVE Fanfest 2012
Ever since CCP Games merged with White Wolf, it has been developing the World of Darkness MMO. The game is nowhere near complete, and fans worried that last year's heavy layoffs at the Atlanta office had slowed the game's production. We haven't heard much about World of Darkness since then, but today at the EVE Online Fanfest, a few new details were revealed. Attendees were shown some early in-game footage of a city and given a mix of information we already knew and snippets of new information. CCP wants to draw in the largely female World of Darkness fanbase. The game will have a focus on fashion, and CCP will control the theme of that fashion rather than letting players design their own clothes. The game will be based in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe, with an initial focus on vampires before the introduction of the other factions. Vampires will use human blood as a currency; it will be the resource they'll compete over, making human cities the central locations they will inhabit. When mages and other character types are released, they will compete for different resources. The game will have a single-shard world, with sandbox territorial warfare for control of cities mirroring EVE Online's nullsec warfare. Developers investigated using real cities for the game but found that "real cities were generally boring." Presenters told fans that the team will "be using stylised versions, but they will be named after real cities." Each city will be lorded over by a player prince, who will under rare circumstances be potentially subjected to permadeath. The world's original vampire clans will be available on release, and CCP confirmed that it won't be using vampire generations as a form of leveling system but instead will be doing something different with it.
Interview confirms World of Darkness dev team, predicts DUST 514 sales
When CCP Games laid off 20% of its worldwide staff back in October of last year, the World of Darkness dev team bore the brunt of the cuts while DUST 514 continued on course for its launch later this year. In an interview over at TenTonHammer today, CCP's new Chief Marketing Officer, David Reid, joined CEO Hilmar Petursson to discuss the development of both games. Hilmar reveals that a team of 60 developers are currently working on WoD, and that DUST 514 will be playable at this year's EVE Online fanfest event in March. Despite acknowledging that the entire PlayStation Network comprises a total of 60 million users, Reid asserts that DUST will bring "tens of millions of people that play shooters on PSN into the New Eden universe," going on to make the bold statement that "EVE could be the biggest game in the world at the end of 2012" as a result. Reid also claims that "EVE Online is the only game in the West that has shown consecutive growth year after year," a statement that's sure to upset RuneScape developer Jagex and others. The statement also comes with a slightly bitter note as this year EVE may have lost its record of continual subscription growth during the summer drama.
Newest Ask Cryptic on Champions Online
For whatever people may fault them on, Cryptic Studios has an excellent track record for trying to keep communications open between the company and the fans. Champions Online regularly allows players to ask any number and breadth of questions in the Ask Cryptic feature, and hot on the heels of the melee powerset developer diary comes the latest batch of questions. While the focus tends toward the Supernatural power set, a wide variety of topics are included, as well as a bit more talk about the issues of melee characters versus ranged ones. Players excited by the new changes can take heart in the news that the entire Super Powers Patch (of which both the upcoming Supernatural changes and the melee changes are a part) should be hitting the test server soon. There's a fairly detailed breakdown of many affected Supernatural powers, as well as more abstract issues like why there aren't more cosmetic variants to power effects. The answers also discuss briefly how melee damage had already been tuned higher than ranged damage in hopes of balancing the two. Any Champions Online player should take a look at the answers, as they cover a variety of topics -- and may well give you ideas for when the next edition of Ask Cryptic rolls around.
Champions Online devs reveal Mystic power sets: Sorcery and Supernatural
Over the past few weeks, the developers at Cryptic Studios have been walking readers through the various powers that will be available to Champions Online players, from Energy Projectors to Martial Arts, as well as Power Replacers. Now they're giving us a look at the game's Mystic power sets -- Sorcery and Supernatural -- for those players who want to dabble in the dark arts. Do you know your Circles of Power from your Circles of Summoning? When should you use a Sigil instead of an Invocation? The Champions Online devs explain all matters arcane in this latest, and final, "All About Powers", and discuss their intent to create subsets of Mystic powers that better fit a given character's concept. Whether you're looking to create a Primal Shaman, a Necromancer, or a pure Arcane-type, you might enjoy this latest dev blog on the official Champions Online site.
Wolfenstein trailer and images are occult-tastic
Straight from QuakeCon 2008 come some piping hot Wolfenstein goodies from the upcoming game, namely the trailer and a gallery of images. It might look like The Ghostbusters Meet Hitler, or the opening scene of the first Hellboy movie, but we're excited about the supernatural side of World War II. Thank you for that, Raiders of the Lost Ark.This is a lot more footage than what we saw at Activision's "Not An E3 Event" event earlier this month, and it looks like it has some potential. The paranormal parts look decent, but why does some of it make us think of Call of Duty... 1? Hopefully we'll get some better looks in the coming months ahead, culminating in some Halloweenalicious spooky soldiers.%Gallery-28821%
Tales from the Pirates of the Burning Sea endgame press tour
We at Massively have been watching the Pirates of the Burning Sea beta for quite a while, but this week, Sony emailed us with an offer to go where we'd never gone before: the endgame. So yesterday morning, I strapped on my cutlass, adjusted my tricorner, and logged in and joined the "FLS Leisure Tours" group to check out a press tour of the Pirates open beta.While lots of people have gone through the early game a few times already (and you can right now in the open beta), I was very interested to see what FLS had in store for us at later levels. Read on to see where the folks from Flying Labs teleported us to, and just a taste of what players can expect to see in the PotBS endgame.%Gallery-11461%
