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Massively's Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launch impressions
I failed to save Final Fantasy XIV. Back in November, the launch version of the game had its final event. I was there, fighting against the forces that would ultimately bring Dalamud crashing down upon Eorzea, but all those efforts were for nothing. And I knew it. All veteran players knew that this was a losing fight, that Eorzea could not be saved. The moon fell, destruction rained down upon the land... and the launch version of the game was no more. Now, nine months later, the MMO is relaunching to an unenviable task. Final Fantasy XIV doesn't just have to be a good game; it has be such a good game that its original launch is no longer under discussion. It has to turn itself from a punchline into a praiseworthy title. The end result, much like the launch version, is a game that's not going to be for everyone, but it's going to be just right for a lot of people who might never have expected it.
The Nexus Telegraph: The price of doing business in WildStar
Now we know what WildStar's business model is, and it's not any of the options I had predicted. That's to be expected, but it also means that we have to evaluate it very differently than if it had fallen into a tried-and-true pattern. You don't know how a new business model will work until you see it in action, and we haven't seen this in action yet. The reality is that WildStar is a buy-to-play, subscription, and free-to-play title all at the same time, and that's without even dipping our toes into the muddy water of microtransactions. There's exactly one item to be bought in the cash shop, and it serves exactly one purpose, but it also opens up a complicated economic interplay that we've seen in only one other game. And I don't think we can just draw on that one game for comparison because they're just not the same.
The Soapbox: Gaming addiction isn't about games
When I was 21, I was miserable. I was stuck in a long-distance relationship with someone I couldn't trust and could barely see, I was stuck with no real career opportunities, and I had my entire lifestyle ripped away from me unexpectedly. I felt like I was willing to climb, but I didn't see any handholds out of the pit I was stuck in. The only thing I looked forward to was the end of the day, when I could crawl into a game and let my actual day-to-day life evaporate into memory. I wasn't an addict. Barely. This isn't a plea for sympathy; all of this happened years ago, and it's not where I am now. Things got better. This is a talk that we need to have about addiction because the few times that addiction gets brought up, it's addressed by people who seem to have only the vaguest grasp of the games involved. Addiction isn't a result of game mechanics or playstyles or subscription formats or anything else. It's a result of people.
Psychologist asks designers to shorten quests to fight addiction
It's impossible to play video games without noticing that some people have downright unhealthy gaming habits. Addiction to games is discussed a great deal, often without solutions being offered. Dr. Zaheer Hussain does propose a solution in a recent study, however, arguing that game designers need to cut down on the length of quests to prevent people from forming unhealthy habits. He suggests that designers need to look at the structure of the game and how mechanics might encourage pathological behaviors. You may feel like it's a good suggestion or you may feel like it's comparable to fighting alcoholism by selling beer in smaller bottles, but the study goes into more detail than that simple suggestion. The study, which was published in the Addiction Research and Theory journal, recommends steps be taken before games see the sort of government administration as seen in countries such as China and South Korea. It ultimately concludes that anywhere between 7-11% of all gamers suffer from "pathological" behavior. The full paper can be purchased by those interested for closer review.
EVE Evolved: Strategic resources for everyone!
The past four EVE Online expansions have mostly focused on adding small features and overhauling old game mechanics and content that were beginning to show their age. Crucible delivered dozens of small but highly-requested features and gameplay improvements, and Inferno and Retribution continued with overhauls of several aging PvP systems. Even Odyssey contained mostly small features and revamps, its biggest gameplay features being a new hacking minigame and a streamlined scanning interface. It's been several years since EVE has received a truly massive and game-changing feature like wormholes or a sovereignty revamp, but that may all be about to change! CCP recently announced its intention to start reaching for big ideas again, but this time set over a more realistic timeframe. If everything goes according to plan, the next five years could see the introduction of player-built stargates and true deep space colonisation. I wrote about the potential of this concept last week and looked at some of the big features we'd need to make it a reality, but I didn't really delve into my personal favourite idea for a potential future expansion: New strategic resources and player-created deadspace complexes. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how strategic resources could be used to get even individual players invested in something worth fighting for, and how player-created deadspace dungeons could be a great way to introduce them.
The Soapbox: A new mode of interaction
Video games are, by definition, an interactive medium. The entire point of playing a video game is that you get to explore the world, talk to the characters, slay the monsters, and reap the rewards. And you do all this with a keyboard and mouse or controller or futuristic headset or whatever. Players are in charge; players create their own experience. Every video game ever released hinges on player interaction to tell its story. Without the player, a game's inhabitants are meaningless pixels guarding empty checkpoints, staggering through the woods with a groan, or walking in endless circles selling bread. In order for a game to function, players must be able to interact with it. The only question is how.
The Soapbox: On your deathbed, you will not regret gaming
In last week's edition of The Soapbox, Mike Foster reminded us that the grim specter of death comes to us all and asserted that when your time comes, "you will not wish you had spent more time gaming." Mike took the stance that gaming provides temporary joys that can't replace real-life experiences and that it's our inherent responsibility as human beings with finite lifespans to seek out those experiences. He argued that "gaming is a hobby and not a replacement for a life well-lived" and that it's not our gaming achievements but our real life ones that we'll proudly tell our grandchildren. I think we can all agree that it's important to have offline hobbies and interests that help you keep active, but I take exception to the notion that we might regret time spent gaming on our deathbeds. Published data on the top five regrets of the dying actually seems to directly refute this idea, and my life experiences have shown the exact opposite of some of the points Mike makes. MMOs have given me some experiences that I'll probably treasure for a lifetime, and gaming as a hobby has provided me with much more than just temporary joys and escapism; it's helped me discover talents I didn't know I possessed, given me the push I needed to get a good education, led me to employment, and put me in contact with lifelong friends. On my deathbed, I'll probably wish I'd spent more time gaming rather than less. In this opinion piece, I look at evidence that suggests we won't regret gaming on our deathbeds and make the case that gaming can be just as worthwhile as offline pursuits.
WildStar gets the band together for a game jam
You don't get into a video game career to make huge stacks of money, you do it because you love games. That means that the idea of Game Jams can actually make sense. What's a Game Jam? Well, it's the event on display in the latest WildStar Wednesday, and it's also a way for the Carbine Studios team to relax from the stress of a work week by coming in and working for another eight hours on something crazy. No, that's really the idea. As explained in the article, Game Jams consist of people coming into the office, deciding on a task, and splitting off into small teams to make a playable build of something within eight hours. It's a chance for designers, programmers, and artists to all stretch their legs a bit more, possibly exploring aspects of the game that they're not normally involved in on a day-to-day basis. And a chance for people to relax from work by doing more work, that's also a thing.
The Soapbox: Diablo III's auction house ruined the game
After his departure from the Diablo III development team, Game Director Jay Wilson released a statement that the introduction of an auction house "really hurt the game." While players predicted doom the moment the Real Money Auction House was announced, Jay argued that the gold auction house was equally to blame for the game's fall from grace following its absolutely stellar launch sales. I don't normally agree with what Jay has to say on Diablo III, but in this case he does have a very valid point. Diablo II was consistently popular for over a decade thanks to its immense replayability. At its core, D2 was a game about building new characters and gearing them up by any means necessary. Every enemy in the game was a loot pinata just waiting to be popped, and players farmed endlessly for a few sought-after unique items. You almost never found an item that was ideal for your particular class and build, but you could usually trade for what you needed via trade channels and forums. Blizzard claimed that the auction house was intended just to streamline this process, but when Diablo III launched, it was clear that the entire game had been designed to make the auction house almost necessary for progress. The fault here lies not just with the concept of an auction house but with the game designers. That's right: I'm here to argue not only that Jay Wilson was right about the auction house ruining Diablo III but also that it was his own damn fault.
Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014 available, bringing new characters, physics and more
Poser has come a long way from the last time I used it, right around version 4. We're now at 10 for the basic edition (retail US$299.99) and Poser Pro 2014 (retail $499.99) has become a powerful animation tool in its own right. I got to look at some of the new features rolling out today and they are impressive, putting Poser on par with many animation and modeling suites costing much more. A problem with any humanoid character is how the "skin" folds when you bend it. Poser now offers Pixar's OpenSubdiv libraries, which means subdivision surfaces anywhere you need them. I was impressed with the accuracy and speed at which Poser created subdivisions, which add greatly to the realism already available in Poser. There are also some new characters, both realistic and cartoonish, to help get you started. For basic work the stock characters will keep you busy for quite a while, but there's also a great third-party market for Poser models should you need more. One pain point for many digital artists are the hair and clothes for models. Getting those to "fit" properly can take a long time. Poser Pro now offers a "fitting room" which speeds up this process. Poser already has a cottage industry of third-party models and props, including clothes and hair. Now with the fitting room you can quickly fit those accessories to your basic models faster. Sure, you've still got the morph targets you've come to know and love, but Poser Pro now offers five specialized tools for interactively loosening, tightening clothes while retaining their physics properties (rigid or soft-body deformations). Both the Pro and basic editions now offer Bullet Physics, which simulates rigid-body and soft-body dynamics. Applying regions of soft-body dynamics is as easy as painting on your character, and the results are truly impressive with very little learning curve for newbies. That's the power of Poser, really. Many of the trickier elements of 3D modeling and animation are done for you (if you've ever rigged a biped using IK you know how tedious it can be!), leaving you to "play" with the models, lighting and accessories to get just the right look. With models already rigged, and now with Bullet Time, it has become easier than ever to get realistic animation out of the box with very little effort. Poser has become a powerful tool for graphic novelists as well, allowing artists to quickly pose and render characters. The latest addition offers a Comic Book Preview mode which allows artists to dial in the correct amount of lines and shading throughout a scene, even animated. Doing this in your 3D tool counts for a lot, and the examples I saw were impressive and fast. If you've ever set up a scene, added a cartoon render and discovered lines going funky when you animate, you'll be pleasantly surprised by Poser's ability to lock down lines and shaders in Comic Book mode. In addition to all this, there's a more capable Morph Brush for enhancing models, and a Live Simulation preview which allows you to quickly render ray traced models or preview animation using Bullet Time. Poser has become more capable and faster -- exactly what you want in a 3D modeling and animation tool. While the cost isn't cheap, Smith Micro is offering a deal through June 30. Poser 10 will be available for $239.99 and Poser Pro 2014 will be $399.99. If you're upgrading, check the Poser site for more details. Compared to 3ds Max and other tools, Poser is a steal at those prices. If you find yourself needing character models (for medical illustrations, graphic novels, stock photos, etc.) I think the basic version will make you very happy. If you need animated characters with lifelike skin, hair and clothes, Pro is simply brilliant and priced very competitively for what it delivers. No, these are not hobbyist tools exactly, but they are accessible to anyone and powerful enough to be used in professional situations. Check out Poser if you need a reliable solution to character animation or modeling needs. Show full PR text New Poser 10 and Poser PRO 2014 Animation Software Now Available · New 3D characters · Subdivision Surfaces · Bullet Physics with soft body dynamics · Interactive Raytrace Preview · Comic Book Preview Mode ALISO VIEJO, CA – May 21, 2013 – Smith Micro Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMSI) Productivity and Graphics Group today announced the newest version of its 3D animation software program, Poser® 10 and Poser® Pro 2014. Perfect for artists, illustrators, animators and graphic designers, Poser enables users to easily create full 3D scenes with digital humans, animals and props. In addition to an extensive library of pre-loaded characters and content, Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014 come equipped with new features such as Subdivision Surfaces for improved bending fidelity, Bullet Physics for adding increased realism to animation and Live Simulation mode for previewing dynamics in real-time. Watch a video teaser for Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014 here. "It's our goal to provide illustrators, graphic designers, animators and 3D artists as well as novice users and hobbyists with a resource for telling their stories in 3D, via images and video," said Steve Cooper, senior product manager of productivity and graphics at Smith Micro. "Poser not only provides professional users with powerful tools for creating 3D character content and scenes, but also offers a variety of easy-to-use features and pre-loaded figures and props that allow beginners to get into 3D art without forcing them to master figure modeling, texturing and rigging." Poser comes with pre-built, ready to use 3D characters that enable users to begin posing and animating right out of the box. Supported by a multitude of tutorial videos as well as by an experienced team of content creators, developers, QA testers and customer service and support teams, the full featured software is reliable, well documented and easy-to-learn. "With each new version that is released, Poser continues to raise the bar for 3D illustrators and artists," said Brian Haberlin, co-artist and co-writer of the multimedia sci-fi adventure saga Anomaly. "Poser gives users the ability to create exceedingly realistic animations and illustrations and has emerged as the digital artist's secret little helper." Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014 provide new professional level features, even at the base version of the software. The integration of Pixar's OpenSubdiv library enables artists to define subdivision levels by prop, figure or even individual body part with ease. This feature, known as Subdivision Surfaces, improves bending accuracy, smoothens polygonal surfaces and boosts overall performance by enabling lighter poly-count content. Poser's new Bullet Physics tool simulates rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics and even dynamic strand-based hair. Poser artists can now add jiggle and bounce to any prop or character, paint soft body constraint weights to animate and more. Users can even preview their animations in real-time with the Live Simulation feature. "Poser offers a variety of features that help everyone from beginners to professional animators alike," said Monty Oum, director of animation at Rooster Teeth Productions. "Whether you are just jumping into 3D animation or are a skilled digital artist, Poser has tools that will help bring your art to life, while cutting down production time and cost." Comic Book Preview Mode and new Fitting Room: Poser's new Comic Book Preview Mode enables illustrators to create color or black and white comic art with improved line control and outlines with persistent shading, even when rotating or animating their point of view. Users can also interactively fit existing clothing and props to any Poser figure with Poser Pro's Fitting Room, which provides five intelligent methods that interactively loosen, tighten, smooth and preserve soft and rigid features. With the click of a single button, designers can generate a new conforming clothing item, using the original figure's rig, complete with full morph transfer. For a full feature-listing visit here. Pricing and Availability: From now until June 20, 2013 Poser 10 is available for $239.99 and Poser 2014 for $399.99. After this time, Poser 10 will be available for $299.99 and Poser 2014 for $499.99. For more detailed product, pricing and tiered upgrade pricing information, please visit the Poser website. About Smith Micro Software, Inc. - Productivity and Graphics Group: Based in Santa Cruz, Calif., the Smith Micro Software Productivity and Graphics Group produces award-winning software that inspires consumer creativity and enables efficiency. The group's creative suite of programs provides artists of all skill levels – from novice to professional – with the tools to illustrate, animate and create 2D and 3D art. Some of the Productivity and Graphics Group's award-winning creative and utilities products include Poser, Anime Studio, Manga Studio and StuffIt. For more information, please visit: www.smithmicro.com. (NASDAQ: SMSI) Safe Harbor Statement: This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, forward-looking statements relating to the company's financial prospects and other projections of its performance, the existence of new market opportunities and interest in the company's products and solutions, and the company's ability to increase its revenue and regain profitability by capitalizing on these new market opportunities and interest and introducing new products and solutions. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements are changes in demand for the company's products from its customers and their end-users, customer concentration given that the majority of our sales depend on a few large client relationships, including Sprint, new and changing technologies, customer acceptance and timing of deployment of those technologies, new and continuing adverse economic conditions, and the company's ability to compete effectively with other software companies. These and other factors discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are made on the basis of the views and assumptions of management regarding future events and business performance as of the date of this release, and the company does not undertake any obligation to update these statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this release. Smith Micro, the Smith Micro logo and Poser are trademarks or registered trademarks of Smith Micro Software, Inc. All other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective companies.
EVE Evolved: Fanfest 2013 video roundup
Last month saw the huge tenth anniversary EVE Online Fanfest, a three-day convention packed full of exclusive reveals, behind-the-scenes talks, and community events. This year's Fanfest was the biggest one yet, celebrating EVE's tenth anniversary with special guest speakers from the scientific community, the reveal of a new virtual reality dogfighter, DUST 514's launch, and details of the upcoming Odyssey expansion. Massively was there to bring you coverage of the big news as it happened, and CCP streamed some of the key talks and events live to viewers at home. This year's Fanfest sold out so quickly that many people who wanted to go didn't get a chance to, and only a select few talks were shown on the public livestream. With such a packed event schedule, even players in attendance couldn't be there for every interesting talk. Thankfully, CCP recorded over 30 of the most anticipated events and has now uploaded the videos to YouTube. Highlights include the Make EVE Real videos, the EVE keynote, the CCP Presents Keynote, and the talks on how DUST 514 integrates with the EVE economy. In this week's EVE Evolved, I round up all of the EVE Fanfest videos in a handy list.
University of Texas and Blizzard COO Paul Sams launch game design academy
If you're looking to go pro in game design, Blizzard COO Paul Sams has teamed up with the University of Texas at Austin to create the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy. The academy will be led and taught by gaming industry executives and the curriculum will be guided by industry veteran Warren Spector. The 12-month, post-baccalaureate program will guide students through creating a game from start to finish, giving them the experience they need to join the gaming industry when they graduate. "The University of Texas at Austin has a tremendous track record of building nationally recognized programs that generate the leaders and critical thinkers the gaming industry needs," Sams said. "The program will focus on building the skills required for students to lead teams and develop games from concept to completion, while growing talent for the gaming industry." The program starts in 2014, but with only 20 spots available, you probably have a better chance of getting into a competitive raid guild.
Why World of Warcraft isn't a democracy
There's a difference between a consumer and a producer. To use the dreaded and overused food analogy, liking to eat doesn't translate into being a good cook. For that matter, liking to eat doesn't even translate into liking to cook, much less displaying any skill at cooking. I neither like to cook nor have even the slightest talent for it, but if you look at me you can tell I'm not shy about eating. Why am I belaboring this point into the ground? Because World of Warcraft isn't a democracy in part because the millions of us who like to eat it don't necessarily possess either the talent or aptitude to cook it up. Partially this is due to the fact that almost any creative task requires a certain degree of focus, and the more people you attempt to include in the design process the more effort needs to expended keeping the project on track. There's a reason projects of this magnitude often have people who specifically work on doing exactly that. They don't do the individual art, they don't code the abilities or design the environments or that next cool armor, they instead work on keeping all of these variables on track. They're jugglers, and the balls in this case are the varied and disparate elements of the game's overall design.
Allods Online explains designing a raid in great detail
Have you ever wanted to know exactly what goes into designing a new raid for Allods Online? Because there are apparently a lot of moving pieces at play. The latest article from the community team is penned by one of the game designers, and it explains extensively just what is involved in bringing a raid from the concept stage to the actual playable level. For Allods Online, the first step is the writing team coming up with a concept for the raid that makes sense in the game world and ties into major figures. That leads to the creature and object designers getting a sense of how much can be done for any given raid -- how many new enemies can be created, how many bosses can be made, how big the maps can be. From there it's on to layout and battle mechanics. For a more in-depth overview, take a look at the full entry on the official site.
The Daily Grind: Has an MMO ever implemented your idea?
Earlier this month, Massively's MJ sat down with the City of Steam devs and discovered that you, the Massively readers, had actually influenced one of the game mechanics. Wrote MJ, There is one new feature that was put into game specifically because of Massively fans: jumping! That's right. You made it clear you wanted jumping in game, and the devs listened. Who says you don't have the power to change things? Leaving aside the implication that we spent one of our precious wishes on jumping, I thought this was really cool, and I tried to think of other examples of players coming up with amazing (or not) design ideas that were subsequently implemented in a game. I can think of certain demands that were met in classic MMOs. World of Warcraft is infamous for implementing the most popular player mods as official features, and in more recent news, there are Guild Wars 2's efforts to split reset times for different continents after much player protest. How about you? Has an MMO ever implemented your idea or the ideas of a fellow player? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
EVE Evolved: Five years of EVE Evolved
About five years ago, on April 27th, 2008, I joined the Massively team and wrote the very first issue of the EVE Evolved column. Five years later, the column is still going strong and delivering its weekly dose of EVE Online to thousands of readers. I used to worry about running out of ideas to write about, but regular game updates and hilarious player shenanigans mean there's always something interesting going on in New Eden. When EVE hits its 10th anniversary in May, this column will have been running for just over half of the game's lifetime. In that time, I've written over 250 in-depth articles, guides, in-game stories and opinion pieces on EVE Online and a few on DUST 514. As usual, I'll be celebrating this anniversary by rounding up this year's column highlights and giving away two 30-day Pilot's License Extensions to two lucky readers. To enter the competition, write a comment explaining which EVE Evolved articles from this year you liked best and what topics you'd like to see covered in the coming year. You will need an active EVE account to claim the prize, so be sure to include your character name in your comment if you want to be in with a chance. If you'd rather not give out your character name or don't have an EVE account but would like to give the game a go, you can sign up a new trial account and use the name of your new character. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at the highlights from the column's fifth year!
MMO Blender: Game of Thrones, MUDs, and the perfect quest text
Nothing seems to suck me into a game more than a good story. The brilliant thing is that the story doesn't have to be complicated or intense as long as it's original and easy to follow. I want characters to meet, locations to discover. I need to immerse myself into a story more than I need to raise a level or obtain powerful loot. In this edition of MMO Blender, I wanted to use three main games as prime examples of systems that, when combined together in some form, would deliver the best story-driven experience I can imagine. There are several factors to consider: story, movement, character, and interaction. I want to use War of Dragons as an example of movement in a mostly text environment, Gemstone IV for character and interaction, and Game of Thrones Ascent for story. Hopefully, when I am done, I'll have convinced someone to give me a few million dollars to create this dream MMO.
Richard Garriott clarifies his 'most game designers really just suck' statements
Richard Garriott made some serious waves yesterday with some fairly inflammatory statements in an interview with PC Gamer. Citing a few exceptions like Chris Roberts, Garriott said, "I've met virtually no one in our industry who I think is close to as good a game designer as I am. I'm not saying that because I think I'm so brilliant. What I'm saying is, I think most game designers really just suck, and I think there's a reason why." This statement, and others like it that were delivered in the interview, caused no small amount of backlash. Today, Garriott posted a response (titled Words taken out of context) in an attempt to "clarify" his words. He cites a lack of context and "broader real time discussion" for the simplification and inaccurate representations of his statements. "By no means," he says, "did I intend to disparage others who have led the many great games of each era in gaming history." He then went on to re-tread some of his ideas about the difficulty about being a designer versus being an artist or programmer. "Sadly," he concludes, "I really do think that most people who get into design roles on a team have no more skills at design than the programmers and artists." Lest we do him the disservice of taking his words out of context, you can read his full rebuttal at the Portalarium website.
Garriott: 'I think most game designers really just suck'
Richard Garriott has some harsh words and a bit of tough love for game design professionals in a new interview at PC Gamer. Lord British, more visible in the press these days as a result of his successful Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter project, sat down with the mag to talk at length about what ails gaming and who he thinks is capable of doing something about it. "I think there's really very few great game designers," Garriott says. "I think Chris Roberts is one of them, Will Wright's another, Peter Molyneux is another. They clearly exist, but on the whole, I think that the design talent in our industry is dramatically lower than we need, as an industry. It's a very hard skill to learn." Garriott cites a lack of education and a lack of extra-design skills as problems plaguing many designers and the industry at large. If you're not a good artist and not a good programmer, but you still like games, you become a designer, if you follow me. You get into Q&A and often design. And the most valuable part of creating a game is the design, which the programmers are technically executing. And they'd be happy to just execute some of them. But in my mind, most artists and programmers are just as much of gamers as the designers, and I usually find in my history that the artists and programmers are, in fact, as good of designers as the designers. They're often better, because they understand the technology or the art. So we're leaning on a lot of designers who get that job because they're not qualified for the other jobs, rather than that they are really strongly qualified as a designer. It's really hard to go to school to be a good designer."
EVE Evolved: New Ancillary Armor Repairers aren't up to the task
EVE Online's Retribution 1.1 patch went live this week, overhauling armour tanking and rebalancing some ships that traditionally fit armour tanks. Last week I looked at why people usually choose passive buffer tanks for PvP over active tanks and how the Ancillary Shield Boosters changed all that by giving shield users a huge free burst tank that can often outperform a front-loaded buffer tank. The new Ancillary Armor Repairers look similarly amazing on paper with their ability to consume nanite repair paste to triple repair output, but how do they stack up against their shield-based counterparts? Now that the patch is out and I've finally got my hands on the Ancillary Armor Repairers, I'm not sure they're any good. They're limited to one per ship even though most active armour tanking ships use dual or triple repairer setups, and they can run for only eight repair cycles before running out of paste. They're also only 68.75% more effective than tech 2 repairers and still require the same amount of capacitor. Ancillary Shield Boosters may provide a slightly smaller 63.33% repair boost over tech 2 boosters, but they can cycle at double the rate of Ancillary Armor Repairers and don't require any capacitor. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what makes Ancillary Shield Boosters a strong contender in PvP and show that the new Ancillary Armor Repairers just aren't up to the task.
