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EVE Online kicks off Mac open beta for high-res graphics engine
The next EVE Online expansion, called Apocrypha, will launch on March 10 and promises to bring a long-missing feature to the Mac client: high res graphics. The Trinity graphics engine (aka Premium graphics) has been available to players using the Windows client since December of 2007. As of today, all active accounts using the Mac client can opt to download a second enhanced client to try out EVE's Premium graphic content on the Singularity test server.EVE's Community Manager CCP Wrangler says, "This is the culmination of over a year of effort on the part of development teams at both CCP Games and Transgaming and we are extremely happy to see EVE running in all its splendor on the Mac OS." That splendor, however, may not be coming for some EVE players running older Mac hardware.
EVE Fanfest presentation discusses graphics enhancements
EVE Online's Fanfest 2008 is now underway, and reports are already coming through on what's happening in Reykjavik. CCP Games held a press conference that discussed EVE's technical side, namely its server technology, but also touched upon EVE's impending graphic enhancements in 2009. EVE Online's Premium 'Trinity' graphics engine was a significant leap forward in the game. While some players felt that the graphics as they were prior to Trinity were still ahead of the curve in terms of what's expected of an MMO, the look of the game changed dramatically with Trinity. However, the Trinity deployment wasn't a complete revamp of EVE's look. Ships and stations benefited from Premium graphics, but other celestial objects did not, jump gates notwithstanding."EVE is in a state where, if you run the Premium graphics edition, half of it is done, you could say," said Chief Technologist Halldor Fannar of CCP Games, at Reykjavik's Fanfest 2008, as reported by Oli Welsh of Eurogamer. Future graphics updates will bring celestial objects in line with what's currently seen in Trinity, and may well arrive with the forthcoming Walking in Stations expansion which is slated to launch after the Quantum Rise expansion, just around the corner.
Anarchy Online team releases teaser for revamped graphics engine
Anarchy Online was released in 2001, and as such, the current graphics don't quite hold up when compared to games of this generation. Since the game has been receiving a lot of new players from their free-to-play offer, the team at Funcom decided to do something about the lackluster environments by developing a new rendering engine for their graphics system. They have also made a teaser trailer available to show off their hard work, and it can be seen in two different resolutions here. With this, and the changes to allow people on the free-to-play option the chance to get more of the game for less, it seems Funcom is working hard to jump-start the aging title.The game director for AO, Craig Morrison, was interviewed by MMORPG.com about the new engine and was able to tell us a bit more about the upgrades. Apparently they have been working on the engine for close to a year, and it will allow for much greater optimization from GPU's. Once the new engine is in place, it will not be possible to run under the old engine, but the team is going to make many of the graphical bells and whistles optional, to prevent those with older systems being blocked from a game they're already able to play right now. They are aiming to release this revamped engine later in the year.[Thanks, Collin]
AcroGames using Unreal Engine in new online game
AcroGames, an upstart Korean game development company, has licensed Epic's Unreal Engine 3 for a new game. Epic told Gamasutra that the new game is an online title for the PC. There are lots of different kinds of online titles, but AcroGames is partly comprised of former Lineage II team members, so it's a good, educated guess to suggest that the new title is an MMO. Also, Lineage II was developed using the previous Unreal Engine iteration. Epic VP Jay Wilbur was quoted in Gamasutra, saying: "AcroGames is a promising team comprised of top talent and we look forward to working with them. We are committed to supporting the Asian game market with best of breed development tools, and our agreement with AcroGames marks a significant achievement in this effort."In an interview published just yesterday, Epic's Mark Rein described the language-barrier-related challenges Epic is having with supporting its engine in non-English speaking countries (specifically Japan, in that article). One wonders if they'll run into the same troubles when working with a Korean studio.
