learning-skills
Latest
Massively interviews CCP Greyscale on the EVE Christmas gift
Early yesterday morning, a new devblog by EVE Online developer CCP Greyscale brought us an exciting first look at something awesome arriving in the upcoming Incursion expansion's December release. Speaking on behalf of development team Yggdrasill at CCP's top secret Iceland hideout, Greyscale explained CCP's plans to completely abolish learning skills in EVE. Learning skills increase a player's attributes, which decrease the time it takes to train skills. Since they take some time to train, however, dedicating time to them will only pay off after several months of subsequent skill training. As a result, new players are often advised to put off training for that ship they want or those useful industrial skills, as focusing on learning skills early on will pay off in the long run. This can stunt a player's progression in his early days, making for a very boring early play experience that can be distinctly off-putting. As part of the company's Christmas gift to all EVE players, the skillpoints we have invested in learning skills will be reimbursed so that we can add them to any skill we want. To compensate for the decrease in attributes and give new players a bit of a boost, all players will have 12 points added to every attribute. This is exciting news, as the removal of learning skills has always been strongly supported by the EVE community. We caught up with CCP Greyscale to ask a few important questions about what this change means for players. Skip past the cut for our interview with CCP Greyscale on the EVE Christmas gift and what the learning skill changes mean for players new and old.
EVE Online santa patch to get rid of learning skills
The noise in EVE Online this morning is something to behold, for it seems that CCP Games has let slip the details of its planned December "Santa" patch early -- and as Keanu would say -- whoa. According to the newest Devblog by CCP Greyscale, starting today, all NPC sales of Learning skillbooks have been canceled. Player-run sales orders are currently still in the market, however. From here, a second patch will be deployed on December 14th (if all goes well in QA-land, mind) that will officially nuke Learning skills from the map, and give players who have them trained a full refund of all skillpoints they've invested in Learning. At that time players can apply those skillpoints however they'd like until they're all gone, without waiting for them to tick off over time. Another thing to note with the planned December 14th patch, all player-owned Learning skillbooks will additionally go away. More importantly, the ones you have in your hangar, etc. will be reimbursed, whereas the the ones you inject into your head will not. As such, if you were looking at starting an alt within the next couple of weeks, don't waste your time or ISK picking up Learning skills, or be prepared to eat the loss of whatever you paid for the books if you inject them. Finally, another huge change comes with this upcoming patch, in that new capsuleers will no longer be getting the 100% learning speed increase up to their first 1.6 million skillpoints. The reason is that everyone will be receiving 12 new non-remappable base points in each attribute! CCP states that this change will offset the loss of speed bonus by effectively turning the current 2x speed bonus into a 2.5x speed bonus once the 12 new base points are added. Definitely not a bad trade off for starting capsuleers -- and no more sitting around waiting for those learning skills to tick down before you get to the fun skills, either! For all the holiday happiness in one place, pop by the EVE Online site, check out the newest devblog, and marvel at the shiny graphs.
An EVE veteran explains some harsh realities of the game
Changes made to EVE Online in the last year or so have been aimed at making the game more accessible to newer players. But this raises the hackles of some veteran players, who didn't have advanced learning skills, affordable +4 implants, and a much increased starting amount of skillpoints, much less a straightforward tutorial when they began.But it's less these perks than the belief that EVE's game mechanics are changing to make the game a bit less dangerous for rookie pilots, or reduce the risks that result from being careless... or just dense. The possibility of changes to the wardec system and the steep penalties that will soon be associated with suicide ganking fuel this view held by some long-time EVE players. Some would go so far as to say that the game now favors carebears over pirates or 0.0 alliance players, but these views are largely subjective.
Star Vault announces new MMO: Mortal Online
Swedish developer Star Vault has officially introduced the world to its first game, an MMO by the name of Mortal Online. The game's official site has launched, and visitors are treated to the above trailer upon arrival -- and as far as first impressions go, we'll say that the graphics certainly do look good (a disclaimer at the start even promises that what we're seeing is real in-game footage). Higher quality versions of the teaser can be found here.Of course, it takes more than just pretty graphics to have a successful MMO, and from looking at some of the proposed features of Mortal Online it would appear that the developers are well aware of this. The game will be played in first-person, and one of the primary focuses will be hardcore PvP, with a real-time combat system. Couple this with the fact that there will be no leveling at all, and you start to realize that we're looking at a very different game here.
