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Virgin Galactic postpones space tourism flights again
Virgin Galactic has announced that its commercial space tourism service has been delayed yet again, from the end of this year until Q2 2023.
Virgin Galactic's next rocket-powered test flight confirmed for May 22nd
Following an rocket motor failure on its last test, Virgin Galactic has confirmed that VSS Unity's next flight will take place on Saturday May 22nd.
Mothership releases Prepo 2, helps devs create app icons and retina artwork
One of the challenges facing developers isn't always writing clean code. A small development team also has to contend with images and icons, which are often the first things a user sees when he stumbles upon your app and takes it on its maiden run. One app that promises to make artwork and icon preparation easy is Prepo from Mothership. Now in version 2.0, Prepo allows you to put the finishing touches on your iconography and Retina artwork before you submit your app for review. Once you import your image files, Prepo will size the icons for an iPad, iPhone or a universal app. On the artwork side of things, Prepo takes your @2x artwork and reduces it to @1x. It also resizes it and renames it if necessary. One new feature in Prepo 2 is a LivePreview feature that lets you test out your icons and artwork in realtime on an iOS device. To use LivePreview, you have to purchase the US$4.99 Prepo Plus upgrade and download the iOS version of Prepo on your iPhone or iPad. As long as your Mac and iOS device are on the same WiFi network, you'll be able to view your image assets on your iOS device and make changes on the fly. Prepo 2 is available now from the Mac App Store for free and you can use it as a standalone editor for your artwork and icons. The companion iOS version is also free, but you have to purchase the Prepo+ upgrade to get the OS X and iOS apps to work together.
EVE Evolved: Returning EVE to the Crucible
When EVE Online launched in 2003, it was a barren game without many of the comforts we enjoy today. The user interface was abysmally worse than today's (if you can imagine such a thing), players with cruisers were top dog, and practically the only activities were mining or blowing up miners. The culmination of years of hard work by a small indie studio, EVE Online sold almost entirely on its future potential. When I was introduced to the game by an excited friend in early 2004 during the Castor expansion, he encouraged me to get in on the ground floor because he believed the game was going to be huge. Years later, I find myself introducing the game to thousands of readers on the same premise. EVE's continual success over the years transformed a fresh-faced CCP Games into a multinational game development giant. And yet, for all that growth and all the updates to EVE over the years, the fact that the game sells largely on future potential is still firmly embedded in both players and developers. Players subscribe not only because they like the game but because they want to support development to reach EVE's true potential. Two years with very little iteration on existing features sent the message that developers weren't trying to reach that potential, but it seems that trend is soon to be completely reversed. With the newly announced Crucible expansion, CCP will be adding countless small features, graphical updates and iterations that put EVE firmly back on the path to reaching its full potential. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at CCP's plans to return EVE to the crucible and reforge it into something awesome. Those waiting for the third part of my look at the new player experience can catch that in next week's column, as Kajatta is enjoying his final week in EVE before delivering his verdict.
Apple expenditures to grow on solar project, new campus
Apple's got incredible amounts of money in the bank, as you probably already know. According to recent financial filings, Apple is about to spend a good bit of it. The company will reportedly spend US$8 billion during the next financial year, which is more than twice what it spend during the last 12 months. A full $900 million of that will go straight to its retail stores. Last year, the company (only?) spent $614 million on retail, so that's a nice improvement. Other areas of spending are a little bit more about company infrastructure, presumably. Apple is moving forward on that brand new "mothership" campus, and presumably no expense will be spared there. The data center down in North Carolina is also set to receive a number of updates, including a rumored "solar farm" to power it. Apple's been growing by leaps and bounds lately, and while money in the bank is always nice, it seems like this upcoming year is going to be one where the company in Cupertino invests a little bit more in itself rather than just cash.
EVE Evolved: Looking forward to the winter expansion
Since EVE Online's release in 2003, CCP Games has been the center of one of the most interesting success stories in the games industry. Produced by a tiny indie development studio on a frozen volcanic rock, EVE was the perfect example of how to do things right. The game's publishing deal with Simon & Schuster allowed CCP to buy back the rights to the game several months after its initial release. With no publisher taking a cut of the profits, CCP ploughed subscriptions back into the game's development and grew the development team organically. As a one-game company, CCP worked closely with players to make EVE the best game possible for its loyal playerbase. In a recent letter to the players, CCP CEO Hilmar laments that somewhere along the line, things changed for the worse. The CCP of today bears little resemblance to the "little indie studio that could" of 2003, not just housing over 600 employees in offices around the world but also developing upcoming MMOs DUST 514 and World of Darkness. Resources are spread thin, and EVE Online has suffered for it. Last month I looked back at the blockbuster Apocrypha expansion and asked why every expansion since then has cut down on the in-space development players want. Hilmar's letter and its accompanying devblog answered that question this week with a solid plan for iteration on flying in space features during the winter development period. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look forward to the winter expansion and explain why each of the issues being tackled in the coming expansion is a big deal to players.
Cupertino city council releases 'Mothership' proposal documents
Every building begins as a work of imagination, and one of the challenges architects face when discussing their plans with clients and neighbors is how to share that inner vision effectively and accurately. For Apple's planned 'Mothership' campus expansion in Cupertino, those efforts at conveying the master vision -- in the form of a complete plan overview, elevations and landscaping diagrams, floor plans and space allocation, and pretty pretty pictures -- are now accessible to all, thanks to the Cupertino City Council posting the PDFs it received from Apple onto the city website. If you ever wanted to know how many trees are going to be planted on the new Apple campus (and exactly where), dig in and have fun. [via Apple 2.0]
Massively's EVE CSM interview: Incarna and nullsec PvP
In part one of our interview with EVE Online's player-elected Council of Stellar Management, we asked council member Deirdra Vaal about EVE Gate, the upcoming forum revamp, CCP's microtransaction policy and other topics discussed at the December CSM summit. In three meeting sessions, CCP and the CSM tackled some hard-hitting issues, the biggest of which were Incarna and nullsec PvP. Most of the details on Incarna are currently locked under NDA, but that didn't stop us from asking the CSM about it. Nullsec PvP has also been a hot topic recently with the revelation that levels of PvP have actually been declining since the Dominion expansion. Dominion was intended to open up nullsec for smaller entities, but we still see EVE's political landscape dominated by massive coalitions of alliances spanning several regions. Massively: The CSM expressed significant concerns about the Incarna development plans it had access to. Does the CSM think that CCP is heading in the wrong direction with Incarna? Deirdra Vaal: We feel that the approach taken to Incarna is the wrong one, and we emphasised this to CCP. However, CCPs general idea to set Incarna as an "off the grid" environment where we go for shady deals is something the CSM is reasonably happy with. It's just that so far we haven't really been shown any compelling gameplay. So we think they might be heading in the wrong direction, if they are lazy about it. They might also be heading in the right direction, but so far we haven't seen compelling gameplay that would support this assumption. Skip past the cut for the rest of our interview with EVE's CSM on Incarna, nullsec PvP and the future of EVE.
PAX 2010: CCP unveils EVE Online's latest expansion
Tweet var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/story/r/pax_2010_ccp_unveils_eve_online_s_latest_expansion_massively'; At PAX Prime, we caught up with CCP's lead game designer Noah Ward, who paused helpfully between the roaring crowds on all sides of the booth to fill us in on the "secret sauce" to EVE Online's continued growth and success. Ward said it was simple: CCP's steadfast commitment to the game for the long haul. The dev team strongly believes in the growth of EVE and works hard to expand it both inward and upward. Part of that growth includes continued expansions to the title, and Ward was excited to reveal the next one on deck. While it doesn't yet have a name -- at least, nothing CCP could put in print -- the team is hyped up about its latest expansion to the EVE Online franchise. Set to debut later this winter, the expansion looks to build on many of the key foundations that Tyrannis began. Hit the jump to hear about the four new features that EVE fans will find themselves crowing about by the time Santa comes a-callin'!
Macworld 2010: TUAW goes to the mothership
No Macworld is complete without at least one pilgrimage to the mothership in Cupertino, and so yesterday, before the meetings and interviews we're planning today, David Winograd, Dave Caolo, and myself made the trip to the Apple Campus. In the gallery below, you can see what we saw, from the boxed versions of Mac software -- Popcap games boxed! Pixelmator boxed! -- to the endless souvenirs and trinkets for sale in the company store ("There are quite a few of us who know your site," winked the unnamed cashier to us as we checked out), to the original iPod box sitting in the office window, and the office desks full of multiple 30" Cinemas. It was glorious, all of it. Yes, even the woman who shooed us away with a "No pictures!" warning when we tried to take shots of the multiple basketball courts and volleyball court on campus. Check out all of the sights of our walk all the way around the Infinite Loop in the gallery below. %Gallery-85064%
EVE Evolved: The road ahead for 0.0 alliances
A lot of MMOs rarely (if ever) revisit old gameplay mechanics or areas, focusing instead on new expansions. EVE Online is different in that the developers go back and re-visit old aspects of gameplay rather than just focusing on new mechanics and content. Even Blizzard have seen the wisdom in redevelopment of old content, and in their next planned World of Warcraft expansion "Cataclysm", the entire game world is being given a revamp to bring everything up to their most recent development standards.CCP Games have been using this development strategy for years and coupled with player-based development in the community, EVE Online is truly a game that evolves over time. Player-managed political states shift allegiances, entire empires can rise, span the galaxy and fall within a year and the emergent gameplay that typifies EVE's sandbox style is constantly being expanding on by players. The game we know now is very different to the one we had a year ago and if recent devblogs are any indication, EVE is about to undergo a major evolutionary leap. The entire sovereignty system and the state of capital warfare is about to undergo a complete revamp.In this article, I take a more in-depth look ahead at the changes that are coming to 0.0, capital ships and the sovereignty system and how I think they could turn out, given my experiences in EVE.
EVE Online Community Spotlight: a Q&A with Chribba
Trust is a rare commodity in EVE Online. Many players are drawn to the game by the fact that almost any form of deceit, betrayal, and outright treachery is allowed in EVE. Not all players head down this path, of course, but plenty do. This element of risk is what makes the game exciting, but even those who are wary of the online personas of some EVE players may still find themselves getting backstabbed and robbed, or worse. Many in EVE have learned to profit from the misfortunes of others. However, this social environment has created certain opportunities for individuals who are able to establish their credibility over time, and through great effort. Among the most trustworthy in EVE Online is Chribba, a player who's very active in the community and provides a number of services to EVE fans, free of charge. Helped by Chribba's efforts, EVE Online has expanded into a game where players become auteurs, creating videos and sharing their in-game pursuits with others, either for their own glory or their organization's propaganda. Of course, his contributions don't end there, as most everyone in the EVE community knows. Massively recently caught up with Chribba and asked him to share a bit about what he does for the EVE player base, and why he does it.
Apple employee blogs commute
Have you ever wondered what it is like to commute to Apple's campus at Cupertino? Neither have I. However, that hasn't stopped Andrew Lin from vlogging his morning commute to the Mothership.The videos are all in QuickTime (what else?) and they are sped up by 30, so you need not experience the commute in realtime.[via Valley Wag]
