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EVE Fanfest 2013 day two: World of Darkness, Odyssey, and EVE Virtual Reality with the Oculus Rift
EVE Online's tenth anniversary Fanfest promised to be its biggest yet, with over 1,400 players packed into Iceland's Harpa convention centre to find out the latest on EVE Online, DUST 514, and World of Darkness. The first day focused mainly on DUST and its link with the EVE universe, but today the focus largely switched back to internet spaceships. There were plenty of roundtable discussions, and the CSM and Alliance panels were as awesome as ever, but it was the EVE Keynote that really blew the crowd away. The day got off to a good start with the highly anticipated World of Darkness talk. Most fans were probably expecting to see more airy game design ideas and another shiny trailer, but this year CCP just came out and put all its cards on the table. We saw that the game is still firmly in pre-production, with much of the previous work going into developing the engine and cool content creation tools and shaders. While I was initially disappointed at the lack of gameplay progress or shiny cinematics, I found this approach of being open and direct with fans very refreshing. As I told WoD art director Thomas Holt, honest beats shiny every time. Read on for a full run-down of the EVE reveals from the second day of EVE's tenth anniversary Fanfest, including in-depth details of the Odyssey expansion's features.
EVE Online plans major mining and industry revamp for Odyssey
Details of EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion have been floating around since PAX East, but it seems the company saved some pretty huge changes to reveal at this year's tenth anniversary Fanfest. In two massive devblogs accompanying today's EVE Online Keynote speech, CCP Fozzie discussed plans to overhaul EVE's entire resource distribution system. Everything from asteroid and ice mining to moon harvesting and nullsec industry will be affected by the revamp. Miners will find their ice belts have been moved from static locations to hidden exploration sites that have to be scanned down, but to compensate it will now mine at double the normal rate. Normal asteroid mining in lowsec and nullsec is also due for a buff with the addition of large quantities of low-end minerals. Hidden asteroid belts will no longer need to be probed down but can be quickly located with the new Discovery scanner, and to top it off there'll even be new high quality ore sites that can only be found in prime areas of nullsec. Outpost industrial infrastructure is due for an update with new purchaseable upgrade paths expanding factory, office and research lab capabilities to the same level as fully-fledged empire stations. Lastly, moon minerals are finally being addressed with a redistribution of rare materials and several new reaction paths to bypass current bottlenecks. A lot of value will be moved from Technetium back to rarer materials like Thulium, Neodymium, Promethium and Dysprosium, and new supplies of all four will be distributed randomly into moons across the universe. Re-scan all of your nearby moons when Odyssey lands because it could suddenly be worth a fortune! Whether you're a die-hard fan of internet spaceships or just a gawker on the sidelines, EVE Fanfest is the EVE Online event of the year (and the key source of new DUST 514 and World of Darkness scoops!). Follow Massively's Brendan Drain as he reports back on this year's Fanfest starpower, scheming, and spoilers from exotic Reykjavik, Iceland.
EVE Evolved: Mining returns with Inferno
Inferno is right around the corner, with the Escalation to Inferno patch due to hit in two days on Tuesday, April 24th. The patch prepares EVE Online for the coming PvP apocalypse with titan balance tweaks, a new interactive status effect bar, and two very important changes to the NPC drop tables: Manufacturable tech 1 modules will be removed from NPC drop tables, and Rogue Drone NPCs will have their mineral drops replaced with ISK bounties. These are changes players have been suggesting for years, and together they have the potential to bring back mining as one of the most profitable professions in EVE. If someone asked you where all the minerals come from to build the thousands of ships destroyed in EVE on a daily basis, you might say that you assume most of it comes from mined ore. Mining was originally the biggest source of minerals in the game and one of the most profitable professions, but over the years, that's changed. When level 4 missions added an infinite source of battleship-sized NPCs to high-security space, mission-running quickly overtook mining as the most profitable profession, and bizarrely, as a very good source of minerals. When the drone regions were later released, ratting there also became a huge mineral faucet far in excess of that produced through mining. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the problems faced by mining as a source of minerals and speculate on what will happen to mining as a profession when the Inferno expansion hits.
It's time for spring cleaning!
Void storage was an amazing addition to WoW, as far as I'm concerned. I've gone from having absolutely no bag space to having about 20 slots free (give or take 10) at a time. As you can see from the screenshot above, however, I could use more space. It's not a major concern right now, mind you, but we're about to head into a new expansion, which means even more stuff to gather and squirrel away for a rainy day. While you might be spending your days dawdling in Dragon Soul or messing around with dungeons, the subject of an upcoming expansion is actually one you might want to turn your attention to. A new expansion isn't just more levels to play -- it's more items to collect, a new market of trade goods to delve into, and a host of game changes you may want to prepare for. Prepare for? Yes, absolutely. After playing through three separate expansions myself, I can tell you with certainty that preparing for an expansion before it's released will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.
Newest F2P blog for Star Trek Online talks about dilithium
Star Trek Online has always had a variety of currencies for players, each allowing access to different stocks of items. But another form of money is coming into the game, and much like gold-pressed latinum, it's something that has a long history in lore. The rare and valuable dilithium is being introduced as a new form of reward, and the latest entry in the Path to F2P series discusses just how the new form of money will work. The most important role that the ore will play will be in replacing the existing free ship tokens that had previously come when players achieved a new rank. Earning a new ship will now be a more difficult and involved task, with a discount coupon and a free offering of refined dilithium to make it easier to earn a ship on a rank increase, but it won't be automatic. The entry goes on to state that the current implementation on the test server is not quite right, and it includes more discussion about how much effort is meant to be involved in getting a brand-new ship.
EVE Evolved: Bringing back the glory days
In years gone by, exploring the unknown far reaches of the EVE Online universe meant setting a course for nullsec. With no way to install a permanent residence in the most lucrative far-off systems, players would launch dangerous expeditions into the deep with the hope of striking it rich. Nullsec was the only place to mine rare ores containing megacyte and zydrine, and piracy wasn't as common as it is today. For putting themselves at the risk of pirates, miners were rewarded with an income stream greater than that of any other profession in the game. It was a golden age in exploration that wasn't to repeat itself until March 2009's Apocrypha expansion opened 2500 hidden wormhole systems for exploitation. Things have changed considerably since those early days of EVE. Player-built starbases and outposts have transformed the face of nullsec, allowing alliances to build themselves an empire in the void. December 2009's Dominion expansion brought a complete revamp of the nullsec sovereignty mechanics, allowing alliances to upgrade their space but dramatically increasing the cost of system ownership. Despite all of these updates and improvements, over the past several years we have somehow lost a lot of what made nullsec great in its glory days. Local industry has been replaced by risk-free logistics, and nullsec's risky but rewarding mining profession is now greatly overshadowed by safe highsec mission-running. With a new iterative nullsec revamp scheduled to begin this winter, I use this week's EVE Evolved to speculate on what can be done to bring back the glory days of nullsec industry.
Original iPad retrofitted to play nice with Smart Cover, magnets largely to thank (video)
Although we don't exactly know how they work, magnets are one of Earth's many fascinations and are used in many gadgets today -- perhaps most notably in Apple's new Smart Covers. As you might have already known, the iPad 2's first party screen concealer uses a bunch of magnets to make the magic happen; it snaps on and fits almost too well. By taking a few rare earth magnets and gluing them to the original slate's hip, blogger Dan Provost is able to use a Smart Cover with the iPad uno. He positioned them according to how they stuck to the hinge of the cover, which explains the lack of spacing between the four magnets. As you'll see in the video, Apple's screen protector works well with the tablet, but it lacks the auto-unlock mechanism found in the iPad 2. Care to give your original iPad a taste of modernity? Hit the more coverage link to find the main ingredient for this DIY project.
Gold Capped: How to do the jewelcrafting shuffle
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! You've bought your ore at a discount, you've prospected it all, and now you're trying to decide how to make your money back. Like in Wrath of the Lich King, we have the ability to process all of these raw gems in some way in order to make more money. This is usually called a "shuffle"; it amounts to common sense and knowing what the gems can be used for. Let's start with the basics. Each of the three modern ores prospects slightly differently. Obsidium Ore prospects into six green-quality gems per stack and a residual number of blue-quality gems. Elementium Ore prospects four green-quality gems per stack and one blue-quality gem. Pyrite Ore prospects into four green-quality gems, one and a half blue-quality gems, and an average of eight Volatile Earths per stack.
Gold Capped: WoW Prospector for profitable prospecting
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, hate mail, or guild applications! Prospecting is something jewelcrafters can do to turn ore into raw gems. It takes 8 seconds of pure casting time to prospect a stack of ore, as well as whatever time it takes you to look all the gems out of the four loot windows that entails. It can't be legally automated, so that makes prospecting the semi-porous membrane between the ore and raw gem markets. Without this barrier, the relationship between the prices of ore and raw gems would be more like the ore and bars in which unless you have a small market with no active miner auctioneers, the price of bars isn't usually much more than the ore that went into making it. As it is, you may often find the price of ore is much lower than the gems you get from prospecting it are worth, even if you just sell them raw on the auction house. The reason for this is that mining ore is hard enough, and many times, miners will just throw their wares into the AH and rely on the market to snap up any ore below the price where prospecting is profitable. Also, unless these miners happen to be (or have) jewelcrafters, they may not exactly know what their ore represents in terms of raw gem money. Enter Wow Prospector, which allows you to input the price per ore and for the raw gems, then output whether it's worth prospecting.
EVE Evolved: Mining 101 -- Mining efficiency
Mining is one of EVE Online's oldest and most iconic activities, with a significant in-game community and several helpful guides. Although many players would rather pick up railguns and blow each other to bits than pick up mining lasers to hoover up some rocks, mining can be a very relaxing way to make ISK. In last week's first part of the EVE Evolved guide to mining, I examined at some of the most basic mining topics. I looked at the Retriever as an entry-level mining ship for new players, strategies for mining on your own, and the basic structure of a group mining operation. Although it's a relatively quick and easy profession to get into, there's a lot more to mining than meets the eye. Both miners and haulers have several skills, ships and modules available to upgrade their effectiveness and make the most of their play time. Finding out the best ore to mine or the best location to mine it also isn't quite as straightforward as it seems, which often makes it difficult to find a good mining spot. Once you've mined your ore, it's also not obvious how to get the most ISK out of it. Do you refine it yourself and sell the minerals, or will the raw ore be worth more on the open market? In this week's second part of the EVE Evolved guide to mining in EVE, I look at mining efficiency and how to make the most ISK for your invested time.
Gold Capped: The downside of hoarding
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house, and Insider Trader, which is all about professions. For Gold Capped's inside line on making money in-game, check in here every Thursday, and email Basil with your comments, questions or hate mail! In the beginning of an expansion, a lot of people tend to hoard goods for later. A herbalist friend of mine gathered his heart out for the first two days of Cataclysm and managed to produce something like 50 stacks of herbs. His plan for it was to use some of it on maxing out alchemy and then hold onto the rest so he could level inscription at some future point. We started talking, and it became apparent that he was aware that the price of herbs was high and would likely be much lower in a couple of weeks. This is not unique. Most people who end up with enough gatherable materials that they have to decide what to do with apparently default to hoarding it for future use instead of using it immediately or selling it -- even if they know that the value of their mats will be lower by the time they use it.
Gold Capped: WoW Prospector and mailbag
Every week, Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) aims to educate players about how to make money on the auction house. For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail, as well as check out the long awaited 11th episode of Call to Auction! I got an email from the creator of WoW Prospector asking me to cover it. After he assured me that his servers are housed in a fire proof room lined with asbestos and at least 300 meters from any residential zones, I agreed, mainly because it's an incredibly useful tool that has saved me a bunch of spreadsheet time. Essentially, the tool will tell you how much money you stand to make prospecting various ores, given the price of ore and what you can sell the raw gems for. Here's a screenshot of it in action:
Gold Capped: Automating the grind
Want to get Gold Capped? This column will show you how, and is written by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, also of outdps.com, the Hunting Party podcast, and the Call to Auction podcast. Don't forget to drop by Onyxia-US this Sunday at 7:30 PM eastern time to get ganked by one of the CtA hosts and take the money of the other one! A good time will be had by all, and we'll be sticking around after the event to chat with readers and listeners! Grinding is a pain. Avoiding grinds is why I got into the auction house in the first place. Repetitive and boring tasks are not fun for most people. Unfortunately, while some businesses are relatively grind free, certain tradeskills require us to do something like milling (inscription), prospecting (jewelcrafting), or disenchanting (enchanting). The more volume you want to sell, the more volume you need to process. I know of scribes who sell 1200g a day of glyphs at an average of 8g each. That's 150 glyphs sold, which means 150 Ink of the Sea squeezed out of northrend herbs. You get 5-6 inks per stack of herbs, so this guy mills a minimum of 25 stacks of herbs a day. Each stack of herbs requires at least 4 hardware events (clicks or keypresses).
Breakfast Topic: Your favorite routes
Vince sent us this tip from Just my Two Copper: a quick Cobalt circuit in case you're a high level miner and want to spend a few minutes making some ingame money. Truth is, everyone has this various routes that they take in game, whether they be your recent run of dailies, a gathering run (I used to know the Swamp of Sorrows by heart when I was leveling up Herbalism, and even now I've got my own places to go in Sholazar to pick up as much leather as possible), or even a run around to see if you can find some of the rare spawns (the Time-Lost Proto Drake or maybe the spirit beast).What are some of your favorite, most ingrained (in your mind), or most profitable runs in game? They aren't really a trade secret -- AHs tend to change from server to server, and even if a certain ore or item comes into demand, it's usually because no one wants to farm it, not because it's not out there to find. But we do get set in our patterns -- what are some of yours?
Time is Money: Saronite
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply). Saronite translates into easy WoW gold, and can be farmed in massive quantities in Sholazar Basin, Icecrown and Storm Peaks. Wintergrasp is also a great place to farm it, despite being ground-bound.MinersSacred Duty, a prot pally blog, recently posted an excellent example of a simple yet effective saronite farming route in Icecrown. If you cannot fly yet, I highly recommend Sholazar Basin. Follow the rivers, run around the pillars, and circle the province perimeter. In fact, pretty much anywhere you go, you will find saronite, and the mobs are mid-seventies, unlike the heavy hitters in Icecrown. As for Storm Peaks, make sure to fly up where you would think you have no business being. Giant cliff walls that stretch for miles and random peaks may be boring, but they do contain nodes. An hour could easily grant you a few hundred ore. Before you smelt it, check your AH prices for ore versus bars. Because two ore go into a bar, you will want to smelt your ore into bars to sell if one ore is worth less than half of one bar. Otherwise, sell the ore! Jewelcrafters will buy it up for prospecting.
Runic Games partners with MMO portal Perfect World for their upcoming game
Perfect World Entertainment, the MMO portal of the self-titled Perfect World International and Ether Saga Online, has announced a partnership between themselves and the phoenix game studio Runic Games for the publishing rights of the upcoming MMO, Torchlight.This is a large step forward for Runic Games, the previous Mythos game team of the now defunct Flagship Studios. Their agreement with Perfect World is for global publishing rights, meaning Torchlight could be seeing an international release.Little is currently known about Torchlight, other than the game will be focusing on a single city and centered around the acquisition of a magical ore that imbues equipment with power, but also has a downside to it as well. The game has a bit of a cartoony, playful character to it, as seen in some early concept art shown on the main Runic Games website.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Miner
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-eighth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself. Mining is one of the strangest professions in the World of Warcraft. This may seem counterintuitive in the face of such odd professions as alchemy, and more particularly, engineering. But when you think of it, mining is equally strange in its own way.Mining in the World of Earthiness is by and large a capitalist venture, where the people getting rich off of the various precious metals in the world are never ever the same people who actually go out and dig the stuff out of the ground. No, the rich people find other people do to the actual digging for them, and then compel those diggers to hand over the fruits of their hard work for a mere fraction of the work's actual value. Furthermore, precious metals here on Earth are not simply lying about at the surface for anyone with a pickaxe to come along and collect -- otherwise those metals wouldn't be precious anymore. Mining on Azeroth is more like collecting interesting seashells than it is anything similar to what humans do on Earth. Below, we will find a few ideas about why in the world only the very greatest adventurers with the best training can go around picking up shiny ore nodes sticking up out of the ground, as well as what it might mean to your character to do so.
Phat Loot Phriday: Titansteel Shield Wall
This is one of the more legendary shields in the game at this point, even if it isn't actually Legendary. But it is for all you Blacksmiths out there looking for something to do.Name: Titansteel Shield Wall (Wowhead, Thottbot, Wowdigger)Type: Epic ShieldArmor: 7350Abilities: 211 Block, +36 Strength, +69 Stamina Increases defense rating by 64, and at this level, while I'm not a tank expert (I leave that to the pros), Defense is what you want. %Gallery-33600%
Mining mechanics changed, one hit per node
The updated 3.0.8 patch notes released today have an interesting, yet significant, change to mining.Miners will now only hit the node once to get all the ore and associated loot.This change might seem mundane but it actually carries some significant weight. Farmers regularly fly or run around zones, stopping at every node they see. Under the current system most nodes required between two and four hits to extract all the ore, sometimes even more for the rich nodes. An ore farmer would spend a portion of his time ensuring the mobs were cleared around the node enough so that he would be able to hit it multiple times, and then actually spend the minute sitting on the node farming it.With the one hit method that is now being implemented in 3.0.8, the process becomes significantly easier. Point, click, wait a second, fly off to the other destination, profit. There's no "???" in there, just a pure and easy way to make money.
Breakfast Topic: Lake Wintergrasp
Yesterday in our guide for Eternal Farming, it was made very clear that Wintergrasp is hands down the best spot for farming Crystallized Whatevers if you don't have Mining or Herbalism. That's not the only thing that's easily farmed there, either. It's packed full of herbs and ore. It's currently the only place in all of Northrend that you can find Frost Lotus nodes. Not just Frost Lotus dropping off of Icethorn or whatever, but actual Frost Lotus nodes.Now, I'm a PvE kiddie at heart. I'll PvP from time to time, but it's not exactly my favorite thing ever. I usually avoid it. Wintergrasp has totally sucked me in, though. The draw of riches has pulled me into the zone, and when the PvP starts it's legitimately fun. I originally thought it was silly that the best farming spot for everything was a PvP zone, but I've warmed up to it. I'm on a PvE server, but the element of risk and reward has become kind of exhilarating. I still have no interest on playing on a PvP server, however.
