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EVE Evolved: Five interesting combat tactics
Although EVE Online's combat isn't twitch-based, the outcome is often swayed by strong tactical and strategic influences. Whether you're running missions, battling Sleeper AI in a wormhole site or engaging other players in PvP, chances are you've pulled off a few fancy tactical maneuvers. Over the years, we learn these little tricks and teach them to each other. From mundane ways to avoid damage from NPCs to the cat and mouse games we play with other players, tactical maneuvers are a big part of EVE's gameplay. In this short article, I look at a few of the tips and tactics players use to gain an edge in combat. Angular velocity: If you've ever used a turret-based ship and found yourself missing enemies a lot, there are a few tricks you can do to even the score. Open the overview settings menu and under "column" select "Angular Velocity". This shows the transverse velocity of enemy ships relative to your own in radians per second, which is the same measurement your turret tracking score uses. By checking the show-info pane on your guns, you can look up the maximum tracking speed of your guns. Ships with an angular velocity greater than your turret's tracking speed will be practically impossible to hit so having this information on-hand means you can avoid picking targets that will just waste your time and ammo. Another useful trick to do is to match your course and speed as closely as you can with an enemy ship rather than just approaching it. This will decrease their angular velocity relative to your ship, allowing you to hit some fast ships you otherwise wouldn't be able to. Skip past the cut for four more interesting tactics and tips. Do you have a particularly useful tip or a clever tactical maneuver you use a lot? Leave a comment and let us know what it is.
EVE Evolved: Five interesting combat tactics, part 2
By warping from one stargate to another at a distance or using the align feature, you can anchor a bubble at the second stargate which is in line with the first gate. Anyone warping from the first stargate to the second will be caught in the trap. A neat trick is that you don't even need to put the bubble on the correct side of the stargate.
HTC Hero freed from generic box, called best Android device yet
It's not officially available yet, but the fine folks at Android Community have gotten their hands on a HTC Hero and posted up a quick unboxing and overview. Their unit is an unaffiliated generic whitebox model, so it's likely that the retail packaging the rest of us see from carriers will be different, but none of that changes the device itself, which AC thinks is the "best Android device to date." That's quite a statement, but we're inclined to agree -- we'll see if anything changes when we get that US 3G version in our hands. More pics at the read link, video after the break.
Latest EVE patch changes how hostiles appear in overview
Massively has pointed out a few highlights of what the Apocrypha 1.2 patch brings to EVE Online, but today's dev blog from CCP Greyscale explains the big changes they've made to the overview. The overview is an essential aspect of the UI which allows players to better understand what's happening around them in three dimensional space, so any major change to how it works or displays threats is something all EVE players really need to be aware of. When the Apocrypha expansion launched in March, players (finally) gained the ability to freeze the overview by holding down 'control', a useful enhancement which hopefully has led to fewer friendly fire incidents. Today's patch, however, changes how hostiles are displayed in the overview. CCP Greyscale's tl;dr version is "After patch, blinky people on overview = war targets, not outlaws." That said, there's a lot more to this and he details how and why they've made changes to the overview in his dev blog, "Apocrypha 1.2 - Important Overview Indicator Changes". The players are discussing the changes Greyscale outlines in a forum thread connected with the dev blog, so be sure to weigh in there with your views or questions.
MSNBC: Live from Middle-Earth
Usually when a major news outlet picks up a story about a video game, it's in relation to how destructive they are, or how unmoral they are, or it will just be a really dry interview with a game designer that everyone's going to forget about in two hours. So when we got word that MSNBC was interested in the Lord of the Rings Online, we weren't expecting this oddly amusing interview.Todd Kenreck, roving reporter and elven guardian, has taken it upon himself to brave the locales of Middle-Earth and catch up with LotRO's live producer Aaron Campbell. He braves the Misty Mountains, travels through Bree-Land, and gets all of the information from Aaron as the two chat in the scenic Rivendell. The entire interview is done inside of the game in a machinima style, and makes a pretty nice visual case for playing LotRO.We've embedded the full video after the break, so everyone can enjoy some solid reporting from the lands of Middle-Earth.
First Impressions: Runes of Magic
Welcome to First Impressions, where I play through the first few hours of an MMO, report back to you on some of the things you can expect as a new player - and whether or not I enjoyed the experience of the game. This week, we have Runes of Magic, a game currently launching early tomorrow morning (or late tonight, if you prefer) at 2:00 AM Pacific. Developed by Runewaker Entertainment and distributed by Frogster, this free-to-play MMO may well be the one that gets even the most staunchly anti-f2p player interested enough to give it a whirl. Also, keep in mind these impressions are on the open beta of the game, so some things may change slightly at launch.I'll start off by saying that I've heard some truly positive things about this game from several MMO fiends I know. That said, a few of them bagged on it for being a World of Warcraft clone - but I'd have to argue that point now that I've played it. There's definitely enough in Runes of Magic to feel eerily familiar to anyone who has played World of Warcraft for any length of time. However, I feel that there's enough different in the two games - aside from the obvious free-to-play versus subscription - to say that each game will ultimately stand (or fall) on it's own merits. I'd also be remiss in noting that as a First Impressions posting, there was no possible way to reach everything there is to get to in this game - PvP arenas, player-killing, pissing off NPC factions, guild castles, high-end crafting, raids and a bunch more - there's a depth and complexity that I am glad to find in a free title. That said, today's overview should give you enough of a taste of the various parts of this easy to pick up but hard to master MMO for you to decide for yourself if it's worth trying.Now, on with the gallery, and my First Impressions of Runes of Magic!%Gallery-48065%
EVE Online's answer to GPS
EVE Online is a vast setting where all players interact in one galaxy. While other MMOs are sharded across different servers, some with different locales, EVE places all of its players together. Its implementation ensures that many servers seem to be just one from the perspective of any pilot flying in New Eden. However, given the daunting size of EVE's explorable environment, there have been some players who took it upon themselves to map the known universe and release their findings as a resource for other pilots. Shayne Smart, aka Serenity Steele, is one such player. He's been getting some media attention in recent months as Vice-Chairman of the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). Beyond his duties on the CSM, Smart is also well-known to many players as the creator of EVE Strategic Maps, a spiral bound collection of star charts which some fans of the game find indispensable. You would think Smart would find mapping out 5000 solar systems (each with its own myriad planets, moons, stations, and other resources) a feat hard to top. But what Smart's done is found a way to use the in-game browser in the EVE client to act as a sort of GPS, tracking your position as you jump from one solar system to the next, and allowing you to better see your relative position in the galaxy as part of your overview. The cartographer's latest 'minimap' effort is presently 2-D only and in beta, though is well worth a look and quite simple to use. Click the gallery below for Shayne Smart's instructions on how to use the free 2D minimap within your in-game browser. Add GPS to your overview >> %Gallery-31177%
The 10 Commandments of EVE
EVE Online tends to appeal to MMO players who like the depth and complexity of a sci-fi game where players have the freedom to act as they wish in a vast galaxy. But that freedom comes with a price; EVE can be a harsh setting, particularly for newer players trying to get a handle on the game. For the newer player who's recently completed the tutorial, EVE largely remains a mystery... one which only reading, learning from other players, and just 'going for it' can solve. Still, it's always good when someone passes on advice to newer players as many of us learned our lessons the hard way. To that end, we bring you The 10 Commandments of EVE. Truth be told, there are a lot more than ten essential things to know about the game, but this is a good start. Feel free to add your own "commandments" or lessons learned in the comments below. Behold The 10 Commandments of EVE >> %Gallery-30634%
EVE Evolved: Setting up your overview, part 2
In part 1 of this guide, I examined the usefulness of the overview system in EVE Online and explained the various customisation options available to players. In this final part of the guide, I look at the best ways to set up your overview for PvP, mission-running and a few other tasks. No matter what you do in EVE, this guide should offer some helpful hints and tips on getting the most out of this useful tool.Default settings:The default overview settings that exist when you first log in are less than optimal. They can fill your overview with extraneous information that make it difficult to find what you want. No matter what activity you're undertaking, you'll benefit from creating a new default settings list. With the overview settings menu open, click the "select all" button on the states tab. This will enable everything that can possibly appear on your overview, allowing you to manually deselect those things that are useless in your everyday life in space.Read on for detailed instructions on setting up your overview for everything from mining to PvP.
EVE Evolved: Setting up your overview, part 1
Since it can often be hard to find or click on something in three dimensional space, EVE Online provides a useful tool called the "overview" to make life easier. The overview window lists objects and ships in your general vicinity and is one of EVE's most important tools for providing situational awareness. Whether you're mining, running missions, pirating or engaging an enemy fleet, almost every activity in space relies heavily on using the overview. In this two-part guide, I break down the overview settings and examine the best way to set up your overview for activities ranging from fleet warfare to mission-running.Why is the overview so important?:In addition to the convenience of clicking on items in a list rather than having to locate them in space, the overview has some essential functions. Information such as a ship's speed, name and distance from you can be displayed on the overview. Items on the overview can also be differently coloured or filtered out based on a wide range of factors from security status to whether they're in your alliance or not.With all of these options, setting up your overview can be a confusing affair. In part 1 of this guide, I explore the various overview options and what they all do.
An overview of Leopard for developers
If you haven't seen this roundup yet, Matt Gemmell's huge list of everything Leopard can do for developers is pretty amazing. It's a bit on the technical side, but worry not-- about 1/4 of the way down the page you'll think that this is a list only for developers, and if you keep scrolling you'll start to see that (somewhere around the "HUD windows" part) Apple has broken open almost all of their interfaces to developers of all makes and models. Everything from menus to date formatting is updated in Leopard's developer applications, and there's lots of "freebies" that will make even smaller programs better-- icons and images, an image editor, and a built-in grammar checker can all be easily implemented in any Leopard apps.As hot as this operating system is (and yes, despite the problems that folks are having with it), the really good stuff is yet to come. When talented programmers and designers get their hands on these tools, then we'll really see why it's so great to be a Mac user.Thanks, Tony!
Hunter's Mark tells you how to know it all (without knowing it all)
Hunter's Mark has a terrific series up that's a great resource for anyone playing this game, not just Hunters. It's called "Being a Know-it-all Without Knowing it All," and if you've ever wondered where to go, what to do, or how to make your character better, reading through the series will give you access to pretty much every tool available online to figure out what's what.None of it is really new (it's definitely not news that Wowhead and Thottbot exist), and if you read our little site frequently, you're probably very familiar with what all these resources have to offer (we're pretty thorough like that). But if you know someone who's looking for a little more insight on the game, or want a general overview of everything that's available and what each site can offer you, this is it. From the Loot Lists to Bosskillers, tons of information about everything you need to know in World of Warcraft is online, and the Know-it-all series is a great overview of what's what.[ via Mania's ]
