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EVE Online gives a report card to Retribution ships
"The introduction of new ships always sparks considerable initial interest and Retribution was no exception in that regard," CCP Recurve wrote in a new EVE Online dev post today. "Hundreds of billions were spent on blueprints and manufactured ships." The article analyzes the popularity between the five new ships (one mining frigate and four destroyers), noting that the Algos and Corax have proven to be more desirable in PvP. The Venture both sold more blueprints and was destroyed more than the others since the expansion launched, although the mining frigate did account for a sharp uptick in harvested gas overall. If breaking down stats and crunching all sorts of interstellar numbers are your thing, then check out the post for the nitty-gritty details on these ships' performances.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online pleases and teases
I have had more fun in Star Trek Online in the past week than I have had in the past six months! Part of the reason has a lot to do with the fact that the game's third anniversary has delivered something that many of us have been craving since the release of last year's featured episode, The 2800: a story-based mission. And it wasn't just any story-based mission; it was a doozy! The team at Star Trek Online also released a third anniversary trailer, which contained a very big surprise at the very end. The teaser sent shockwaves through the loyal player community. There's a lot to go over, so join me past the jump as I touch on the anniversary celebration and ruminate on what the game will bring us in May 2013!
Learn about the ships of Kartuga with this new video
Boats! Who doesn't love 'em? If you just answered "me," you're probably not the key demographic for the upcoming pirate battle game Kartuga. But if you do like boats, oh boy have we got news for you. Three different ship sizes and 40 visual types -- it's ship heaven in there. Small ships are speedy but can't really take a hit, large ships are virtually unsinkable but not so quick at maneuvering into position, and medium ships take all things in moderation. You don't just get to look at these ships, oh no! You get to fight in 'em. At the core of Kartuga is cooperative PvP. You'll go head-to-head with other captains in teams of four. The game goes into closed beta at the end of February, and you can preregister now. Skip below the cut to take a good, hard look at the boats. [Source: InnoGames press release]
Captain's Log: Leveling up and new lockboxes in Star Trek Online
I've said it once and I'll say it over and over again: It can be hard to write about a game in the weeks leading up to a scheduled event or content release. This week is no different. Star Trek Online's team is nose down into the final touches of the new material being released next week for the game's third anniversary, and new information about any of it has slowed to a crawl. However, in the interim, we have been given the information on the contents of Star Trek Online's newest lockbox as well as the specs on the new ships either contained in the boxes or available in the Lobi store. I also had the opportunity to take part in the most recent Q XP Weekend event and actually found myself having a lot of fun.
EVE Evolved: Retribution is freaking awesome!
Shortly after the Retribution expansion's deployment, a thread popped up on the EVE Online forums that proved to me that the expansion had been a massive success. In the thread titled So that's what victory in this game feels like, miner Tiberius StarGazer explained that he has always felt like he had no way to get back at people who wronged him. After losing millions of ISK in ships to pirate attacks, he was almost ready to give up on EVE. But when Retribution landed, he was able to sell his kill rights to the public so that every player vigilante who crossed his attacker's path could try to take him down without warning. After just a few hours, Tiberius got a notification that put a smile on his face: He had his first taste of revenge. He'd dealt more damage back to his attacker by clicking a button than had ever been done to him, and the attacker wasn't happy about it. He threatened to find Tiberius and kill him again, and that simple miner's reply said all I needed to know about how successful Retribution has been: "I have deep pockets. Every kill you make on me, I will add as a bounty on your corp; every kill right, I will sell. I can't fight you but others can and you will have to lose five times my loss for wronging me." Retribution has finally given industrialists a reliable way to get revenge and use their wealth as a weapon! In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the PvP that's springing up in empire space, how the new flagging mechanics affect baiting, and what the ship revamp means for new players.
Everything there is to know about EVE Online's Retribution expansion
EVE Online's PvP-focused Retribution expansion went live today, adding new features and balance changes players have been anticipating for years. Retribution is EVE's 18th free expansion, and introduces some very interesting new bounty hunting and criminal justice systems. Players can now place bounties on any pilot or organisation, which are paid out in chunks to anyone who deals significant financial damage to them. If that isn't enough revenge for you, players will even be able to hunt down criminals with open kill rights on them and exact mob justice. The expansion also brings overhauls to countless EVE ships as part of an ongoing effort to remove ship tiers and give every ship its own role in fleet combat. A new destroyer-class ship for each races gives new players more combat options, and the ORE mining frigate lowers the barrier to entry for miners. PvE-focused players have a new salvage drone toy to play with and advanced NPC AI to counter, while PvP is set to be shaken up with ship rebalances and a new micro-jumpdrive module. Read on for a full roundup of everything there is to know about EVE Online's Retribution expansion.
Captain's Log: The low-tier ships of Star Trek Online
It seems as if most MMOs have their own version of the "mount," something that allows for faster travel from one area of the game's world to another. Mounts are known as being one of the key "shinies" that players can buy in a game, and they come with different costumes or extended health parameters to allow a player to escape a surprise attack from an unseen enemy. For the most part, they're meant to be modes of transportation only. But in Star Trek Online, the game's mounts -- its ships -- are far more than just a means of getting from one area of sector space to another. They are the player's second character, a complementary entity that engages in battle in a very different way than the characters created at the beginning of the game. In this installment of my series of tips for new players, I will begin to address the ships of Star Trek Online, specifically the Federation ships available to the first three ranks in the game.
EVE's latest dev blog talks ship balancing for winter update
Previous efforts to balance ships in EVE Online resulted in improvements to 19 different frigates and mining barges. However, that sum only represents 10% of all available EVE ships. With such a long ways to go, CCP wanted to pick up the pace for the upcoming winter expansion, according to the latest dev blog. And the company did just that: Eight destroyers, 16 frigates, and 16 cruisers are all getting various tweaks and upgrades to enhance specialization and increase utility. That's 40 more ships feeling the developer love! For specific details on the changes coming to each individual ship, check out the dev blog. You can also learn more about the winter expansion in EVE Evolved's spotlight.
Notch still working on 0x10c, despite a few stops and starts
Speaking to Joystiq at PAX last weekend, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson told us that while most of his days lately are taken up with "just discussing how to do stuff" ("and then Reddit," he added slyly), work continues on the 0x10c space game he announced a while ago. Oh, and in case you're still wondering how the title is pronounced, Notch calls it "ten-to-the-C.""I have the game world fleshed out, all the soft stuff, like the setting," he says. "And I have the emulator for the CPU, which is probably the most complex part of it, all written. I had a prototype for walking around and trying out all of the graphics styles, but that wasn't really fun. So I kind of took a break to recharge my batteries and deal with some personal stuff, and then I'll probably start over again when I get back to Sweden." Starting over again means he'll just rework the graphical engine on the game, and "rethink how the rendering is done, how the physics is done for the character."The team working on 0x10c did have a building interface in mind for players to design their own spaceships, and Notch said it was heavily based on the popular 3D Construction Kit. But the interface wasn't fun, he told us. "We had something kind of inspired by [the Kit], with cubes you could remove corners from to make angles, but it turned really annoying when you tried to build anything."And Notch also confirmed that the game, whenever it is ready, will be released to the public in the way Minecraft was, in various states as it's being built. Notch says he got the idea to release games that way from the old roguelike genre, of all places. "The first version they release is just you can walk around in the dungeon and that's it, that's the extent of what you can do. That's where I got it from." That release schedule, he said, works well for games that fall back on sandbox or user-generated content. "If you're making like The Walking Dead or something, because it's story driven," he said, then obviously a half-finished version won't work. "You're just going to ruin it for people in the other versions."
Wings Over Atreia: Speculation continues for Aion 4.0
Last week, I dared venture into the realms of speculation about Aion's future, spurred by the announcement regarding update 4.0. Are my musings simply wishful thinking? Perhaps. But you can't blame me -- NCsoft started it! Until that point, I hadn't really given much thought to the next big thing. After all, we haven't even seen patch 3.5 yet (more on that next week), and I personally haven't finished the latest content. However, update information is like cheesecake bites: One morsel just doesn't cut it. You want more! So now that the floodgates of Aion 4.0 conjecture have opened, what else might come into the world of Atreia besides the three new classes? In the absence of official word, I have created my own list of features. And topping that list are a few things we have actually seen before; in my opinion, NCsoft should get to cranking out more of the content teased back in 2009 in the famed Visions of the Future trailer. It's time to start delivering on more of those promises made to Aion players so long ago. That means two-person mounts, more regional season changes, and the chance to boldly go where no Deava has gone before:
Cowon's X9 PMP now shipping, features up to 110 hours of music playback
The latest addition to Cowon's line of portable media players is reaching consumers' hands in the good, old US of A as shipping is now underway for the X9. The PMP -- which comes in either black or white -- measures 72.5mm wide, 114.9mm tall and weighs in at 159 grams. It also features a 4.3-inch touchscreen, your choice of either 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of internal flash memory, as well as a MicroSD slot. Although good sound quality is typically Cowon's calling card, the X9 also serves up a healthy helping of battery life with the company claiming up to 110 hours of music playback. Operating time when watching video is said to be up to 13 hours while charging time takes 4.5 hours via AC adapter and 6 hours when juicing through a USB connection. Supported file formats include MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, APE, WAV, XviD, WMV and ASF. Unlike the Plenue Z2 and the D3, the X9 opts out of using the Android OS -- which is either good or bad depending on one's preferences. Its 480 x 272 resolution is also decidedly lower than, say, the 800 x 480 seen in the Z2's 3.7-inch screen. As for cost, folks interested in getting the X9 will have to lighten their wallets to the tune of $229.99. For more details, check out the Cowon site via the link below.
Rise and Shiny revisit: Uncharted Waters Online
It's been a year and a half since I last looked at Uncharted Waters Online, a nautical adventure MMO that will probably remind many of you of EVE Online or Pirates of the Burning Sea. I was excited to see how things have changed, but the gulf of time between the last time I really dived into the game and now has made it so that I've forgotten a lot about my initial experience. Chalk it up to growing older, I guess. Luckily, the game is still as fun as it ever was. It seems, on the surface, pretty simple and straightforward. Its Anime characters and simple yet effective, graphics might give players the feeling that they are embarking on adventures that only younger players would enjoy, but the true depth of the game emerges soon after you begin. This game is complex. It's not impossible to figure out, but it was nearly impossible for me to revisit in just a week's time all of the old stuff I remember and the new stuff that has been added to the game since my first voyage.
FishPi sets course for the open sea, captained by a Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi's journey to reach owners has been a lengthy one, but Greg Holloway is preparing to send his board on a longer voyage -- one across the Atlantic. Nestled inside a tupperware tub, the RaspberryPi is the brains of FishPi, an autonomous vessel -- guided by GPS and a compass -- that measures 20 inches from bow to stern. Currently in proof-of-concept form, the craft uses a 40 mm rotating propeller and draws juice from batteries powered by a 130 watt solar panel. Producing kits for students, enthusiasts and professionals is the goal of the project, but testing and development are still on the docket. While the Linux-laden launch isn't ready for the high seas quite yet, you can sail to the source for the technical breakdown or check it out at the Nottingham Hackspace Raspberry Jam next month.
EVE Evolved: The great ship overhaul
One of EVE Online's most important features is that the game is constantly updated to avoid falling behind the development curve and being overtaken by new titles. The EVE we have today bears little resemblance to the primitive sandbox released in 2003 thanks to major graphical overhauls every few years and iteration on gameplay systems. I think that's a big part of why people start playing EVE; they know that the game will still be alive and kicking years from now and will look as good as anything else on the market. EVE remained largely unchanged from March 2009's Apocrypha expansion until Crucible at the end of 2011, but since then, CCP has made huge leaps in iterating on ship graphics and gameplay. This week we saw an impressive new video of the revamped Drake model, and CCP announced details of a complete mining barge and frigate revamp due to hit the servers before this year's winter expansion. These changes seem set to put a sizeable dent in EVE's notoriously steep learning curve. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the recent graphical updates to EVE's ships and explore the upcoming ship overhauls in more detail.
Twelve South launches redesigned BookBook for iPad and BookBook for iPhone cases
During a visit to Twelve South's headquarters earlier in the year, we learned that its heralded BookBook lines would be getting a refresh for the iPad and iPhone. Today, we're able to actually talk about 'em. Both products are getting a gentle facelift, and better still, both products are shipping immediately to those interested. The star of the show is quite clearly the iPad edition, which has been "completely redesigned" in order to be some 33 percent thinner while weighing 358 grams. The interior is refreshed, too, with a rigid casing that hides a slip-in cover and a built-in stand. Reportedly in response to popular demand, a black and a red version are joining the classic brown edition, with each one constructed from leather and offering up a dual zipper system. The BookBook for iPad ($79.99) is built to support both the iPad 2 and the new Retina-equipped iPad, while the slightly tweaked BookBook for iPhone ($59.99; now available in brown and black) will comfortably house the iPhone 4 or 4S. Word hounds can find more where this came from in the PR past the break. %Gallery-158569%
Nokia ships Lumia 900 and Reaction Bluetooth Headset in China
Based on the amount of effort poured into iOS 6 in order to tailor it for users in China, one thing's obvious: it's a nation grasping for smartphones. Apple's seeing huge, huge upticks in spending from Chinese customers, and Nokia's sure hoping it sees similar. In the midst of untold turmoil, Nokia is sprinkling in a bit of positive news this morning -- news that the Lumia 900 is now shipping in China. The 900 marks the fifth Lumia smartphone to ship in the nation of 900 million mobile phone users, with white, black and cyan versions to choose from. Outside of the basic specifications, the Chinese 900 will also come preloaded with nation-specific apps such as Sina Weibo, QQ IM, Baidu Search and Alipay. Oh, and if a phone wasn't enough, the Nokia Reaction Bluetooth Headset is also launching there today, enabling you to finally make use of that NFC module. The Lumia 900 hardware will sell for RMB 4599 ($721) in Nokia's flagship store, Nokia brand stores and the nation's "top electronics chain stores."
EVE Online reveals ship revamp details, shows off new mining ship
Back in march, EVE Online developer CCP Games announced its ambitious plan to revamp EVE Online's entire range of ships. Dozens of new ships have been added over the game's nine year history, and now developers are reorganising them into specific ship lines that fulfill most distinct roles. A big part of the system is the removal of ship tiers for tech 1 ships, a change that will see all of the currently underused low-tier ships boosted and given new roles. In a new devblog today, CCP released the first concrete details on how that will take place. Miners will be happy to know that all barges will be given a hitpoint increase to make them harder to suicide kill, and that all three mining barges will be specialised to support a particular style of mining. The Covetor and Hulk will have the biggest mining yield but their small cargo holds and poor defenses will limit them to mining ops with haulers on hand. The Retriever and Mackinaw will have smaller yields but huge specialised ore bays, making them better ships for AFK mining and ninja mining. The Procurer and Skiff will have the lowest mining yields but their battleship-sized tank will make it difficult to suicide gank. Finally, a new entry level ORE mining frigate will be released for new players.
Maingear's 11.6-inch Pulse 11 gaming laptop starts shipping
Alienware's M11x may be history, but as these things tend to go, there's always someone willing to carry the torch. Maingear's recently-introduced 11.6-inch Pulse 11 just so happens to be that rig in this here story, and those that've been waiting won't have to twiddle their thumbs any longer. The company is shipping the bantam gaming rig in the US starting this week, offering a Core i7 CPU (or a Core i5, if you'd rather), NVIDIA's Optimus graphics switching (tied to a GeForce GT 650 'Kepler' GPU), 11.6-inch LED-backlit panel (1366 x 768), up to 16GB of DDR3 memory, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, a 9-in-1 card reader, six-cell Li-ion battery and plenty of ports. It's starting at just $999, but speccing it out all proper like will send the asking price well north of that. (But trust us, it's worth it.)
Captain's Log: STO's Caitian Carriers and Klingon Kitties
Lately I've beginning to wonder whether the wait for Star Trek Online's Season Six has been as interminable for other players as it seems to have been for me. Although the past several weeks have been busy in the real-life side of things, those distractions really haven't been all that good at harboring my frustration about the wait for the new stuff as I would have liked. Season Six is being readied for a move to STO's test server, Tribble, in the next couple of weeks, according to the most recent Ask Cryptic as answered by the game's Executive Producer, Dan Stahl. The new patch will contain fleet starbases and a new fleet advancement system but not much else in the way of story-based content. That's not unexpected, however, as not one of the previous Season releases really ever contained story-based content; they've merely been game-technology pushes, and I understand that Season Six will be no different. However a couple of things have come out to the game in the past few weeks that have ruffled some hard-core Trek-fan feathers: Caitian Carriers and Ferasans.
HP ships 27-inch Z1 all-in-one workstation, touts 'power without the tower'
We'll hand it to HP -- "power without the tower" is pretty fab. And so is that drop-dead gorgeous 27-inch IPS panel dominating the front of its Z1 workstation. Designed to handle stresses normally thrown exclusively at floor-sitting wind tunnels, the Z1 offers up Intel Core i3 or Xeon server-class CPUs, NVIDIA Quadro graphics, USB 3.0 sockets, a slot-loading Blu-ray writer, SSD / RAID options, support for over a billion colors and a seductive starting tag of just $1,899. Intrigued? Hit the source link to get your order in.
