tech-ii
Latest
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.
EVE's Quantum Rise expansion features page is live
The feature page for the forthcoming EVE Online expansion, Quantum Rise, is now live. The ninth free expansion for EVE will officially launch on November 11th, and brings with it some new features we've been reporting on in recent weeks, such as the long-awaited Orca and industrial ship changes, not to mention the guaranteed-to-spark-forum-rage speed rebalancing, and alchemy -- which is invention applied to minerals used in Tech II manufacturing. According to the Quantum Rise expansion's feature page, there are also some previously unmentioned features like new additions to the RealX in-game soundtrack, new stargates, a host of improvements for industry players like assembly array upgrades, ammunition cost changes (namely for bombs), and a more flexible user interface. See the new Quantum Rise features page for more on what's in store for EVE Online players in the expansion geared towards the game's industrialists.[Via Winterblink]
