Cosmos
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Video interview focuses on emergent gameplay in EVE Online
Part of what's so interesting about video games, and MMOs specifically, is that players often do things the game designers never envisioned. This is especially the case with a sandbox MMO like EVE Online where the developers provide a setting and the players establish their own virtual society of sorts. The topic of emergent gameplay in EVE came up in a recent video interview from the Nordic Game Conference, where our friend Petter Mårtensson from Gamereactor spoke with CCP Games Executive Producer Nathan "Oveur" Richardsson. Their conversation touches upon what the players are doing with wormhole exploration (with around 2500 uncharted solar systems) and CCP's excitement when player alliances clash and create their own stories of conflict. The interview also covers Walking in Stations (avatars), the COSMOS social network that will tie in with EVE, and the company's intent to alter 0.0 space with more tools to build empires and more incentives to get people out there into these lawless regions. Stick with us for a video embed of the Gamereactor interview with CCP's Nathan Richardsson.
EVE Online social network 'COSMOS' coming with Winter expansion
The EVE Online developers have released the first solid bit of info regarding the game's Winter expansion, which will include a social network called COSMOS. Unfortunately, the as-yet-unnamed Winter expansion won't bring Walking in Stations (3D avatars), to the best of our knowledge. Any announcement of the next expansion's features is still a long way off, but a dev blog from EVE developer CCP Caedmon focuses on COSMOS and what it will bring to the game. COSMOS will debut with a limited feature set, with more added to the platform over time. However, if CCP Games can deliver on what Caedmon mentions, it should go down well with the playerbase since these features will be tied in with the game.
EVE Evolved: Mission-running top five tips
In the first two parts of this guide on mission-running in EVE Online, I explained the basics of mission-running and went on to give a race-by-race breakdown of the most popular mission-running ships. In this final instalment of the EVE Evolved mission-running guide, I dig up my top five tips and tricks for improving your standings, mission-running speed and general mission income in EVE. Tip #1 - Gaining faction standing As high faction standing unlocks the agents of every corp in an entire faction rather than just from one corp, faction standing gains are very desirable and often the ultimate goal of early mission-running. In addition to a few other methods discussed later in this article, faction standing gains can be had from COSMOS missions. These are special once-only missions, like quests in the standard MMO paradigm. They are given out by special agents-in-space located within EVE's COSMOS constellations, some at designated agent sites and some hidden away at moons or sites only able to be found with probes. Each of these missions counts as an important mission for the purposes of faction standing gains and their rewards can be extremely good. Using COSMOS missions, it's possible to boost your faction standings from around 4 to up to 6 or 8 in some of these areas. Read on as I give my top five mission-running tips to maximise your income from mission-running.
UC Irvine to compare WoW players from America, China
The University of California at Irvine has been granted $100,000 to study the differences between Chinese and American World of Warcraft players, according to the Orange County Register. The study will mostly focus on explaining why American players are much more likely to employ modifications such as Cosmos than Chinese players are, but project lead Bonnie Nardi made some interesting observations outside the scope of this particular endeavor.For example, she noted that Chinese players are for some reason more likely to talk about the aesthetic appearance of the game than are Americans. Whereas American players often play with their children, parents, or siblings, Chinese players are unlikely to do that. "The older generation dislikes video games," she said, and playing with siblings is obviously rare since most Chinese of the gaming generation have none."The vast majority of Chinese players are not gold farmers," she said. "They're ordinary players like anyone. The media has blown that story out of all proportion. Many people think Chinese play for a job. They play for fun." Enlightening stuff. We're looking forward to seeing what else comes out of her research.[Via Ten Ton Hammer] One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
Evesham launches Cosmos family of gaming rigs
Evesham's no stranger to the gaming laptop realm, but the company is lookin' out for the desktopers too with its lineup of Cosmos gaming rigs. The standard Cosmos comes equipped with a 3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 processor, 2GB of Corsair DDR2 RAM, a 500GB SATA drive, NVIDIA's 768MB GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics card, a dual-layer DVD writer and a 24-inch widescreen monitor for good measure. The Elite system ups the ante with a 3GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 CPU, double the RAM, a pair of 500GB HDDs, and twin GeForce 8800 Ultras. Both machines come bundled with a Microsoft wireless keyboard / mouse combo and include a three-year warranty, and while you can certainly customize these things till your credit card cries uncle, they start out at £1,999 ($4,027) and £3,199 ($6,445), respectively.[Via Pocket-Lint]
The Creamy GUI Center: Cosmos
Each week Matthew Porter contributes The Creamy GUI Center, a column aimed at helping you enhance your WoW experience by offering an in depth guide to addons, macros and other tools we use to play WoW, along with commentary on issues that affect how we all play.This week I continue our look at addon compilations with a breakdown of Cosmos. Like last week's CTMod, Cosmos has been a part of the addon scene since WoW's early days and as such many comparisons between the two have been made. CTMod and Cosmos enhances the default WoW interface, but Cosmos bundles addons that stand on their own to provide an assortment of features. Does this compilation hold up to today's addon environment or is it an aging dinosaur? Let's find out!
Today's full of stuff video: Beautiful Katamari
While we fear the series has run its course -- and rolled up the shark -- seemingly Xbox 360 exclusive and XBLA downloadable title Beautiful Katamari wins us over for today's video pick. The extended gameplay clip looks nearly the same as what we remember from the PS2 until the camera keeps pulling back and the Prince rolls up countries and continents. That's a big katamari, full of so many dreams and so much stuff.See the video after the break.
AddOn Spotlight: WoW UI Updater
Here's something I've been looking for for a long time! It's not an addon itself, but it does make the management and upkeep of your addons a lot simpler. Cairnehoof of Dethecus (US) sent this in to Mike, who kindly sent it my way: I read your article on wowinsider (big fan btw) about the addon issue in the upcoming patch. I have come across an great application for windows that updates your addons from all the popular sites. Maybe you could share it on the site. I know many people would love it. It's alot better than the one offered on ui.worldofwar.net because it not just download from one site. It is maintained on sourceforge.net and does not contain any malicious code. (I scanned with 3 different anti-virus programs and a anti-spyware one) heres the link if you want to take a look: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wuu So, armed with that information, I set off to explore WUU.
Mamiya bailing on camera biz
It looks like another venerable Japanese camera company is about to exit the business, just weeks after Konica Minolta produced its last camera. According to reports out of Japan (which we've confirmed with our Japanese bureau), Mamiya, best known for its high-end pro equipment, will be selling off its film and digital camera business to focus on other sectors. The company apparently has had "stagnant sales" of its digital models, including its 22-megapixel, $12,000, Mamiya ZD, which was released in Japan in December and in Europe just last month. The buyer is apparently Cosmos Scientific, a Japanese company better known for its IT business than for any expertise in digital imaging. As of now, it looks like the deal is set to close on September 1. We'll keep you posted as we get further details.
Mr. Katamari not interested in Revolution
For how quirky and unique a game Katamari Damacy is, I find it odd that its creator is not interested in the Revolution at all. When conversing with Gamasutra's sister-publication Game Developer at GDC, Keita Takahashi claimed "So, there's nothing I really want to do with it right now." He went on further to say "I'm not really interested in it. I don't think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games."Don't you think he's kind of missing the point? Isn't it not so much that the remote influences the game, but more that it adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay? Red Steel isn't a brand new type of game forced to compromise to the remote's characteristics, it takes the unique properties of the remote and aims to mix it with conventional first-person gameplay to create something new. How can you possibly not be interested in that?! Of course, comparisons to Red Steel aren't all that valid since noone has tried it, but you get the point, right?
