Odyssey
Latest
EVE Fanfest 2014: EVE's Kronos expansion is an industrial revolution
The EVE Online keynote presentation finished just a few hours ago at EVE Fanfest 2014, and it looks as if there are big plans for the year ahead. This summer will bring us the Kronos expansion, which is scheduled for June 3rd and aims to revolutionise every aspect of industrial activity in EVE Online in terms of both gameplay and accessibility. The economy has become quite stagnant over the past year as players have long since worked out all the most efficient ways to manufacture and trade, so CCP has planned its very own industrial revolution with a complete overhaul of industrial gameplay. Kronos also marks another important milestone for CCP, as the company will be switching from releasing two major expansions per year to a more agile strategy of releasing 10 smaller updates each year. The Kronos release was originally planned as a full expansion before the changeover to a 10-release schedule, so it's as packed as a full expansion. In addition to a deluge of industry overhauls, we'll be getting a shiny new mining ship, major pirate faction ship revamps, an enhanced new player experience, and a cool new effect when players warp into or out of an area. Read on for a breakdown of the EVE keynote presentation and to find out why CCP is moving away from its usual two expansions per year.
EVE Evolved: Six years of EVE Evolved
Six years ago to this exact day, I joined the Massively crew and published the first edition of this column dedicated to the ins and outs of EVE Online. The column has been home to over 300 featured articles since its creation, offering everything from guides and expansion reveals to opinion pieces, fiction, and tales of real in-game events. It's been my pleasure in the past six years to offer the Massively readers a digestible glimpse into the ordinarily somewhat impenetrable world of EVE Online and to introduce new players to the only game (other than Master of Orion II) that's managed to keep me hooked for over a decade. It's been a fantastic year to be a fan of EVE Online, with CCP announcing its long-term vision for deep space colonisation and the game being revitalised through the Odyssey and Rubicon expansions. I've had the opportunity to explore both expansions in this column and to share some hands-on experience with DUST 514 and CCP's upcoming dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. There's been no shortage of opinion pieces this year either, with articles on everything from PvP consequences and twitch controls to whether Star Citizen and Elite are a threat to the sandbox giant. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I round up the best articles from the column's sixth year of operation in one place.
EVE Evolved: What to expect from EVE Fanfest 2014
Almost 10 years ago, EVE Online developer CCP Games started a new tradition with the first ever annual EVE Fanfest. The event started out as a largely informal gathering in a tiny venue that allowed players and developers to mingle on a more personal level, but it's now grown into something massive. Over a thousand players now make the annual pilgrimage to EVE Online's birthplace in Reykjavik, Iceland, to hear what the future holds for their favourite MMO. For many, the event is also a social gathering, a chance to swap stories with other players, and a rare opportunity to meet the corpmates they fly with every day in the virtual galaxy of New Eden. The Fanfest weekend is typically a packed schedule of panels, talks, roundtable discussions with developers, and keynote speeches revealing the future of the game. While the event is understandably focused on EVE Online, it's recently expanded to cover aspects of DUST 514, the latest goings-on with World of Darkness, and even CCP's new virtual reality dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. CCP has announced that this year's event will see a monument to the EVE playerbase unveiled in Reykjavik Harbor as well as the first reveal of EVE's summer expansion, but what else can we hope to glean from this year's event at the start of May? In this edition of EVE Evolved, I delve into the EVE Fanfest announcement and speculate on what we might expect to hear from this year's event. Will this be the year that World of Darkness gets some serious news? And what's new for DUST 514?
EVE Evolved: EVE needs real colonisation now
MMOs have absolutely exploded in popularity over the past decade, with online gaming growing from a niche hobby to a global market worth billions of dollars each year. Once dominated by subscription games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, recent years have seen free-to-play games take centre stage. Global MMO subscriptions have been reportedly shrinking since 2010, and EVE doesn't appear to be immune to this industry-wide trend. Though February 2013's figures showed EVE subscriptions have technically grown year-on-year, those numbers were published just after the Chinese server relaunch, and CCP hasn't released any new figures since. Developers have done a good job of catering to current subscribers and polishing existing gameplay with the past few expansions, but the average daily login numbers are still the same as they were over four years ago. EVE will undoubtedly hook in plenty of new and returning subscribers when its deep space colonisation gameplay with player-built stargates and new hidden solar systems is implemented, but time could be running out on these features. Hefty competition is due in the next few years from upcoming sandbox games such as Star Citizen, EverQuest Next, Camelot Unchained, and Elite: Dangerous, and CCP will have to release something big soon to bring in some fresh blood. In this week's EVE Evolved, I ask whether CCP should focus on new players and suggest plans for two relatively simple colonisation-based expansions that could get EVE a significant part of the way toward its five-year goal in just one year.
EVE Evolved: Fitting Heavy Assault Cruisers in Odyssey 1.1, part 2
EVE Online recently revamped all of the Heavy Assault Cruisers in its Odyssey 1.1 update, in addition to buffing active shield boosters and armour repairers and rebalancing medium beam lasers and railguns. Last week I put together a new brawler setup for the recently revamped Deimos, a sentry drone sniper fitting for the Ishtar, an extremely effective anti-frigate Cerberus setup, and a sadly underwhelming railgun Eagle. This week I've turned my attention toward the Amarr and Minmatar HACs, with some surprising results. The Zealot and Sacrilege are still as powerful as ever, and the Muninn may see some use as a tactical frigate sniper, but this patch could see many players retiring their Vagabonds. The nano-fit Vagabond was once the unrivaled number one ship for lone pirates, able to speed-tank anything larger than a frigate and still deal over 500 DPS. It engaged safely from outside web range, moved too fast for turrets to track, and absorbed any attacks that did hit with its sizable buffer tank. When CCP made warp scramblers knock out microwarpdrives, Vagabond pilots adapted with dual propulsion module fits that use a microwarpdrive to approach the target and an afterburner to orbit. Unfortunately, the Vagabond didn't fare well in the Odyssey 1.1 patch and players aren't sure if they can adapt this time. In this week's EVE Evolved, I put together PvP setups for the at the Zealot, Sacrilege, Muninn, and Vagabond Heavy Assault Cruisers.
EVE Evolved: Fitting Heavy Assault Cruisers in Odyssey 1.1
The Odyssey 1.1 patch landed this week in EVE Online, introducing several highly requested PvP tweaks and overhauling all of the Command Ships and Heavy Assault Ships. Active shield boosters, armour repairers and medium-sized long range turrets all received sizable buffs, but it's the newly updated Heavy Assault Cruisers that really took my interest. They've historically been used as highly mobile damage-dealers for fleet warfare, but now each has been targeted at a specific combat niche. The Deimos is a brawler for small-scale gang warfare, the Ishtar is a heavy drone platform, the Cerberus turns frigates into molten poop, and the Eagle is... well, nobody can really figure out what to do with the Eagle yet. All of the HACs have been augmented with a new role bonus that reduces the signature radius penalty of activating a microwarpdrive by 50%. This may seem pretty weak, but in practice it makes the ships a lot more viable in PvP. Activating your microwarpdrive will normally increase your signature radius size by 500%, making you a hell of a lot easier to hit and increasing the damage you take from missiles. The speed boost will counteract this to some degree, but it takes a while to reach that speed, and you're very vulnerable in the interim. Reducing this to only 250% means you get all the defensive benefit of the speed increase without much of the vulnerability. In most cases, you'll actually take less damage with the microwarpdrive on than off. In this week's EVE Evolved, I put together PvP setups for the at the newly revamped Deimos, Ishtar, Cerberus, and Eagle Heavy Assault Cruisers.
EVE Online releases its first Odyssey patch
Have you been exploring away like a good little capsuleer in EVE Online? That's kind of what the most recent expansion, Odyssey, is all about. While the first patch for the expansion doesn't contain anything new for players to explore, it does feature a variety of fixes and quality-of-life improvements that should make all that exploration a bit more fun. Especially for players in Russia, who can enjoy a greatly improved localized client after this patch. Aside from localization, the patch includes adjustments to energy vampire mechanics and mindlink strength, with the former receiving a noteworthy buff to ensure that it's no longer nearly useless. Medium turrets have also received some major updates, and several skills have been reorganized or renamed to make things a bit clearer for players. Yes, all of these changes probably mean that you'll spend a bit of time adjusting your ships before heading back out to the wilds of space, but self-exploration is a sort of exploration too.
EVE Evolved: Odyssey 1.1 and PvP balance
It's been just under three months since EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion went live, bringing in a new hacking minigame and significantly buffing the underused tier 1 and tier 2 battleships. With a complete rebalancing all of the tech 1 sub-capital ships now complete, CCP has turned its attention to some of the oldest tech 2 ships in the game: Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships. Developers have been testing out changes to these ships on the test server and hitting up players for feedback since Odyssey went live, and the results are finally ready to deploy. Odyssey 1.1 will go live in two days time on September 3rd and contains some pretty big changes that are sure to shake up the PvP landscape. Medium-sized long-range weapons have been buffed beyond all recognition, and a buff to active tanking may soon make it viable in PvP. Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships have been beefed up, the Dominix is getting a small nerf following its absolute dominance in the Alliance Tournament, and the Nosferatu energy vampire module may be about to make a return to PvP setups. In this week's EVE Evolved, I analyse the upcoming Odyssey 1.1 patch and what the new ship balance changes mean for the average player.
EVE Evolved: Strategic resources for everyone!
The past four EVE Online expansions have mostly focused on adding small features and overhauling old game mechanics and content that were beginning to show their age. Crucible delivered dozens of small but highly-requested features and gameplay improvements, and Inferno and Retribution continued with overhauls of several aging PvP systems. Even Odyssey contained mostly small features and revamps, its biggest gameplay features being a new hacking minigame and a streamlined scanning interface. It's been several years since EVE has received a truly massive and game-changing feature like wormholes or a sovereignty revamp, but that may all be about to change! CCP recently announced its intention to start reaching for big ideas again, but this time set over a more realistic timeframe. If everything goes according to plan, the next five years could see the introduction of player-built stargates and true deep space colonisation. I wrote about the potential of this concept last week and looked at some of the big features we'd need to make it a reality, but I didn't really delve into my personal favourite idea for a potential future expansion: New strategic resources and player-created deadspace complexes. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how strategic resources could be used to get even individual players invested in something worth fighting for, and how player-created deadspace dungeons could be a great way to introduce them.
CCP outlines EVE Online's upcoming industrial ship rebalancing
CCP loves tweaking EVE Online's internet spaceships. And according to a new dev blog by CCP Rise, the guy behind the Odyssey battleship rebalance, industrials are about to get a major makeover. Not only are a bunch of them getting new names, but many are seeing their core performance shifted in other, more tangible ways. Here's the nitty-gritty: Industrials have been divided by roles instead of tiers. Every race will now have one cargo-focused industrial and one focused on travel time. Specialized bays have also been added, with dedicated bays for minerals, planetary commodities, and charges (ammunition, nanite paste, etc.) now available on specific ships. Every industrial has been given a special feature to make it more appealing. For instance, the Wreathe offers the fastest travel time, while the Badger gained slots for missile launchers. Along with all of these changes come new names for some ships: Nereus (Iteron), Kryos (Iteron Mk. II), Epithal (Iteron Mk. III), Miasmos (Iteron Mk. IV), and Tayra (Badger Mk. II). The industrial ship update is set to go live with the Odyssey 1.1 patch due later this summer.
EVE Evolved: The battle of Z9PP-H caught on camera
If you're the kind of person who loves reading about the political shenanigans that go on inside EVE Online, you should be aware that a colossal war has erupted in the wake of the Odyssey expansion. The expansion redistributed the value of nullsec moons and gave the two largest alliances in the game, the Reddit-based TEST Alliance and Something Awful-spawned GoonSwarm Federation, a good excuse to go to full-scale war. Allies have piled in on either side, and nullsec has erupted into full-scale region takedowns, spy-jacking, and more of the lovely political tomfoolery we love to hear about. EVE News 24 has been doing a good job of keeping players up to date on what's happening in nullsec, and its reporters are not the only ones keeping tabs on the war. Streamer Mad Ani has been setting up cameras in strategically important locations throughout the contested regions and providing live coverage of huge battles whenever they happen. A few days ago, the war came to a head in what could have been the deciding battle of the entire Fountain invasion. Over 4,000 people watched the stream as TEST's entire capital fleet of over 100 carriers was taking a pounding in Z9PP-H, when suddenly the server crashed and disconnected everyone in the fight. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what happened in the battle of Z9PP-H, how CCP crashed its biggest piece of PR in months, and how player livestreams are changing the face of EVE Online for the better.
CCP's Sean Decker and Hilmar Petursson on the future of EVE, DUST 514, EVE-VR, and mobile gaming
Earlier today, CCP Games announced that industry veteran Sean Decker is coming on board as Senior Vice President of Product Development. Sean's laundry-list of industry experience includes a recent 12-year stint at EA, where he headed up the Play4Free division. This has naturally led to some trepidation within the EVE Online community, which has been extremely wary of free-to-play and microtransaction-based business practices since the Monoclegate scandal in 2011. I caught up with Sean Decker and CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson last night to get the low-down on Sean's role, how he will influence EVE and CCP's other products, and what the future has in store for DUST 514 and EVE-VR. Sean is to be the head of product development across all of CCP's games, not just the free-to-play titles, but I wouldn't worry about EVE going free to play any time soon. "I don't think [free-to-play] is the be all and end all business model," Sean told me, adding that he understands that the subscription model better fits some games. Read on for more information on the future of EVE Online, DUST 514, EVE-VR, and CCP's first foray into mobile gaming.
Latest EVE devblog graphs exploration site usage in Odyssey
Eve Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion has been in full swing for a few weeks now, giving pilots time to really delve in and experience the new mechanics. And while we reflected on Odyssey's impact shortly after launch, CCP's latest devblog gives a fuller picture of that impact on the exploration sites -- literally. With graphs depicting usage of the top three data and relic sites, the blog illustrates how players have flocked to the exploration sites in droves. The Sparking Transmitter site, for example, has seen almost a ten-fold increase in usage -- and that's even after ignoring the initial spike at release. Combat sites like Angel Forsaken Hub in nullsec, on the other hand, saw a marked decrease in activity since the expansion. The blog also offers other graphs, including showing how the global win/loss ratio stabilized quickly.
EVE Evolved: Fitting battleships for PvP in Odyssey, part 2
Battleships used to be the backbone of every major PvP fleet in EVE Online, but recent years have seen them increasingly overtaken by more mobile Battlecruisers, Heavy Assault Cruisers, and tech 3 Strategic Cruisers. Armour buffered battleships are still used in carrier-supported fleets and for a while nullsec played host to huge missile-spamming Maelstrom blobs of unholy death, but many of the battleships just haven't been worth using. Developers saught to rectify that in the recent Odyssey expansion with a complete balance overhaul of the standard tech 1 battleships, and it's starting to pay off. In last week's EVE Evolved, I looked at how Odyssey buffed the tier one Dominix, Scorpion, Typhoon, and Armageddon beyond all recognition and experimented with new PvP setups for each of them. This week I've turned my attention toward the tier 2 battleships, which turned out to be equally versatile and deadly. Now officially falling under the umbrella of "Combat Battleships," the Megathron, Raven, Apocalypse, and Tempest have become powerful damage-dealing platforms for fleet warfare. Each of them can now fulfill sniper or close-range damage roles and carry a spare flight of Warrior II drones to bat off tacklers, but what's impressed me the most is the sheer level of damage and tank they can achieve. In this week's EVE Evolved, I experiment with setups for the recently revamped Megathron, Raven, Apocalypse, and Tempest tier 2 battleships. These setups may require Advanced Weapon Upgrades 4 and a cheap 1-3% powergrid or CPU implant.
EVE Evolved: Fitting battleships for PvP in Odyssey
Tech 1 ships in EVE Online used to be arranged in tiers that determined the cost and power of the ship and what level of the appropriate skill was required to fly it. This gave a sense of progression back in 2004 when all we had was frigates, cruisers, and battleships, but developers have since filled in the gaps between ship classes with destroyers, battlecruisers, strategic cruisers, and tech 2 ships of all shapes and sizes. In a recent game design initiative, CCP has been removing the tiers from within each tech 1 ship class by buffing the lower-tier ships up to the same rough power level as the largest ship in its class. The recent Odyssey expansion saw the humble battleship buffed beyond all recognition. The Megathron, Raven, Tempest, and Apocalypse all became extreme damage-dealing powerhouses, but the Dominix, Scorpion, Typhoon, and Armageddon were buffed the most. Each of them can now fit several monster setups, dealing upward of 1,000 damage per second or completely disabling enemy ships with energy neutralisers and electronic warfare. The build costs of these tier one battleships were more than doubled in the expansion, but prices are only slowly rising due to the existing stock on the market. That makes the tier one battleships incredibly cost-effective PvP powerhouses at the moment, and players are beginning to take advantage of it. In this week's EVE Evolved, I experiment with PvP setups for the newly revamped Typhoon, Armageddon, Scorpion, and Dominix battleships.
E3 2013: Check out DUST 514's new trailer, EVE Online screenies
Sometimes a space cowboy or cowgirl just wants to gaze out of the cockpit and marvel at the beauty of the cosmos. Sometimes being that pensive is a good way to get podded, but at least those final moments are spent in awe. So whether or not you're facing imminent combat, we've got some new CCP eye candy for you. Below are several new screenshots from EVE Online: Odyssey and DUST 514, and after the break is the E3 trailer for DUST called Fight Your Own War. Enjoy! [Source: CCP Games] %Gallery-191114%
EVE Evolved: First impressions of Odyssey
The Odyssey expansion has been live for a couple of days now, but it's already starting to have a massive impact on EVE Online. Traffic through low-security space has increased significantly for the first time in years thanks to explorers hunting data and relic sites, and some players are even hunting asteroid belt NPCs in lowsec for the new security tags. New wars have erupted in nullsec following the redistribution of moon wealth, mining has become a more valuable profession, and the rebalanced battleships feel powerful again. Unfortunately, Odyssey has seen its fair share of problems too. The new jump effect looks spectacular the first few times you see it, but long-term play is reportedly causing motion sickness in some players. Some players have also been objecting to the ice mining changes, and the revamped radial UI menu hasn't done much to fix the game's usability problems. Explorers in low-security space and nullsec are reporting incomes in the billions of ISK per day range thanks to the scan probe changes and new hacking minigame, but not everyone is happy with the new loot-scattering mechanic. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the early impact of Odyssey on the EVE Online universe and discover the secrets behind collecting all the valuable loot when hacking.
CCP marks EVE Online: Odyssey launch with trio of new videos
Odyssey, the 19th free content expansion for sci-fi sandbox EVE Online, is now live. Like the EVE expansions that came before it, Odyssey brings a collection of changes, tweaks and major overhauls to EVE's existing universe, among them resource redistribution, deep modifications to the exploration career, a brand-new radial navigation tool, upgrades to player-owned stations, and a redesigned system scanner. To mark the occasion, CCP has released no fewer than three videos covering Odyssey, including the expansion's final launch trailer. Check out all three after the break, and have a look at our Odyssey coverage for in-depth information on everything that's changing.
EVE Online details Odyssey ship rebalancing
When Odyssey hits for EVE Online, it's going to be a whole new ballgame for many of its ships. CCP is planning to revamp and restructure its Navy faction ships across the board and has written up a nice fat post about the upcoming changes. Odyssey will feature 40 revamped hulls, including four brand-new ones. This is being done to fit in with the ongoing ship balancing project that's seeking to kill tiers off in a brutal and uncompromising fashion. It also bring the hulls in line with a "Navy" theme that will be featured in the expansion. There are a lot of changes to absorb, including a change-up to 23 ship skills, a division of cruisers into attack and combat categories, and a rebalancing of Tech 1 battleships.
EVE Evolved: Get ready for Odyssey
With just two days to go until EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion goes live, players have been scouring the test server for information that can give them an edge. Some have been practicing moon surveying techniques for the upcoming redistribution of tech 2 minerals, and others are hoping to get rich quick by speculating on battleship price changes. Explorers are kitting out new exploration ships, theorycrafters are working on new setups for rebalanced ships, and pirates are setting up base in lowsec areas that are about to become fertile hunting grounds. Odyssey isn't quite the Apocrypha-level expansion I've been hoping for, but it certainly seems set to shake things up. Changes to moon minerals will throw nullsec into chaos and hopefully ignite some big territorial wars, and battleship buffs may change EVE's popular fleet compositions. The Discovery Scanner Overlay will make exploration much easier for new players to get into, but will also give pirates another tool with which to hunt down explorers. A new co-operative hacking minigame will also make exploration more of a team sport. But how can you make the most of the expansion from day one, and what can you do today to prepare for it? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the new exploration system and other changes you can expect when you log in on Tuesday, and what you can do now to make the most of them.
