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Unofficial Dominion on iOS now, official version later
I'm a big fan of Ascension, the iOS app that replicates the real-life deck-building card game of the same name. But when it comes to more self-contained deck-building card games where you build a deck as you play, as opposed to collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering, there's really one big name out there, and it's Donald X. Vaccarino's game Dominion. It's a great game that like Magic: The Gathering has been begging for a solid iPad/iOS port ever since Apple's platform first took off. That hope is coming true in more ways than one. There's already a version of Dominion available on iOS for US$1.99, but apparently it's unofficial yet (temporarily) approved. It may be strange to see a paid app that's unofficial and actually uses the art and IP of the game, but apparently Rio Grande is cool with that, because it has an official version coming out as soon as "a few weeks" from now. It's granted temporary licenses to developers to release their own versions of the game as long as those versions are down and gone by the time the official release arrives. Personally I'll probably wait for the official version, especially since it sounds like the wait isn't that long. But it's good to hear that one of the best card games around is coming in virtual form to Apple's tablet. As for Magic: The Gathering? Wizards of the Coast, the ball's in your court. Wizards has said it's releasing a reference app for Magic on iOS, but there are still no plans for an official version of the game itself. Meanwhile, Kard Combat is it.
League of Legends updates co-op vs. AI mode, more improvements coming
When Riot Games first announced that it was adding the ability to play co-operatively against AI bots to League of Legends, it expected it to be used by noobs, says producer Mark Norris. "When we put it out there, we put it out there with sort of the sole intent of having new players get an introduction to League of Legends."But what the company found was that the game mode, which takes some of the human element out of the MOBA genre's relatively steep learning curve, was actually being used by all sorts of players. "One thing that kept coming up was the majority of the people who play League of Legends will play, every week, at least one co-op vs. AI game. And it's actually the primary game mode for a surprisingly large percentage of players."With that insight, then, it's probably not surprising to hear that Riot is updating the co-op vs. AI game mode, enabling AI bots for 40 of the game's champion characters, as well as adding play on the Dominion game mode to the mix.
EVE Evolved: Development on EVE in 2012
Following the summer drama that came to be known as monoclegate, the past six months have been challenging for EVE Online's players and developers alike. When players learned that cash-shop clothing was priced higher than its real-life equivalent, the quirky story of the $80 monocle swept across gaming blogs like wildfire. The story's tone soon turned a great deal more sinister with the leak of an internal company newsletter titled Greed is Good, and a second leaked memo from CCP's CEO added more fuel to the flames. Ultimately, players spoke with their wallets; subscriptions fell by at least 8%, and with no financial backup plan, CCP was forced to lay off 20% of its staff worldwide. The staff members who remained were faced with the task of turning things around, and with the feature-packed Crucible expansion, they did so spectacularly. In just a few short months, hundreds of high-profile features, graphical overhauls, and quality of life improvements breathed new life into a neglected universe. I think most players recognise that this has been a genuine turn-around from within CCP, but some are still skeptical that the company has really reformed. The question on everyone's mind is whether CCP can really keep up this quality of development in the coming year as it delivers two full expansions and integrates EVE with DUST 514. Perhaps nobody is better qualified to assess that than CSM delegate and former CCP game designer Mark "Seleene" Heard, who recently attended the December CSM summit and witnessed first-hand the aftermath of monoclegate and Crucible's development. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into Mark's CSM Summit report to find out how development at CCP has changed, what we can expect in 2012, and how monocle-gate has affected CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson.
Stephen D'Angelo promises 'one more surprise' for Star Trek Online in December
Star Trek Online's Stephen D'Angelo is one of the game's biggest cheerleaders, and it shows in his latest developer diary. "December has been an amazing month," he begins, citing the release of Season 5, new starships, and the Duty Officer system. He highlights the game's first holiday, Q's Winter Wonderland, and the minigames and activities in which the players can participate to get the most out of this whimsical event. Of course, it's not all fun and games when serious prizes, like a holographic bridge officer or a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, are on the line. D'Angelo also says that a Duty Officer mini-event is on the docket for the month, as will "one more fun surprise." He concludes his letter by sharing the news that the team is now focusing on February's Dominion Episodes and ground skills/UI improvements.
WildStar unveils world information page
The world of WildStar is one of adventure, intrigue, and of course, treasure. But many players are curious as to what kind of environs they'll be visiting, what grand sights they'll be seeing, and what unfortunate natives they'll be mercilessly slaughtering. Well, the folks at Carbine Studios are looking to relieve some of that curiosity with the freshly launched World page. The first planet up for review is one of the game's main hubs, Nexus. Originally the planet of the mysterious and technologically advanced Eldan, Nexus has since been claimed by the galactic empire known as The Dominion. As The Dominion declares war upon the planet's new settlers (known as the Exiles), treasure-hunters, pirates, and intergalactic corporations alike have come to Nexus in an attempt to find valuable and powerful Eldan artifacts and to uncover the secret of the Eldan's mysterious disappearance. For the full details, head on over to the WildStar official site.
Star Trek Online dev blog talks new content, Dominion featured episode
Cryptic executive producer Stephen D'Angelo has posted another Star Trek Online Path to F2P dev diary. For the 23rd installment (yes, 23!), D'Angelo outlines a near future roadmap for the game as the business model transition continues. D'Angelo says that STO will boast a Featured Episode Replay event for the remainder of November on the live server. The first week of December should see a new game build migrating to the live shard from the Tribble test server. This update will feature "new content, new systems, and many gameplay improvements," and D'Angelo characterizes it as a "significant" release. How significant? It includes new Borg content (the Invasion of Defera), the new duty officer system, and several new events and dailies. There's more to read at the official STO website (including an upcoming Featured Episode series focused on the Dominion!), so check it out by following the link below.
EVE Evolved: Expansions, not excuses
Over the last few months, the phrase "Flying in Space" has been increasingly used by both EVE Online's developers and its players to describe features other than those of Incarna. It seems like a redundant phrase as all of EVE's gameplay currently takes place in space, but the distinction has become necessary when discussing the allocation of development resources. Members of EVE's player-elected Council of Stellar Management have recently spearheaded a wave of new complaints about the level of resources dedicated to EVE's in-space features, claiming that developers have been left without the resources necessary to do a good job. In the previous three EVE Evolved columns, I discussed the upcoming nullsec revamp scheduled to begin this winter and the incredible new gameplay players might get as part of it. Members of the CSM know exactly how many people will be working on that revamp, and although those numbers haven't been made public, several delegates have gone public with their disapproval. EVE's subscription fees are currently paying for the development of CCP's upcoming fantasy MMO World of Darkness and its ambitious console MMOFPS DUST 514, leaving few resources for new EVE gameplay and content. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at the success of EVE's first blockbuster expansion and ask why development on EVE Online has dramatically decreased over the past two and a half years.
League of Legends Dominion preview: The squared circle
League of Legends recently reached a total of 15 million registered players. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that all of those players have played their matches on just two different maps, one made specifically for Defense of the Ancients-style 5v5 play, and one made for 3v3 combat (there are a few other maps in the game, but they're used for training, not full game modes). That's about to change. Last week, Riot Games invited Joystiq over to its headquarters in Santa Monica, California, to see a brand new game mode for the online competitive title. It's coming along with what Senior Producer Travis George calls "the biggest update we've ever made for League of Legends," a new content release subtitled Dominion. Dominion is a brand new gametype and is especially notable because all of the games in the growing DotA (or MOBA) genre have basically used the same premise: two armies of minions fight with equal strength across a series of parallel lanes, and player champions fight minions and each other to gain ground and win the battle. Dominion, however, is a brand new set of rules, combining elements of the DotA genre with scoring, much more akin to EA's Battlefield games or Call of Duty's Domination mode.%Gallery-129944% p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 14.0px; font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; color: #141414}
EVE Evolved: Force projection and jump bridges
When EVE Online's Dominion expansion launched, we expected to see large empires contract into smaller areas of space and smaller entities move in to fill in the gaps. High sovereignty maintenance fees were meant to keep alliances from claiming systems they didn't intend to fully use, and smaller territories were meant to localise wars to only an alliance's immediate neighbours. Unfortunately, almost the exact opposite happened. Large alliances continued to group together into massive mega-coalitions, collectively owning huge regions of space and preventing smaller organisations from staking a claim on their own. Dominion failed to achieve its stated goals, and in the years since its release CCP has been reluctant or unable to revisit the sovereignty mechanics Dominion overhauled. In that time, the face of EVE's nullsec warfare has changed drastically, with most large alliances now flaunting dozens of once-rare supercarriers and titans. Starbase jump bridge networks, titan jump portals and jump-drive enabled ships allow alliances to project force over immense distances, letting them support a war on the other side of the map. With the recent announcement of changes coming to jump bridges, the force projection debate has once again taken center stage in forums and blogs. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the problems associated with force projection, examine the jump bridge changes and weigh in on the debate.
EVE Video Corner: SuperTwinkey69 vs Dominion
The EVE Online community is known for producing some incredible videos, from epic cinematic compositions to some awesome alliance recruitment videos and films showcasing PvP at its best. We've seen amazing videos like the Clarion Call series, Kale Ryoko's Future Proof and Ian Chrisholm's Clear Skies I and II effortlessly merge a passion for EVE with cinematic direction that puts official game trailers to shame. The official Dominion trailer was released back in 2009, depicting an epic clash between warring fleets in the far reaches of nullsec. CCP went to significant lengths to ensure the action and dialogue in the video weren't completely out of sync with actual war in the game, with several real in-game alliances inspiring the fleets in the video. Nevertheless, players complained that the dialogue wasn't enough like actual fleet voice communication. While some people voiced their dismay on the forum, one player took the trailer as a challenge. By stripping the vocals out of CCP's official Dominion trailer and replacing them with recordings from actual fleet communication, Kaar of Triumvirate alliance produced a hilarious satire on fleet combat with his fleet commander SuperTwinkey69. Although the video was made back in 2009, it slipped under a lot of players' radars and didn't really get as much attention as it deserved. In true EVE style, this video contains swearing throughout and so is absolutely not safe for work. Skip past the cut to watch this hilarious re-imagining of the Dominion trailer.
EVE Evolved: Eight years of EVE Online
In last week's EVE Evolved column, I celebrated the third anniversary of the column with a competition to win one of three prizes worth over 500 million ISK. Congratulations go to Uniqdragon, mdubs28 and Thorium88, who will be contacted via email to arrange receipt of their prizes. In a bizarre twist that I can't believe I haven't noticed for three years, it turns out that the anniversary of my column occurs just over a week before EVE Online's own birthday on May 6th. With that in mind, this week's column is dedicated to the game's anniversary and to looking back at another successful year. The past eight years have been a wild ride for EVE Online and its developer CCP Games. EVE has grown from a fledgling niche game with under 40,000 launch subscriptions to a global melting pot of over 360,000 actively subscribed accounts. The company itself has seem similar expansion, starting from humble beginnings as a small independent studio in Iceland and growing into a multinational monster with offices in China, Iceland, North America and the United Kingdom. In this huge two-page anniversary edition of EVE Evolved, I look at how EVE Online has kept up with the industry over the years and then go on to examine this past year in detail, from the highs and lows to all the scams and awesome events.
Massively's EVE CSM interview: Incarna and nullsec PvP
In part one of our interview with EVE Online's player-elected Council of Stellar Management, we asked council member Deirdra Vaal about EVE Gate, the upcoming forum revamp, CCP's microtransaction policy and other topics discussed at the December CSM summit. In three meeting sessions, CCP and the CSM tackled some hard-hitting issues, the biggest of which were Incarna and nullsec PvP. Most of the details on Incarna are currently locked under NDA, but that didn't stop us from asking the CSM about it. Nullsec PvP has also been a hot topic recently with the revelation that levels of PvP have actually been declining since the Dominion expansion. Dominion was intended to open up nullsec for smaller entities, but we still see EVE's political landscape dominated by massive coalitions of alliances spanning several regions. Massively: The CSM expressed significant concerns about the Incarna development plans it had access to. Does the CSM think that CCP is heading in the wrong direction with Incarna? Deirdra Vaal: We feel that the approach taken to Incarna is the wrong one, and we emphasised this to CCP. However, CCPs general idea to set Incarna as an "off the grid" environment where we go for shady deals is something the CSM is reasonably happy with. It's just that so far we haven't really been shown any compelling gameplay. So we think they might be heading in the wrong direction, if they are lazy about it. They might also be heading in the right direction, but so far we haven't seen compelling gameplay that would support this assumption. Skip past the cut for the rest of our interview with EVE's CSM on Incarna, nullsec PvP and the future of EVE.
EVE blogs examine CSM discussions on nullsec warfare
The first round of minutes from EVE Online's CSM summit were released yesterday, with two further parts to be released in the coming week. EVE blogger Keith Neilson was privileged to be present at some of the meetings between the CSM and CCP, and has posted a summary on his blog. Since the official meeting minutes have yet to be released, concrete conclusions on any specific points in the meeting can't be made. Keith was able to confirm, however, that nullsec PvP was heavily discussed at the summit. In particular, the effect of last year's Dominion expansion on nullsec warfare was examined, some problems were highlighted and potential solutions were explored. The summaries on Keith's blog reveal some surprising facts about nullsec. CCP's lead economist Dr Eyjo is said to have voiced concerns over the fact that new players are moving into the more PvE-focused wormhole content instead of forming alliances and moving into nullsec territorial warfare. This is understandable, as wormhole systems are much more friendly to colonisation by small groups. They offer a similar level of rewards to nullsec but the size of a potential attacking fleet is naturally limited by the size of connecting wormholes. In anticipation of the official minutes being released later this week, Calais from EVE blog The Hydrostatic Capsule has delved into Keith's summaries and drawn some compelling conclusions about why nullsec is still the domain of massive alliances. While Dominion was meant to open nullsec for smaller groups, Calais suggests that super-capitals and jump bridges actually prevent smaller groups from competing in nullsec PvP. "Where small teams should have the advantage of stealth and agility – the ability to strike fast and hard before melting away," Calais explains, "we actually see the very opposite." Using supercapital jump drives and jump bridges, it's big alliance fleets are able to outmaneuver smaller invading forces who can't afford to set up and defend the same infrastructure. Full details of the discussion between CCP and the CSM about nullsec PvP will be released later this week on the EVE devblog page.
EVE Evolved: The EVE Online that could be
Each of us has a different idea of the perfect game, whether it's an existing game with a few tweaks or something completely new. Game designers work tirelessly to make their own vision of the perfect game a reality, but there's no telling what players will think of a feature until it's finished. In the process of transforming a feature from a gleam in the game designer's eye to a finished product, something is unfortunately often lost in translation. Limitations in the technology being used or the manpower available can render the ideal implementation infeasible. As players, we don't really see that full development process. That doesn't stop us from painting our perfect vision of an upcoming or potential feature and how awesome it could be. In the coming years, the EVE Online developers will be going through the process of making some of their most incredible visions a reality. Ideas like walking in stations and integrating the upcoming MMOFPS Dust 514 with EVE's planetary interaction feature will be put through a potentially brutal development process. We can only hope that as little as possible of those visions we've heard from EVE's developers gets lost in translation. In this speculative opinion piece, I look at a few areas in which EVE is sure to be expanded in the coming years and discuss what I'd consider to be the ideal way they could be implemented or handled.
Upcoming EVE devblog series to show CCP's lag-busting efforts
With EVE Online's single-shard universe, the server hardware and game code have to be continually updated to cope with the game's constantly expanding playerbase. Each time the server is upgraded, node stability and lag in large fleet battles improves significantly. Unfortunately, this trend of periodic improvements took something of a wrong turn when the Dominion expansion came along. Before Dominion, fleet battles took place with over a thousand ships on each side and no crippling lag or node deaths in sight. Since the expansion's release, however, fleets of only a few hundred have regularly experienced unplayable conditions. Frustrated by CCP's lack of visible progress in tackling lag, members of the EVE community have been making their outrage known. A recent appeal to the gaming media by a few players resulted in the issue getting very high exposure, which could be bad for CCP's public image. CCP issued a response explaining that lag is a high priority, and that there is even an entire development team dedicated to tackling it. Earlier this week, CCP Zulu expanded on CCP's lag-busting efforts in the first of a new EVE devblog series dedicated entirely to lag.
E-ON Magazine issue 19 hits the shelves
In Autumn 2005, EVE Online became one of the only MMOs out there with its own dedicated print magazine. Under contract from CCP Games, MMM Publishing has worked tirelessly ever since to produce EVE's official magazine "E-ON." Four times per year, we're blessed with a dose of the latest and greatest things from New Eden in a comfortingly solid format. The magazine covers everything from strategy guides and ship fitting advice to sneak peaks at upcoming expansions, interviews with CCP staff and incredible fiction set in the EVE universe. E-ON differs from other game magazines in that they don't any make money from advertising. In an effort to keep the magazine all about EVE, they've taken the unusual but apparently successful route of publishing full-page adverts from in-game corporations and organisations. Advertisers buy space in the magazine with ISK, the in-game currency, and adverts must be for strictly in-game purposes. The ISK is then used to pay volunteer writers, who create most of the magazine's content and produce important things like guides from a true player's perspective. There's even a scheme in the works to reward advertisers with discount coupon codes for the magazine to gift their corpmates. Now nearing their fifth year of publishing, E-ON issue 19 has recently been released. As usual, this issue is absolutely packed full of everything we've come to expect from the mag. Skip past the cut for a run-down of what you can expect in issue 19 of E-ON Magazine.
EVE Online devblog addresses recent server issues
EVE Online's server is a complex beast, holding the title of biggest supercomputer in the gaming industry. The main server cluster is housed in London and serviced by a team of IBM engineers. In addition to constant hardware upgrades to take advantage of the newest technology, CCP's network programmers work around the clock to improve performance and track down bugs that will affect the game. EVE is no stranger to lag or network issues and older players know all too well that server troubles are expected around patch days. When the Dominion expansion was released, there were far more complaints of server issues than could be attributed to the usual "patch day blues". Now several months down the line we're still hearing horror stories of fleet battles lagging unbearably with only a few hundred players. The last few months have seen an increasing number of node deaths and database failovers, in some cases causing unscheduled server reboots. Read on to find out what CCP is doing to combat the issue.
EVE Online blogger provides insight on alliance warfare in Dominion
Alliance warfare has always been a huge part of EVE Online's endgame PvP, with alliances fighting over resources, expanding their borders or just settling age-old political grudges. The Dominion expansion made sweeping changes to alliance warfare and the transition hasn't been easy on all the alliances. Since Dominion went live, it's been difficult to judge just how effective the expansion has been at revitalising territorial warfare or how alliances are using the new system. EVE Blogger Wensley has been involved in the recent war against CVA in Providence region and he's been posting some of the valuable insights he's gleaned on territorial warfare over at his blog Rifter Drifter. In part 1 of his series "Catch 22" on the most recent parts of the war, he details the reasoning behind CVA's territorial expansion from Providence into the Catch region. In part 2, Wensley describes the details of the actual war so far and provides some useful insights into the mechanics of territorial warfare. He suggests that since alliances now get to choose the rough time their systems are fought over by way of the new reinforcement timers, they should have picked a time zone that would be inconvenient for their enemies. Instead, they had set their reinforcement timer to their enemy's peak play time, allowing them to easily amass huge fleets for the attack. He goes on to blame CVA's poor performance on a lack of preparedness, suggesting that if they had gotten their fleet together and into the threatened system first, any lag occuring when enemy players jump in would have been in their favour. If you're following the war in Providence region or just interested in how territorial warfare is fought now in EVE, Rifter Drifter's on-going Catch 22 series is definitely worth a read.
EVE Evolved: Five useful starbase configurations
Player housing is one of those features we love to see in an MMO but every game that has it seems to implement it differently. Sometimes it's limited to instanced rooms the player can decorate and sometimes it's a little more functional like shared guild halls. In EVE Online, the closest thing to widely-available player housing would be anchorable starbases, which can be configured to serve a variety of functional roles. Originally, their primary purpose was to mine moon minerals and react them to produce advanced materials for Tech 2 production. Starbases can be very useful as tactical staging points for PvP operations. With the right modules anchored around them, they can also be configured for use in other industries, from mining and manufacturing to research and deep space exploration. Until recently, they also played a critical role in EVE's alliance sovereignty warfare as the alliance with the most starbases in a system gained control of it. With that role now fulfilled by Outposts, Infrastructure Hubs and Territorial Claim Units, starbases have mostly returned to their former industrial and tactical uses. In this article, I look at five different starbase configurations that can be very useful to organised corporations.
GoonSwarm alliance disbanded in EVE Online political drama
In the sandbox of New Eden, rival alliances vie for control of vast swathes of star systems. The lawless nullsec regions of the EVE Online universe are home to violent alliances of all sizes and fleets with hundreds of ships clash on a daily basis. The political machinations of nullsec have produced many stories of wars fought over territory, stations conquered and fleets dismantled by force. Over the years, each story has become part of the game's living history. Recently, a new chapter in that history began as the nullsec sovereignty system governing territorial warfare received a complete overhaul in the Dominion expansion. The transition period has been rough on some alliances as a new sovereignty system requires new ways of thinking. Some alliances are falling, new ones are being forged to fill the power vacuum and the race is on for people to adapt to the new sovereignty system. As we've been watching the EVE galaxy performing its Darwinian reshuffle, it came to our surprise that GoonSwarm, the game's biggest territorial alliance, had been disbanded. In the early hours of Wednesday 3rd February 2010, GoonSwarm CEO "karttoon" kicked almost every corp from the alliance, effectively disbanding it. There's more to this story than meets the eye and in this investigative piece, I delve into the thick of it to discover just what's going on with this troubled alliance.
