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E3 2011: DUST 514's realtime integration with EVE Online
During Monday's Sony conference, EVE Online developer CCP Games made an appearance to announce that the company's upcoming MMOFPS DUST 514 will be exclusive to the PlayStation 3. The ambitious title aims to link the world of ground troops fighting over planets to EVE Online's universe of spaceborne conflict. EVE players will be able to hire DUST mercenaries as part of an ongoing territorial war, the concept for which we got a glimpse of in both the E3 DUST 514 trailer and the previous A Future Vision trailer in March. When DUST 514 is released in spring 2012, PC-based ship pilots will be fighting for control of industrial infrastructure, planets, star systems, and whole regions of space alongside console-based ground troops. CCP's future vision for the virtual universe of New Eden is slowly starting to become a reality, and we can only hope that both games live up to their sizable potential. We caught up with CCP at E3 to find out the details on DUST 514's gameplay and how the DUST-EVE link will work. Skip past the cut for the incredibly juicy details on DUST 514's gameplay and how DUST mercenaries will interact with the EVE universe. Before reading on, be warned that a change of underwear may be required!
E3 2011: DUST 514 is a PS3 exclusive, to be released spring 2012 [Updated]
In the run-up to E3, CCP Games hinted repeatedly that news about its upcoming MMOFPS DUST 514 was forthcoming. A big announcement was expected at E3, but few people expected it to be part of today's Sony conference. CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson made an appearance at the conference to reveal that the console-only MMOFPS would be a PS3 exclusive. The Sony presenter then confirmed that the game is set for a spring 2012 release, with beta starting at the end of this year. Hilmar ended the announcement with the showing of a new trailer for the game, highlighting the various character and battlefield upgrades available and their prices in ISK. This may indicate that EVE Online players will be able to purchase supplies for DUST marines as part of a mercenary contract. The video ended with a structure in DUST 514 launching what appeared to be a doomsday blast at an EVE player's dreadnought in orbit. Bearing a similarity to a previous trailer in which EVE dreadnoughts delivered artillery support for ground troops, this may give some clues as to how CCP wants to have the two games interact. [Update: CCP has released a new devblog all about DUST 514's PS3 exclusivity with links to more information and the E3 trailer.] Massively's on the ground in Los Angeles during the week of June 6-9, bringing you all the best news from E3 2011. Whether you're dying to know more about Star Wars: The Old Republic, RIFT, or any MMO in between, you can bet we'll have it covered!
Foxconn plant reopens, resumes operations following explosion
Foxconn confirmed today that its manufacturing plant in Chengdu, China has reopened and resumed operations following an explosion in its iPad 2 production facility last month that killed three employees and left others in hospital. The company has also announced that while its investigation into the incident is "ongoing," it has already addressed the preliminary finding that the explosion was "likely due to an explosion of aluminum dust in a ventilation duct." To that end, it says it has put in place "improvements in workshop ventilation," as well as a "a total revamping of the policies and practices related to the disposal of that dust." All Things D has the company's complete statement at the link below.
Foxconn confirms third death from explosion, earlier watchdog report points at aluminum dust (updated)
Following the tragic explosion at Foxconn's Chengdu plant on Friday, the company has now confirmed to All Things Digital the death of a third employee, with nine remaining in hospital. While investigation is still ongoing, initial findings are pointing at "an explosion of combustible dust in a duct" at one of the polishing workshops, which supports earlier rumors of dust explosion; though there's no confirmation on what caused the ignition just yet. In related news: two weeks before the fatal accident, watchdog group SACOM released a report on the welfare of workers at the new Chengdu plant. Amongst the uncovering of management issues, excessive working hours, and hazardous environment, PC World highlights complaints from workers about the large amount of aluminum dust -- which is highly explosive -- floating around the polishing department, thus suggesting a lack of proper dust extraction methods within the facility. Foxconn has previously slammed this report, but the outcome of this explosion's investigation should once and for all prove who's telling the truth. For now, though, the priority is to make sure the victims and their families are taken care of. Full statement from Foxconn after the break. Update: According to China Times' industry sources, the explosion has only affected some storage facilities and chemical coating lines, though Foxconn president Terry Gou is said to be reallocating some production to his Shenzhen plant as a just-in-case measure.
A Dust 514 novel may be in the works
Development studio CCP Games has been in the news a lot this year with their ambitious MMOFPS project codenamed Dust 514. When it's released, Dust will actually tie into the studio's current MMO EVE Online. Dust players will hire themselves out to EVE players as mercenaries, their combined aim being to dominate territories on a planet's surface. The first steps toward this unique integration of two MMOs in the same concurrent universe came with EVE Online's Dominion and Tyrannis expansions. Dominion gave EVE players a new Sovereignty framework, which will later be adapted to include planets as strategic points of interest. In the recent Tyrannis expansion, the planets of EVE began producing resources worthy of domination, ensuring that players will fight over them once it becomes possible.
Eric Chahi's Project Dust heading to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Remember when we got all excited about Eric Chahi's upcoming game, Project Dust (working title), when it was revealed at Ubisoft's press conference today? Well, that excitement is no longer exclusive to us -- we've embedded the premiere trailer after the break. It's full of masked natives occasionally living their lives and, oh, occasionally being swept off the face of the planet. Moreover, the trailer also reveals the platforms on which we'll eventually be seeing the game: Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. %Gallery-95207%
Eric Chahi's Project Dust coming digitally distributed in spring 2011
If that title didn't fill you with joy, we're very sad for you. You also need to stop reading and go play Eric Chahi's brilliant Another World and Heart of Darkness. If you are squealing like a little girl, we've got the details for you, fresh from Ubisoft's E3 press conference. Chahi, who's been practically absent from the industry since 1998, is creating the not-yet-titled "Project Dust," which will be digitally distributed this spring on unnamed platforms. The only other information we have comes from the short clip shown at the event which showed shows a tribal group living in a world on the verge of extinction. Also of note: Yes, please.
EVE Evolved: What could planetary interaction be like?
On Friday, CCP released the first details of EVE Online's next expansion, Tyrannis. The expansion's main feature is a form of planetary exploration and control but details on what exactly that will entail have been limited. Like walking in stations, planetary interaction has always been a major missing component from EVE. It's been on the drawing board from day one but the technology and resources were never really there to do the feature justice. A prototype planetary flight system was even demonstrated at EVE Fanfest 2004 and while it impressed Fanfest attendees, the feature never materialised. The announcement that Tyrannis will include a form of planetary exploration has a lot of players excited but is their enthusiasm justified? The information we have so far on the expansion is limited to a single devblog, which provides only a general mission statement for the expansion. In the absence of further information, I find myself wondering what the planetary interaction in Tyrannis might be like. In this speculative opinion piece, I look over the information we know for sure about Tyrannis and go on to speculate on what it might be like.
CCP Asia on innovation and risk with DUST 514
This past August's announcement from CCP Games of a new title -- DUST 514, a console MMOFPS set in EVE Online's New Eden galaxy -- drew both great interest and intense criticism from gamers. If successful, CCP Games will be the first game company to tie a console FPS in with a separate MMO. (Not entirely separate, however. DUST 514 mercenaries will fight it out on the surface of the same planets seen from space in EVE Online. Their successes and failures will ultimately play a role in the balance of power in EVE.) Since that first flurry of info about DUST 514, it's been rather quiet on the news front. However, a two-part article published at Edge Online this week focuses on CCP's new game. Edge Online's "Enter Planet Dust" is something of a primer on the core concepts behind the title but is also one of the most comprehensive pieces written about DUST 514 to date. Edge also interviewed some of the key CCP Games staff working on the game in Shanghai -- Kjartan Pierre Emilsson, Managing Director of CCP Asia and Atli Már Sveinsson, Creative Director on DUST 514.
DUST 514 trailer released
EVE Online creators CCP Games made quite a stir when they announced the console title DUST 514 in August. It's one of the more ambitious game concepts we've heard about in quite a while. A ground based console MMO that ties in with EVE Online? Two separate games, one setting and one community? (The game's tagline is "ONE UNIVERSE // ONE WAR".) There are so many questions that remain unanswered about how DUST mercenaries will interact with and affect EVE's capsuleers, but a more immediate question is, "How does it look so far?" Unless you were actually in Cologne to see CCP's DUST 514 reveal at GDC Europe, it's likely all you've had to base your impressions off of was a somewhat blurry video capture of the presentation. That is, until now. CCP's released the GDC Europe DUST 514 trailer and it's good to see a crisp version of that footage. The trailer shows how the conflict between EVE's Caldari and Gallente races plays out on the ground on the Gallente planet Intaki V. It gives us a look at War Barge interiors, Mobile Command Centers (MCC) floating over what is now a war-torn Intaki homeworld, and some of the ground and air vehicles that DUST 514 players will put to use. We've got an embed of that video, so stick with us after the jump for a look at DUST 514.
Snap Judgment: XNA Dream-Build-Play 2009 finalists
While nearly all of my demo appointments at PAX required me to absorb information about new games at blinding speed, the XNA Dream-Build-Play Finalists booth demo tasked me with getting a feel for six games in just under an hour. It would be difficult for me to develop any kind of deep analyses on these brief gameplay slivers -- instead, I've collected my initial, hastily acquired thoughts about the games after the jump.Here's the short version: They're all pretty fun, but Dust: An Elysian Tail is clearly the leader of the pack.
2009 Dream-Build-Play winners announced, Dust takes top honor
It must be nice winning $40,000! We imagine Dust: An Elysian Tail developer Dean Dodrill will be drinking his fair share of shirley temples this weekend with all those extra duckets, after winning first place in this year's XNA Developer Dream-Build-Play competition. As you can see in the gallery below and video after the break, Dust is a beautiful, hand-drawn side-scroller that features action-RPG gameplay in the vein of Castlevania ... but with furries.Second place (and $20,000) went to Panya Inversin from Coin App who created Max Blastronaut, which looks to be a mix between Super Stardust HD and ... Double Dragon? We're just as confused as you are, but see for yourself after the break, below the Dust clip. Third and fourth place went to Mauricio Garcia's Rotor'scope and Hu Ling's HurricaneX2 Evolution, respectively. Congratulations to all of this year's winners!%Gallery-72019%
EVE Evolved: DUST in the wind
A few weeks ago, we here at Massively were speculating on what the big announcement CCP Games were planning was. After they filed a trademark on a logo for something called "DUST 514", we could only guess that it was the promised EVE Online themed first person shooter. In an email with one of my regular column readers before the announcement, I suggested off-hand that it would be awesome if it were a new EVE FPS that linked in with 0.0 sovereignty. I didn't seriously think that's what they had planned. In fact, I only suggested it as a sort of idealised wish -- a hint at what heights I thought EVE could reach a decade from now.When the announcement finally went out and I was right, my jaw hit the floor. Reception of the news has virtually polarised the EVE community, with only a small few viewing the idea with a calm, cautious optimism. Most seem either in firm support of the idea or dead set against it, with many arguments erupting around the claim that Dust will let console gamers decide the fate of EVE alliances. And yet despite all the talk of DUST 514 since the announcement, few people have speculated on what the game-play might actually be like and how it might integrate with EVE Online.In this wish-filled article, I lay out the facts we know so far about DUST 514 and then go on to speculate on what the game-play might be like.
The Daily Grind: Will you be trying out DUST 514?
With the announcement out of GamesCom a couple of days ago, EVE Online players have been buzzing. The new project revealed by CCP, DUST 514, seems like one of the most ambitious things we've heard in some time. Not only are CCP intending to build a completely new MMO strictly for the console, but they're tying that MMO into their other property. Unbalancing EVE Online could upset a great deal of hardcore followers and result in a very large loss of revenue for their company. That said, if they are able to pull it off, without a doubt we'll be witnessing a fairly large evolution of the genre. Companies will likely stop trying to figure out how to shoehorn extant MMOs on consoles (where they have patching issues thus making it prohibitive) and perhaps look into making separate but complimentary MMOs that can play well together instead. Now having said that, the question is how many MMO players will likely make the jump into an FPS environment on a console to play in the EVE Online IP? As much as I personally tend to suck at FPS games (ask anyone who has played L4D with me, seriously) I really love EVE and have to admit I'm looking forward to playing DUST 514. Truthfully, my little industrial corp really won't likely ever be hiring DUST mercs to protect Sovereign space (we'd have to get some first). But the idea of playing on the planet as a gateway to building connections with a corp and making some ISK sounds like tons of fun. Especially as I have a lot of FPS-fiend friends that I could likely talk into playing with me. What do you think? Do you think MMO players and FPS players can successfully play together? Is there enough crossover? Will FPS players care, or will it be purely about the ISK, with the highest bidder getting the best players? Are you looking forward to (or dreading) the ramifications of DUST 514 when it comes to control in your corp's Sovereign space? Or are you one of the folks like me who is in a corp that doesn't have Sov, and thinks this could be a fun way to potentially make some ISK - and connections - from the couch while enjoying a nice change of pace? For those of you of a more sinister bent, are you already targeting which corps you plan to merc out as a DUST soldier and then screw over? The questions are myriad - so we'd love to hear from you! Will you be checking DUST 514?
CCP Games reveals new EVE Online console MMO: DUST 514
CCP Games CEO Hilmar Pétursson delivered a keynote presentation at GDC Europe in Cologne today, and unveiled the project their Shanghai studio has worked on for the last three years: DUST 514, a console MMOFPS set in the EVE Online universe. Massively speculated in the past that CCP's hiring of console developers was in connection with either the EVE Online FPS or the World of Darkness MMO. The timing of the DUST 514 trademark registration led us to believe this would be the game title announced at this week's GDC event. So then, what is DUST 514?
Fan-run EVE contest will let winner interview CCP dev on podcast
EVE Online is a space-based MMO through and through. In the six years since the game went live, EVE's galactic setting of New Eden has expanded to encompass thousands of solar systems, both charted space and far-flung unexplored systems, as the game's subscriber numbers have slowly but steadily grown. The IP is expanding in new directions as well. Novels now add more depth to the game's lore. CCP Games plans to let players step out of their ships and interact as avatars with Walking in Stations, and the devs have stated that they'd like to bring atmospheric flight to the game at some (undetermined) point in the future. And of course they also have a ground pounder FPS set in the EVE universe in the works. It was some of these things on the horizon that got our friend CrazyKinux thinking about the possibilities that may open up for this sci-fi MMO if planetary colonization or terrestrial gameplay are introduced. In fact, he decided to make this the basis of his next EVE Online contest. It's one we think might interest some of Massively's readers, particularly as the contest winner will get to grill interview an EVE developer on the MicroWarpCast podcast.
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.
Tweaks to enchanting in 3.0.8
Are you an enchanter? Have you started tearing out your hair at how hard it is to get things to DE to Infinite Dust or Greater Cosmic Essence, while Dream Shard after Dream Shard piles up in your bank even after you've bought all the enchants? In my case it's Essences that are the issue. Nothing I disenchant seems to want to turn into them, while even lowly greens keep turning into shards. I have all the enchants to learn, I simply can't get enough essences to do any enchants.Turns out this is being retuned in 3.0.8 although I'm not sure I like how it sounds. See, the solution of jacking up how many shards enchants need would certainly make shards more valuable on the AH, but I don't sell mine anyway. Meanwhile, am I going to be getting essences from DEing now? Dust isn't that hard to get in my opinion (certainly not as hard as GC seems to think it is) - it's essences I can't get enough of, and essences that limit the enchants I can and can't do. On my server a Greater Cosmic Essence can run you 50g for one, and when I need 10 for an enchant and only have 1 after DEing two days worth of farmed/quested greens, that's a problem for me. I don't see how making it take more shards to do an enchant would be any great favor unless those shards somehow took the place of Greater Cosmic Essence, and if they do, what's the point of GCE at all? Here's hoping I'm just being reactionary and the changes coming in make it easier to level this profession.
Insider Trader: A disenchanted profession
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Back in the early days of the Azerothian economy, enchanters performed enchants with their own mats. You didn't sell anything you didn't have all the mats for, with the exception of special items such as Righteous Orbs for exclusive, high-end enchants like Crusader. When you were out of mats, you closed up shop for the day. Players laughed in your face if you asked them to provide their own mats, and anything for sale on the Auction House was overpriced to the nth degree. Enchanters developed relationships with crafters in other professions to create items that disenchanted into useful components. Players who leveled enchanting purely to disenchant items and sell the resulting reagents were frowned upon and hid their identities behind banker alts and mules.Today, it's a disenchanter's market. Disenchanting has become a profitable "gathering" profession in and of itself. Groups expect enchanters to "shard" items on the spot during instance runs so that members can choose a more valuable shard instead of an undesirable BoP drop. Disenchanting is a whole new "profession"! Read on for Insider Trader's look at disenchanting as a money-making venture in its own right.
Fox News offers their unique 'reporting' on PS3 dust story
We love Fox News, if only because they offer such a unique perspective on things. Here's their reporting -- you decide on how hilarious it is. You may have read about one man's crusade to get his PS3 replaced ... but it was "too dusty" to be repaired. Sony is supposedly refusing to repair his machine due to "neglect." (Here's a picture of the system in question.) It's fascinating to see the mainstream media pick up on this "story." With so much attention being placed on one man's defective machine, it seems wise for Sony to simply hush him with a replacement system, even if its unwarranted.
