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EVE Spotlight: An interview with Somer Industries
EVE Spotlight is a bi-weekly feature in which we interview prominent members of EVE Online's player community or development team. Every two weeks, we'll be shining the spotlight on a player or developer who has a significant impact on EVE to highlight the efforts of EVE's most influential people. If there's one thing I've learned about EVE Online's community, it's that every now and then a player will create something unexpected that changes the way many of us play the game. Every time I think everything has already been done in EVE, someone always comes along with something new and innovative to blow away my expectations. Early players will remember the introduction of corporate killboards, for example, which not only changed the way combat was seen in-game but also spawned an entire killboard hosting industry. The introduction of public investment schemes was another such moment, bringing in completely new ways to play the game. The last emergent innovation from the EVE community to really grab my eye was Somer.Blink, a web-based gambling game contained entirely within EVE Online. Gambling in EVE has been going on for some time with the EOH poker league and similar schemes, but Somer.Blink brought casino-style gambling to the masses. When I first took a look at Somer.Blink, the organisation behind the site was in its infancy and it had yet to break many significant milestones. Having now served over 24 trillion ISK in winnings, the site has transformed its creators Somer Industries from a fledgling corporate venture into one of EVE's true financial giants. Even the theft of over 125 billion ISK in prizes didn't seem to slow down this gambling behemoth, which now generates enough ISK to effect major change in New Eden. In this EVE Spotlight, I talk to Somer Industries representative Somerset Mahm about how the business got started, where all the ISK generated goes and what the future holds for the corporation.
EVE Evolved: Death of an Industrialist, part 2
Of all the things that define EVE Online, it's the stories of criminality that stand out the most. The criminal underworld of New Eden is so deeply ingrained in EVE that CCP even made a selling point of it in the latest official trailer. Last week, I began to tell the true tale of one EVE pilot's thirst for revenge and the corporate infiltration techniques he used to get close to his target. In this week's conclusion of the story, Scott's plans for revenge come to fruition. But is Scott really the victim he believes himself to be, or has greed blinded him to what he's doing? If you haven't read part 1 of the story, skip back to read last week's EVE Evolved column before reading on. Newbies again Once in Zeeqo's corp, Scott and his crew began the slow task of setting their target up for a colossal fall. Simply destroying Zeeqo's mining barge could be a swift and fitting retribution, but Scott had a much harsher punishment in mind. Zeeqo would be made to pay for his mistake several times over. The plan for retribution hinged on Zeeqo's weekend freighter runs to Jita, a time at which he flew his most expensive and indefensible ship. This gave the three infiltrators only five days to befriend their target and work out how best to capitalise on his weekly haul.
EVE Evolved: Death of an industrialist
It's often said that the EVE Online universe is a dark and harsh place, the market overflowing with con-artists and the skies filled with pirates looking for some easy prey. The sandbox style of New Eden enables emergent gameplay like market manipulation, corporate infiltration, spying and theft. When faced with the choice, some players choose to be ruthless outlaws who will stop at nothing to further their own goals. Political puppet-masters pull the strings on the alliance war machines from behind the scenes, spies infiltrate corporations to gather intelligence, and thieves plot their way to riches. The latest official game trailer makes a big point of this side of EVE, telling an incredible story of revenge and theft that closely mirrors the reality of New Eden. As if to highlight the point made by the trailer, this week EVE player Bad Bobby confirmed that he'd stolen a total of 850 billion ISK from players in the investment market. Concluding a plan set in motion years ago, Bobby pulled off the theft last week of his supposedly secured Titans4U company. In keeping with this recent theme of theft and corruption, this week's EVE Evolved is a story of revenge, corporate infiltration, social deception and utter destruction. I've embellished the story in places and names have been changed to protect the privacy of all those involved, but the events described are real. In this week's article, I begin to tell the very real tale of an EVE player's revenge -- a precision strike against an industrialist who made one fatal mistake.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Fun with housing
I've briefly mentioned housing in previous articles, but I haven't done any in-depth looks into it. Plus, with the addition of new house contracts, the housekeeper system, and some creative ideas I've discovered, I thought it was about time to give housing some exposure. For the uninitiated, Runes of Magic's housing is a feature that lets you have an instanced area for yourself to store items, earn bonuses, and decorate to your heart's content. I've seen some players refer to RoM's housing as Everquest II lite. Apart from a handful of boss furniture-recipes, you don't craft the majority of furniture. You can buy furniture from NPCs or select from a wide range of choices in the cash shop. Once inside your house, you'll have access to the housing interface. Your items of choice can be moved into the furniture slots and then placed anywhere you want. You can get a more detailed how-to guide on housing from the Runes of Magic Wiki. In this article, I want to take a look at some creative things you can do with furniture and housing.
Goon Squad downs Tirion Fordring
Perennial pariahs Goon Squad, Horde-side on Mal'Ganis-US, have really carved out a niche for themselves in the World of Warcraft. Well, two niches. The first is a rock-solid reputation of being the foremost trolls and griefers in the MMO market, period -- a reputation perpetuated by a community that operates mostly on word-of-mouth and lovingly crafted by the guild itself. The second is providing some of the best and most hilarious WoW videos on the internet. This one is no exception -- they managed to score a victory for the Lich King by defeating the dread paladin Fordring. It's a rare ability, possessed by Goon Squad and a few other community figures, to be able to take the building blocks of the game experience provided by Blizzard -- strictly compartmentalized and defined by sets of incontrovertible rules -- and then cobble together something wholly new and, frankly, ridiculous out of them. You're not supposed to be able to bring together two often-'shipped faction leaders for an impromptu date. You're not supposed to be able to blow the Wintergrasp fortress wall to smithereens in a minute's time. You're certainly not supposed to be able to kill the head of the Argent Crusade who, by the way, should learn to cast Consecrate.
How MMOs infect other games
Games are rather viral in the way that their ideas spread around. You start off with perfectly self-contained genres, perhaps, but before long your characters are leveling up in a sports game and going through jumping puzzles in an action game (or a first-person shooter if you're unlucky). Next thing you know, you're shooting hoops before racing a car and shooting people and then solving a riddle... you get the idea. MMOs seem like they'd be largely immune to this -- after all, many of their conventions not ported from elsewhere, such as persistent online play, are fairly unique to them. However, Spinks has a fascinating essay regarding the way that, for better or for worse, MMOs are becoming closely entwined with other games. In short, while she notes that the mechanics haven't always made the jump from, for instance, World of Warcraft to Dragon Age, the design of the game's structure and the tactics available have. She notes the increasing prevalence of the "holy trinity" in non-MMO games (Final Fantasy XII being another excellent example), the ways in which our ideas about discussing both the game itself and the tactics it requires have expanded, and the ways that our attitudes toward our characters in a game have changed as MMOs have diversified, expanded, and improved. Insightful and astute, fans of gaming should find more than a little food for thought within the full article.
EVE Online devs explain their plans for revamping the sandbox
EVE Online's sandbox approach to game design is one where where centralized, well-developed clusters of solar systems are controlled by NPC factions while vast, lawless tracts of space can be claimed by the players themselves. This 0.0 space (aka nullsec) contains some of EVE's most valuable resources plus offers complete freedom from the laws imposed in high security NPC space. It's the frontier -- the wild west -- that alliances of EVE's capsuleers clash with one another to control. For all the freedom to use diplomacy, espionage, and outright warfare to get the most out of 0.0 space, players have long been hindered by the game mechanics of "sovereignty" -- EVE's system of establishing control over territory and reaping the various rewards that come with such control. The changes CCP Games are making to the game with the Dominion winter expansion aren't just about altering a few game mechanics related to territorial control -- they're about changing the rules of the sandbox itself.
EVE Evolved: Wormhole piracy 101
If it seems like I've gone wormhole crazy lately, that's because I have. The wormholes that arrived with the Apocrypha expansion have infiltrated and enriched many different aspects of EVE Online, from exploration and corporate goals to small gang PvP and piracy. In previous articles, I looked at preparing for an expedition, untangled the mystery of the Sleepers and told the story of a tense week for Total Comfort alliance in the Sleeper's den. After a week spent hunting wormhole-dwellers for fun and profit, this week's EVE Evolved is dedicated to the fine art of being an interstellar cut-throat as I delve into the world of wormhole piracy.Wormhole piracy is one of the few professions where small gang warfare is most prevalent. While many pirates have already begun including wormhole systems in their roaming gangs, our corporation (and I'm sure others) have come across a much more effective method. By setting up your own pirate staging base inside a wormhole system, your corp can use its regular outgoing wormholes to wreak havoc in systems all across EVE. Using this method, it's possible to spring attacks on people without anyone even seeing you coming. Whether you're planning surprise attacks on 0.0 systems or hunting in the 2500 new unknown sleeper systems, wouldn't you like to run your own pirate way-station?Read on for an informative guide on using wormholes to wreak havoc around EVE and make a profit in the process.
