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The maker of 'Eve' is betting big on VR and it might pay off
It's been a very rough 18 months for the makers of Eve Online, CCP. The company has lost money, canceled the long-delayed World of Darkness MMO, laid off well over 100 employees and said goodbye to two high-profile execs. It also hasn't released any financial statements or subscriber figures since revealing a drop in revenues in June 2014 -- in this case, no news is unlikely to be good news. But there's a plan to turn things around at CCP. It's making substantial changes to Eve Online in an attempt to attract new players, and has poured money into research and development with a big focus on virtual reality. Now, it's gearing up to release Eve Valkyrie, a AAA, competitive multiplayer shooter for Oculus Rift and Sony's Morpheus PS4 headset. The stakes are high, but this big bet on VR might just pay off.
EVE: Valkyrie comic starts on June 3rd, 2015
EVE: Valkyrie fans won't have to wait until the game goes live to start exploring the lore behind this spinoff of EVE Online. A comic miniseries is being published by Dark Horse comics, written by Brian Wood and drawn by Eduardo Francisco. This four-issue series will start selling on June 3rd, 2015, giving potential players or just general science fiction fans a chance to start exploring the lore before the game is finally launched. Valkyrie is still on track as a launch title for both the Oculus Rift and the Sony Morpheus, bridging both consoles and PCs. No specific release date has yet been announced.
CCP aiming 'to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life'
CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson closed this year's GameHorizon conference with a 30-minute talk focused around EVE Online's history and its future. Petursson starts at the very beginning with CCP's 1997 founding and carries it through the present day in which the firm employs 400 people at studios ranging from Reykjavik to Shanghai to San Francisco to Atlanta. He doesn't shy away from what he refers to as the company's "turbulent times," but he also says that CCP's mission -- "to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life" -- will continue well into the future. You can watch the full presentation after the cut.
E3 2014: EVE: Valkyrie gameplay trailer brings war to the stars
EVE: Valkyrie may still be in the pre-alpha stage, but that doesn't mean that CCP came to E3 empty-handed this year. On the contrary, the studio delivered a gameplay trailer with a couple minutes of in-game footage from the VR space dogfighting sim. In it, you can see combat between fighters as they use missiles and cannons to engage in aggressive diplomacy. The camera's constant tilting illustrates how the Oculus Rift headset will offer the player an unrestrained field of view during the experience. Check it out after the break and let us know what you think!
Joystiq's E3 2014 Selections
With E3 2014 in the books, Joystiq's writers look back at their favorites from the show. With the only stipulation being that the game must have been playable to qualify, the team presents its selections for favorite games of E3 2014. From independent gems to major releases from powerhouse publishers, Joystiq's list represents the variety of experiences available to video game fans worldwide. Here are Joystiq's first annual "E3 Selections."
EVE Evolved: Growing the EVE Universe
For much of EVE Online's early history, the playerbase saw consistent organic growth with no end in sight and developer CCP Games was able to stay laser-focused on its single game. The EVE universe has even had to grow several times to accomodate the increase in players, most notably with the opening of the drone nullsec regions and Apocrypha's addition of 2,499 hidden wormhole systems. EVE has survived the launch of countless high-profile MMOs in its lifetime and even weathered the monumental industry shift toward free-to-play business models, but it hasn't been plain sailing. While subscriptions have reportedly grown year-on-year, EVE's average concurrent player numbers haven't really increased since 2009. The active EVE playerbase isn't really growing, so it should come as no surprise that CCP has been trying to expand the EVE universe on other fronts. Though the first attempt with console FPS DUST 514 was an unmitigated disaster, EVE players still seem quietly optimistic about its PC reboot as EVE: Legion. Dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie has also piqued the interest of the emerging virtual reality community and has the potential to introduce EVE to thousands of fresh faces. EVE's Creative Director Torfi Frans Olafsson even hinted during Fanfest 2014 that EVE Online, Valkyrie and Legion might all share a single login and that characters may eventually be able to switch between games at will. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I look at why I think a shared login could be a stroke a genius, and interview EVE's Creative Director and Valkyrie's Executive Producer to find out what the future holds for the EVE universe.
EVE Evolved: Eleven years of EVE Online
It seems that every year another few MMOs have closed their doors or convert to free-to-play business models to stay afloat. EVE Online has always enjoyed a level of insulation from these market trends elsewhere in the genre, and just last week on May 6th it celebrated its 11th year of year-on-year subscription growth. Following on from my previous column celebrating the EVE Evolved column's sixth year of operation, this week I'll be summarising all the major EVE news stories throughout the year. It's been a big year for EVE fans, one that many of us can be proud to have been a part of. The EVE community turned its financial wizardry toward the real world and raised over $190,000 US in relief aid following a typhoon hitting the Philippines, and CCP even built a monument dedicated to the community. Several massive player battles once again put EVE on the global media's radars, and the Odyssey and Rubicon expansions revitalised the game for explorers and PvPers alike. But not everyone can hold his heads up high this year, with details of more cyberbullying within EVE coming to light and several players being banned for defacing the EVE monument in Reykjavik. In this anniversary retrospective, I summarise all the major EVE news from the year in one place and take a look at what the future may hold for the EVE universe.
Massively's hands-on with EVE Valkyrie on the Oculus Rift DK2
At last year's EVE Fanfest, the press and attendees got a rare glimpse into something other than CCP's major IPs -- a virtual reality tech demo produced by a handful of developers during their down time. Originally codenamed EVR, this VR dogfighter on the original Oculus Rift development kit drew a surprising amount of attention and went on to win several awards at E3. It's now been a year since that project first sprouted legs, and last week at EVE Fanfest 2014 it sprouted wings as well. Now named EVE Valkyrie, what started as a side-project has become one of CCP's key intellectual properties and the poster-child for virtual reality gaming. The game's success now ultimately relies on the adoption of VR tech and the appeal of its gameplay, both of which are still open questions at this point. I got some hands-on time with the latest build of Valkyrie during Fanfest to see how the game and the technology that powers it have come along in the past year, and I was pleasantly surprised. Read on to find out how Valkyrie has changed in the past year and for a first look at the new Oculus Rift Development Kit 2.
Stick and Rudder: How Star Citizen is turning the game industry on its ear
When this column began, the first thing I talked about was Star Citizen's then-unique development model and how important it was both for fans and the game industry as a whole. Over a year later, the jury's still out on whether or not Cloud Imperium's opus will bring balance to the Force and give starving hardcores a home of their own. It's already safe to say that Star Citizen has turned the industry on its ear, though.
EVE Fanfest 2014: EVE Valkyrie demos gameplay, features Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff
Moments ago at EVE Fanfest 2014 in Reykjavik, Iceland, developer CCP Games revealed some exciting developments for its upcoming virtual reality dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie. Among the announcements was the revelation that actress Katee Sackhoff (of Battlestar Galactica fame) will be starring as the voice of Valkyrie faction leader Ran. The Valkyrie faction is a breakaway sect of EVE Online's Guristas pirates that has become a mercenary outfit, using cloning and genetic enhancements to get an edge on the other pirate factions of New Eden. Sackhoff's character will be handing out missions to players in the final game and barking orders in your ear throughout each mission. Read on for our the highlights of the Valkyrie demo and Sackhoff's video missive to players.
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.
CCP's Valkyrie eyeing 'a really big transformation in how games are built and played'
Eurogamer recent talked to CCP chief marketing guru David Reid about the company's place at the forefront of the fledgling virtual reality movement. EVE Valkryie was the first title to be publicly played on both the Oculus Rift (PC) and Sony's Morpheus (PS4), which puts CCP in the driver's seat in terms of VR game development. "There aren't a lot of white papers and APIs and ways of doing these things yet," Reid explained. "We want to be a flagship game. We're on the cusp, potentially, of a really big transformation in how games are built and played, but we have to do our part to make sure that's worthwhile for everybody." Reid also talks up Valkryie's connection to the economies in DUST 514 and EVE Online as well as its "rock/scissors/paper" game mechanics. "As I go into a battle and I earn skill points and I earn currency, I can translate those to having the capabilities to fly bigger, better different ships and can kit them differently," Reid says. "It's a fundamental mechanic of the EVE universe, in EVE Online and in DUST, and it'll be coming to Valkyrie as well."
CCP still 'excited for friends and colleagues at Oculus'
News of the Oculus-Facebook buyout may have saddened gamers -- including Minecraft maestro Markus "Notch" Persson -- but EVE Online developer CCP is taking the corporate high road. The company, which is polishing a virtual reality action title called EVE: Valkyrie that will be co-published by Oculus, put a positive spin on the future of the Rift without mentioning the $2 billion Facebook acquisition. "We're very excited for our friends and colleagues at Oculus," CCP told Engadget. "We share their vision about the future of VR and gaming and are looking forward to participating in the consumer launch of the Oculus Rift with Eve: Valkyrie." CCP announced at last week's GDC that Valkyrie will also appear on the PlayStation 4 in conjunction with Sony's Project Morpheus initiative.
CCP: EVE Valkyrie is at the forefront of the VR 'movement'
CCP is convinced that virtual reality is around to stay, which is why the studio is pouring its efforts into EVE Valkryie for Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus. In an interview with VG247, Chief Marketing Officer David Reid said that CCP's involvement is a signal that VR is coming back in a big way: "This is just great for virtual reality. It convinces all of us developers that this thing is really going to happen. That it isn't just a fad or a flash in the pan or just one company trying -– it is now a movement. When you have one of the foundational companies of the video game industry getting into this, it really has accelerated the chances of this becoming a very big deal." Reid said that CCP is showing that it is focused on "things that matter to gamers" by pursuing EVE Valkyrie. "We said a vision statement a couple years ago that we want to be a developer that created virtual worlds more meaningful than real life," he said.
EVE Valkyrie in development for PS4's VR headset
CCP's virtual-reality star fighter EVE: Valkyrie is also in development for Sony's recently announced VR headset, Project Morpheus. Though CCP and Oculus VR had announced a co-publishing agreement for the game, a spokesperson from CCP has told Polygon that the exclusive partnership only extends to the PC version of the game, for use with the Oculus Rift headset. "We partnered with Oculus VR to bring EVE: Valkyrie exclusively to the Oculus Rift on PC and we are thrilled to be working with Sony to bring EVE: Valkyrie to the PS4 with Project Morpheus," a CCP spokesperson said. EVE: Valkyrie, previously known as EVE VR, is a multiplayer space fighting action game within the universe of the MMO EVE Online, designed with virtual reality in mind. CCP's VR title is expected to arrive on PC sometime in 2014. [Image: CCP]
GDC 2014: EVE Valkyrie coming to PS4, Sony's new VR headset
Sony announced its new virtual reality headset at GDC this week. The device is called Project Morpheus, and it seeks to turn your PlayStation 4 experience into something far more immersive than the typical couch and controller session. Shortly thereafter, CCP announced that its New Eden-based EVE Valkyrie action title is coming to both the PS4 and Project Morpheus. Valkyrie was specifically designed for VR devices, and was previously announced for the PC and the Oculus Rift. We've embedded the new trailer after the break.
Play EVE: Valkyrie on the Oculus Rift at PAX East
Ready to hop on the virtual reality hype train? Make sure you stop by the Oculus spread at this year's PAX East, as the company behind the Rift headset is partnering with CCP to bring you some hands-on time with EVE: Valkyrie. PAX East happens in Boston from April 11 through April 13. If you can't make it, don't worry because we'll be there with silly goggles on our head.
EVE Valkyrie Oculus Rift demos available in London this Friday
A gaggle of CCP devs will be hanging out at Goodman's Field pub near the Tower of London this Friday, March 7th. CCP Guard, CCP Xhagen, CCP Duchess, and CCP Masheen are bringing their Rifts, too, and starting at 6:00 p.m. the quartet will be demoing EVE Valkyrie on the new Oculus virtual reality device. The announcement post says that the number of sessions will be limited due to time constraints, so get there early!
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?
CCP Games reveals big plans for EVE Fanfest 2014
The universe of EVE Online may be best known as a crazy virtual galaxy full of back-stabbing pirates and political betrayal, but for a few days each year it becomes something altogether more tangible. At the annual EVE Fanfest, hundreds of the game's most devoted fans make the long pilgrimage to the game's birthplace in Reykjavik, Iceland. In addition to the official talks and reveals on the game's future from developer CCP Games, Fanfest plays host to charity raffles, roundtable discussions with developers, and informal get-togethers for players to share their stories. Last year's 10th anniversary Fanfest was the biggest one yet, with information included on World of Darkness and DUST 514 and the official reveal of Oculus Rift-based dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. This year's attendees can look forward to the first ever live demo of EVE's yet-to-be-revealed summer expansion, hands-on experience with the next major evolution of DUST 514, and playtests of a brand-new build of the virtual reality dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. This year's Fanfest will also see a special monument dedicated to EVE Online players revealed to the world; The "Worlds Within a World" monument will be installed in Reykjavik Harbor and will be etched with the names of all active EVE subscribers on March 1st. It's also hoped that crowdfunded EVE Online documentary A Tale of Internet Spaceships will be premiered during the Fanfest weekend, and we'll reportedly hear the latest on CCP's new EVE comic book and live action TV series. The event takes place from May 1st to May 3rd, and I'll be attending this year's event on behalf of Massively to bring you in-depth first-hand coverage of all the big reveals. Stay tuned!
