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EVE Online kicks off a new story-driven competitive event
A new post by CCP Fozzie on the EVE Online website outlines an ongoing plotline running in the sc-fi sandbox right now. Reacting to research on unusual behavior of Sleeper Drones in W-Space, each of the four factional groups in New Eden has requested help collecting stuff... for science. Capsuleers, that means you'll be rounding up Neural Network Analyzers and Sleeper Data Libraries and turning them in to your factions in a competitive galactic donation drive. Fozzie notes that the results of the story-driven event will directly affect tech rollout for the game: Out of character, I can reveal that this storyline and the associated donation drive will lead directly to new technology falling into the hands of players in the near future. The relative success of each empire's donation drive will determine in what order each faction will get access to this new technology. Each faction navy will also express their gratitude through a special ingame item representing an honorary commission to their forces. The commissions will be given to the character that donates the highest value of Neural Network Analyzers and Sleeper Data Libraries (combined and weighted) to each faction over the course of the event. Each commission will be a unique item that will forever contain the name of the winning character in the description. Players can donate the relevant items from Sleeper Drones via item exchange contracts to their factional contacts. The event is live now and closes out on October 14th.
EVE Online hopes to rescue nullsec with dramatic travel changes
CCP has big plans to shake up the EVE Online sandbox. The studio has just published a dev blog declaring that nullsec, the most lawless area in the game, is "stagnant and needs a change." Phase one of CCP's plan for that change is to "significantly" increase travel times for capital ships by introducing both a jump cooldown and a new mechanic called jump fatigue, which will effectively limit how often those ships ship can jump. CCP Grayscale explained the expected results of the overhaul: In the short term, we would anticipate a reduction in the degree to which the average non-trivial capital fight escalates, and the number of parties involved. This seems likely to increase the frequency of capitals being deployed in small-scale engagements, in both lowsec and nullsec. Over the medium term, we see the potential for more substantial changes in the nullsec status quo as the various competing parties work to adjust their internal objectives to the new situation; it seems plausible that the general reduction in travel capabilities will lead to more localism, but we don't want to make any firm predictions in this area. We're confident that these changes improve the overall system of lowsec and nullsec gameplay and take them in better directions, but any set of changes that would allow us to accurately predict their consequences would by their nature be too simple to be interesting for very long. Phase two and three, CCP vows, will focus on starbases and territorial capture and control. Massively EVE expert Brendan Drain has documented modern nullsec problems in his long-running EVE Evolved column. EVE Evolved: How to fix nullsec territorial warfare EVE Evolved: Capital ships ruined nullsec
EVE's Oceanus release is now live
EVE Online's latest update has been successfully pushed to the sci-fi sandbox's live Tranquility server, according to a CCP announcement post. Oceanus includes new cloak effects, notification tweaks, new burner missions, easier fitting import/exports, French localization, and some other stuff that you can read about via the full patch notes.
EVE dev blog explains Oceanus' new import/export functionality
EVE's always had a robust third-party tool-building community. With its new Oceanus release, CCP is embracing that community like never before by allowing for easier fitting imports and exports to and from everything from Pyfa to EFT to various killboards and websites. The latest EVE blog post goes into great detail on the EFT format and explains that it was selected as the base because "it's established and very widely used" in the game's community.
EVE Evolved: Features coming in Oceanus and beyond
It's been almost four months since EVE Online switched from publishing two major expansions per year to releasing ten smaller updates, and so far it looks like the new schedule has been a huge success. Rather than forcing the industry overhaul out the door in Kronos before it was ready, CCP was able to push it forward to the Crius release window seven weeks later and the extra development time meant the feature launched in a very polished state. It may be too early to tell if the new schedule's success can be seen in the concurrent player graph for Tranquility, but the numbers have remained steady for the past few months in what is typically the annual low-point for player activity. The Oceanus update is scheduled to go live in just two day's time, adding several graphical upgrades, more difficult burner missions, an experimental new notification feature, and other small improvements. The scale of the update seems to be on par with the recent Hyperion release, consisting of mostly small features and minor iterations on gameplay. While we're told that CCP is still working on large projects behind the scenes, the new release schedule means they won't be rushed out the door and so we may not see them for some time. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I summarise everything we know about Tuesday's Oceanus update, and take a look at what's to come in further releases.
EVE Online nukes named modules
One thing that we're becoming increasingly convinced about the purpose of EVE Online's dev diaries is that they are secret recruiting and training grounds for future CCP employees a la The Last Starfighter. If you're willing to chew through thousands of words and a dozen or so charts on something called "Module Tiericide," then you should be awarded with a salary plus benefits. That theory aside, today's new Oceanus dev diary explains (at great length) how the team is retuning its approach to module balance in order to give all ships significant strengths and weaknesses and purposes. One such change is that named modules are on their way out: "Our solution to this problem is to replace the meta-based named module system with a new role-based system." CCP promises that this is but part of the overall and continuing effort to balance ships and prepare for new additions to the game.
EVE shows off Oceanus' features
Oceanus is coming next Tuesday to EVE Online, and if you haven't been reading the novelization of the patch notes in the form of dev diaries as of late, CCP has a more succinct video overview of the changes coming with the update. In fact, there's a new dev post that's a gripping tale of how CCP saves spaceship data. It's a wild ride through numbers, software modules, and save files. Of course, such technical rejiggering must mean a vast improvement for you, the gamer, right? "What does this new system change for players?" CCP asks. "Visually? Nothing right now actually." OK, maybe it's a dull dev diary, but there's a much more fascinating video after the break. Promise!
EVE Online improves cloaking graphics
Portraying stealth in games can be tricky, especially if the player is piloting a cloaked ship in the midst of outer space. EVE Online's team has acknowledged that the game's current cloaking effects sometimes makes it hard to see how these ships are positioned and has announced that the next content update will vastly improve this feature. The new stealth graphics will not only look spiffier but be easier to see, according to the devs: "Fully transparent is not what we want! Pilots need to see their ships, remember, so we have a static effect that pulses along the surface of the ship from the spot where the cloaking started." There are more details about what gets cloaked and how other characters see you (hint: They usually don't) in the rest of the dev diary. This change will come with EVE's Oceanus release on September 30th.
This EVE LEGO ship will rock you like a hurricane
Imgur user Dinklebob has uploaded pics of his latest LEGO creation, an homage to EVE Online's Hurricane battlecruiser. The project is currently in-progress, according to Kotaku, and it even features a drone bay filled with cute widdle LEGO drones.
EVE wormholes getting visual makeover with Oceanus
Ready for another Oceanus-focused EVE Online dev diary? We hope so, because that's the subject of this here post. Wormhole space is getting a visual update in the sci-fi sandbox's next content drop, and CCP details the discussions that led up to the decision as well as the particulars of the decision itself in the blog. As you might expect, there are also a number of pretty screenshots.
Watch the fourth EVE Online video in the Clarion Call series
Back in 2009, player corporation Rooks and Kings produced an EVE Online video called Clarion Call: Triage Special, which went viral among space MMO enthusiasts and had a profound influence on PvP tactics in the game. Clarion Call 2 and 3 were released to similar acclaim, and now a fourth installment has arrived. The lushly illustrated, hour-long Clarion Call 4 narrates one perspective of modern EVE tactical history with footage and sound from individual pivotal battles. Don't worry if you're not an EVE aficionado; it's accessible even for a newbie. Just be warned that some of the language and terminology is graphic. Enjoy the video below.
New burner missions scrap nearly 20,000 EVE Online ships, CCP happy with results
CCP is "extremely happy" with the positive player reception of EVE Online's new burner missions that came in Hyperion. The studio said that the high level of difficulty in these missions was intentional in order to challenge the playerbase, and cited a bloodbath of 19,962 destroyed player ships as of September 14th as proof. The cost of the lost ships has topped 870 billion ISK so far. Due to the embrace of these missions, CCP is prepping a new batch of burner missions for September 30th. These new burners, believe it or not, will be even tougher than the current ones, working in teams of three against players. CCP will be putting these missions on the test servers later this week.
Latest EVE dev blog outlines notifications in Oceanus
CCP's latest dev blog details another feature coming in EVE Online's September 30th's Oceanus update. That feature is notifications, which "will give you feedback and information about all the deadly, creative, regretful, and/or awesome things your characters are doing in New Eden." Notifications are sort of a pre-cursor to EVE's eventual new player experience revamp, with the end goal being a more user-friendly sandbox and a removal of the current tutorial in favor of "a more open-ended experience."
EVE Evolved: Has the industry revamp worked?
When I was first introduced to EVE Online back in 2004, a big part of the attraction for me was the promise of a huge player-run economy in which the only real laws were those of supply and demand. With only a handful of tech 1 ships and modules available to build and everything made out of the same basic minerals, science and industry were pretty easy for new players to figure out. Over the years, more complexity has slowly been added to industry via features like Starbases, Salvaging, Capital Ships, Tech 2 Invention, Planetary Interaction and Tech 3 Reverse Engineering. Today's industrialists have to contend with hundreds of different items that are often arranged in sprawling component manufacturing chains, which can make it hard to figure out exactly how to make a profit. The recent industry revamp attempted to solve this problem with a full user interface overhaul and a revamp of material costs and manufacturing prices. All of the relevant information for using a blueprint was packed into a slick new combined Industry UI, allowing new players to find the info they're looking for in-game rather than through websites or opening dozens of item info windows. It's now been almost two months since the industry revamp went live, and while the market for many items is still going to take several months to fully stabilise, the dust has finally begun to settle. So what's the verdict? Has the industry revamp worked? In this edition of EVE Evolved, I consider whether the industry revamp has been successful, how easy it is to make a profit in the new system, and whether it's worth setting up your own industrial starbase.
EVE's Oceanus laying the groundwork for visual ship customization
EVE Online's next release is called Oceanus, and it's coming to a PC near you on September 30th. CCP has published a feature overview dev blog in case you're not up to speed. Major tweaks include French language support, new cloak effects, and a "big visual update" for wormhole space. There's a substantial under-the-hood update, too, and it has to do with how CCP stores and manages ship visual data. The dev blog says that this particular tweak is necessary "for being able to deliver visual customization of ships in the future." You can read about the rest of Oceanus via the links below.
Elgato announces $50 Avea smart lightbulb and Eve smart home sensors
Apparently, the world needs another smart lightbulb, and Elgato's going to sell it to you. Called Avea, the $50 bulb connects to your iDevice directly using Bluetooth (no external hub needed), and lets you set the mood in any room with an appropriate shade of light. Just one iPhone (4S and up), 5th gen iPod Touch or iPad (3rd gen or newer) can control a whole house full of lights and give users multiple lighting scenes to choose from. Plus, there's an alarm feature that wakes you with the gentle gleam of a 7W LED bulb pumping out 430 lumens (which is just a bit brighter than its competitor from Lumen, and is roughly equivalent to a 40W incandescent bulb).
EVE Evolved: Wormholes should be more dangerous
When unstable wormholes began forming all over the EVE Online universe in 2009's Apocrypha expansion, players approached them with extreme caution. The promise of riches in the form of new loot and Tech 3 cruiser components was balanced by the incalculable risk of facing a powerful new enemy in untested circumstances. Between the Sleeper AI that had been reported to melt players' ships in seconds and the player pirates taking advantage of the hidden local chat channel to sneak up on unsuspecting victims, we had no idea whether any ship we sent into a wormhole would ever make it back out again. The risk of venturing into something truly unknown made wormhole exploration the single most exciting thing I've ever been a part of in an MMO, but the past five years have completely eroded that danger. Farmers now know exactly what to expect in every wormhole site and can efficiently farm Sleepers with the minimum of effort or risk, and PvP alliances can rapidly cycle through systems to find weak targets to attack. We've mapped and tamed all of the wormhole frontier, systematically reducing the risk to the lowest possible levels under the current game mechanics. Tuesday's Hyperion update aimed to shake things up with a few disruptive changes designed to keep wormholes dangerous, and I think it's a definite step in the right direction. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the changes in Hyperion designed to keep wormholes dangerous and ask what more could be done to keep things interesting.
CCP lays off two execs, closes San Francisco offices [Updated]
Gamasutra reports that EVE Online developer CCP has closed its San Francisco studio and fired laid off CFO Joe Gallo and CMO David Reid. The firm's revenue and earnings were both down year-over-year, the website says. CCP laid off 49 staffers from its Reykjavik headquarters in June after announcing the cancellation of its long-gestating World of Darkness MMO in April. [Update: CCP's public relations firm contacted Massively to clarify our source's original claim that Joe and David were fired; in fact, CCP says, they are both "both leaving of their own volition and it's an amicable split."]
EVE Online's Hyperion update adds PvE missions, tweaks wormholes
CCP pushed EVE Online's latest update to the game's live server this morning. Hyperion features "the biggest wormhole changes since they were first discovered" as well as new PvE missions. CCP Guard also notes the patch's "ton of quality-of-life features" during the latest In-Development video dev diary, which you can view by clicking past the cut.
Crowdfunding Roundup: Sensors, battery packs, trackers, and a poll
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. And we're back for another week of fun! To start off with, take a look at Verve 2, a tiny connected device that can be equipped with all sorts of sensors that can then be used to control the world around you. Those sensors run the gamut from a force sensor to a temperature module, with a lot of other capabilities in between. It looks like Verve 2 will follow its predecessor by achieving full Kickstarter funding -- the campaign is at 58 percent with 38 days to go. Revocharge is another iPhone external battery pack, this time with a difference -- it features wireless charging through a magnetic stand. The company will have iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 cases available, although they do admit that "design is subject to change." Revocharge is about halfway funded with 36 days to go. Since the Rachio Iro smart sprinkler timer hit the market with a bang earlier this year, we've seen a few similar projects that hope to also provide a way to save a precious resource -- water. The latest Kickstarter to keep your landscaping green is Eve, which combines a controller with smart wireless sensors that check soil moisture at two different depths. The project is 17 percent funded with 32 days to go, so unless you get out there and add your support, Eve and Adam (the moisture sensor) might not make it out of the garden... Lightfreq bills itself as "The love child of Philips Hue and Jambox". This isn't a new idea; we reviewed the AwoX Striimlight early this year and it too is a mixture of LED light and Bluetooth speaker. However, the Striimlight left a lot to be desired, so it's a good idea that someone is revisiting the idea. And Lightfreq is going to make it to market, 294 percent funded with about two weeks to go in the campaign. Kill me now. It's AirStand, yet another universal iPad stand. But hey, these guys even show it working with an 11-inch MacBook Air, so maybe it will be worthwhile. I'm just amazed with how many iPad stand campaigns there have been since we started the crowdfunding roundup. This campaign is just 17 percent funded with 57 days to go, so it has a chance. Check it out in the video below. Despite public awareness campaigns showing the safety hazards of driving while texting or using other apps, people are still being killed and injured by using their phones in the car. Buoy wants to stop that. The device requires that your phone be placed into a dashboard dock while driving. If it's removed, it sends out a gradually louder audible alert. It's a good idea, but the project has a long way to go before it becomes reality. Frankly, I think they should sell this as an aftermarket device that requires the phone to be in the dock before it lets the car move, but that's an idea for another Kickstarter campaign. Slightly over zero percent funding with 35 days to go... The bad news: it's another wall and car mount for iPhone. The good news: Hopscotch is inexpensive, rather handy, and it's 67 percent funded with less than a week to go in its campaign. What's so different about it? Take a look at the video: It's deja vú all over again! Here's another external battery pack project. The KERO Power Annex is actually kind of a nifty design, using microsuction adhesives to attach a thin and lightweight to your iPhone. This eliminates the bulk of regular battery cases and makes the battery pack easy to remove. It's inexpensive, and some of the combo backing packages give you a keychain USB to Lightning cable that can be used with the Power Annex. It's 30 percent funded with 19 days to go. And if there's one more Kickstarter category that we seem to see way too often, it's tracking systems -- you know, those Bluetooth-connected chips and dongles that are supposed to keep you from losing your wallet or keys. The Smart Wallet locater and charger is essentially a wallet (a small one, I might add) with Bluetooth LE location circuitry and a 1000 mAh battery built in. Lose your iPhone? The app will tell you where you last had it. Lose your wallet? The iPhone will tell you where you last had it. Lose both of them? You're out of luck. The Smart Wallet is 42 percent funded with 17 days to go in its campaign. Qblinks are tiny Bluetooth-enabled buttons that can both notify you of incoming messages or calls and act as a remote button for your iPhone or iPad. They're colorful, playfully designed, and will be relatively inexpensive. The campaign is 54 percent funded with 10 days to go. This last project is probably -- in my mind -- the best of the bunch this week. Space Simulator is an amazing spacecraft simulation for mobile devices. Want to simulate flying the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM)? No problem! How about doing a Space Shuttle mission? With realistic controls and readouts, the game should be a blast for any space enthusiast. But just like real space flights, there's no Buck Rogers without the bucks -- the Space Simulator campaign is sadly at only 2 percent funding with about three weeks to go. It's a Kickstarter Staff Pick, so go support it, OK? That's it for this week. We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site. And now for something completely different -- we're going to let you vote on which of this week's crowdfunding picks you think is the best. Just make your pick and then let your friends know via Twitter and/or Facebook. What's your top pick of this week's crowdfunding projects?
