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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?
EVE Evolved: Top five tips for new EVE players
I often hear people say that EVE Online is a lot more fun to read about than actually play, and I've even caught myself saying it jokingly to friends and writing it in articles. But the truth is that amazing stories like the recent world record-breaking Bloodbath of B-R5RB are a hell of a lot better when you're a part of the action or have the first-hand experience to put the event into a wider context. All of EVE was impacted by that battle, with its effects rippling through the in-game markets and reshaping the political landscape of New Eden. But to read about it, you'd think the carnage in B-R5RB ended when $310,000 US worth of titans went up in smoke. EVE has seen a huge influx of fresh faces since that colossal battle at the end of January, with thousands of new characters being created and the Rookie Help channel bursting at the seams. Whether you've always been a closet fan of EVE who has finally been convinced to take the plunge or you just want to join the ranks of the warring alliances you've read so much about, starting out can be a daunting experience. The sheer amount of information there is out there to absorb and sort through is overwhelming, and not all of it is up to date. CCP released a great new player guide recently to help newcomers assimilate, but I've still received several emails asking for advice on getting started. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into the new-player experience with a 14-day free trial and reveal my top tips for starting out on the road to creating your own sandbox story.
EVE Evolved: The top five most dangerous solar systems
EVE Online is a PvP game at its core, with conflict built in at a fundamental level. Pirates lurk around key trade routes and stand ready to pounce on unsuspecting victims, while vast nullsec alliances protect their territories with watchful vigilance and never-ending bloodlust. Wander into the wrong solar system as a new player and your precious ship and cargo will be turned into molten slag and a few points on a killboard quicker than you can say, "Hello, new friend, and what does that red square on your ship mean?" The original map of EVE was generated one evening by an Icelandic developer who could scarcely have known he was deciding the fates of thousands of gamers for years to come. New systems have been added to the game over the years, and a few manual changes have been made to the stargate network, but most of the universe has remained the same for over a decade. In all that time, a few solar systems have stood out as brazen bastions of bastardly behaviour and made their marks on EVE's history. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down a list of the top five most dangerous solar systems in EVE's long history and delve into why each has earned its reputation as a no-fly-zone for newbies.
EVE Evolved: Getting ready for Rubicon
EVE Online's Rubicon expansion goes live in just two days on Tuesday, November 19th, introducing four brand-new personal deployable structures and revamping PvP across the board with a seemingly innocuous warp acceleration fix. The expansion represents the first step in new Senior Producer Andie Nordgren's plan to bring true player-run deep-space colonisation to EVE Online. The new Mobile Depot that can be placed anywhere in space is possibly the most sandboxy feature since the introduction of player-owned starbases back in 2004. Players have been coming up with plans for the device since its first announcement, but I think we'll see its true potential revealed in the coming weeks and months. If you've been saving up your Sisters of EVE loyalty points to get your hands on the faction's new exploration ships, be prepared to buy and build the blueprints as soon as the server comes up. These will be the first pirate faction ship blueprints that are available in high-security space, and a recent devblog confirmed that players have been collecting Sisters of EVE loyalty points like crazy lately in anticipation of the expansion, but those who get the built ships to market first will make an absolute killing. For the rest of us, getting ready for the expansion means planning where to set up a Mobile Depot for some quick profit-making enterprise or building a few small PvP ships to put the new warp speed mechanics to the test. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the best places to set up a Mobile Depot, re-consider the lure of low-security space, and propose adapting your PvP fleets to take advantage of the warp acceleration changes.
EVE Evolved: Ten years of EVE Online
Tomorrow marks a huge milestone in MMO history as sci-fi sandbox EVE Online officially turns ten years old. Released by a tiny icelandic development studio whose only previous release was a board game featuring Reykjavik's favourite cross-dressing mayor, EVE has slowly grown over the past decade to become one of the industry's biggest and most stable subscription titles. Following 2011's monoclegate scandal that led to around 8% of players quitting and CCP Games shedding 20% of its employees, this year saw EVE Online climb to new heights as it regained the playerbase's confidence and smashed the 500,000 subscriber barrier. As a special side-note, the EVE Evolved column also turned five years old last week; it has now officially been running for over half of EVE's lifetime. The past year has been remarkably successful for CCP, with both of the year's EVE expansions being extremely well received and console MMOFPS DUST 514 finally starting to take shape. The Inferno and Retribution expansions fixed a staggering number of small issues that were broken in the game while also making big changes to bounty-hunting, piracy, and PvP across the board. We also saw huge emergent events like the Battle of Asakai, a $6,000 ship kill, and the five trillion ISK faction warfare exploit this year. With DUST 514 officially launching in just over a week on May 14th and players fired up about the upcoming Odyssey expansion, the future's looking bright for EVE Online as it heads into its second decade. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at some of year's top EVE stories, stories that touched real life, and what the future holds for EVE's second decade.
What to expect from EVE Fanfest today: World of Darkness, EVE Keynote, and an interview with Jon Lander
The second day of EVE Fanfest 2013 is now underway, and the schedule is packed! Today kicks off with a highly anticipated talk on World of Darkness at 7:00 a.m. EDT, and continues with the CSM Panel at 8:00 a.m. EDT, Alliance Panel at 9:00 a.m. EDT and Art Panel at 10:00 a.m. EDT. The CSM and Alliance panels are usually filled with hilarious banter, but this year the CSM Panel happens at the same time as the Faction Warfare roundtable and a talk on DUST 514 planet conquering in lowsec. The big event today is of course the EVE Online Keynote at 1:00 p.m. EDT, where we'll find out details of the upcoming Odyssey expansion. World of Darkness is still pretty early in development, so the presentation will be talking mostly about the tools being used to build it. We're unlikely to get a release schedule or any solid gameplay demos, but with developers raving about their internal play-tests I expect to see some serious progress compared to last year. Since the CSM panel is likely being streamed, I'll try to hit up the Faction Warfare roundtable and see what CCP's current thoughts are on how to improve this aging game system.
What DUST 514 means for EVE factional warfare
Fan site DUST514Base.com has a new blog post that's worth a read if you're curious about the changes that CCP's recent integration has brought to both EVE Online and its new shooter sibling. While everyone is basically aware of the fact that EVE capsuleers can now coordinate with DUST infantry to deliver orbital strikes, what you may not know is how the factional warfare aspects of both games synergize. In EVE, factional warfare involves earning enough victory points to wrest control of a particular star system away from the local militia. In DUST, mercs who manage to subdue militia districts on the ground make it easier for their EVE counterparts to mop up and take control of the system (or vice versa, as DUST mercs can also make things more difficult). The post goes on to point out that the current interaction between EVE and DUST is intentionally limited so as to ensure a smooth launch and integration of the latter title. Over time, though, CCP plans to add plenty of bells and whistles, all with the ultimate goal of granting players more ways to pursue power and ISK.
EVE Evolved: Retribution expansion highlights
EVE Online's PvP-focused Retribution expansion goes live in just a few days on December 4th, bringing with it a whole series of balance changes, UI updates, and new features. In addition to a whole new bounty hunting mechanic, we can look forward to a new combat UI, some serious ship rebalancing, and a new crimewatch system that puts players in the driving seat of antipiracy. Faction warfare is also due for a bit of a revamp, and a new safety system will help newer players stay within the bounds of the law. CCP has been releasing torrents of information on the expansion this month in the run-up to release, covering everything from the new UI updates and ship balancing to kill rights and corp hangars. There are some interesting changes on the way that might affect your everyday life in EVE. If you haul ships and items around EVE inside an Orca's ship and corp hangars, be aware that the hangars will no longer be immune to cargo scans and their contents will now drop as loot when you're destroyed. Expect suicide attacks on Orcas to spike immediately following the expansion's release, and keep your expensive toy out of harm's way. In this week's EVE Evolved, we'll dig into this week's Retribution expansion and look at a few of the highlights in depth.
CCP unveils EVE Online: Retribution, coming this winter
Earlier this evening at the VETO EVE fan gathering in London, CCP announced EVE Online's 18th expansion: EVE Online: Retribution. Due in December, this latest content overhaul promises to bring some of the biggest changes yet to the space-themed sandbox MMO, which is steadily ramping up for its 10th anniversary next May. We sat down with Jon Lander and Kristoffer Touborg, EVE's executive producer and lead designer respectively, to get a first-hand look at some of Retribution's key features as well as the enormous pile of tweaks, updates, and adjustments players might expect with any CCP-helmed update. One thing is certain: After Retribution, the world of internet spaceships will never again be the same.
EVE Evolved: Four ways Guild Wars 2 is like EVE Online
With its single-shard server structure and sandbox ruleset, EVE Online seems to have little in common with a sharded fantasy themepark like Guild Wars 2. But dig a little deeper past GW2's fluffy exterior and you'll find it shares some core game mechanics and ideas with the world's biggest PvP sandbox. GW2's Trading Post bears a striking resemblance to EVE's Jita 4-4 market, and many of the same market tricks that work in New Eden have proven just as effective in the land of Tyria. EVE's PLEX system lets people buy game time for in-game ISK and undercuts illicit RMT by giving players a legitimate way to buy ISK, a system that's very closely mirrored in GW2's gem trade. GW2's Karma system resembles a heavily restricted version of EVE's loyalty point mechanic, and PvP in both games may be more similar than it appears. The same strategies that work for faction warfare fleets in the depths of space are currently helping guilds win World vs. World vs. World PvP. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at four Guild Wars 2 game mechanics that are similar to those in EVE Online and how lessons from EVE can be applied to GW2.
EVE Evolved: Getting people to actually fight
EVE Online has always been strongly focused on PvP, from the obvious activity of smashing ships together to the more subtle cutthroat nature of competitive market trading and corporate politics. EVE is testament to the fact that if you put enough people in one place and ask them to share and play nice, pretty soon they'll be tearing each other's eyes out. Though the lack of direct flight controls and steep death penalty turn a lot of people off trying EVE, I have to admit that I've yet to find a better PvP experience in any MMO -- when I can actually get a good fight, that is. Everyone who engages in PvP regularly will have stories to tell of some of the awesome fights he's had, but in truth they're few and far between. For every fight so spectacular that its story is retold for years, there are hundreds of quiet nights, failed roams, and encounters that end in disaster. Lowsec is particularly troublesome as the lack of warp disruption fields can make it hard to deprive enemies of an escape route and get them to actually fight. Warp bubbles bring their own problems, so what can be done to add more PvP opportunities to lowsec without allowing players to use area-effect warp disruption? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the factors that prevent good fights and stifle PvP in lowsec.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: The Jade Forest revamped and reopened
The Jade Forest has been reopened on the Mists of Pandaria beta servers, and it's had quite the face-lift in a few key areas. Two new giant mogu temples are now at either end of the zone, and the Alliance and Horde have claimed them in the names of their respective factions. As a result, the starting quests for each faction have changed significantly from what they were before the Jade Forest was closed for its renovations. Because of this, beta testers who were well past the zone when it was closed may want to copy another character over to the beta and give the new version a play-through. It seems that both Alliance and Horde have received significant changes in the opening portions of the zone; however, later quests outside of the starting areas seem to be unchanged. In addition, there were several model updates with the current patch. Pandaria's wildlife now seems to be suitably diverse from the rest of Azeroth's creatures. So what's changed? Well, quite a bit, actually. Take a look at the before and after in our galleries for a peek at the changes, and follow after the break for some impressions from the new Mists starting experience. %Gallery-157916% %Gallery-161437%
CCP addresses EVE faction warfare exploit, players punished
Last week we brought you the story of five EVE Online players who gamed the new faction warfare mechanics to produce trillions of ISK worth a total of $175,000 US. The players who found the exploit did report it for developers to fix, but not before abusing it for a full two weeks. CCP Games spent the week deliberating and today released its official statement on the exploit and the punishments those involved will face. As market manipulation has always been a legal part of EVE's sandbox gameplay, the lines between exploit and gameplay were not as clear in this case as they could have been. The accounts of those involved will remain in good standing, but all of their ill-gotten gains will be completely removed. The five offenders will essentially be rolled back to where they were before the exploit happened. CCP reminded players that there are rewards for reporting an exploit to developers and that abusing an exploit before reporting it is not considered responsible disclosure.
EVE players abuse faction warfare to produce trillions of ISK
If there's one constant in the EVE Online universe, it's that the players can never be underestimated and every care must be taken to make sure systems can't be abused in unintended ways. In 2009, a handful of players figured out how to artificially boost the number of valuable faction warfare loyalty points rewarded for completing missions and farmed enough ISK to build a titan. That record was completely blown out of the water today as five EVE players revealed how they'd generated five trillion ISK using game mechanics introduced in the Inferno expansion. Inferno added a new reward system for faction warfare that gave players loyalty points for enemy ship kills based on the value of the destroyed ship and cargo. A bug was found that rewarded players for both the destroyed and surviving cargo, even though surviving cargo could be recovered. GoonWaffe pilot Aryth and four friends began destroying their own freighters full of minerals to cash the minerals out into loyalty points, which were then used to buy items for sale. When CCP discovered this bug and fixed it, the group manipulated the market price of one of the game's least-purchased items up to a huge number. When the price index for the value of that item updated, the players began destroying haulers full of them to generate billions of loyalty points for almost nothing. The points were cashed out into items for sale on the market, producing a total profit of over five trillion ISK. The abuse has not yet been declared an exploit, but CCP has fixed the issue and is still investigating it. At current market prices, five trillion ISK is enough to buy around 10,000 30-day game time codes worth a total of $175,000 US.
Some Assembly Required: Revisiting Origins of Malu
Many moons ago when the air just started to cool from summer's heat (aka, last September), Some Assembly Required had the opportunity to talk shop with a new outfit that is developing a promising new sandbox MMORPG, Origins of Malu. And you know me: Sandbox is the magic word! As skeptical as I knew I should be, I still came away from that interview with renewed hope that a game with some of the features for player-generated content could exist again. Back then, Burning Dog Media made the bold statement that it would absolutely release its flagship game in 2012, with a target of early 2012 to boot. But as the first quarter of the year quickly drew to a close with scant information available, it became pretty clear the game is still a ways off. In the realm of games, no news is not necessarily good news... and we definitely hit a drought in news. Now that drought has ended. In our second exclusive interview, we spoke with Michael Dunham, Producer, Jason Mitchell, Senior Developer, and Dave Cruikshank, Art Director, to learn what's been going on behind the scenes and get the scoop on more details about those very features that have sandbox lovers salivating.
EVE Evolved Extra: Revamping PvP in Inferno
When Inferno arrives on May 22nd, it will introduce a whole new wardec system, war UI improvements, and iteration on faction warfare. We'll also see a ton of new modules released over time to completely mix up how people currently fit ships for different roles. For those who started playing EVE Online after 2007, getting new modules and having to rethink all your ship setups will be a very unusual state of affairs. For older players, it signals a glorious return to the way things were before Empyrean Age expansion -- players will have to learn to adapt to a constantly changing PvP landscape or stagnate and die. The only people immune to wardecs will still be those in NPC corps, and all current loopholes like EVE University's infamous decshield will be removed. The number of wars the target corp is fighting will no longer be factored into the war cost, but the base cost is rising to 20 million and an additional 500,000 ISK will be added for every active member in the target corp. The number of wars the aggressor is fighting will still factor into cost, so you can sort of do a reverse-decshield by having alt corps wardec the target and waiting a week for his bill to recur. There are flaws with the system as presented, but those may have been at addressed at the roundtable, which was not streamed. In this special EVE Evolved Extra edition, I delve into the information revealed at Fanfest on revamping PvP as presented at those talks that were streamed live.
EVE reforms dev teams and preps a new patch for liftoff
The dream is over. EVE Online's dev teams -- formerly known as Team Best Friends Forever and Team Pink Zombie Kittens -- are breaking up. Fortunately, this is because there are so many devs at this point that CCP is reorganizing its devs into three new teams: Team Super Friends, Game of Drones, and Five 0. Along with the news of the team reorganization, CCP brings us word of an upcoming patch arriving January 24th. The update will include a rebalance of null ammo and assault ships, buffs to modules, better search options, new calendar notifications, and the ability for alliances to join faction warfare. Even if you don't play EVE, these patch notes are both highly entertaining and informative, especially if you enjoy seeing devs unhinged and dispensing advice for mosquito repellant.
EVE Evolved: Resurrecting faction warfare
I think it's safe to say that most EVE Online players have never tried their hands at faction warfare, the state-sponsored bloodbath that pits Minmatar and Gallente pilots against their Amarr and Caldari rivals. When the system launched almost four years ago during 2008's Empyrean Age expansion, it was an immediate and colossal success. CCP ran news stories leading up to the expansion to show the growing tensions between the four nations, with several videos highlighting major flashpoints like the Malkalen incident. The stage was set for the war to end all wars, and players were brought to the front lines to die for their nations. Faction warfare was originally designed to be a stepping stone for empire-dwellers who wanted to get into nullsec and to give fleet-based PvP to pilots without nullsec contacts. The first few months saw some spectacular action, with fleets of over a hundred rookie pilots happily smashing each other to bits. For over a year, faction warfare provided practically instant-action PvP on any scale you could want, from solo roaming and small gang warfare to full-on fleet battles with several capital ships. Unfortunately, CCP didn't iterate on the feature, so after a year with broken capture mechanics and no real purpose or reward for fighting, faction warfare began to grind to a halt. In this week's EVE Evolved, I speculate on how faction warfare could possibly be resurrected.
EVE Evolved: All there is to know about DUST 514
Last week, EVE Online developer CCP Games officially started accepting beta signups for its upcoming MMOFPS DUST 514. This first phase of closed beta tests will be open only to active EVE Online subscribers, giving us an early opportunity to contribute feedback to the game's development ahead of console players. I think that's important because it's our universe that the game will take place in -- literally. DUST 514 players will be connecting to EVE Online's supercluster, so gameplay between the two titles will be intimately linked in realtime. With the new game's release date set for the summer 2012, EVE players can expect the next big expansion to focus heavily on planetary control and the DUST 514 link. The past month has been flush with new information on DUST's customisable vehicles, drop suits, infantry weapons and more. We've even had a look under the hood at the server architecture that will keep the planet-bound battles fast and furious without lagging out the EVE players smashing each other to bits in orbit. In this week's EVE Evolved, I gather together all the key information on DUST 514 released this month and discuss what it means for EVE Online players.
Dev Watercooler: Faction favoritism
Lead Quest Designer Dave "Fargo" Kosak has just posted the latest Dev Watercooler. This time, the topic is faction balance. In the wake of BlizzCon, this perennial topic has flared up pretty brightly. While the devs did indicate they wanted to give the Alliance a bit more good stuff during some panels, some other incidents during and after BlizzCon (including the news that Theramore, one of the most iconic Alliance cities, will be razed to the ground) has left some doubtful, leading to intense debates and 100+ page forum threads on the subject. The way Kosak explains it, the devs definitely want to make sure that there is faction pride for both sides, and, he argues, while the Alliance may be getting beat up, the Horde has taken its share of lumps too. But in the long run, heroes are not born out of easy times. The Alliance will go through tough times, but it will give heroes the opportunity to arise. The Alliance's time is coming. One thing he did admit to is that Blizzard needs to do a better job of making sure people can interact with their heroes. He acknowledges that the Alliance may not think of Thrall as theirs or part of their story, and he promises that once Cataclysm as over, we will catch up with other characters. Whether you agree with all of his reasonings and conclusions or not, it's a good read, and it does prove that Blizzard is hearing us and is at least planning to try to address some of the complaints of faction parity and Thrall overload. Check after the break for the complete text of Kosak's post.
