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EVE Fanfest 2008 dates and travel packages announced
EVE Online fans, rejoice! CCP Games has announced details about Fanfest, as well as the travel packages they've arranged. For those who've never heard of the EVE Fanfest, for the past four years CCP has put out this call to all pilots: Join us at the top of the world for the ultimate party: the EVE Fanfest, held in our hometown of Reykjavik, Iceland. This is the best experience of EVE Online: your chance to meet the people behind the avatars in person, including friends and foes alike from the battlefield, plus the CCP Devs. Catch an inside glimpse of what's in store for EVE; participate in live PVP and CCG tournaments versus other pilots; and, if you dare, venture out into the world-renowned Reykjavik nightlife afterwards!If there's one thing CCP knows how to do right, beyond that whole 'internet spaceships thing', it's throwing a party. EVE Fanfest 2008 will be on November 6-8 at Laugardalur in the heart of Reykjavik, and will be the fifth annual event hosted by CCP. Fanfest is clearly a big deal to the Icelandic game developers, as they've made arrangements for airfare and hotel travel packages for fans wishing to make the journey north. At present, they've announced three 'early bird' travel packages through Icelandair for Germany, Holland, and the U.S.; more packages for other countries are in the works and will be announced at the official EVE Online site as details become available. Note that the offer for Germany ends on June 15. Read on for the full details about the U.S.-Iceland travel package.
Square Enix's next MMO may not be Final Fantasy related
In a recent discussion with Gamasutra at the Final Fantasy XI Fanfest, the developers behind FFXI confirmed that they are still working on a new MMO, but revealed that it might not be a part of the Final Fantasy series -- and then again, it might be. Producer of FFXI and Square Enix vice president Hiromichi Tanaka said that the new game could either be part of the FF series, a sequel to an existing FF game, or something entirely new.The Gamasutra interview also includes comments from the dev team about World of Warcraft and how they feel it has impacted their game. Their answer? Not much. They note that FFXI was at its peak in subscribers close to WoW's launch, and there was no notable drop in numbers after the soon-to-be industry giant was released.
Richard Bartle, Jessica Mulligan impart industry wisdom
There are few (if any) names more prestigious in the culture of online games development than those of Richard Bartle and Jessica Mulligan. Bartle was one of the original creators of MUDs (out of which MMORPGs were born), and is a leading theorist on the subject. Mulligan is also an experienced developer and consultant in the field. Both of them spoke at the 2007 EVE Online Fanfest, and Ten Ton Hammer pulled them aside for an interview.It would be impossible to list here all the interesting points they made in the two-page interview, of course, but topics worth highlighting included investor behavior and the problems the American industry faces with regards to finding and utilizing creative talent. If you're interested in the business side of the industry, it's worth a read.Both Bartle and Mulligan had a lot of praise for CCP and EVE Online. For example, Mulligan essentially said the future belongs to games like EVE that take chances and serve a medium-sized, more niche-like player-base, and Bartle suggested that CCP's next game could do very well.
WarCry's "War on the Impossible" part 4 details EVE's Trinity expansion
The folks at CCP are nothing if not ambitious. They're more willing to take risks and try new things with EVE Online than a lot of other developers are with their respective games. So far it's paid off; EVE has a very large and passionate fan base. So large and passionate, in fact, that they annually hold a huge Fanfest in Reykjavik.We provided a list of all the best coverage of the event, but one item on the list stands out enough to warrant a plug of its own. WarCry has been rolling out a series of articles on EVE Online as coverage for this year's conference. All together it's called "The War on the Impossible" after CCP's new slogan. Part IV of this series was just launched. This time the focus is on the Trinity expansion, which includes a graphical overhaul, a revised voice chat system, and many new or tweaked gameplay elements.In case you missed the earlier articles; Part I was an introduction to CCP's big moves and plans for the game. Part II was about the panel debate between Richard Bartle and Jessica Mulligan on CCP's plans to democratize the world of EVE, and Part III described "Ambulation" in detail. The articles aren't purely informative; WarCry weighs the consequences of each change. If you play EVE, you'll find that this series is one of the best summaries of the changes on the horizon. If you don't play EVE, it's exciting reading anyway because of the audacity of some of CCP's plans.
