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EVE Evolved: Making ISK from the Crius release
EVE Online's economy has been studied over the years for its resemblance to the real world, and it is often cited as an example of a hyper-capitalist society with no laws or regulation. But underneath the emergent interplay of supply and demand that has fueled everything from freighter businesses to virtual investment banks, EVE is ultimately a game. The biggest influence on the markets by far has always been CCP Games and the changes it deploys in expansions, which shake the universe up and force players to adapt to new circumstances. There's always money to be made from major gameplay changes, and accurately predicting how an expansion will impact on the market can put you on the head of a short-lived but very lucrative gold rush. Though EVE's updates now come in the form of ten smaller releases per year, the upcoming Crius release scheduled for July 22nd has practically a whole expansion's worth of changes to industry and research. That gives you just over two weeks to prepare for the change, train any skills you might need, and figure out how to cash in on EVE's industrial revolution. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I run down some tips for how to prepare for the upcoming industry revamp in Crius and make some ISK.
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: 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 Online monument commemorates the summer riots
Back in June, the EVE Online community reacted negatively to the release of a lackluster Incarna expansion and controversy over microtransaction prices. Complaints eventually erupted into in-game riots with the leak of a company newsletter on microtransactions and an internal memo from the CEO denouncing complaints as noise. Players got together in trade hubs across the game to protest EVE's development direction, attacking a pair of invulnerable monuments outside the systems' major stations. As a nod to players' refusal to accept the status quo and force change, CCP recently altered the Jita monument that was the main focus of the summer riots. The statue now stands destroyed, and its plaque congratulating Heinky and Shin Ra of Burn Eden for solving a riddle contest several years ago has been changed to the text below: "This was once a memorial to the winners of a riddle contest sponsored by late entrepreneur Ruevo Aram. After standing proud for half a decade, it was destroyed in late YC113 by capsuleers who were staging a mass uprising against an intolerable status quo of intergalactic affairs. Today, the ruins of this once-great work of art stand as a testament to the fact that change is the universe's only constant." The change is currently only live on the test server, but will likely come to the main server on November 29th when the Crucible expansion launches. Thanks to Drew for the tip!
EVE Evolved: Trade hubs of New Eden - Caldari and Minmatar page 2
Home to over two hundred people on an average evening, the system of Hek in the Metropolis region is one of the biggest Minmatar trade hubs. The safe route from Jita to Hek is a whopping 19 jumps, putting the system far enough away that a trade hub is very much required. The route between Jita and Hek is often heavy with industrial traffic and has historically been a prime target for suicide attacks against Tech 1 industrials.
EVE Evolved: Trade hubs of New Eden - Caldari and Minmatar
A natural consequence of EVE Online's sandbox style market system is that eventually the players will form trade hubs around the most heavily used areas. Before the four empires began gearing up for war, the main trade hub of New Eden was in Yulai, the CONCORD headquarters system with super-highway stargates into the heart of each empire's space. When the super-highways were dismantled, Yulai became more difficult to get to and its popularity as a trade hub dissolved. It was eventually superceded by Jita, a Caldari system in The Forge region. But while Jita is EVE's biggest and most notable trade hub, it's not the only one by a long shot. Smaller hubs have always tended to erupt around centres of population and activity such as popular mission-running systems or the borders of warzones. Understandably, it's traders who reap the largest benefit from knowing all the best trade hubs. Trading in multiple regions can reduce the risk of competition and increase the volume of their sales. In this two-part series, I look at some of EVE's biggest trade hubs, what can be found there and how to use them to your advantage as a trader. In today's first part I look at a few of the biggest Caldari and Minmatar trade hubs.
EVE hits new milestone with 56,021 players online
It was just last week when we mentioned EVE Online's new peak concurrent user (PCU) record of 54,446 pilots online. That record was smashed yesterday though, only one week after the previous PCU record was set, with 56,021 pilots online in New Eden. Beyond the new PCU record being set, this past Sunday's traffic may also make CCP raise the limit on number of players that can be in the Jita trade hub at a given time. 1400 players crowded into Jita yesterday, which is apparently the hard limit that the game's developers had set for the busy solar system. This prompted CCP Games Software Director Erlendur Þorsteinsson (aka CCP Explorer) to state, "We have been increasing the limit in the last few weeks and it looks like there might possibly be room for more in Jita." This could be good news for the legions of traders who flock to the system, and overall a good sign for EVE Online to see the PCU climbing higher and higher. Likely a major factor in the surge of active players is the upswing in nullsec alliance warfare which resulted from changes in the Dominion expansion -- not the least of which is that a certain moon material holds great value now; the desire to control these rare resources is a major driver for large scale conflict. And of course, the recent 'get EVE for $5' sales on Steam probably hasn't hurt either.
Apocrypha 1.3 improvements and Tech III changes coming to EVE on Monday June 29
EVE Online patch Apocrypha 1.3 is slated for a Monday June 29 deployment. CCP Games is pushing ahead with their Need for Speed initiative, which aims to streamline the game's performance and provide a better play experience. They're making some database changes with the next Apocrypha patch that should improve what you experience in your game client with inventory management, but beyond addressing "The Jita Problem" there will be a fair number of changes in the next patch. On that topic of speed, players should notice a huge change with starbase deployment (or hasty tear downs): players will be able to anchor, online, or unanchor offensive and defensive starbase structures in half the time it took previously. (Ninja POS deployment?) Perhaps more significant to some players than others, station reprocessing will be much faster -- apparently refining stacks of items will be up to 25 times faster than before. Also, some of those changes to Tech III production we've mentioned before are going into effect on Monday, and should ultimately be a boost for Tech III. Apocrypha 1.3's changes extend far beyond what is mentioned here; players heavily invested in wormhole exploration and the production it fuels should look closely at the patch notes to see how CCP's changes to the game might affect them.
CCP dev blog addresses lag issues, new features
The latest EVE Online dev blog comes to use from CCP Atlas, and deals with some sweeping changes to that most problematic of systems in the game: Jita. In "A Tale of Two Cities," CCP Atlas makes an analogy between the conveniences of city life and the similar situation of pilots seeking convenience in EVE, often needing to cross through the busy system to reach a destination. CCP's solution is to decentralize Jita from routes between solar systems. In effect, limiting the non-commerce presence in the Jita system, so it can -- hopefully -- continue in its established role as a market hub in New Eden without being a detriment to the players in terms of lag. Once the changes go into effect, players will no longer need to navigate through Jita to reach their destination (namely the Ruomo constellation), nor run agent missions in Jita. That is to say, Jita, as previously announced, will be a dead zone for mission agents; mission runners given missions from agents outside of Jita will not be sent into or through Jita as part of their mission completion.
EVE Online implements temporary population control measures
We mentioned that CCP Games is working on thinning out Local in EVE Online's highsec trade hubs like Jita, but they're also looking into other ways of keeping lag at manageable levels, even if it requires taking temporary (and unpopular) measures. CCP Wrangler announced today that the latest downtime brought with it a new feature to Tranquility: EVE's stargates will check how many players there are in a given solar system and deny access if the system has hit its population limit. The temporary measures are presently being discussed on the EVE Online forums, with a few clarifications and amendments made by the devs. There is some debate as to whether the pop limit affects Jita alone or if it affects all systems in New Eden, but regardless, the devs have stated multiple times that they're working to resolve the population issue. However, if the system population issue expands to other high traffic solar systems in EVE, this could stand to be a serious problem for the larger 0.0 alliances who rely upon their numbers to hold territory. The latest word from the devs states that only Jita is affected by population limits, and that a node crash is responsible for most of the 'traffic advisory' warnings players are receiving about multiple systems being inaccessible. These are some of the issues that can arise in an unsharded MMO, but hopefully the changes to stargates will remain as CCP states: temporary.Update: A hotfix deployed during Monday's downtime removed the system cap from all solar systems except Jita, which now has a player capacity of 1024. CCP Explorer stated that the capacity will be raised over time as they make server adjustments. Ultimately they hope to remove the population limit altogether.
Even NPC agents are running from Jita's lag in EVE
Despite being the most notoriously lag-choked solar system in EVE Online, the teeming trade hub of Jita remains a central destination for all things bought and sold in New Eden. Jita is very much a victim of its own success though, as we said before: "Not a day goes by without an EVE pilot, somewhere, cursing Jita and calling for the system to be nuked." The Need for Speed initiative launched by CCP in 2007 aims at improving both server and client performance, and their latest announcement -- the removal of agents from Jita -- is the latest effort they're using to combat lag. This writer feels you're just begging to have your mission probed out, or you might have a masochistic streak by dealing with Level 4 aggro coupled with Jita lag, but that's not for us to decide.Apparently a number of mission runners use agents in Jita, but according to CCP Wrangler, these players will soon be receiving EVE mails "informing them that the agents are relocating and the date of the downtime when the move will take place. From that point the agents will cease to offer new missions but they will accept ongoing missions, and of course they will resume their normal activities after the move." We'll see how well removing mission runners from the fabric of Jita's lag will improve the situation, but this might be a step in the right direction. The relocation of agents is likely one of a number of steps CCP Games will need to take to deliver smooth gameplay to a playerbase that keeps growing every year, making lag issues more pressing. On the topic of being relocated, have any of you ever gotten stuck in Jita and needed to be moved by a GM?
WRUP: Frag Massively edition
Time once again to ask you readers what you're playing this weekend, and this time, we know the answer: Planetside. That's right, tomorrow afternoon is our big event in the best MMOFPS of 2003, and we really hope you'll be there to join us -- we have to have someone driving the Galaxies we're planning to shoot down out of the sky.Other than the Planetside event, Age of Conan continues to be popular around the Massively compound, as does World of Warcraft, and EVE Online has reattracted our attention lately with the new patch's factional warfare and whatever that was that happened in Jita the other day. As we like to ask you every week, dear readers, What aRe You Playing in the world of MMOs?Just make sure that Saturday afternoon at 6pm EST, it's Planetside -- after all, it's not every day you get to shoot us in the face. We'll be on the US Gemini server, and if you need to figure out where we are, you can just hit ESC and punch "Instant Action" in the menu. That, or just follow the carnage left in our wake!
EVE Online blazes into The Empyrean Age
Massively has been beating the war drums as EVE Online enters a new era in PvP: The Empyrean Age expansion. This time of factional warfare will sweep players of all four races in New Eden into a whirl of conflict never seen before in the game. PvP will no longer be limited to low sec ganks, 0.0 alliance warfare, or Empire war decs. For the first time, it will be integrated with the storyline on a massive scale. And all the while, embedded reporters loyal to their respective factions will be conveying news and swaying the masses of New Eden to their cause. With all of this build-up to the expansion's release, there's a great deal of information to absorb. So we've written about what exactly The Empyrean Age is, and what it is not. Our columnists at Massively have written on the background of the conflict between EVE's races, and torn through some of the complexities of EVE's factional warfare for you as well. Although factional warfare has been tested extensively, these radical changes to the universe of EVE Online require a hefty amount of downtime to deploy. But after the full day's downtime, the shardless galaxy of New Eden will be set ablaze at 02:00 GMT on June 11. While you're rocking back and forth in your chair waiting for the server reboot, check out Massively's ramped up coverage of the sci-fi MMO and get yourself into the mood for tearing into the hulls of your rival faction. We suspect that a number of EVE vets are going through booster-level withdrawal symptoms today; so for the truly hardcore, CCP posted the full patch notes in all its 18-page glory on their provisional 'downtime site'. And of course, there's always time to watch Clear Skies a few more times while you wait for New Eden to ignite once again. %Gallery-24797%
67,000 plus dead in Jita, cause unknown
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened... -- Obi Wan Something 'terrible' indeed has transpired recently in EVE Online, but the event brought more amusement than horror to fans of the brutal sci-fi game. Over 67,000 ships were destroyed in the bustling trading hub of Jita yesterday, and the pilots of EVE's galaxy of New Eden are still trying to figure out what really happened. All of the obliterated ships were shuttles, which is unusual given the nearly endless procession of freighters and industrial ships clogging the system's star gates. The Jita system is notorious for being overcrowded and is often blamed for the lag that affects the rest of New Eden. Not a day goes by without an EVE pilot, somewhere, cursing Jita and calling for the system to be nuked. It seems those rage-fueled wishes were finally granted, just not quite how most would want that retribution to play out. Theories about the event can be found in multiple forum threads, ranging from the plausible to the absurd. A few players expressed the view that multiple convoys of freighters offloaded their cargo of ships into space at one location, and somehow ignited the mass in a doomsday-level conflagration. Some feel that it was all orchestrated by EVE Online's developers to help set the tone for factional warfare between the races, which is about to consume EVE's pilots in the Empyrean Age expansion. Others point out the most likely cause of the mayhem: it was simply a bug... a map glitch. No official explanation from CCP Games has been given for the occurrence, nor has EVE's Interstellar Correspondents covered news of the event. Glitch or not, it's a novel way to kick off the wave of destruction about to sweep over New Eden mere days from now. Thanks Hortinstein
