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EVE's EON magazine closing down
Meatspace magazines devoted to MMORPGs are a rare breed, and they'll be rarer still after EVE Online's EON mag closes its doors this month. MMM Publishing sent out an email blast informing subscribers and former customers of the decision, saying that "the economic realities are such that it is no longer viable to continue to produce the magazine in spite of EVE enjoying record success in its 10th year of operation." The company will keep the lights on through March 31st to process outstanding orders and clear out its remaining stock. If you're an EVE fan and you need a few back issues to complete your collection (or you just want to see Massively columnist Brendan Drain's 2005-era tanking guide in print), head over to the EON website and get them while they last.
Black Friday deal for EVE players: 50% off EON Magazine and ISK Guide
Black Friday is upon us, bringing us countless offers on everything from online games to toasters. MMM Publishing announced an enticing offer today of 50% off issues of EON Magazine, the official magazine of EVE Online. The offer also extends to MMM's other EVE publications: The ISK guide, EVE Strategic Maps and a poster pack. These are all paper-based products that will have to be sent via post, and unfortunately the price reduction doesn't extend to postage. For details on how to get in on this deal, head over to the official EON blog. EON is published quarterly and has recently reaching its 25th issue. The magazine has a professional quality to it, and interestingly the only advertisements you'll see in it are for in-game EVE Online corporations and services. The Industrial Sized Knowledgebase is a professionally laid out print copy of the most comprehensive guide to EVE ever released. A basic version is available for free as a PDF, and the purchased product is an extended reproduction delivered as a colossal ring-bound reference manual. EVE Strategic Maps is an accurate map of New Eden ready to be filled with post-it notes on big finds, wars and travel routes.
EVE's Industrial Sized Knowledgebase guide gets a makeover
Of all the MMOs on the market today, EVE Online has perhaps one of the steepest learning curves. This is something the game's developer, CCP Games, has been trying to tackle through improved tutorials and updates to the new player experience. While CCP makes progress on that front, the EVE player community has made its own efforts in helping new players by producing helpful guides and tools. Last year, EVE players Laci and Mermalior released the impressive Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase guide, an exhaustive guide to practically everything in EVE. The guide was translated from its popular Hungarian version and released online for free as a PDF download. Good news came last month when the publishers of EON magazine announced that they were teaming up with Laci and Mermalior to produce an updated print version of the guide. The first part of that work is now complete, with the MMM Publishing team having updated the guide with information from the Incursion expansion and given it a huge graphical overhaul. The guide has now been laid out with MMM's signature EVE style, and the PDF now has a very professional navigation system. As promised, the updated guide is available completely for free as a PDF download. A printed version will be available at some point in the future, which will be sold on the EVE store.
EVE Online Industrial-Sized Knowedgebase to be released in print form
Back in August, we brought you the news that an exhaustive Hungarian EVE Online guide had been translated into English and released online for free. The Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase (or ISK for short) represented years of collaborative efforts between players to produce the ultimate all-inclusive strategy guide for EVE Online. The creators of the gargantuan guide have now teamed up with CCP Games and MMM Publishing to bring the entire book up to a professional standard and update it with information on the Incursion expansion. MMM Publishing is the team behind the hugely successful official EVE magazine E-ON. The company's previous collaborations with EVE players and CCP include print copies of EVE Strategic Maps and the EVE Career Guide. A basic version of the new updated ISK guide will be released for free as a downloadable PDF document on February 1st. Following that, the team will then begin work on an extended 500-page premium edition, which will be available for purchase as a digital download or a full print copy some time this spring. The final price and release date have not yet been decided, but as the ISK guide is the closest thing EVE has to a full manual, the print copy is sure to be a popular item.
E-ON Magazine issue 20 hits the shelves
The magazine industry is a behemoth, catering to practically every hobby there is. No matter how obscure the hobby, you're sure to find a magazine on the shelf all about it. While there are plenty of magazines dedicated to gaming, only a few MMOs have their own dedicated magazines. Despite the rise in popularity of web-based publications, there's something special about having a physical magazine you can flip through. Since I am a massive nerdy fan of EVE Online, each issue of the quarterly E-ON magazine feels like a proper treat. The production values are very high, and it's pure EVE from cover to cover. The publishers even go so far as to include advertisements for EVE corporations and services rather than paid ads for other games or gaming services. Issue 20 of the magazine was released last month, but the postal fairy decided I had been naughty and didn't deliver it until this week. I've spent the majority of today reading this magazine all about internet spaceships, and I've loved every nerdy moment of it. This quarter's issue has a strong focus on the impact of EVE's recent Tyrannis expansion and its planetary interaction feature. In addition to a guide on setting up planetary harvesting infrastructure, the magazine's editors ask whether Tyrannis was everything we hoped or a missed opportunity to breathe new life into the planets of New Eden. Other topics discussed in this issue include EVE's controversial Council of Stellar Management, the history of the alliance tournament, and a look at the new rebalanced supercarriers. Skip past the cut for a breakdown of what you can expect in E-ON issue 20 and my impressions from reading it.
E-ON Magazine issue 19 hits the shelves
In Autumn 2005, EVE Online became one of the only MMOs out there with its own dedicated print magazine. Under contract from CCP Games, MMM Publishing has worked tirelessly ever since to produce EVE's official magazine "E-ON." Four times per year, we're blessed with a dose of the latest and greatest things from New Eden in a comfortingly solid format. The magazine covers everything from strategy guides and ship fitting advice to sneak peaks at upcoming expansions, interviews with CCP staff and incredible fiction set in the EVE universe. E-ON differs from other game magazines in that they don't any make money from advertising. In an effort to keep the magazine all about EVE, they've taken the unusual but apparently successful route of publishing full-page adverts from in-game corporations and organisations. Advertisers buy space in the magazine with ISK, the in-game currency, and adverts must be for strictly in-game purposes. The ISK is then used to pay volunteer writers, who create most of the magazine's content and produce important things like guides from a true player's perspective. There's even a scheme in the works to reward advertisers with discount coupon codes for the magazine to gift their corpmates. Now nearing their fifth year of publishing, E-ON issue 19 has recently been released. As usual, this issue is absolutely packed full of everything we've come to expect from the mag. Skip past the cut for a run-down of what you can expect in issue 19 of E-ON Magazine.
EVE Careers Guide available as free download
A major strength of the sci-fi massively multiplayer online game EVE Online is that there are no classes and certainly no professions that a player is locked into. EVE's professions are freeform, but this can lead to new players being unsure about what to do (or be) in the game. The title's developer CCP Games is attempting to remedy this. One of the resources that complements EVE Online's New Player Experience in the Apocrypha expansion is the "EVE Careers Guide", which introduces new players to the gameplay possibilities in New Eden. It's largely put together by Benilopax of Warp Drive Active: Industry podcast fame and Richie Shoemaker (aka "Zapatero"), the Editor of E-ON -- the official magazine of EVE Online -- who we've interviewed at Massively in the past. The EVE Careers Guide is a PDF file with interactive links throughout to navigate between sections, providing a comprehensive look at the game for rookie pilots. Zapatero welcomes new players to EVE Online, explaining the game in broad terms: "Many have found their own path in EVE by taking turns that are wildly divergent from what its makers envisaged. EVE is about relationships, prejudices, trust, greed and creativity more than it's about spaceships, trade and combat. New Eden is a very human universe, and with almost 300,000 people making up the population, it's a very dynamic one. Yes, it's harsh and uncompromising, frustrating and callous, but it's also illuminating in scope, vast in stature and utterly unique."
Massively interviews E-ON editor Zapatero
EVE Online is a deep and complex game, and even those who've played EVE for years find there are still facets of gameplay they've never mastered. This is compounded by the game's unique nature as a massive galaxy primed for exploration and domination by its players, whose actions and machinations affect one another in a single setting that's never quite the same from one day to the next.EVE is always evolving, both in terms of the dynamics between players and the game itself, seen as a whole. But unlike most MMOs, EVE Online has an official magazine, called E-ON, which has kept pace with how the game and its player efforts have changed over the years. To flip through the E-ON back issues is to see the documented evolution of EVE Online. In fact, E-ON manages to stay ahead of the curve due in part to its access to CCP Games, but mostly through the efforts of the players themselves whose writing talents make up the entirety of E-ON. The man behind E-ON is Richie Shoemaker, aka "Zapatero." He's the one who's been guiding the publication along since day one, and ensuring its content digs beneath the surface of the game. He's interviewed EVE's players and developers alike, but it occurred to us... Zapatero has an excellent perspective on the game yet is rarely interviewed, himself. Massively recently caught up with Zapatero in between his continent hopping, and got him to tell us a bit about his approach to covering EVE and what the player community is capable of creating.
