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Star Trek Online details four Delta Rising starships
Star Trek Online fans are eagerly -- and anxiously -- awaiting information about the new Tier 6 starships coming with next month's Delta Rising. Cryptic is beginning to roll out ship details and specs by listing four of the Delta starships in a dev diary today. The Federation will get the new Guardian cruiser, a very durable and flexible ship that can convert enemy fire into a weapons boost, and the Dauntless experimental science vessel, which can project fake copies of the ship to fool enemies. Over on the other side, the Klingons will enjoy the Mat'Ha Raptor, a vessel with an insane amount of firepower. Finally, Romulan characters can snag the Aelahl Warbird Battlecruiser, which can throw out a collapsing singularity for fun and horrible consequences. These starships will be sold on the C-store and accessible by players level 50 and above.
Uncharted Waters Online launches 2nd Age expansion
Uncharted Waters Online relaunched under a new publisher a scant two months ago, and now the historically based sea-faring game has a new expansion. OGPlanet announced the release of 2nd Age, which adds plenty of new content for virtual sailors to enjoy. In UWO: 2nd Age, players can manipulate the flow of time and trigger different historical events with the new World Clock, take on new missions and adventures, embark on treasure hunts for rare relics, and combine forces to take on the new boss Ganador, Ruler of the Sea. New ships, modeled off of historical vessels, were also added: England's Privateer 'Sir Francis Drake'; the French Royal family's 'Crown'; and the Lubeck Merchant's Guardian ship 'Eagle'. Additionally, players can influence who wins the election for the next Roman Emperor. Before setting sail, get in the mood of 2nd Age with the official cinematic trailer below. [Source: OGPlanet press release]
EVE Online unveils the Sisters of EVE ships
New ships in EVE Online are kind of a big deal. A new ship isn't just a set of equipment slots, it can represent a whole different way of playing the game. The two newest ships being introduced with the game's next expansion are meant to do precisely that, providing players with a new level of security while exploring hostile space. These ships are the craft of the Sisters of EVE, and they're coming with the game's next major update. The latest development blog explains that the goal with these ships was to provide more support for solo exploration while allowing the ship to take a variety of different equipment for variable missions. Both classes of ship (the Astero and the Stratios) can use covert cloaks, feature increased scan probe and virus strength, and have extra module space that sacrifices some strength for vesatility. For more details on fitting and obtaining these ships, check out the full development dispatch.
Darkfall gains two new warships and a new class today
Bug fixing updates are all well and good (not to mention necessary), but you can't help but love a patch that adds more content as well! And today's Darkfall Unholy Wars patch does both. Besides some HUD and general fixes, Aventurine has added two new ships and a new class to the sandbox. The Junk and Barque are both fairly slow warships, lined with cannons -- 12 side and one rear on the former and nine side and two on each the front and rear on the latter. To craft either, a player needs a shipbuilding mastery of 50. The new class is the Slayer, a melee warrior with skills like Battle Rage and Vampiric Strike. Changes were also made to the village capturing and stealing mechanics to help the villages fall more in line with their envisioned purpose of being PvP hotspots. Full details on these and the other changes can be found in the patch notes. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Star Conflict adds a fleet of tier five ships
While it soft launched on Steam a while back, Star Conflict is still in technical beta, awaiting a technical kiss from a technical prince to become an officially released game. The strategic space sim hasn't been biding its time doing nothing, however; Star Conflict just released patch 0.9.0, and with it, a new tier of ships. Players can check out the new tier five ships, which include 27 fun varieties and complementing implants. All ships are less expensive and will be easier to visually customize now, with cheaper prices for decals and colors. Other improvements rolled out in patch 0.9.0 include a redesigned weapons system, a better PvE menu, new hangers, and a cool PvE mission that challenges pilots to attack a pirate space station and rescue a few scientists.
It's a ship in a box in Star Trek Online
Just because you're playing a Romulan in Star Trek Online's first expansion doesn't mean every other Romulan is your friend. Empress Sela's Tal Shiar are a huge threat not just to the nascent Romulan Republic but to all sentient life throughout the galaxy, epitomized with their insectoid ships that fuse Romulan, Borg, and Elachi technology together. Needless to say, these ships are never good to see on the horizon. Unless you happen to open one in a lockbox, anyhow. Yes, the newest lockbox in the game will give players a chance to earn the strange ships of the Tal Shiar, giving all captains a chance to fly some of the strangest ships yet seen in the game. The ships perform similarly to Romulan crafts with their built-in cloaks, but they exchange some of the active Romulan cloaking power for tactical weapons like Shrapnel Torpedoes. For more details on what awaits in the upcoming lockboxes, take a look at the full rundown of potential prizes.
Everything there is to know about EVE Online's Retribution expansion
EVE Online's PvP-focused Retribution expansion went live today, adding new features and balance changes players have been anticipating for years. Retribution is EVE's 18th free expansion, and introduces some very interesting new bounty hunting and criminal justice systems. Players can now place bounties on any pilot or organisation, which are paid out in chunks to anyone who deals significant financial damage to them. If that isn't enough revenge for you, players will even be able to hunt down criminals with open kill rights on them and exact mob justice. The expansion also brings overhauls to countless EVE ships as part of an ongoing effort to remove ship tiers and give every ship its own role in fleet combat. A new destroyer-class ship for each races gives new players more combat options, and the ORE mining frigate lowers the barrier to entry for miners. PvE-focused players have a new salvage drone toy to play with and advanced NPC AI to counter, while PvP is set to be shaken up with ship rebalances and a new micro-jumpdrive module. Read on for a full roundup of everything there is to know about EVE Online's Retribution expansion.
Uncharted Waters Online expands to include The Wild West
Yippee-kai-ya and get along li'l doggies! The Wild West is coming to Uncharted Waters Online, bringing with it the chance to explore and discover national monuments in the prairies, grasslands, and steppes of the North American continent. The Great Plains expansion, the third chapter of the Tierra Americana expansion, also introduces a new colony that is the only place in the world where certain grains can grow, which encourages players to build their own cities in that region. What else can seafaring adventures expect in this expansion? The chance to visit the scholarly city of Oxford, the ability to learn the pirate code, new vessels, and new ways to store stuff are all included. And what better way to celebrate a new expansion than by participating in the Epic Sea Feud from June 28th through the 30th? Hoist the anchors and join the fray! [Source: CJ E&M press release]
Newest Ask Cryptic for Star Trek Online takes a look at the road ahead
There's a great big galaxy out there in Star Trek Online, so much so that some things occasionally fall through the cracks. The latest installment of Ask Cryptic focuses on a few of these elements, like the Andorian ship and the addition of a playable Romulan faction. Neither of these elements is on the table for immediate inclusion, but both are in the pipe for future updates; the former is planned for sometime the next year, while the Romulans are on the more distant horizon. Not everything comes down to a simple "not right now," however. The KDF, for instance, is slated to continue receiving new updates and additional features to bring the faction more in line with the Federation's content level. The development team is also hard at work trying to allow older ships to be retrofitted into higher-level content, letting players take classic designs into modern engagements. It's certainly not a question of whether the development team has a plan or not, just a matter of how soon all of these fabled upgrades will be implemented.
EVE Online's Crucible expansion coming Nov 29th
CCP's feel-good post count has been building to a fever pitch in recent weeks, and today the company has announced the ultimate win-back promotion in the form of EVE Online's 15th major expansion. The content drop is called Crucible, and it's currently scheduled to debut on November 29th. "Crucible evolves the graphics, interface, and game mechanics with over three dozen updated and improved features based on feedback and challenges put forth by its players. This is EVE re-forged," CCP says on the expansion's teaser page. The web portal also provides a handy collated list of the aforementioned developer updates, and in spite of what was unquestionably the rockiest summer in the sci-fi sandbox title's eight-year existence, the future is looking pretty bright.
EVE dev blog talks new Minmatar battlecruiser
More good news for EVE Online fans just showed up on the sci-fi sandbox game's official website. It turns out that CCP wasn't kidding when it said it has shifted its focus back to internet spaceships. The latest EVE dev blog features a couple of images of the new Minmatar Tornado battlecruiser as well as a bit of verbiage confirming that CCP will be announcing the ship's factional counterparts in the coming weeks. And yes, we did say battlecruiser, since CCP has thought better of its original plan to release the Tornado as a battleship. "When reviewing the armadas of existing ships we came to the conclusion that it would make much more sense to add another tier of battlecruisers instead of a fourth battleship tier, and that the accessibility of BC skills would mean more of these ships might be in the hands of younger, brasher pilots. That means more pew pew pew overall," CCP Guard writes.
Battlestar Galactica Online adding new ships this month, surpasses 5M registered players
Bigpoint just can't seem to stay out of the news today, and whether its the incendiary pay-to-win remarks of an executive or an update to its Battlestar Galactica browser MMO, there's a lot of interesting buzz swirling around the company of late. The devs are adding a new line of fleet recon ships to Battlestar Galactica Online, and the craft will enable both Colonial and Cylon players to jump directly to their targets while "in proximity of an erupting battle." The ships will debut in mid-September and are modeled on the Raptor and Heavy Raider craft from the beloved Syfy television series. Bigpoint's latest press release also mentions that the Brimir-class carrier will be "available this fall, though its size, complexity, and impact on game balance must be optimized before its general release." Finally, the company is trumpeting some new metrics, and the release says that BSGO has surpassed the five million registered player mark. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
Battlestar Galactica Online unveils new Brimir Class Carrier
Bigpoint Games has announced that Battlestar Galactica Online will be welcoming a new addition to its fleet of ships this fall. The new arrival comes in the form of the Brimir Class Carrier, a rather hefty tier 4 ship. The ship is a relic of earlier Colonial designs, most of which were eventually replaced by Battlestars. The Carrier, however, brings its own unique surprises to the table. Its heavy armor allows the Brimir Class Carrier to survive enemy onslaughts while it deploys squadrons of strike craft to overwhelm opposing ships. Whether these strike craft will be controlled by AI or players is to be determined, but players will be able to send their strike craft after specific targets. The novel fleet support vessel will be available for purchase with cubits (in-game currency that can be earned via gameplay or bought with cash) coming this fall.
Bounty Bay Online announces new expansion
All those in favor of a new Bounty Bay expansion say yarrrrr! This July, "unknown worlds, grandiose ships, and challenging new adventures" await fans of Frogster's pirate-themed free-to-play title. The last expansion, Atlantis, focused heavily on land engagements, and the as-yet-unnamed July patch will sweep players back out to sea courtesy of three new ships as well as the chance to challenge the encroaching Spanish Armada. Player captains will receive three new ammo types, which incapacitate enemy vessels, deliver huge amounts of damage, or debuff enemy cannon accuracy. The new expansion also brings the Ship Improvement System, which will allow for ship customization via special items. Bounty Bay Online takes players on a journey through the Age of Discovery and immerses them in 15th and 17th century naval combat. Check out the official site for more info.
Battlestar Galactica Online passes one million player milestone
Bigpoint's browser-based Battlestar Galactica Online is a certifiable hit according to a new press release touting the fact that the title recently surpassed one million registered players. The milestone comes a scant six weeks after the launch of BSGO's open beta period and dovetails nicely with the news that the game is getting an engine upgrade as well as new ship content. "There is always a risk when you translate a well-known IP into another medium. We built what we believed was a recipe for success; a fantastic gaming experience inspired by an iconic show, with the added benefit of being a free-to-play title," explains Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz. Head to the official Battlestar Galactica Online website for more info on the game and the new upgrades.
Star Trek Online answers a fleet's worth of questions
The one-year anniversary for Star Trek Online is just around the corner, and the game has quite a number of irons in the fire to go along with that milestone. Player-generated content and weekly episodes are two of the game's big features on deck for the near future, and the latest installment of Ask Cryptic certainly addresses those, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. With nearly three dozen disparate questions answered, this month's offering covers everything from Vulcan ships to an open PvP environment. Among the more interesting answers is the fact that the development team is looking into ways to model rather unique ship traits such as the multi-vector attack mode of the Prometheus class. The team is also hoping to give players the ability to fly shuttles and yachts, along with reasons to do so. The next minigame after dabo is still on the table, but at the moment the team is focused on more meaty content. Take a look at the full rundown for all of the Star Trek Online questions for this month -- there's plenty of information to be found within the lengthy answers.
EVE Online giving players free holiday gift: the Zephyr
EVE Online players received some good news today, when CCP Games announced a free holiday gift for all active subscribers: the Zephyr, a pure exploration vessel that's unique among all ships of New Eden in both form and function. Beyond the pimp factor of this Intaki Syndicate ship, the Zephyr's primary use will be in the uncharted expanses of wormhole space. It's the only ship in EVE Online that has a probe launcher built in. This "Prototype Iris Probe Launcher"-equipped ship pairs minimal mass (and less likelihood of collapsing a wormhole) with a small sensor footprint, which makes it hard to scan down by hostiles. While the integrated exploration gear is nice, even better is that Sleeper NPCs -- the awakened and powerful guardians of wormhole space -- will not fire upon a Zephyr (EVE filmmakers take note!). What's even cooler is that it actually has sails; it's designed to soar through space on solar winds when not in warp. The Zephyr exploration ship will be free to all players and available to be claimed between December 18th and January 6th, 2009. Redeeming the ship is easy, simply log in to the EVE client on or after December 18th and click "Redeem Items!" on the lower right of the client window. Remember it's one ship per active (non-trial) account, not per character, and this may very well be a one time offer. Have a look at CCP Wrangler's full description of the Zephyr for more on this rather unique addition to New Eden's array of ships.
