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Star Wars: The Old Republic reveals Dromund Kaas, seat of imperial power
It's another Friday, and the recent pattern has shown, Star Wars: The Old Republic has posted a new update on the official site. As we've heard a full reveal of all the playable classes, the site has been focusing more on backstory and locations of late. And we see an important location indeed -- the heart of the Sith Empire that has been obliterating much of the eponymous republic's power base. Dromund Kaas, a jungle planet, was discovered by the Sith quite some time ago, but the location was lost and the planet forgotten in the recesses of history. That is, until the Sith suffered a horrendous defeat some thousand years back, at which point the remnants of the fleet happened upon the forested world. They spent generations building their force back up, which included turning the atmosphere into a nonstop electrical storm (how that helps with launching an attack on a larger entrenched military is somewhat questionable, but let's not sweat the details). Even with the Sith powerbase expanding, Dromund Kaas remains the center of intrigue, politics, and all that goes along with the above. No doubt there are a large number of future Star Wars: The Old Republic players already thinking about what adventures might take place on the planet's surface, so take a look at the official update, which includes further screenshots, concept art, and a video flythrough of the planet.
CCP Games releases video tour of EVE's new planets
While the Dominion expansion for EVE Online has been focused on changing how alliances claim and hold territory in New Eden, CCP Games has also given the game quite a facelift. We've mentioned the updated starry backgrounds and shown you a bit about how the planets have changed before, but we came across something new today. While the footage put together by the players was great, CCP has put together a "Planet Tour" video that's quite stunning. It flies the viewer past the different planet types that players can now encounter -- lava and ice, planetary rings, green continents and swirling clouds. We've got a video embed of the EVE Online Dominion Planet Tour (check out 3:34!) for you after the jump.
EVE Evolved: Postcards from EVE: Reader Submissions
As a tribute to EON Magazine's "Postcards from the Edge" feature, last week I started this two-part series of postcards from all around EVE Online. In last week's first part I presented a gallery full of postcards from my own travels in EVE. I then asked readers to email in any of their own screenshots that they wanted to appear as postcards. This week, I finish the series with a mixture of reader submissions and my own remaining postcards. As with last week, they're all high-resolution shots suitable to be used as widescreen backgrounds. Feel free to save them out from your browser to get them at full resolution. Thanks go to Massively readers "Mike", "Mark Pittam" and my corpmate "Retalus" for their submissions. Included are some shots of the new planets coming with the Dominion expansion in December and a lot of pictures from Sleeper space. Hope you enjoy! %Gallery-76973%
EVE's planetary graphics kicked up yet another notch for Dominion expansion
We pointed out last month that EVE Online will get a new look to its planets this December, when the Dominion expansion launches. There's now more footage of the improved planetary graphics which is even better than what we saw in September, with a closer look at the swirling clouds, continents, and oceans, as well as light and shadows on the horizon. The footage is courtesy once again of EVE Online player Flamewave -- who may just live on the Singularity test server. We've got a video embed of Flamewave's footage of the new planetary graphics as seen on the test server, so stick with us after the jump for a stunning look at New Eden as it will appear in Dominion.
EVE Evolved: Graphical upgrades for EVE Online
Some time ago, I looked at the different graphical updates EVE Online has received over the years and what was to come. The ship graphics were renovated years ago with the Trinity expansion and much of the rest of the game was left looking dated in comparison. The Apocrypha expansion picked up on the upgrades where Trinity left off, with re-developments of asteroid graphics and most of the game's special effects. Future updates were planned, with promises of bringing new life to planets and everything else that hasn't been improved. With the Dominion expansion on the horizon, it now seems that those promises are being fulfilled. We've seen new planet graphics and even shiny new starfields on the test server but are there other parts of the game that could benefit more from a graphical overhaul?In this short opinion piece, I take a quick look at the graphical overhauls that are coming with the Dominion expansion and ask which other aspects of EVE's graphics are long overdue for an upgrade.
A look at EVE Online's new planet art
With the upcoming Dominion expansion, EVE's planets are receiving some much needed graphical love. While they don't look bad, they just don't look like the rest of the graphically updated universe anymore. But, CCP has seen the problem, and will be updating all of their planets to bring an artistic focus back on them -- especially as they will be the settings of DUST 514's battles.As the Dominion expansion has hit the test server, one of the testers made a video showcasing some of the artistic upgrades. CCP certainly has made some beautiful worlds and awesome atmospheric effects, and you can catch it all in Flamewave357's YouTube video. Click continue reading to check out the video after the jump![Via MMORPG.com]
EVE Online announces Dominion expansion, 'Walking in Stations' renamed Incarna
CCP Games has announced their 11th free expansion for EVE Online, called "Dominion." As the name suggests, the winter expansion focuses on territories and player control over them. We're told that the Dominion expansion focuses on conquering and holding space, and will feature a reworking of the sovereignty system of territorial control for player alliances. We don't have any further details on the sovereignty revamp yet, but according to CCP the changes have been made with subscriber feedback in mind, particularly through the player-elected Council of Stellar Management. Given that CCP Games is tying more of EVE Online's gameplay into the planets of the New Eden galaxy, the next step they're taking with the Trinity graphics engine is to add more detail to these planets (and presumably moons).
EVE Evolved: Making EVE beautiful
When it was released back in 2003, EVE Online was one of the most visually impressive games on the market. Over the coming years, the graphics aged gracefully next to competitors on the market and all seemed well. Nonetheless, CCP were not content to let their flagship game's graphics eventually go out of date. In true CCP style, they developed a long-term staged delivery plan for the complete overhaul of the game's graphics. The first stage of delivery came with the Trinity expansion, in which a premium client was launched with incredible high resolution ship models. This was just the first stage in a plan to keep EVE graphically ahead of any competitors. In this technical article, I look at the science of making EVE beautiful and examine CCP's plans for the future.
A look at the geography of WoW from Interesting '08
This is just beautiful, from the title ("Brave Noob World") to the idea -- a geographical survey of Azeroth. James Wallis, the director of Hogshead Publishing, gave this presentation at an "unconference" called Interesting '08, in which he tried to do a survey of Azeroth, in the same way that Tobold did -- by walking from one end to the other. And he discovers that Azeroth is pretty small and pretty dense -- it's about 12km across, according to him (I really like his comparison image of the Death Star), and using a Female Tauren, he even comes up with the force of gravity, which is about equal to Earth -- about 1g. Which makes sense; Blizzard would want the virtual world to feel the same as our world, no matter how big it is.There's a problem with that, though -- if you have a small planet with the same gravity as a much larger planet, the only answer is that the mass of the planet is much more dense. And when you get a really small, densely packed mass, you start to mess around with the flow of time. So Wallis actually ends up explaining one of the more annoying features of Azeroth with actual science. Very nice.It's definitely a fun example of looking for more in this MMO than Blizzard probably put there, but Wallis covers it with enough zest and logic that it works, strangely. Now if he could only explain the weather...[via Massively]Update: Looks like the video got pulled. It's been stowed after the break, just in case it comes back.
Summer to bring big announcements for Stargate Worlds
Get ready for information overload all you Stargate fans, because with summer setting in (at least for the upper half of the hemisphere) Firesky will be making big announcements for their upcoming MMO, Stargate Worlds. You can expect to hear new information about planets, racial abilities and even details on the origin of Op-CORE -- the evil human faction featured in the game. News of which expos the development team plans on attending are also soon to be announced but that information will be revealed at the Stargate Worlds official website. It's likely that Massively will be attending at least one of the expos that Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment goes to, so expect us to poke and prod them for the sake of new and exciting information regarding their game. We especially want to know what they think of our Jaffa jokes, as everyone we usually tell them to just gives us strange looks before walking away slowly.
Poll confirms six Stargate Worlds planets
A new poll is up at Cheyenne Mountain's official Stargate Worlds website. Normally this would only be worth a mention in passing, but the text and contents of the poll actually confirm the inclusion of six specific Stargate SG-1 franchise planets.The poll asks players which planet they're most excited about visiting, and then lists six "confirmed" planets: Agnos (an Ancient city which we've already seen some pictures of), The Castle (the Tau'ri prison planet), Lucia, Stargate Command (aka Earth), Tollana, and an "unnamed Goa'uld desert planet."So it looks like there will be a good variety of places to go. But where's Abydos? It's not Stargate without Abydos!
Planets align for a Magical Starsign sale
If you're looking for a cheap adventure to sink your teeth into, grab a plate of Brownie Brown's Magical Starsign and a glass of milk. Amazon has discounted the Harry Potter-esque RPG down to $11.99 (free shipping on orders over $25). Following the story of its Japanese predecessor on the GBA, Magical Vacation, players are tasked with tracking down their classmates after their magic school's fleet of space ships crash on a group of planets. Sounds like a lot to take in? That's why we suggested the glass of milk! Amazon's deal ends today, so don't dawdle if you plan on picking this one up.[Via CAG]
Planetary Orbit Clock does the ticking thing all fancy like
For all the nifty timepieces we've spotted over the years, the truth of the matter is that our cellphone, computer and microwave clocks do a solid 99 percent of our time telling around the Engadget HQ. However, that doesn't seem to have slowed these inventive clock makers one bit. The Planetary Orbit Clock reads just like a normal clock from above, but from any other angle appears to be a fairly random assortment of spheres in orbit -- perpetual motion style. It's hard to imagine us actually standing up to see what time it is with any level of regularity, but we suppose the conversation or three this thing might spark could be worth the 3,990 Yen (about $34 US) being asked for it.
Elipson Planets tease audiophiles, sport A2DP Bluetooth
No, a decent Bluetooth-enabled sound system isn't impossible to find, but tracking one down with "audiophile" potential is understandably tougher. High-end French boutique Elipson has teamed up with Bluetooth guru Parrot to bring us the self-proclaimed answer to the audiophile's quest in locating a simple, wireless, BT-enabled set of speakers. The Elipson Planets boast a sleek, black (or white), spherical design scheme, and sport a "custom built" Bluetooth 2.0 EDR module which enables each speaker to automatically pair up when turned on. The tunes flow from the two-way 60-watt drivers, and while it only reaches down to 48Hz, it purportedly rocks a "bass-reflex" design to handle the thumps. Aside from plugging in your standard stereo cable, these orbs can receive data from any A2DP-compliant device, be it your PDA, cellphone, or third-party Bluetooth adapter. Although we're digging the design and wouldn't mind a nice set of perfectly precise speaks ourselves, whether or not they're honestly worth the €999 ($1,323) price of admission is certainly debatable.[Via TrustedReviews]
