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EVE reforms dev teams and preps a new patch for liftoff
The dream is over. EVE Online's dev teams -- formerly known as Team Best Friends Forever and Team Pink Zombie Kittens -- are breaking up. Fortunately, this is because there are so many devs at this point that CCP is reorganizing its devs into three new teams: Team Super Friends, Game of Drones, and Five 0. Along with the news of the team reorganization, CCP brings us word of an upcoming patch arriving January 24th. The update will include a rebalance of null ammo and assault ships, buffs to modules, better search options, new calendar notifications, and the ability for alliances to join faction warfare. Even if you don't play EVE, these patch notes are both highly entertaining and informative, especially if you enjoy seeing devs unhinged and dispensing advice for mosquito repellant.
Six small changes that will make a big difference to EVE players
Last year, EVE Online developer CCP Games tasked its illustrious Team Best Friends Forever with a project aimed at fixing all those little things that annoy EVE players on a daily basis. Font issues, windows stealing focus, implants not showing on killmails, and the problem of agent standings being overly complicated were all tackled in no time flat. For the Crucible expansion, Team BFF's leader, CCP Soundwave, was put in charge of multiple teams that hammered out hundreds of bug fixes, gameplay balance changes and quality of life improvements. In a new devblog, CCP Punkturis reveals six small changes under development by Team BFF that will certainly make a big difference to EVE players. The skill queue will be getting a search feature, which is good news for older players with over a hundred skills to sort through. The watch list that keeps track of friendly targets in fleet operations will be able to hold 15 players, up from 10, and players will be able to re-order them any way they like. If you've ever seen a player's face appear in the bottom right of the screen to tell you he's just logged in, chances are you've tried to click on it to talk to him at least once. When the next big patch goes live, you'll be able to do just that. The agent list in stations and module overload indicator will both receive graphical updates, and a new compact user list for the local channel with no portraits will be an absolute god-send to nullsec fleets.
EVE devs brainstorming nullsec changes
EVE Online players have been quite vocal in their disdain for CCP's recent focus on cash shop items, Aurum, and promotions like EVE is Real. The conventional wisdom in some quarters is that the devs are neglecting to work on things that made the sandbox game great and are instead branching off into the netherworld of RMT and social networking. Enter CCP's latest dev blog, which seeks to convey the message that work continues on New Eden proper -- with particular energy being directed toward EVE's nullsec experience. CCP Greyscale says that Team BFF has basically set aside discussions of nullsec sovereignty in favor of resource- and industry-based brainstorming. Though much of the blog post is highly theoretical, it's nonetheless interesting to get a brief glimpse behind the curtain, and it's also somewhat reassuring to see that the designers remain focused on the sandbox rather than on how people are paying for it.
Massively interviews EVE senior producer Arnar Gylfason on Incarna, PvE and more
Some fantastic news came out of this year's EVE Online Fanfest. CCP Soundwave's talk on Incursion provided some insight into past and possible future development of EVE's often-neglected group PvE activities. We also got a first look at the captain's quarters coming this summer as a first massive step toward full-blown avatar-based interaction with Incarna. Finally, CCP presented the company's vision for the future of EVE -- a video showing the potential interaction between Dust514's ground combat, Incarna's station environments and EVE Online's typical space-based PvP. In his keynote speech, EVE senior producer Arnar "CCP Zulu" Gylfason brought together all the new information that had been released at Fanfest over the last year. We caught up with Arnar at the EVE Fanfest to ask some followup questions to his speech. In an EVE Spotlight article last week, he answered questions on the role of live events in future expansions and other topics. In this second interview, we asked Arnar about incursions, the future of PvE, captain's quarters, the new player experience, Incarna gameplay, and more. Skip past the cut to read our full interview with Arnar Glyfason, a man in whose accent the word "awesome" sounds seriously awesome.
EVE Spotlight: An interview with CCP Zulu
EVE Spotlight is a new bi-weekly feature in which we interview prominent members of EVE Online's player community or development team. Twice each month, we'll be shining the spotlight on a player or developer who has a significant impact on EVE to highlight the efforts of EVE's most influential people. It's almost an unwritten rule of game development that someone from quality assurance should never be promoted into a game design role. Game testing and QA are said to be so fundamentally different to design that it's argued the roles require incompatible skillsets. Arnar "CCP Zulu" Gylfason has definitely proven that this isn't the case, successfully migrating from QA to game design and finally being promoted to senior producer on EVE Online. Taking over from CCP T0rfifrans, Arnar has become a very public figure for CCP in the EVE community. Older players will remember Arnar as CCP Zulupark, that horrible guy who nerfed their carriers back in 2007. Alternatively, you may remember a fantastic forum thread from 2008 in which he personally answered countless player questions on game design and balance issues. Since becoming senior producer on EVE, Arnar has been a strong advocate of this kind of heavy communication with players. Through devblogs, interviews and interactions with the Council of Stellar Management, he's helped to fill the information vacuum players have become accustomed to. We caught up with EVE senior producer Arnar "CCP Zulu" Gylfason several weeks ago at the EVE Fanfest. In this EVE Spotlight, I ask him about communication with players, the role of live events in future expansions, and other topics.
EVE Spotlight: An interview with CCP Soundwave
EVE Spotlight is a new bi-weekly feature in which we interview prominent members of EVE Online's player community or development team. Every two weeks, we'll be shining the spotlight on a player or developer who has a significant impact on EVE so that we can highlight the efforts of EVE's most influential people. If you've ever tuned into EVE's annual Alliance Tournament, chances are you've seen CCP Soundwave in action. Through his work on EVE-TV, Soundwave has been a big part of the alliance tournament's studio team. Most players would recognise him for this work on the Alliance Tournament, but he's probably done more for EVE in his normal job than through EVE-TV. As a Game Designer for CCP, Soundwave has worked on some major features like the Tyrannis expansion's planetary interaction. Most recently, Soundwave worked alongside the other members of Team Best Friends Forever to produce the impressive Sansha incursions that are currently hitting New Eden. With the expansion having now been released, the team had been moved on to a project with almost universal support -- the quest to fix all those little issues with EVE that collectively add up to a big headache. In this EVE Spotlight, I talk to CCP Soundwave about the upcoming ninth Alliance Tournament, game design at CCP, the Incursion expansion, and CCP's new commitment to tackling all the small issues with EVE.
EVE devblog tackles CCP's committment to fixing small issues
Several months ago, EVE Online forumite Akita T began the "thousand papercut project." The aim of the project is to collect a list of all those tiny issues that irritate players about EVE. Putting aside any large balance or mechanic problems, Akita T suggested that all the little issues developers have put off dealing with are now all adding up to have a huge negative impact on players. Supporters of the project will be pleased to know that CCP has taken notice. In a new devblog, game designer CCP Soundwave has explained plans to work on a long list of small issues during the current development cycle. Having previously worked mainly on large projects like the Sansha incursions, CCP Soundwave's development team "Best Friends Forever" has already been hard at work on a variety of small issues, bugs and improvements that will be deployed soon. Among the many changes are improvements to the recently deployed incursion mechanic, including a much-needed change to deny the use of remote armour repairers and shield transporters on criminals. This closes a loophole griefers were using to trick incursion fleet logistics ships into being destroyed by CONCORD. Incursions should also last longer in highsec, and Sansha's forces shouldn't recapture lowsec or nullsec systems as quickly when encounters aren't being run. Head over to the devblog for a list of the first round of small issues tackled so far by CCP Soundwave and friends.
