EVE Online Message Board older than one year ago

#eve Last week, the game's CEO prostrated himself before the mercy of the community last week; this week, EVE Online declared it is offering deep discounts to those whose subscriptions to the sci-fi MMO lapsed before or during the unpleasantness of the summer. More »

As keen as I am to poke CCP in their collective eye for being rubbish about Eve things, it’s true that CCP’s CEO Hilmar Pétursson is a decent chap. And it seems particularly okay of the flame-haired Icelander to post an extended apology to Eve players on the game’s site. Dwelling on recent debacles, he says: “Somewhere along the way, I began taking success for granted. As hubris set in, I became less inclined to listen to pleas for caution. Red flags raised by very smart people both at CCP and in the community went unheeded because of my stubborn refusal to allow adversity to gain purchase on our plans. Mistakes, even when they were acknowledged, often went unanalyzed, leaving the door open for them to be repeated. You have spoken, loudly and clearly, with your words and with your actions. And there were definitely moments in recent history when I wish I would have listened more and taken a different path. I was wrong and I admit it.”

He also observes that words mean little next to actions. It’ll be interesting to see just what actions the pioneering MMO studio end up making. There doesn’t seem like any easy way out.

When Eve’s Council Of Stellar Management (CSM) was formed, it was a bold move by developers CCP. The creation of a player-elected ombudsman was intended to deal with what was seen as a lack of communication between the playerbase and the company, as well as providing a forum to address issues such as perceived instances of corruption, instances like the one that sparked the CSM formation in the first place. In the light over the controversy over Eve’s cash shop, the CSM met with CCP again, expressing player concerns. Following a series of apologies and concessions, not too much seemed to come from this, but now the CSM chairman, infamous Goon boss Alexander “The Mittani ” Gianturco has spoken out, concluding: “We will not stand idly by as an alliance while our subscription money goes to waste, watching the game we pay to play spiraling into entropy due to the folly and neglect of CCP’s management. It is not yet time to start a fire, but get your gasoline ready. “

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EVE Online players and fans can now vote for their favorite user images and videos at www.eveisreal.net The site, a virtual museum of real player memories from EVE's rich 8-year history, houses over 4,000 player generated creations to date, showcasing some of the best the EVE audience has to offer...

Here's that Gamescom preview where I tell you how shocked I was about a game I didn't expect to be all about. You've been warned. Still with me? Great. Dust 514, a first-person shooter MMO cross-platform experience from CCP Games, is without a doubt the biggest surprise for me of Gamescom. At the end of a long week of previewing dozens of games, I didn't expect to be blown away by the little hyped game from the Icelandic devs at CCP, but here we are.

As promised, Dust 514 ties the bizarre, often unbelievable world of EVE Online and its reality reflecting politics into an instanced first-person shooter MMO, seamlessly combining both games into a universe ("New Eden") that's been thriving for years now on PC. But CCP did more than offer lofty promises in a preview session I attended earlier today in a private hotel suite near Gamescom -- a team of devs from various CCP offices demonstrated the madness in real-time.

Make no mistake, Dust 514 is no Huxley. It's a very real MMOFPS with very deep economics and political systems tied to EVE Online, and it's already incredibly impressive, even though it's not set to launch until next summer.

#eveonline Only in an MMO is a gigantic financial crime a) subject to absolutely no punishment and b) a sign of the community's health because hey, it's all role-playing, right? Once again, we're looking at EVE Online. An intergalactic space Ponzi scheme fleeced investors of 1 trillion spacebuxx or whatever that currency is called, which the perps can put toward a lifetime supply of game time and still have a bunch left over for all the other shit they want to buy in-world. More »

The newly released www.EVEisReal.net houses a unique "memory museum" that has a growing collection of some of the most poignant, terrifying, precious and hilarious player stories from over 8 rich years of EVE's single-shard, persistent universe. More than 1000 player-made images, videos and post...

CCP is very proud to announce something new and unique for EVE fans and the gaming community at large. EVE is a game with a rich universe full of stories that are all player-generated. EVE is a one of a kind environment where all players are active on the same server and in the same shared virtual w...

#fromacertainpointofview Dust 514, the first-person shooter spinoff from PC MMO EVE Online, was announced as being free-to-play. Turns out that wasn't strictly true. More »

#watchthis After a little, let's say, negative publicity of late, EVE Online developers CCP have released this trailer as a reminder of why people play the game in the first place. More »

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND and TOKYO, JAPAN - CCP and Nexon Co., Ltd. today announced an agreement to bring a fully localized game client and product services for CCP's award winning science fiction virtual world experience, EVE Online, to Japan this fall...

#allisquiet Last week the universal community of EVE Online exploded into rage over the release of high-priced virtual goods and a leaked internal memo that suggested developer CCP planned to monetize the hell out of everything they could put a price tag on in the popular space MMO. Thanks to a brilliant plan that involved flying key community members to Iceland, everything is all better now. More »

Eve Online’s laughably expensive pretend clothes drama seems to have settled down – officially-speaking, at least. Last week, developers CCP flew the Council of Stellar Management (a collective of player-elected Eve, er, players) to Iceland for crisis talks about what the hell to do about all the online screaming. Both parties have reached some accord, and as far as I can tell it didn’t involve locking the CSM in a dungeon and slowly flaying all the skin from their bodies until they whispered “Yes, charge for everything – the clothes, the ships, the ammo, additional starfield colours… You’re right. You were right all along. Kiiiiiiiill meeeeeeeeee…”

What seems to have been determined in the wake of of this “perfect storm of bad luck, bad planning and bad communication” for sure is that there will be no pay-for-unfair-advantage microtransactions, that lower-priced vanity items are necessary, that more communication is needed and that there are tech issues which need a-fixin’ asap. The problems were “a perfect storm of bad luck, bad planning and bad communication,” apparen Watch a chat between two very tired-looking representatives of both sides below…(more…)

The recent controversies generated by Eve Online have been interesting to watch, but they have also stirred a bunch of feelings about the game that I have long intended to articulate. I want to talk a bit about the promise of MMOs, the future of subscription-based games, and the lack of a suitable alternative to CCP’s game of spaceships.(more…)

Eve Online’s player base is currently ANGRY. The above image is of a riot that took place this Friday in Jita, one of the virtual universe’s biggest trading hubs, and this thread on the official forums is keeping track of all the subscriptions that have been cancelled in protest- some 4,500 so far. Why all the rage? In short, CCP are dragging the game in a direction the players are deeply uncomfortable with. I know all this because I’ve just finished reading Eurogamer’s sterling coverage of what they’re calling the “crisis”, and you should too. You can read it here, or get yourself a taste after the jump.(more…)

CCP hasn’t been making Eve players terribly happy of late, first by introducing microtransaction vanity items broadly perceived as being about as affordable as Ferrero Rocher made of real gold, then by suffering a leak of an internal discussion about how to make even more from microtransactoins, and most recently by a blog from their senior producer which tried to wave away these issues with some rather peculiar arguments. In the wake of a fan uproar, they’ve now held up their hands and admitted to making a bit of a boo-boo.(more…)

#68monocle In an interesting footnote to last week's highly emotional and controversial EVE Online clothing release, the game's senior producer Arnar Hrafn Gylfason wrote a blog post defending his company's decision to have virtual clothing goods costing more than real-world equivalents. More »

#ruhroh I don't pretend to understand the culture of EVE Online, but when a fiasco gets a Downfall-meme video, that's a kind of visual Esperanto for "this shit is officially *crag*ed." Our tips box has been exploding with reports that EVE's culture is on the verge of collapse over publisher CCP's decision to sell microtransaction items at macrotransaction prices, with "literal" rioting (pictured) taking place in the game. More »

Following a fairly vague response to the uproar around Eve’s frankly ridiculous prices for in-game avatar vanity items introduced in the new Incarna expansion, CCP have addressed the issues head on. The latest blog from Eve senior producer Arnar “CCP Zulu” Gylfason is probably one of the more extraordinary developer comments I’ve ever read. Case in point: “People have been shocked by the price range in the NeX store, but you should remember that we are talking about clothes. Look at the clothes you are currently wearing in real life. Do you have any specific brands? Did you choose it because it was better quality than a no-name brand?“

And there’s more. I’m just going to have to quote most of it verbatim, because… well, essentially he’s trying to argue that Eve’s in-game clothes can be directly equated to real-life clothes, both in terms of value and self-expression.(more…)

Eve Online community overseer and marketing manager Pann last night responded to the anger among Eve players regarding the recent microtransaction-heavy Incarna update (which our own Alec examines here) and a leaked CCP internal memo entitled “Greed Is Good” (which you can download here). In a post on the official forums Pan apologised for not making a statement sooner and says that as of today the developers will start “getting some info out” regarding players’ questions. Read it in full after the jump.(more…)

Reykjavik, Iceland - CCP, one of the world's leading independent game developers, has released EVE: Online Incarna 1.0, the 14th free expansion for EVE Online. The first steps of avatar-based gameplay mark a milestone long sought after by EVE players and fans alike by adding stunning 3D avatars to the sci-fi virtual universe...

There’s high drama in the spacey world of Eve Online this week. Well, there’s always high drama in the spacey world of Eve Online, but this one’s proving especially clamour-inducing. It hinges on the fact that CCP have just introduced a third virtual currency to the game. In addition to standard ISK and the exchangeable gametime credit known as PLEX (perhaps not technically a second currency, but it is traded between players in-game for ISK as well as being bought out-of-game with real-world currency), there’s now something called Aurum. This is spent on customisation and vanity items for the long-promised player Avatars, which were introduced as part of today’s free expansion pack Incarna. You can sell PLEX for Aurum: that’s complication one. Bear with me here.

The vanity items appear to have been comically overpriced. If you’re buying PLEX directly from CCP and you convert it to enough to buy an in-game shirt, you’ll have paid the equivalent of $25. In other words, as much or more than you’d pay for a real-life shirt.(more…)

#mmo It's been over five years since Horse Armor, and still, developers and publishers are struggling with how much to charge for downloadable content. Just ask EVE Online developers CCP. They've got no idea. More »

Yesterday’s denial of service attacks on Minecraft, Eve Online and League of Legends do not appear to be the end of hacker collective Lulzsec’s attempts to force online games offline. Heroes of Newerth’s login server was named a victim around an hour ago, shortly followed by the group declaring its intention to target Eve again tonight. That may of course be a double-bluff, but keep it in mind if you’re intending to play tonight.

Then, just moments ago, they stated that they were now rerouting calls to their ‘requests’ phone number to World of Warcraft’s customer support line. They claim their line, alleged by some to be a premium rate number, receives between 5 and 20 calls a second at present. Whether this signals an impending attack on WoW itself remains to be seen.

Right then. Following yesterday’s Bethesda incursion, and earlier attacks on the likes of Codemasters and Nintendo, hacker collective Lulzsec have also been busy today. Over the last couple of hours, they’ve taken out first Eve Online and then Minecraft’s login servers.

This seems to have stemmed from their open call for targets earlier today, which followed a successful takedown on gaming site The Escapist. A document of Lulzsec’s most recent movements is below.(more…)

Breaking: Notch has told us that “Looks like we’re back up.. I just hope it lasts!”

Following yesterday’s Bethesda incursion, and earlier attacks on the likes of Sony and Nintendo, hacker collective Lulzsec have targeted further games and gaming services today. Over the last couple of hours, they’ve taken out first Eve Online and then Minecraft’s login servers, as well as knocking out gaming site The Escapist.(more…)

The MMO market may be dominated by World of Warcraft, but while other games have come and gone, there's always been one other constant in massively multiplayer games: Icelandic company CCP's EVE Online. Since 2003, CCP has kept EVE's gigantic galactic server Tranquility going, allowing the game's over 350,000 users to fly around, blow up ships, trade and earn ISK, and make this virtual world that has held over 60,000 players together at one time surprisingly real.

But that's not enough for CCP. EVE has always been singled out for its precipitous difficulty curve -- because the game faithfully models everything from power management and targeting systems to realtime stocks and industrial economics, it's a tough climb for new players not necessarily interested in the ins and outs of advanced capacitor control schemes.

Enter Dust 514, then, a brand new game being developed by CCP that's design to scoop up all of those players who've been scared away by the learning curve in EVE Online. What's the opposite of a hardcore, complicated, PC MMO? Apparently it's a massively multiplayer first-person shooter, available only on Sony's PlayStation 3 and PS Vita.

Celebrate the future of EVE Online with a glimpse into what's next for the MMO.

#rumor DUST 514, the FPS console counterpart to CCP's sci-fi MMO EVE Online, is due for a big announcement at E3 2011 if this countdown clock is any indication. One fan went poking around through the site shortly after it went live and found some interesting things, since removed. More »

The extraordinary labour of love that is the Source-powered Eve Online fan movie Clear Skies has now reached its third episode. You can download that in full here. This work of machinima is one of the most extensive and dedicated I’ve seen, and it’s awesome to see that it’s still going. The incongruity of the Half-Life 2 characters in space hasn’t really lessened, however… I’ve posted a stream of the original first episode below, so those who are unfamiliar with it can get a taste. Go take a look.(more…)