EVE Online Message Board older than one year ago

I’m not an EVE player. I know it sucks in some people like a massively multiplayer black hole, but the actual act of playing it has never exerted much of a gravitational pull on my attention. I’m probably dumb. Regardless, though, I can’t help but admire the sheer insanity this place constantly generates. Years-in-the-making corporate conspiracies, thousands-strong space battles, the very existence of Dust 514 – it is, at times, nearly unbelievable. Case in point: the ever-mischievous Goonswarm is up to its old tricks again. And by “tricks,” I mean bringing an entire economy to its knees. The best part? CCP’s totally loving it.

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#eveonline In most MMOs, if a player spearheaded a public, concerted crusade to destroy the game's economy, the game's producers would find a way to put a stop to it. More »

Alexander ‘The Mittani’ Gianturco, Eve Online’s most famous and infamous player, has learned the hard way that the internet is serious business after all. Gianturco’s latest controversy arose at last week’s Eve Fanfest, where in a public talk he first mocked and then urged others to hound a player who was apparently suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. “Incidentally, if you want to make the guy kill himself, his name is [REDACTED]“, Gianturco declared.

After initially appearing to shrug off concerns, Gianturco blamed drunkenness and offered an apology a few days later, and promised his resignation as Eve Online Council chairman, Eve devs CCP have decided his actions were a breach of the EULA and are enforcing a harsher penalty.(more…)

#eveonline The Mittani, a senior player in the EVE Online community and the man at the centre of yesterday's story about suicide taunts at a game convention, has gone well beyond apologising for his actions. More »

#eveonline At EVE Online's recent FanFest gathering, a panel got real unsavoury real fast when senior EVE players began not only mocking another player displaying suicidal tendencies, but encouraged others to do the same. More »

The denizens of space are gathering once again in Iceland, at one of the best fan festivals the gaming world has ever hosted. The Eve Fanfest 2012 going to present a bunch of news about Eve and DUST, so it’s worth tuning in live, if you didn’t make it. It’s just started, and you can watch it below. The full schedule is here.(more…)

Many games feature invisibility in some form. An excellent moment I recall from my days in World Of Warcraft was necking an invisibility potion to run past a load of mobs I couldn’t fight, while my rogue friend stealthed his way through. (If only that game had more such emergent highs.) Anyway, the Invisible Bastard joy I want to talk about is probably only applicable to Eve Online, although I’d love to know about any parallels in other games. It’s a thing that stood out for me over the years and something I loved, because it spoke of persistence, human psychology, the value of patience and the delight in being a big meany. I would leave my laptop logged into Eve, with a character cloaked in various star systems, and do nothing, for weeks.

Why would I do that?(more…)

#dust514 Upcoming shooter Dust 514 is doing a lot of unusual things. It's a Playstation 3-exclusive first person shooter that ties into and relies on events in the world of PC MMO Eve Online. More »

Dust 514, the upcoming PSN exclusive MMOFPS connected both figuratively and literally to the EVE Online universe, will launch with a $0.00 price tag, according to Eurogamer. Originally, the game was to launch at $20.00, and the player would be pseudo-reimbursed with $20.00 worth of in-game currency. "We wanted to make it unambiguously that this is a free-to-play game," CCP's Brandon Laurino told Eurogamer. "We probably will still have some kind of pack like that."

The game will still be supported through microtransactions, as was always the plan, although Laurino remains adamant that Dust 514 is "not a pay to win game," and that nothing available for purchase will provide an unfair advantage.

Dust 514's Vita iteration won't be exactly the same as the newly free-to-play PS3 version. Laurino told Eurogamer that the Vita game will be a "companion app," with functionality including character customization, shopping, and setting up "strategies" with other players, all interfacing with the PS3 game.

The Vita may get other exciting functions like "playing a video game" later, as the app will be progressively upgraded. "As we continue to explore what the possibilities are, between Vita and PS3, of which there are many, we'll keep updating the app with stuff like that over time," Laurino said. As for a launch simultaneous with the PS3 game, "We haven't decided that yet."

We caught up with Hilmar Pétursson, CEO, and David Reid, CMO, of CCP to talk about Eve Online, Dust 514, the Tranquility super-computer’s consciousness, MMORPG saturation, CCP as a cloud-gaming platform, World of Darkness, and Eve’s future potential as a gestalt societal consciousness. (more…)

CCP might have sacked a bunch of their Eve Online staff, but they can still make a decent trailer, which they’ve just done to do a bit of promotion for the game. It has some woman with space hair explaining a newly cloned up pilot what lies ahead of them. Still nothing on the Butterfly Effect trailer (which I’ve also linked below) which I think is the only video CCP managed to create that came close to explaining what they are trying to do with the game.

If these glitzy marketing materials have done their work and fixed a tractor beam to your interest, then why not find some actual Eve players to play with? You won’t want to go in alone.(more…)

There are a number of ways Jim and I are different. For instance, I like baked beans, while Jim is a seventy-foot super-robot that devours cities for food. Another way is that he has played EVE Online for over 40 million ours, whereas I have only ever stared at videos of it and then run away to play with Lego. But CCP are looking to welcome new players, not by simplifying the game, but rather by better explaining how to get started. That’s partly via a swishy new website, which is much easier to navigate, and presented in that modern collection of rectangles that the young people love so much these days. And it’s more directly via a new video aimed at brand new players. You can see it below.

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Dust 514 will support the use of USB keyboards and mice. That's good news for EVE Online players looking to expand the wealth of their galactic empire by partaking in some mercenarial dirty work on the PS3 shooter.

Whether using a keyboard and mouse will provide a mechanical edge over players using a controller remains to be seen, but we feel like the type of input method used isn't as crucial when you're being bombarded from orbit by planet-sized gunships.

Well, it's not technically space, but it's as close as you can get without the help of some Russian rocketeers and their flying machines. As a token of gratitude, the Icelandic MMO moguls at CCP will be placing the names and pictures of every currently subscribed player character in EVE Online (as of 23:59 GMT tonight) into a capsule, which will then be sent into near-space via high-altitude balloon.

High-altitude balloons cannot actually leave the Earth's atmosphere and enter legit outer-space, but they are capable of traveling hundreds of thousands of feet into the air; high enough to see the curvature of the Earth against the blackness of space. The event will take place during CCP's own Fanfest 2012 in beautiful Reykjavik, Iceland.

Today, a rummage in the RPS archives brings up Jim’s fond farewell to Eve Online from late 2009, documenting his dramatic half-decade as a leading member of a successful corp. He’s seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Oasa. He watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tenerifis Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to repost.(more…)

2011 has been an excellent year for videogames, I’d say – but one videogame it has not been an excellent year for is EVE Online. The space MMO has been through the ringer in recent months: leaked internal MMOs, poorly-received updates, a misguided move towards microtransactions, protests, fan-angering dev blogs… More recently, devs CCP announced they would be sadly pruning their ranks, refocusing on the core EVE game and trying to win back their fans’ ardour. Part of that, it transpires, involves occasionally notorious senior producer Arnar “CCP Zulu” Gylfason handing the captain’s chair to someone else.(more…)

#dust514 We've shown you armor, weapons and vehicles from Dust 514, the persistent online shooter from the makers of EVE Online. Now, a select few will finally be able to get their hands on the game and how all those elements feel. More »

#dust514 Dust 514's the latest video game in a long line to try to re-envision armed conflict in a sci-fi future. So far, the developers at CCP have given us peeks at the game's vehicles and their maybe-too-powerful-to-even-shoot weapons. Today brings a look at the dropsuit armor that warriors in the online shooter will be sporting. CCP describes the dropsuits' variations like so: More »

#dust514 There are so many things I love about Eve Online, but almost all of it can be traced back to the game's mystique. I guess that's what I love most about Eve Online; I haven't played it. More »

#eveonline 2011's been a year of unexpected protests. We've had the Arab Spring reconfiguring the political map of various Muslim governments and the Occupy movements calling for financial reform. This summer, a video-game equivalent happened on the servers of CCP's cult sci-fi MMO EVE Online. More »

The latest Eve expansion switches on today, and includes a bunch of things that should please Eve players, such as new battlercruisers, and pretties such as new nebulae, and ephemera such as new captain’s quarters, and VITAL visual tweaks such as new engine trails. The most amazing thing, however, is the concept of slowing down time to deal with big fleet fights. I’ve no idea if that will work, but it’s the cleverest solution to the lag problem I’ve seen offered so far.

Thumping great spaceship battle trailer below.(more…)

#dust514 In most combat games, you get into a vehicle and you ride/drive it—often, it'll have weapons for you to fire, too—until the wheels fall off. You might be able to upgrade the guns or armor in some instances but that's generally the extent of it. More »

It’s on nights like this one, when sleep is denied me, that I miss Eve Online most of all. I would have spent it hunting, leading fleets, and indulging in the stuff that makes the game so special. It’s funny, because I realise that those who have never played Eve’s PvP game will never know what I am missing out on, now, let alone what they have missed out on, always. For all the writing I’ve done on the subject, I’ve never been able to capture quite what it all means in terms of a cerebral, tactical, persistent challenge. There is nothing quite like it. That singular nature means that videos like the one below – a forty-minute tale of sophisticated, high-level combat through Eve’s wormhole space – are possible. You should watch this video, even if you do not believe you will ever play Eve, because it captures the drama, the control, and the mathematics that are integral to the PvP game.

And it makes me acutely aware of what I am missing out on. The guys making this video are hardcore PvPers, even by my standards, and it’s impossible not to admire their dedication. Perhaps I was found lacking. Thanks, Roburky.(more…)

After a year of controversy and bellyaching, it’s good to be able to report on what Eve does best – large, interesting expansions that are full of shiny space stuff. The next one of these, which is due to arrive on the 29th of November, apparently improves and updates “three dozen features”, which sounds like an awkwardly large amount, but in fact include combat and interface tweaks, changes to the all-important starbases, as well as bringing in the most important thing for many players: New spaceships. These are the tier 3 battlecruisers – large, shooter vessels – and they have me longing for Eve once again. I do love a good battlecruiser.

More information here.

CCP have been releasing a series of videos explaining the technical side of EVE’s development of late. Certainly in need of some good PR at this point, it’s a fun look at the people behind the game, and reveals lots of new developments implemented and planned for the game. And the most recent edition includes the bonus of watching “CCP Mandrake” solve a Rubik’s Cube with frightening speed.

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#dust514 In CCP's DUST 514 for the PlayStation 3, battles are initiated by corporations in the PC-based space MMO EVE Online. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, CCP server architect Lin Luo talks about how much fun making that work is. More »

Speaking to Eurogamer, CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson has explained a bit about what’s been going on with the Icelandic MMO company: “the message is that we have heard you and we are now taking action to be more aligned with the needs of Eve Online. As a company, we’ve been trying to achieve many things and it was just too much to do at the same time. Eve Online has hurt for it.” He also spoke about the layoffs, saying: “A lot of great people are leaving the company through this process, famous or otherwise. The people who are recognised members of the community get more of a spotlight but there are a lot of people leaving CCP at this juncture.”

Meanwhile, CCP’s Kristoffer Touborg has been talking to Gamespot, where he said: “I think designing a new subscription-based game is a flawed strategy, because you are basically competing with free.” He also called it a “trend”, and I would be surprised if companies didn’t find a way to bring subscriptions back. Interesting, anyway.

#eveonline Best known for the massive online game Eve Online, Icelandic company CCP has been steadily ascending its profile over the last few years, as they moved from that ambitious sci-fi virtual world to other projects like Dust 514, the in-development, PS3-exclusive shooter that ties into their MMO and new franchise World of Darkness. More »

Bleak news from CCP:

“…we have made the decision to sharpen our focus. Sadly, this means reducing our staff. We estimate that around twenty percent of global positions will be affected by this process. These will be predominantly in our Atlanta, GA office, although select positions in our Reykjavik, Iceland office will be affected.”

More on this below.(more…)

CCP have announced that folks who quit over recently disgruntlings can now sign up again for 30 days at $4.95. If you are a recently-lapsed player then you should have received the offer by email. Not that this in itself is interesting or enticing as such, but this is. CCP are finally talking about rebalancing capital ships to make them less overwhelming in fleet fights, less able to escape by logging off, and less versatile overall. If they’d done this a couple of years ago I might not have become a lapsed player myself. Let’s hope it has the necessary impact on the game and reduces capital ship use overall.