PAST FORWARD
For the last couple of months all people have been talking about is sovereignty. Sov this. Sov that. Sov the other. Being such an important part of EVE that’s understandable, which is why we’ve devoted much of this issue to this very emotive subject. From a detailed look back at how conquest mechanics have shaped New Eden, to our regular look at the ongoing wars out in 0.0, we go one further and ponder the future of EVE in 2010, starting with the fallout from the Dominion release all the way to what we might see in the expansions over the coming months.
THE REAL SISTERS
It’s been rumoured that females play EVE. Not just pretend ones with female avatars who sound weird on TeamSpeak, but real ones who can do something called ‘multitasking’. Mynxee is one such creature and she’s made it her mission to seek out others of her species to find out what it is about EVE that appeals to them and what their experiences of EVE are like. Meanwhile, two of CCP’s most testosterone-free Devs reveal themselves in the latest series of In Crowd articles.
STAR GUIDES
Even if we do say so ourselves, the role-playing guide in this issue is particularly excellent. Why? Because it cuts to the very essence of what role-playing is and prepares you for a deeper and more satisfying EVE experience, as do our other three guides; to EVEmon, Singularity and jump clones.
FREE POSTER
It seems you guys loved the Caldari Cruisers poster we gave away with issue #016, so we’ve decided to do another one! This time (while stocks last) subscribers will receive a massive 841mm x 594mm wall chart showing all the Amarr Cruiser hulls (Tech I, Tech II and Faction) and how they relate to one another, so that you can spot the cosmetic and functional differences between the common Augoror and the Navy Issue variant with a simple glance. ‘Show Info’ has become a thing of the past, thanks once again to paper technology!
PLUS
* New Chronicle: ‘Things Can Only Get better’
* Profiles of LFA and Wildly Inappropriate
* Postcards from Dominion
* Black Ops battleships get the Testflight treatment
* Istvaan Shogaatsu and Grr go In Character
All the latest news, and more…
Published 16th October 2009 (delayed to incorporate exclusive content from
Fanfest 09)
Content includes:
IN DUST WE TRUST
For console gamers DUST 514 promises to be the most unique shooter ever
devised, but for those of us already fighting between planets what will it
mean to have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, fighting on the
ground? A crack squad of E-ON special forces capture CCP to find out how the
EVE FPS will fuse with EVE Online, plus we get the views of players to see
if they are as excited about DUST 514 as they should be.
THREE CHRONICLES
Officially, the early days of Amarrian expansion were a time of glory for
New Eden’s largest empire, while today the worlds within the factional
warzones are seen as frontiers that will one day reward the brave pioneers
that have tried to tame them. The problem with official versions of events
past and present is that they are very often wrong, as evidenced by three
new chronicles in this issue of E-ON, which show a very different side to
life on the frontiers of New Eden.
TRUST FUNDS
Players have never been as rich as they are currently, yet the status of
banks in the New Eden economy has never looked bleaker after a string of
high-profile trust issues that have left the industry in tatters. Player
economist and blogger LaVista Vista delves into the history of banking in
EVE to see if it has a future and what it might look like.
PLUS
* News on Cosmos and Dominion from Fanfest 09
* Testflight: Electronic Attack frigates
* Profiles of Pandemic Legion, Dr Caymus and Jeran Tek
* Interviews with CCP Molock and CCP Manifest
* Win signed copies of The Burning Life
* Full round-up of 0.0 activity in Quarterly Report
* Guides to wormholes, modules and EVE: Conquests
* Websites for new players
* Šand all the latest news
Ten free expansions down. Now an eleventh. Set for Summer (Australia) 2009, EVE Online: Dominion will focus on what is often cited as EVE’s “end game” - alliance warfare. It offers a complete overhaul of the current sovereignty mechanics in favor of a system that’s a brilliant mix of our game design vision and the input we’ve received from fans on forums, at conventions (FANFEST!) and via the CSM. Savvy alliances will benefit greatly from following and understanding these changes, which will receive extensive testing.
In addition, we’ll be adding some new epic arcs for pirate factions, offering the first iteration of the integrated social networking platform known as COSMOS, setting our artists free to rebeautify planets and more.
As always, more information is in the pipeline from any number of sources. Check in with our dev blogs, CCP interviews at conventions like PAX and Austin GDC, coverage from Fanfest and Alliance Tournament VII, gaming news and fansites, our forums, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and the newly launched (but still mysterious) EVE Online: Dominion feature page.
CCP have released the new full length video trailer for Eve Online: Apocrypha.
The long awaited next expansion for Eve Online is now just day’s away, and this gamer is looking forward to checking out all the new features and gameplay enhancements when it’s ready.
Set a long training skill!
EVE Online: Apocrypha, the tenth free expansion for EVE Online subscribers, which is due out on March 10th, coinciding with the availability of EVE in retail outlets across North America, Europe and Pan Asia. Pilots will be able to scan down and enter massive, chaotic wormholes that have opened into unexplored solar systems. There, untold opportunities await behind the powerful defensive curtain of an ancient, deadly race. When defeated and pillaged, their ships and fortifications become the basis of the next level of technology back on the “safer” side of the wormholes.
EVE’s Senior Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson on Apocrypha: ”Just like the human body is said to regenerate itself every seven years, EVE Online continues to grow and evolve in its sixth year of operation, with systems being added, refined, refactored and polished with every expansion we make. As the player base continually grows, we are able to increase the development team and bring in more engineers, designers and artists for each expansion. This allows us to deliver such a broad range of features catering to a variety of playstyles in a volume that we can be proud of.”
”It’s both comforting and disturbing to come home after work, log in to EVE late in the evening and find the same developers that spend their long day building EVE, playing it and enjoying it deep into the night. We are a company that truly sips its own champagne, likes it and strives to make it more tasty whenever we can.”
The improvements for Apocrypha include:
The full feature list is expanded upon further at www.eveonline.com/apocrypha, including links to blogs on specific features written by members of the development team. The page also contains interviews with our developers, screenshots, our teaser trailer and more. Check back in for regular updates as we reveal even more of Apocrypha leading up to launch.
Availability
EVE Online: Apocrypha will be available for subscribers as a free download at www.eveonline.com/download/. Non-subscribers should visit the EVE website to sign up for a free 14-day trial account at any time.
The manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) for the retail version of EVE Online is $39.99/€39.99. Price in some regions may vary. Check with your favorite local or online retailer for availability and pricing come March 10th. The EVE Online: Apocrypha expansion will be included along with all previous EVE expansions.
Neverwinter Nights 2 massive expansion Storm of Zehir takes us back to the good old days of Baldurs Gate.
Admittedly, there is no “Boo”, and the funny NPC characters like Minsc (and Boo!) do not make a re-appearance, but the game and story is still very rich and very playable.
My first thoughts about NWN2 when it first came out we’re very disappointing, and so I purchased SoZ with some trepidation. It was only because of my good friend Arcane, who promised me that the expansions seemed to fix a lot of the graphic engine bugs and nightmare playability issues - that I decided to get my grubby hands on a copy from my local Game store.
I was immidiately impressed - they really have improved the game overall. A lot of the annoying issues and interface issues we’re gone, and I was immidiately thrusted into a rich story line.
Another boon was the return of the Party! I was able to create upto 4 players from scratch and launch into the game within about 20 minutes. What I learned from some reading was that my main character needed to be treated carefully during creation to take full advantage of the game’s new Overland Map system. Picking a rogue so I could get as many skill points as possible to put into the appropriate overland map skills (like Survival, Spot and the like) I decided to make my main character a ranged attacker. I followed him up with a Barbarian meat shield and a Dwarven fighter to make up my front melee line. I chose a Drow Wizard for my caster to back up my rogue-bowman.
The story is indeed rich - and a lot of fun. The voice acting and editing has been much improved. Gone are the awkwardly spaced lines from the original game. The character dialogues we’re smooth and realistic, and done very well. There’s still some work needed on the text dialogue options - a lot of it is very cheesy (we Aussies do hate our cheese) and squarely aimed at the younger audience. Another new thing I liked is that each of your party core members can also engage in the dialogue. When a better response line is available (due to skills and attributes) then a icon shows you should switch speaker which is handled fairly elegantly through the interface - making the whole dialogue experience all the more richer.
The real differences are in the Overland Map system however. When you leave the starting area and town, you are placed on a large map area. You move your party in real time through across the map, the speed at which you can travel depends again on your skills, characters and the type of surface. Road travel is fast and safe, moving through a dense jungle however leaves you prone to being surprised. This is where your survival and other skills come in handy - allowing you to avoid combat with almost certain death spawns, while sneaking up on others.
I wouldnt say that it’s perfect - and I still prefer the REAL travel enjoyed from well build NWN 1 Persistant Worlds - but it’s a big improvement on the “insta-travel” we we’re given in the original campaign of NWN2. My main complaint though is that the overland map itself is not that huge - it only took me roughly 20 minutes to go to the four corners and then start working my inside of it. There’s lots of hidden areas you can discover (again, skill related) which means lots of side adventures.
These adveture spots though tend to be very small. Most of the areas I found are single map areas - usually a small cave full of Batiri (jungle goblins) or the odd sqaure tomb. They are very well constructed, the game builders have pulled all stops in the details, but most of these adventure spots are easily completed in 5 minutes or so.
I remember Baldur’s Gate adventure areas being much larger - some of them spanning many gaming sessions. Again, it’s better than what we had in the original storyline though.
All in all I have been having fun with NWN2 SoZ. There’s a few new classes of course, and some races, but the big improvements are to the game mechanics, interface and the new overland map system.
Okay, so I started this by saying that it’s a return to Baldur’s Gate - I don’t actually think that’s exactly true. Those of you who played BG and the expansions through many times will agree with me that it was one of the finest RPG single player games ever made. NWN2 comes a moderate 2nd place, and it’s well worth a look in if you’re hankering for some good RPG action and need a break from your current MMO.
7 / 10
It seems to happen a lot of late - Eve Online keeps breaking it’s Peak Concurrent User (PCU) records, this time hitting a staggering 51,675 players - all online on the one single shard server. Not even World of Warcraft or Warhammer can claim anywhere near that number of players on the same server.
Due in large to the Alliance Tournament VI finale this weekend, the PCU (Peak Concurrent User) record was broken the third time this year with 51,675 pilots logging in to the single-shard world that is EVE Online. That’s well above the previous record of 48,065 and signifies the largest PCU jump we’ve ever had to break the 50k milestone.
In addition, recent goings on between major player Alliances, a vengeance-fueled assassination during last weekend’s Tournament rounds and general excitement about the impending release of EVE Online: Apocrypha have all combined to energize just about everyone–players, the CCP Dev Team, media and people who have never even encountered EVE before but are now quite curious.
Like always the true credit goes to you, the players, who give EVE the unmeasurable depth that makes it unique. Thank you.
NOL-M9 - A few hours after midnight on 05.02.111, Band of Brothers alliance was disbanded. The loss of formal alliance status forcibly relinquished all Band of Brothers held sovereignty, and thus is expected to render all their outposts vulnerable, pause the construction of all motherships and titans currently being built in their capital assembly arrays and interfere with the proper fuctioning of cynojammers and jump bridge waystations at their control towers. This effect has never been seen before on such a huge scale, so there is much uncertainty about the precise effects.
There are currently multiple theories as to the actual cause of the disbanding of the alliance. A director in Band of Brother’s executor corp, TinFoil, and director Haargoth Agamar of Black Nova Corp are alleged to have disbanded the alliance and handed over Black Nova Corp assets at the instigation of The Mittani of Goonswarm. Comments on the Corporation, Alliance and Organization Discussions section of GalNet, however, shed doubt on this claim.
Tin Foil pilot Agaue asserted on GalNet that the disbanding was not caused by a spy:
“I like how everyone is stating their opinions like it is fact… when in truth they have no idea what happened. I will state as a fact:
“1) it wasnt a bill/money issue.
“2) it wasnt spy related.
“Mittani isnt dumb enough to put his hand up and say he is responsible.”
Elitus of Reikoku stated on GalNet that the issue was not an unpaid bill:
“I’ll go and say this: previous bill was paid on the 6th of Janurary. Previous bill before that was paid on the 6th of December. Currently looks like HAT was compromised… Log shows 500 mil was removed from the wallet stating ‘mittani says hi.’ We are investigating.”
A new corporation named “Band of Brothers” has been created, allegedly by GoonSwarm affiliates, in an apparent attempt to keep the alliance name and ticker out of the hands of former BoB members.
The Mittani further claims on GalNet that he has archived the Band of Brothers directorial forum and will be publishing it in full for the public eye.
The Interstellar Correspondents are looking into this story in-depth and will bring you updates and interviews in the coming hours as we attempt to learn the truth behind these events and their consequences.
GalNet References
Constructive Thread - What Happened to BoB?
There is no BoB
Evidence of the Theft
Online’s January Newsletter’s focused on the new Eve Online Apocrypha Expansion coming in just a few months.
APOCRYPHA - New Expansion Opens Doors to the Unknown
As wormholes tear open new passageways throughout the universe, whole new regions of space that were once hidden away will be revealed, expanding the known universe to previously unimaginable limits. Tech 3 ships, epic mission arcs, and new adversaries are on the way in EVE Online’s anxiously awaited next expansion, Apocrypha, coming in March 2009.
Peak Concurrent User Record Broken… Again!
And again… and again! For several weeks now, EVE players have been breaking Peak Concurrent User (PCU) records on a regular basis. We kicked off 2009 with a record PCU of just over 45,000 and have steadily climbed each week to this past Sunday’s massive 48,065 pilots across New Eden.
Alliance Tournament VI - Qualifying Rounds Start January 24th
The schedule has been posted for the sixty-four teams in Alliance Tournament VI. Here’s a quick overview of the dates and coverage of the events:
- Qualifying Round 1 – January 24-25, 1500 - 2100 GMT. Listen to coverage live via EVE Voice!
- Qualifying Round 2 – 31 January - 1 February, 1500 - 2100 GMT. Listen to coverage live via EVE Voice!
- Finals – 7-8 February, 1500 – 2100 GMT. All matches streamed live for your viewing pleasure!
Good luck, to all the participants! Read More
Buddy Program Extended!
Due to the overwhelming response to the Buddy Program, we’ve decided to let it keep running so that more players can take advantage of the 30-day game time reward we’re offering for each trial user that becomes a subscriber. Visit the Buddy Program page to send out the new 21-day trial invites.
DevBlog: Fury of the Apocrypha
The first of several blogs covering the incredible content coming in Apocrypha has arrived. T0rfifrans tells about the teams involved and presents a quick overview of what is in store for EVE Online players. Watch for more DevBlogs from various team members with information on several of the new features being introduced in the massive summer expansion being released this March … Apocrypha! Read More
DevBlog: ZuluPark Introduces… Premium Lite!
The Classic client will soon be retired as the CCP Dev Team brings the graphics of Trinity to lower end computers. Replacing Classic and Premium will be the new Premium Lite client, which will operate on systems with graphics cards supporting Shader 2.0 and higher. Zulupark details the changes and requests the community’s feedback in his latest DevBlog entitled I Can Totally Run That on My Amiga, and follows it up with The Results are In, relaying the results of the player feedback that was received. Read More
Check out the full E-Newsletter here!
The way things are
One of EVE’s unique features (along with being an awesome game on a single server) is that it can run on pretty much any computer built after 1998. The minimum spec for graphics card and CPU has always been very reasonable to say the least, so the barrier for entry into EVE has been relatively low compared to other games. Developing the client in this manner hasn’t always been a given. It requires us to downtune our graphics engine quite a bit, for one, as well as maintain the “Classic” client version of EVE along with the Premium one. That means creating two versions of each art asset we want to put into the game. It complicates build and patching processes considerably and, for the most part, it simply doesn’t allow us to make EVE look as beautiful as we want. The core issues we deal with are:
• Spending too much time and resources maintaining 2 clients
• Due to a dual pipeline we have less time implementing performance enhancements
Where do we go from here?
Currently, EVE can be played on GeForce 2 or ATi Radeon 7000 series cards. The support of these cards was discontinued in 2002 by their manufacturers, a full year before EVE was first published. The development in graphics and graphics cards since then has been, to put it mildly, phenomenal. What we want to do is simplifying our development as well as exploit these new technologies to their full extent. The benefits of doing so are many, including:
• Simplification of pipeline
• Less development overhead
• Greater output from software developers and artists
• Less redundant testing for different engines and art assets
• Faster turnaround on fixes
• Ability to focus on performance improvements in one graphics engine
• Simpler troubleshooting for bugs
• Overall better quality of the client and better quality of service to players
Out with Classic, in with Premium Lite
Currently we have two content packs, Classic and Premium. Classic has the low barrier of entry, and Premium requires modern ShaderModel 3.0 hardware. To accommodate older PCs and those who prefer to run twenty clients of EVE while they run SETI@Home and ray trace while compressing HD movies, we will deliver what we refer to as “Premium Lite.” Premium Lite will only require ShaderModel 2.0 hardware, and far less texture memory than the current Premium, ensuring good framerates on older hardware. We won’t stop there - we are providing two flavors of ShaderModel 2.0 compatible shaders, currently named “lo” and “hi”. What does this mean? It means that framerate enthusiasts can get even more performance when running under ShaderModel 2.0. We will also allow people to select any ShaderModel below what their hardware supports - thus allowing players to trade quality for performance and vice versa. Due to instruction limits within each ShaderModel we will have to use different techniques to render the ships but the goal is the same in every scenario: beautiful. Now, this does sound like extra work for us and in a way it is - however, what we gain is:
1. We can use the same assets as Premium. Admittedly people will most likely choose to run with textures that have lower resolution as well, but these will simply be downsampled (lower resolution mipmaps) from the existing Premium textures. Some textures will also be skipped entirely like, for instance, normal maps. This means less content for us to maintain as we get rid of all the classic content.
2. We can use the same rendering pipeline - the only fork in the road is the different ShaderModels. This means less code for us to maintain once we sunset the classic rendering path.
To summarize: older hardware will use the same assets as Premium - they just won’t look as detailed and shiny.
The Plan
What we’d like to do is a two step approach to ensure that EVE continues to be jaw-dropping gorgeous:
Step 1: In Apocrypha, March 10th, we discontinue support for ShaderModel 1, making ShaderModel 2 (GeForce FX (5 series) or ATi R300 series cards or compatible) the minimum requirement and discontinue the “Classic client” version of EVE, replacing it with “Premium Lite”
Step 2: In the Winter Expansion 2009 we are considering discontinuing support for ShaderModel 2 and make the minimum specification ShaderModel 3(GeForce 6 class cards or ATi x1300 or compatible)
We know this will affect some players out there. What we don’t know is exactly how many. We estimate that about 95% of all subscribers currently have hardware that is SM2 compatible. We further predict that in q4 this year over 97% of subscribers will have SM3 capable hardware. This means that an estimate of anywhere from 3%-5% of current subscribers would have to update their computers or graphics cards to be able to continue playing.
Discuss and follow up on this news on the official Eve-Online forums discussion here.
