In the first part of this guide I covered the basics of trading in EVE Online and some of the jobs best suited to newer players. There's a lot more to trading than buying low and selling high and in this week's installment, I'll cover some of the more advanced trading and marketeering tactics that have proven themselves effective in EVE. From margin trading on the market to making a living off the contracts page, anyone with enough dedication can learn to rake in hundreds of millions of ISK per day without even leaving the station. For the gamblers and risk-takers among you, market speculation and price manipulation can produce incredible short-term profit but with significant risks attached.

In this second part of my concise guide on trading, I look at margin trading on the market, playing the contract pages, market speculation around patches and the dirty art of market manipulation.

Of all the moneymaking endeavours you can take in EVE Online, trading is perhaps the one with the highest potential for profit. While mission-running profit tops out at a few tens of millions per hour and the profit margin from production isn't that big, trading is limited only by the amount of effort you're willing to put in and is much improved by inherent business talent. At the low end of the trading spectrum, beginners can make a healthy income ferrying items from A to B. At the other extreme, a market-savvy individual can pull billions per week out of the players in EVE's great conglomerated marketplaces.

In this first guide in a short series on trading, I look at the different types of trading options available to newer EVE players.

How would you like to take a trip into space? No, not the stylized science fiction that Star Trek Online promises, or the fantasy-with-spaceships of Star Wars: the Old Republic. We've heard the announcement about NASA's coming space MMO, Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond, but the game hasn't been making the rounds in the usual gaming circuit. An in-depth article about the game's development and planned release is interesting for any fans of the rigors and challenges of spaceflight, not mention a look at a game that's moving far outside the usual realm of our genre.

Much like America's Army, the goal of the game is to try and give players a taste of what it's like to actually work in the field being simulated. While the game is focusing on creating enjoyable gameplay first, players can expect to see landscapes and tasks grounded in solid scientific principles and based upon actual astronaut missions, complete with the real and tangible challenges of exploring inhospitable worlds. The article also discusses the MoonBase module, which is set to be launched as a free standalone component on Steam in January to serve as both a preview and a testbed for the game. Take a look at the full article for a closer examination of what the game could mean, and what it might be like to play a space game where you were less concerned about arming weapons and more concerned with understanding the world around you.

(Or, if you have to, start imagining an expansion set in the 1980s adding the Soviet space program as a new faction. Which is only slightly less realistic.)

Those of us that have been playing MMOs for quite some time have probably developed more than a few skills in the process. It's pretty much inevitable, after all -- while you might not be able to learn to dance from a boss fight, you can at least get a good sense of how to move and work as a group, just by way of example. And we all know that learning to play the holy trinity of MMO roles (tank, healer, and DPS) can be ported over to a variety of other games, since odds are high there will be an equivalent.

Today's question, however, is asking about when you've reached beyond other games and have been able to apply your game skills to a real-world problem. Do you have an easier time handling budgets from all the time spent stat crunching? Are you able to be more diplomatic from dealing with random party members over and over? Maybe you just have an easier time reacting in stressful situations, or a better system for remembering obscure details. Whatever the skill, let us know about how it's boosted you in real life. (Of course, the ability to actually shoot fireballs or fly would be pretty useful in real life -- and if you've figured out how to bring over some of those skills, please share.)

Gamers will argue almost endlessly over which games are the best, which ones were most important, what the proper way to play is... but one thing we almost universally agree on is that we are not addicted. We all know the arguments -- the guy who plays sixteen hours a day in his parents' basement would have acted like that anyway, it's just a game, he doesn't have a substance addiction. Why even bring it up?

Neils Clark, author of Game Addiction, wrote up a post about ten fallacies in addressing game addiction. The point of the piece, rather than concluding whether or not it's worth discussing, is to point out the ways in which many of the arguments on both sides are inherently flawed. The first point, for instance, is taking on the oft-quoted stance that "well, games aren't drugs" by laying out the many kinds of repeated behaviors that psychologists already recognize as potential addictions and treat accordingly.

MMORPGs, more than perhaps any other genre, are usually replete with tales of utter addicts and non-stop players. The article is worth reading if you care even the slightest bit about the topic, because it reminds us that the elephant is not a part of the furniture. It's an elephant, and it's the sort of thing that needs to be addressed -- especially as the genre expands its appeal and its user base.

[ via GamePolitics ]

When news broke about Linden Lab sending a takedown notice to the core Second Life education community Web-site, our colleagues over at the Metaverse Journal put a number of questions about the matter to Linden Lab.

The Linden Lab response to those questions yesterday seems to have generated a reaction among educators akin to pouring gasoline on a blaze, coupled with a vigorous fish-slapping. While there's a undeniably a spectrum of reaction to the Lab's response, most of what we've seen seems to cluster around the livid end.

Jokay Wollongong, one of the premier promoters and supporters of the educational uses of Second Life, and keeper of the largest single resource for Second Life educators, suffered something of a reversal this week, when Linden Lab decided that that very same resource, sleducation.wikispaces.com, infringed on their SL trademark (which has now only been registered for nine days), and sent Wollongong a takedown notice.

That's something of a surprise considering Linden Lab's ongoing endorsement of the site on the Second Life Education mailing-list. The site, which has been up since late 2006, documents over 100 case studies of educational projects in Second Life, as well as providing key community resources and information for educators who are just getting started with virtual environments.

The Virtual Goods Summit has been an annual event since 2007, and features speakers from organizations all over the world, all focused on virtual goods, and virtual economies. This year's summit in San Francisco features quite a lineup, including the delicious Steve Meretzky, Turbine's accomplished Fernando Paiz, the engaging John Smedley of SOE, and plenty more.

Through the Virtual Goods Summit, developers and publishers share knowledge and get a deeper understanding of virtual goods and economies, how they function, their challenges and how to maximize the opportunities inherent in them. The Virtual Goods Summit runs on 30 October (with an optional half-day seminar on the 29th, covering the fundamentals and drivers of virtual economies, called Virtual Goods Summit University.

Want to get to the summit with a 15% discount on general admission? Register for the summit and use the code MASSIVELY at the checkout, and save! There's also discounted early-bird registration until 29 September.

Back in 2004, a friend introduced me to a relatively new space MMO called EVE Online, where the markets were run by the players and there were undiscovered frontiers to chart. A short time after, I became obsessed with pre-calculating everything in the game. I thought that if the game server can calculate everything we do, I must be able to replicate the process and come up with some interesting results. I wasn't alone, many other pilots had previously created simple spreadsheets and web-databases of EVE's items. Rather than the game's developers hoarding the information required for such an undertaking, they took an unusual stance and released large portions of their main database for player-study. Websites began popping up listing information from the data dumps and it wasn't long before the first pioneering apps came about in the form of handy spreadsheets and interactive web-pages, my own fairly popular tanking spreadsheet among them.

In this article, I look at how player-developed apps came about in EVE and give details on my top five EVE apps. Once you've tried these programs, you won't know how you lived without them.

Although classless advancement in Fallen Earth gives players more freedom to build the characters they want and level with skills of their choice, learning how to navigate a wide-open system can be a bit daunting for even the most experienced players. With a little help from the dev team and some crib note suggestions, players can learn how to make the most of the classless advancement system.

In Fallen Earth, characters may advance in rank and abilities regardless of their class or faction, and they can do so steadily. For each rank a character gains, players earn 2 AP (20 AP per level). Some APs can also be gained by completing missions, and all APs are spent however the player desires. The resulting system allows players to raise the skills and stats they think are most important for the character they play.

It's said that sandbox MMO EVE Online doesn't really begin to shine until you join a good player-run corporation. There's only so much a lone pilot can accomplish and a lot of the game's most rewarding experiences are based around groups and collaboration. Wormhole expeditions, PvP, territorial wars, politics and much of EVE's other emergent gameplay routes rely heavily on forming groups and friendships in-game. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find an MMO which doesn't have its game experience improved by group activities and forming friendships. But just as choosing the right corporation for your play style can make the game a lot better, choosing the wrong one or not joining one at all can ruin a new player's experience of the game.

Over the past few weeks, I've had several emails from readers looking for advice on how to find a good corporation. In this article aimed at new and prospective EVE players, I introduce a simple five-step approach for finding that perfect corporation who can turn playing EVE from a potentially boring experience into a very rewarding one.
(UPDATE: I had accidentally disabled comments, comments are now enabled on page 2)

Over the last couple of weeks, a larger number of our readers than usual have decided to give Second Life a try (in some cases, a second try after some years). It seems appropriate therefore to lay out some essential tidbits to help you get to grips with your first few hours in Second Life.

From quick graphical tune-ups to how to get help, we've got the stuff you need to know first.

When EVE Online's Apocrypha expansion was released, details on how wormholes and the 2500 new systems that came with them worked were sketchy. The advanced Sleeper AI found protecting these systems were a force to be feared, unknown and mysterious. There were no guides, no stories of encounters on the forums and anyone that had mounted a successful expedition was keeping their closely guarded secrets to themselves and raking in the ISK.

My corporation (Pillowsoft) were among the first to launch their expedition, having previously prepared an Orca with a medium POS, fuel, equipment and everything else we thought we'd need. We set up in an unknown system and explored this new frontier with a cautious optimism. Over the months that followed, we learned a great deal about EVE's new wormhole systems and the Sleepers that lived in them. After striking gold many times and making each of our expedition members over a billion ISK richer, we began telling our story and giving up those secrets we had been so careful to protect. Today, a great deal is now known about the "unknown" wormhole systems and with ever more corporations launching their own expeditions, it's now more important than ever to research the Sleeper menace before venturing into the abyss.

Join me for this extensive three-page article where I dole out the fruits of my research on wormholes and begin to untangle the mystery of the Sleepers.

In the first two parts of this guide on mission-running in EVE Online, I explained the basics of mission-running and went on to give a race-by-race breakdown of the most popular mission-running ships. In this final instalment of the EVE Evolved mission-running guide, I dig up my top five tips and tricks for improving your standings, mission-running speed and general mission income in EVE.

Tip #1 - Gaining faction standing
As high faction standing unlocks the agents of every corp in an entire faction rather than just from one corp, faction standing gains are very desirable and often the ultimate goal of early mission-running. In addition to a few other methods discussed later in this article, faction standing gains can be had from COSMOS missions. These are special once-only missions, like quests in the standard MMO paradigm. They are given out by special agents-in-space located within EVE's COSMOS constellations, some at designated agent sites and some hidden away at moons or sites only able to be found with probes. Each of these missions counts as an important mission for the purposes of faction standing gains and their rewards can be extremely good. Using COSMOS missions, it's possible to boost your faction standings from around 4 to up to 6 or 8 in some of these areas.

Read on as I give my top five mission-running tips to maximise your income from mission-running.

In last week's first instalment of this guide, I explained the basics of mission-running in EVE Online and how to find your best agent. In this second part of the guide, I get into the nitty gritty details of essential ship designs for mission-runners. Choosing an appropriate ship and fitting it adequately are arguably the two most important factors in mission-running. While having a weak mission strategy and poor support skills can cause a lot of bother, a poorly designed ship is almost guaranteed death on some of the tougher missions. With the advice in this guide, a little research and a good deal of practice, you'll be well on your way to becoming a mission guru.

Read after the cut for a race-by-race break-down of EVE's most popular and effective mission-running ships, complete with links to some further reading and popular mission fittings.