ambulation posts

EVE Evolved: The development of Incarna

by Brendan Drain Feb 7th 2010 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, MMO industry, Virtual worlds, EVE Evolved

One of the biggest differences between EVE Online and most other MMOs is the lack of a humanoid avatar. Even when you're docked up in a station, you can't leave your ship and walk around. The detailed avatars we create on starting the game are not so much avatars as passport photos; seen only as little square mug shots in chat channels and the official forums. In their never-ending quest to make EVE the definitive Sci-Fi simulation, this is something the game's developers CCP have always endeavoured to change. The introduction of a full body avatar feature, code-named "Walking in Stations", "Ambulation" and now known as "Incarna", has been undeniably the most anticipated feature since EVE went live. It's been in development since 2006 but has proven a much larger task than CCP originally anticipated. With the expansion tentatively slated for winter this year, new information on it is still harder to find than a sober Icelandic game developer.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I take a look at Incarna's development so far and why it hasn't been released yet.

Tags: 2010, ambulation, avatars, ccp, ccp-eve, ccp-games, devblog, developers, eve, eve-ccp, eve-evolved, eve-mmorpg, eve-online, expansion, featured, incarna, interview, oveur, walking-in-stations

GameX 2009: Video interview with Nathan Richardsson and "Alli" Óttarsson

by Seraphina Brennan Oct 27th 2009 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Massively Interviews, Massively Event Coverage

After their panel at GameX 2009 (and some free lunch) we got to sit down with "Alli" Ottarsson and Nathan Richardsson from EVE Online and talk shop about the future of the game. Where are we going directly after the Dominion expansion releases this year? What other product tie-ins can we expect from the White Wolf end of the company? And what's Neocom all about anyway?

Nathan and Alli were happy to take our questions and give some direct responses on what they hope to tackle in Neocom, how EVE's model is multiple game models, and what we might see take place in the highly-anticipated Incarna in regards to gambling and missions.

To check our exclusive video interview, jump after the break with the "continue reading" button below!

Tags: alli-ottarsson, ambulation, ccp, eve, eve-online, gamex, gamex-2009, incarna, interview, mobile-app, nathan-richardsson, neocom, video, video-interview, walking-in-stations, white-wolf

EVE Online announces Dominion expansion, 'Walking in Stations' renamed Incarna

by James Egan Aug 31st 2009 at 4:45PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, Guilds, MMO industry, News items

CCP Games has announced their 11th free expansion for EVE Online, called "Dominion." As the name suggests, the winter expansion focuses on territories and player control over them. We're told that the Dominion expansion focuses on conquering and holding space, and will feature a reworking of the sovereignty system of territorial control for player alliances. We don't have any further details on the sovereignty revamp yet, but according to CCP the changes have been made with subscriber feedback in mind, particularly through the player-elected Council of Stellar Management.

Given that CCP Games is tying more of EVE Online's gameplay into the planets of the New Eden galaxy, the next step they're taking with the Trinity graphics engine is to add more detail to these planets (and presumably moons).

Tags: alliances, ambulation, breaking, ccp-games, cosmos, council-of-stellar-management, csm, dominion, dust-514, epic-mission-arcs, eve-fanfest-2009, eve-online, expansions, game-mechanics, guilds, new-eden, novel, piracy, pirates, planets, sci-fi, sovereignty, the-burning-life, trinity, walking-in-stations

Fan-run EVE contest will let winner interview CCP dev on podcast

by James Egan Aug 15th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Contests, Game mechanics

EVE Online is a space-based MMO through and through. In the six years since the game went live, EVE's galactic setting of New Eden has expanded to encompass thousands of solar systems, both charted space and far-flung unexplored systems, as the game's subscriber numbers have slowly but steadily grown. The IP is expanding in new directions as well. Novels now add more depth to the game's lore. CCP Games plans to let players step out of their ships and interact as avatars with Walking in Stations, and the devs have stated that they'd like to bring atmospheric flight to the game at some (undetermined) point in the future. And of course they also have a ground pounder FPS set in the EVE universe in the works.

It was some of these things on the horizon that got our friend CrazyKinux thinking about the possibilities that may open up for this sci-fi MMO if planetary colonization or terrestrial gameplay are introduced. In fact, he decided to make this the basis of his next EVE Online contest. It's one we think might interest some of Massively's readers, particularly as the contest winner will get to ~~grill~~ interview an EVE developer on the MicroWarpCast podcast.

Tags: ambulation, atmospheric-flight, ccp-games, contests, crazykinux, crazykinuxs-musing, dust, dust-514, eve, eve-online, game-mechanics, ground-combat, new-eden, sci-fi, walking-in-stations

EVE Evolved: Is EVE Online's death penalty really that harsh?

by Brendan Drain Dec 7th 2008 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, Tips and tricks, Opinion, EVE Evolved

Everyone knows that the death penalty in EVE Online is harsh but is it really as bad as we make it out to be? Is losing a ship really a devastating blow or does the emotional factor of losing something we've put care and attention into make us exaggerate the loss? Since EVE's gameplay is focused entirely on piloting ships rather than walking around with your character, we can get very attached to our ships and feel a great sense of loss at their destruction. It can be hard to keep in mind that our ships in EVE are just tools, which can make their loss feel a lot harsher than it should be. Is this the fault of the player for getting attached to their ship or of the game design for not encouraging us to form attachments with our characters instead?

In this brief article, I discuss some of the golden rules of EVE used to minimise the death penalty and ask whether our perceptions of EVE Online's death penalty are really that accurate.

Tags: ambulation, ccp, ccp-games, clone, death, death penalty, DeathPenalty, eve, eve-evolved, eve-online, featured, joystiqfeatures, pod, tips, walking-in-stations

CCP Games and Atari partner on EVE retail box sales

by James Egan Nov 8th 2008 at 12:30PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, Events, real-world, Expansions, MMO industry

When EVE Online launched in 2003, it came in a box through the game's publisher, Simon and Schuster Interactive. But for much of EVE's lifespan, it's been a digital product. Nothing to buy at a store, no physical media to save. It seems CCP Games has gone retro, from what was announced by CCP's CEO Hilmar Pétursson today, live from EVE Fanfest 2008 in Reykjavik. He announced that CCP Games will be partnering with Atari to establish a retail presence once again... which is fitting really, as Atari will also be publishing Ghostbusters. Hilmar introduced a short presentation by David Gardner, Atari's CEO, who discussed the partnership with CCP Games.

EVE typically has a winter expansion and a summer expansion. The winter expansion, Quantum Rise, is just days away. The summer expansion is expected (but not confirmed) to include Walking in Stations, only there's a little twist with the timing... They're not waiting for summer. It's coming in March. In a box. In your local game store. That's the information we have at this time, but we'll keep you informed as more details surface.

Update: Note that we haven't locked down a release date with Walking in Stations yet. Massively will report on Walking in Station's official release date once that's available -- at this time we only know it's tentatively slated for 2009.

Tags: ambulation, atari, box-sales, breaking, ccp, ccp-games, ccp-hellmar, david-gardner, digital, eve, eve-fanfest, eve-fanfest-2008, eve-online, expansions, hilmar-petursson, quantum-rise, walking-in-stations

Fanfest details emerge on EVE's Walking in Stations expansion

by James Egan Nov 7th 2008 at 4:30PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, MMO industry, News items, Races, Roleplaying

In further news coming from EVE Fanfest 2008, CCP Games has given a press-only presentation detailing the upcoming Walking in Stations expansion for EVE Online. While this is an aspect of the game that's so far been a divisive issue among EVE players, the expansion will allow players to step out of their ships and interact as highly detailed avatars in ship station interiors and captain's quarters aboard their own ships (presumably while docked in a station hangar).

Walking in Stations is a project that's drawn on the talents of "special effects artists from the world of television and movies into the video game medium, a number of whom have been brought on to the team at CCP," writes Jon Wood of MMORPG.com, reporting from Reykjavik.

Tags: ambulation, avatar, avatars, bars, ccp, ccp-games, customization, eve, eve-online, expansions, isk, jon-wood, mini-games, mmorpg.com, socialization, walking-in-stations

EVE Fanfest presentation discusses graphics enhancements

by James Egan Nov 6th 2008 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Events, real-world, Expansions, MMO industry, News items

EVE Online's Fanfest 2008 is now underway, and reports are already coming through on what's happening in Reykjavik. CCP Games held a press conference that discussed EVE's technical side, namely its server technology, but also touched upon EVE's impending graphic enhancements in 2009. EVE Online's Premium 'Trinity' graphics engine was a significant leap forward in the game. While some players felt that the graphics as they were prior to Trinity were still ahead of the curve in terms of what's expected of an MMO, the look of the game changed dramatically with Trinity. However, the Trinity deployment wasn't a complete revamp of EVE's look. Ships and stations benefited from Premium graphics, but other celestial objects did not, jump gates notwithstanding.

"EVE is in a state where, if you run the Premium graphics edition, half of it is done, you could say," said Chief Technologist Halldor Fannar of CCP Games, at Reykjavik's Fanfest 2008, as reported by Oli Welsh of Eurogamer. Future graphics updates will bring celestial objects in line with what's currently seen in Trinity, and may well arrive with the forthcoming Walking in Stations expansion which is slated to launch after the Quantum Rise expansion, just around the corner.

Tags: ambulation, ccp, ccp-games, eurogamer, eve, eve-fanfest, eve-fanfest-2008, eve-online, expansions, fanfest, graphics, graphics-engine, halldor-fannar, iceland, oli-welsh, premium-graphics, reykjavik, sci-fi, trinity, trinity-graphics, walking-in-stations

EVE 'Blog Banter' discusses Walking in Stations expansion

by James Egan Nov 2nd 2008 at 4:10PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, Forums, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion

While the official EVE Online forums have always been very active, there are other options out there. For those who like how busy the official forums are, but not the rules that govern it, there's Scrapheap Challenge. SH-C is a forum which is chiefly dedicated to discussing EVE Online, but not moderated by CCP Games themselves. Recent months, however, have seen a large number of EVE players striking out on their own, with their own blogs that focus on a particular aspect of the game linked to that blogger's playstyle. Industry, finance, piracy, 0.0 alliance warfare, and now even boosters (drugs) are being written about on a daily basis.

While over 100 of these blogs are out there, the more prolific among them have joined under the banner of CrazyKinux's Blog Pack. By all accounts, it's been a successful community effort by EVE players, and now CrazyKinux is adding another dimension to the Blog Pack: conversation topics that are collectively tackled by the various bloggers, called "Blog Banter." The first Blog Banter got underway this past week, and the first issue up for discussion has been a timely one: EVE's Walking in Stations expansion, formerly known as Ambulation, which Fanfest attendees will get to try out firsthand in just a few more days. The question itself was proposed by PsycheDiver, who asked, "Ambulation: What are your hopes for your avatar and new functionality of stations?"

Tags: alliances, ambulation, blog-banter, boosters, ccp, ccp-games, community, crazykinux, discussion, discussion-topics, eve, eve-blog-pack, eve-online, expansions, finance, forums, industry, piracy, psychediver, sci-fi, scrapheap-challenge, walking-in-stations

Live dev blog with EVE Online Senior Producer, October 23

by James Egan Oct 22nd 2008 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Events, in-game, Expansions, Forums, Game mechanics

Given all the EVE Online news of the past two weeks, not limited to new features being added to the game and old 'features' being taken away, CCP Games has announced a Live Dev Blog for tomorrow, October 23, at 20:00 GMT. The event is expected to last for about one hour. This time, the Senior Producer of EVE Online, CCP t0rfifrans, will be fielding questions from the players. As with the last few live dev blogs, the way this works is you need to post in the announcement thread with the questions you'd like answered.

You can listen to the dev blog tomorrow by joining the in-game channel 'Live Dev Blog' and enabling EVE Voice via your right-click options once you're in. No doubt there will be a wave of Ghost Training nerf questions but it seems unlikely that this issue will be addressed any more beyond the two dev blogs on the matter. Then again, why should that stop you from trying if you've got legitimate concerns? But this would also be an excellent time for people to get Walking in Stations (Ambulation) questions answered as CCP is prepping a playable demo of it for Fanfest attendees, not to mention asking about new ship models like the Orca capital industrial ship.

Tags: ambulation, ccp, ccp-games, ccp-t0rfifrans, dev, dev-blog, eve, eve-fanfest, eve-fanfest-2008, eve-online, eve-voice, expansions, fanfest, forums, game-mechanics, ghost-training, live-dev-blog, nerf, orca, quantum-rise, senior-producer, walking-in-stations

CCP Games updates on Walking in Stations expansion for EVE

by James Egan Oct 3rd 2008 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, Expansions, Previews, News items, Roleplaying

The latest EVE Online dev blog comes to us from CCP Eris Discordia. Her post, "Boozing in Stations", deals with the Walking in Stations expansion (formerly known by the much cooler name 'Ambulation'). She states that CCP Games is making good progress on Walking in Stations, but some more feedback from the players is needed: "We are continuously testing, designing, integrating, iterating and polishing on our internal server, but something is missing... the MM part from MMO -- the massively multiplayer part. Our fix? Open up the internal release for the Fanfest attendees so that for a few days our internal release will be public!" As reported earlier, EVE Fanfest 2008 attendees will get to preview Walking in Stations firsthand, well in advance of the expansion's release.

She writes that this preview is not a public beta or even an alpha, just that CCP wants to share what they've done with the players. "There is only so much that we can explain through pictures and visual aids. In the end, you need to experience it in order to get a good idea of what we are truly doing." Eris also writes that EVE Fanfest 2008 will have a number of presentations by CCP devs on the Walking in Stations expansion, as well as roundtable discussions. Check out her "Boozing in Stations" dev blog for more info about where the ~~Ambulation~~... no, Walking in Stations expansion is in terms of its development and what EVE Fanfest 2008 attendees can look forward to.

Tags: ambulation, ccp, ccp-eris-discordia, ccp-games, dev, dev-blog, eris, eve, eve-fanfest, eve-fanfest-2008, eve-online, expansions, fanfest, previews, roleplaying, sci-fi, walking-in-stations

New details surface about EVE's 'Walking in Stations' expansion

by James Egan Sep 8th 2008 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, Expansions, Game mechanics, Interviews, Previews, News items, Races

Ambulation, or 'Walking in Stations' as it now seems to be known, is a hotly anticipated feature coming to EVE Online. It represents the first effort by CCP Games to add a more interactive dimension to the game, where players will finally be able to step out of their ships to socialize, play games, and ... modify one another's bodies? Apparently so.

While some information about Walking in Stations is already known, EVE Stratics recently turned up more details. Trish "Seridove" Bennon and Michael "Solace" Lutes recently got some face time at PAX 2008 with CCP Games devs Jeremy Albert (Associate Producer) and Noah Ward (Lead Game Designer, aka CCP Hammerhead) who talked about aspects of the expansion.

Tags: ambulation, bars, body-modification, ccp-games, ccp-hammerhead, character-creation, conversation-trees, economy, eve-fanfest, eve-fanfest-2008, eve-online, eve-stratics, expansions, fanfest, game-mechanics, iceland, interviews, mini-games, noah-ward, pax-2008, plastic-surgery, promenade, races, walking-in-stations

Strategy Informer interviews CCP Games about the future of EVE Online

by James Egan Sep 3rd 2008 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, Culture, Economy, Game mechanics, Interviews, Crafting

Gaming site Strategy Informer recently spoke with CCP Games about what the future may hold for EVE Online. The interview focused on two facets of the game: EVE's economy, and the fact that with other sci-fi MMO titles like Jumpgate Evolution on the way, EVE may face increased competition in the coming months and years.

CCP's Lead Economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson talked with Strategy Informer about the game's economic depth, which dwarfs other titles, despite having a subscriber base that's a fraction of what Blizzard enjoys. The interview touched on the possibilities of new trade hubs being established by players over time, the scarcity of certain technologies and their increasing prices, and how the market moves in general. However, the main aspects of the game he discussed were the player-run financial services that have sprung up in EVE, what the community has come up with on its own.

Tags: ambulation, arend-stuhrmann, ccp, ccp-games, crafting, culture, economics, economy, eve, eve-online, eyjolfur-gudmundsson, game-mechanics, interviews, jumpgate-evolution, market, netdevil, player-run, sci-fi, strategy-informer, walking-in-stations

EVE Online interview discusses players determining storyline

by James Egan Aug 31st 2008 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Events, in-game, Guilds, Interviews, Lore, Patches, News items, PvE, Politics, Races, Roleplaying

Split Infinity Radio, a gamer-run internet radio station (with a noticeable sci-fi MMO bent) recently interviewed Scott Holden, Lead Content Creator of EVE Online at Gen Con 2008. Holden has been integral in building up all the mission content that's about to drop in the upcoming Empyrean Age expansions over the next few months. Split Infinity asks Holden a question that's been on the minds of a number of EVE players: Can player actions really influence the storyline?

Holden's answer is 'yes'... to a point. He discusses the initiative at CCP to create a system where events are announced in contested parts of space, prompting players to get involved. Their actions would be reported on through the in-game news, and in this way affects (or creates aspects of) the storyline. Participants in factional warfare, or anyone who reads the Interstellar Correspondents news pieces, know that this already exists to some extent in EVE, but Holden states that CCP would like to take the idea further as time goes on.

Tags: ambulation, backstory, ccp, ccp-games, embedded-reporter, embedded-reporting, empyrean-age, eve, eve-online, faction, factional-warfare, factions, fiction, guilds, immersion, interstellar-correspondents, interviews, isd, lead-content-creator, lore, militia, militia-missions, mission, missions, pve, races, roleplaying, sci-fi, scott-holden, split-infinity, split-infinity-radio, storyline, volunteer, walking-in-stations

Official EVE Flickr images show Ambulation concept art

by James Egan Aug 18th 2008 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Galleries, EVE Online, Expansions, Previews, News items, Races

Ambulation, or 'Walking in Stations,' is a hot topic among EVE Online players, but for opposing reasons. Some are excited about the prospect of being able to get out of their capsules and ships and finally interact on an avatar level with one another. Other players feel that Ambulation offers little that will benefit the game as it's played by EVE's pilots.

Regardless of what detractors from Ambulation are saying, CCP Games has been moving ahead with the project. Players will decide for themselves whether or not this is a positive addition to EVE Online when they get to try it out at Fanfest 2008 in November. Until then, CCP has provided a few images on their Flickr account that give EVE players a glimpse at how their avatars are going to look later this year, and what the station environments will be like.

[Via CrazyKinux]

Gallery: Early Ambulation Concept Art