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Trust is a rare commodity in EVE Online. Many players are drawn to the game by the fact that almost any form of deceit, betrayal, and outright treachery is allowed in EVE. Not all players head down this path, of course, but plenty do. This element of risk is what makes the game exciting, but even those who are wary of the online personas of some EVE players may still find themselves getting backstabbed and robbed, or worse. Many in EVE have learned to profit from the misfortunes of others. However, this social environment has created certain opportunities for individuals who are able to establish their credibility over time, and through great effort.

Among the most trustworthy in EVE Online is Chribba, a player who's very active in the community and provides a number of services to EVE fans, free of charge. Helped by Chribba's efforts, EVE Online has expanded into a game where players become auteurs, creating videos and sharing their in-game pursuits with others, either for their own glory or their organization's propaganda. Of course, his contributions don't end there, as most everyone in the EVE community knows. Massively recently caught up with Chribba and asked him to share a bit about what he does for the EVE player base, and why he does it.

A couple weeks ago, the official website of The Saga of Ryzom mysteriously returned to operating status. The game was shut down back in February when Nevrax, the French company that operated it, experienced a financial crisis. When the site came back, nobody knew exactly what was happening. All we got was a splash page that said "Ryzom will be back soon."

Well, now we have more. The official forums have come back online -- including posts and accounts from before the shutdown. It's as if they had never gone. Community manager boroshi posted a rather short note promising that "everything else" will soon follow. Note that boroshi was around before the shutdown, so it looks like the people behind the game's return are at least some of the same folks who were running it before.

If you're an old Ryzom player, go ahead and reunite with old pals. Klients is back, too.

Keeping in line with a recent hypothetical map created by our very own Michael Zenke, which depicts a geographical equivalent to the MMO blogosphere's most popular sites, Tim Howgego decided it was about time he created one for the World of Warcraft community. This map shows an interesting assortment of sites, including a humorous take on gold farmers and an itty bitty island in the middle of the sea called GM Island.

There is a thorough explanation accompanying the map on Howgego's website, including his reasoning behind the placement of each landmass versus the outlying islands. Even the directional arrangement has a purpose. Curiously enough, we find our sister site WoW Insider occupying a lone island in the murky southwestern corner of the map, although Howgego explains that placement as well. The best part about this map? Everything is linked!

EVE Online's Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is the title's first attempt at having elected representatives work with CCP Games on improving the game as well as the company's relations with its player base. The initial idea behind the CSM was that it would act as an oversight committee on behalf of the players, in the wake of the 'T20 incident' when a CCP developer unfairly provided a player corporation with certain resources. But this first CSM is largely tasked with improving the transparency of CCP's inner workings, while shaping the game to better fit the play styles of their constituency. The CSM has met online in recent weeks, and with mixed results, but they've now met in-person in Reykjavik, where they also had face-to-face time with the creators of EVE Online.

Jordan Deam from WarCry interviewed EVE Online dev Noah Ward (aka CCP Hammerhead) about what this experiment in 'democratic community management' has yielded thus far, and what it may yet become. The interview focuses heavily on the dynamic between players wanting features added to the game and the undertaking necessary on CCP's part to make these changes a reality. Factional warfare has only just been realized in the game and was four years in the making. Ambulation, or 'Walking in Stations', is slated for a launch in the coming months, after three years of being in the pipeline, Ward said. Have a look at the WarCry interview, and decide for yourself if the CSM is living up to its potential, and if CCP is recapturing the transparency of a small, independent game company as it grows into a much larger entity.

EVE Online's latest expansion, The Empyrean Age. has largely been a success, both from the standpoint of a number of EVE's players and what it will allow the game to evolve into from the perspective of CCP Games. EVE developer CCP RyanD's recent dev blog confirms that CCP is excited about the directions the game will now be able to take in the future.

He writes that throughout EVE Online's five year history, there was a rift between developer-created storytelling and player-driven roleplaying. There were a few prominent storyline events run in tandem by the devs and volunteers in ISD, but while such events succeeded in some respects, they failed in others. The mixed response to the events made them a rarity in the game. But those initial faltering steps have given way to greater storyline interaction in Empyrean Age, as player created content and efforts begin to mesh with the developing story of EVE. CCP RyanD writes, "The path we are on now is really unprecedented."

Ever since Linage II began allowing server transfers there has been a shift in server populations that was leaving some communities worried. This has prompted NCsoft to announce the merging of a few servers on July 8th to bolster their overall population and ease the growing fears some players were beginning to have about the future of their digital homelands.

Population is of course an important issue for any MMO and server merges can sometimes be seen as a bad thing by onlookers. However, NCsoft is assuring everyone that this choice was made purely to maintain healthy communities, something that is arguably one of the most important aspects to an online game.

We're also happy to see that NCsoft is covering all their bases and has made an official forum post covering all the important topics about the server merges. If your concerns aren't met by the current forum post don't worry too much. NCsoft has vowed to answer any concerns or inquiries regarding the merges over the coming weeks.

[via WarCry]

MMOS X is a bi-weekly column dedicated solely to gaming on the Macintosh natively. "Running Boot Camp or Parallels" is not an option here. This column is for people who want to get the most out of their Mac gaming, as meager as it is.

Originally, this week's column was going to be a technical how-to, but a series of snafus -- not the least of which included me slapping my head and going, "You moron, combat logs changed after patch 2.4. That's why this new analyzer you are looking at is barfing on your Karazhan logs from February." However, my focus changed when, like many of the Faithful, I turned my attention to the West Monday to see what our Leader had to say.

Frankly, all I wanted Jobs to say was, "with iPhone 2.0, now you can sync iCal tasks to the iPhone." I didn't get that. Instead, I got a bunch of technical jargon that went over my head. Really, who did he think he was talking to, a bunch of developers or something? When a couple of game developers got up to show off their new iPhone apps, a light bulb went off for this week's late column.

Masthead Studios has released the second newsletter for their upcoming sci-fi MMO Earthrise. As with their first newsletter, it's full of hyperlinks to images and audio related to the game, however there are a few new additions this time around. We've read about the game itself in recent months, but until now little has been known about the people behind the scenes who are working to make Earthrise a reality. The newsletter features an introduction to the members of the Earthrise development team at Masthead Studios in the form of a short Q&A for each developer.

Each of the devs discusses what brought them to work on the project, their influences, and what they do at Masthead Studios to further the creation of Earthrise. There's also screenshots of a new area on Enterra called The Nest and a hyperlinked recap of Earthrise's media coverage in the last month. But the real focus of the Earthrise newsletters is on the community, and a number of issues are showcased in the latest iteration.

Tabula Blogger recently got to take a trip to NCsoft Europe headquarters and meet the fine folks who make up the Tabula Rasa Europe team. It sounds like things went exceedingly well, as Tabula Blogger had all good things to say about their experience. You can read all the crazy exploits of the trip on this page and as an added bonus get to see some pretty cool sketch art. It also sounds like the Tabula Rasa Europe team has some very nice digs with a working space that includes a big TV, PS3 and some Rock Band action. What more could any geek ask for?

We always love to see players in the community having these kinds of experiences with the people responsible for the live support and development of an MMO. It really helps keep the entire community invigorated and happy, which is a topic oft discussed here at Massively. So in other words: keep up the good work NCsoft Europe!

This reaction and a lack of communication are to be expected, but what would more explanatory thoughts look like in the form of an open letter? Over on LagORama, the hilarious Inhibitor vicariously penned such correspondence from both viewpoints: the players addressing the developers and the developers addressing their players. What an interesting and hilarious take from both sides, and who knew that some MMORPG developers actually played their own game.

Masthead Studios has released information about the factions that will populate the post-apocalyptic setting of Earthrise. These groups are referred to as 'organizations' rather than factions; players will work with them to gain access to 'design technology'. This acquired technology can be applied to items, 'creating unique, powerful, and highly sought-after creations.'

The details released thus far on these four organizations in Earthrise suggest that the game will have high science/technomagic and psionics, as well as 'light' peacekeepers and 'dark' mercenaries. The organization descriptions also give some clues as to how they will relate to one another in the game's Enterra Island locale.

I'll be blunt -- I hate grouping. Nothing pains me more than grouping up with four of the "internet's finest" and going into a dungeon to kill some monsters. 95% of the time, it seems I'm doomed to find 4chan (NSFW) rejects or screaming 10-year-old kids (NSFW). Of course, these are the parties that take an hour and a half to assemble and only last two rooms into the dungeon. Someone inevitably screws up and gets six mobs on them, and then they instantly turn around and blame the priest for "not being able to heal properly". Of course they don't actually say "not being able to heal properly"; it comes out more like "u suck n00b priest".

Raiders, PvPers, explorers, achievers, item market players, roleplayers, power levelers. What do all of these people have in common? Well, they can all be found in our MMORPGs. Jaye at Journeys with Jaye has written a great article that centers around the fact that many of us tend to focus on our MMOs as single player games. We tend to dismiss others in the community when they don't play the same way we may play (which is referred to as "the best way to play a game").

We also tend to dismiss a game's community in favor for the game's mechanics. Reviewers tend to focus on how the game plays and functions in a solo environment, regardless of how friendly, active, or welcoming the community may be. For all the reviewer knows, the community might be the saving grace of the game. If you have the time, jump over to Journeys with Jaye and check our her article. It's well written, and worth the read for any MMORPG player.

• When playing any multi-player game, which of the following best describes you?
• When you visit community forums, what is your primary interest in doing so? (examples: news from developers, socializing with server mates, at work and can't log in, etc)
• What is your most happy and/or memorable in-game moment?
  

Feel free to join in on the discussion over on the official forums. We really like this; it's a feature is a great way to foster community and collect feedback from the playerbase.

Earlier this month there was plenty of talk at the ION conference about community-related issues. Those discussions were great and if you missed out on reading them when they were first posted, then you should check them out now. One thing often touched on during those discussions was the community manager's goal of reaching out to as many people in their community as they can. Or in other words: communicating with the silent majority.

Grimwell has recently posted a tightened up dialect on that very topic of reaching the silent majority for any given game. He expresses his own thoughts and methods about forging lines of communication with the people who're not being vocal through forums, blogs, podcasts or even in-game chat. And if you're worrying about a drawn-out read, don't. Grimwell keeps it short and sweet, ending the post with the affirmation that we're all still learning about the communicative process.