eve-ccp posts

EVE Online's Tyrannis expansion is due for release in a few months and players are looking forward to the new planetary interaction mechanic. Although the core ideas for the expansion have been settled on, many of the game mechanics have not been fully fleshed out. In an effort to get players involved, CCP have begun releasing early prototypes of the planetary interaction feature on the EVE test server Singularity. It's important to keep in mind that nothing on the test server is final. As a studio that makes heavy use of agile development strategies, CCP will use feedback from players on the test server to incrementally refine the design.

Dierdra Val, director of EVE University, has been on the test server to bring the EVE community details of CCP's current designs. They've released a video showing the process of installing structures on a planet and setting up factory links. So far, planetary interaction seems very similar to the moon mining and reacting industry but it's definitely a much more active process. While moon mining operations produce an endless supply of moon minerals at a steady rate, planet-based material deposits will vary in total size and yield per cycle. The materials produced on planets are also different than those produced by existing industrial operations.

Skip past the cut to watch EVE University's test-server planetary interaction tutorial or set up a test server client and try it out for yourself.

EVE Online player Xiphos83 has teamed up with our friends over at Crazykinux's Musing to make an EVE competition that's definitely worth entering. Always on the look-out for a new desktop background, for this competition he wants to see your best attempt at a visually stunning EVE wallpaper. With all the graphical upgrades EVE has received over the years, it's always kept its spot as one of the most visually stunning MMOs out there. It lends itself spectacularly to taking awesome screenshots and making dramatic videos. Entries must be at a minimum resolution of 1280 x 1024 and should fit into either an "Action" or "Scenic" theme. Anything from well-posed snaps of your favourite EVE planet to full-on PvP shots are in with a chance to win.

Entry costs 10 million ISK and the winners will split the entire pot between them, with an additional 175 million ISK contributed by donors. Judging by the number of comments the competition has received so far, there could be a lot of ISK in that prize pot up for grabs. To enter, simply email your screenshot to crazykinux [AT] gmail [DOT] com along with your EVE character's name and wire your entry fee to character "CrazyKinux" in-game. Entries must be in by March 26th and to be in with a chance to win, make sure you read the contest rules.

EVE Online has made a name for itself as an MMO with a steep learning curve. Getting into the game can be a daunting experience for new players, particularly if they want to get involved in PvP. Six years ago today, EVE player "Morning Maniac" founded the EVE University corporation in an effort to combat exactly that problem. Since then, they've been EVE's best-known new player training corp, providing free training and supplies to players getting to grips with the game. The program has seen over 10,000 new players pass through and graduate on to bigger and better things. Their success has spawned many other training corps over the years, including those focused on piracy.

In his six year birthday announcement, Kelduum Revaan of EVE University talked about how the game had changed over the years, adding that "one thing has remained constant - there are always new players, and there is always more to learn." At last year's five year anniversary, a brief history of the corp graced the EVE news. Since then, EVE University has gone from strength to strength, with some impressive achievements over the last twelve months. Over 3,000 new players entered the program this year, for a time making EVE University possibly the biggest single corp in the game. They were even recommended by PC Gamer magazine as the best place for new players to start their EVE journey. This year also saw the opening of their wormhole operations division and the opening of access to NPC nullsec regions for members. The corp looks forward to expanding operations and we at Massively wish them every success over the coming year.

MMOs are a popular hobby for hardcore and casual players alike. While some people love getting firmly embedded in their favourite MMO every night, a growing number of players prefer to log in occasionally and just kill a few hours at a time. EVE Online is no exception, with a mix of both casual and hardcore players. Taking part in things like alliance warfare, starbase industry or corporate management may require that a player log in every night but most other avenues of gameplay don't. A lot of EVE's gameplay can be picked up for a few hours and set back down with no added responsibility. In fact, player demographic data shows that most players prefer to live in the more casual environment of high security space. So what kind of things can you do if you just fancy playing internet spaceships for a few hours?

In this opinion piece, I look at five of my favourite ways to kill a few hours in the name of EVE. What's your favourite way to spend a few hours?

For the last few weeks, EVE Online players have been getting excited about the up-coming Tyrannis expansion with its Planetary Interaction feature. We received our first taste of what Tyrannis will hold last month when the expansion was announced and since then we've speculated on how its planetary interaction feature might work. Although CCP haven't answered our interview questions on Tyrannis yet, we caught up with EVE Senior Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson at GDC 2010 to get the inside scoop. Torfi was keen to point out that a lot of what CCP are doing in Tyrannis is laying the foundation for future updates and expansions. He calls Tyrannis "a stepping stone toward something even bigger."

In addition to providing some inside info on the upcoming Tyrannis and Incarna expansions, Torfi revealed that there are more people working on EVE today than ever before. In contrast to MMOs that cut down their development team sizes once the game is out, CCP's ranks have been increasing at a huge rate in recent years. The ever-increasing revenue generated by EVE subscribers allows them to fund a large development team dedicated to making the game better for EVE players. "We've never had as many subscribers as we have today", says Torfi, "330,000 subscribers, like actual paying subscribers, not counting trials." It's thanks to all those subscribers that CCP are beginning to realise dreams they were never able to achieve when the game was less popular.

Skip past the cut to see what Torfi Frans Olafsson had to say about Tyrannis, Incarna and more.

EVE Online is a game known for its tight-knit community and emergent professions. We've seen players take on the roles of thieves, graphics artists, spies, video editors, drug runners and much more in an effort to make themselves a little ISK. Perhaps most interesting is that good writers can use their talents to make ISK through publications like EON magazine and EVE Tribune. While EON is a glossy printed magazine and EVE Tribune enjoys a purely online format, both pay volunteer writers with ISK for their articles and stories. EON in particular has always had a regular fiction segment that showcases some of EVE's best fiction writers.

In the first of what he hopes to be an annual event, an EVE player by the name of Silver Night has decided to give back to the community with an EVE fiction-writing contest. The first place prize of a rare faction battleship plus 300 million ISK's worth of fittings will go to the best piece of fiction submitted. Two second place prizes of unfitted navy issue battleships are available for the second and third best pieces. With an additional four navy issue cruiser prizes for the next best four pieces, that's seven chances to win something. The competition runs until March 21st and players can submit their entries via the competition thread on the official EVE events forum.

Every MMO suffers the horrors of gold spammers and EVE Online is no different. The RMT (Real Money Trading) industry is massive and EVE's developers CCP have waged a constant war against it in recent years. The PLEX initiative gave players a way to safely buy ISK for cash while at the same time helping players who couldn't afford their subscriptions pay with ISK. The result was a dramatic hit to the RMT market, who had to drop their prices to compete with a legitimate service replacing their own.

As part of Operation Unholy Rage in August of last year, EVE GMs also banned over 6200 accounts belonging to farmers known to be supplying the RMT industry. The effect on the market was instant, with the population in farmed mission systems like Ingunn disappearing overnight. Almost immediately, the farmers reacted with a spate of account hackings to claw back some ISK.

When new EVE Online players give up and quit the game, their reasons are usually very similar. A lack of drive to play the game is common, with players logging in only to change skills. Similarly, people complain that the game is boring and isn't really taking them anywhere. Most of these reasons boil down to a basic lack of motivation, purpose and goals. As a sandbox game, EVE doesn't really lead the player anywhere after the tutorials and it can be easy to get lost. This is where the EVE community steps in by providing a whole host of player-run corporations to help pilots find their way in EVE.

As a very social game, I don't think EVE truly takes off until you get into a good corporation. In addition to help and advice, a good corp with some solid corporate goals will offer players a sense of purpose and direction that can be hard to find on your own. The opportunity to be a part of something bigger than yourself and accomplish goals you could never hope to on your own can be a great motivator. Whether your corporation's goal is to build a freighter from scratch, run a massive industrial complex, engage in PvP or even lay claim to a system, it stands a much better chance of being achieved when pilots cooperate.

In this opinion piece, I show how the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts as I look at a few of the goals corporations commonly work toward as a team.

The first details on this year's annual EVE Online Alliance Tournament emerged in a short devblog last month, with promises of further information to come. The Alliance Tournament is one the year's biggest highlights for EVE's PvP alliances. It provides a much-needed way to see which alliance can come up with the best strategies and execute them well. While massive fleets clash in the vastness of nullsec warfare, the tournament puts all alliances on an equal footing with restricted team sizes and ship allowances. In a new devblog, CCP have announced the finished format for this year's event along with an updated set of rules.

EVE Online's server is a complex beast, holding the title of biggest supercomputer in the gaming industry. The main server cluster is housed in London and serviced by a team of IBM engineers. In addition to constant hardware upgrades to take advantage of the newest technology, CCP's network programmers work around the clock to improve performance and track down bugs that will affect the game. EVE is no stranger to lag or network issues and older players know all too well that server troubles are expected around patch days.

When the Dominion expansion was released, there were far more complaints of server issues than could be attributed to the usual "patch day blues". Now several months down the line we're still hearing horror stories of fleet battles lagging unbearably with only a few hundred players. The last few months have seen an increasing number of node deaths and database failovers, in some cases causing unscheduled server reboots. Read on to find out what CCP is doing to combat the issue.

It's not every day you run across an Olympic Medalist in your favourite MMO, much less gank them and take their stuff. For some EVE Online players, that opportunity may be closer than they think. With the conclusion of the recent Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, it came to light that one of the medal winners is not just an EVE player but also an avid PvP junkie. Casting off the stereotype of MMO gamers as unfit and demotivated, Kjetil Jansrud is a professional alpine skier at the peak of physical fitness. Competing in this year's Winter Olympics, the Norwegian EVE player took the silver medal in the Men's Giant Slalom event.

Kjetil Jansrud is better known to his friends in "hirr" corporation as "NThraller", the Caldari ECM specialist. As part of Morsus Mihi alliance, he takes part in roaming PvP gangs and full-scale territorial warfare. In conjunction with the news of NThraller's Olympic win, JumpOnContact has taken an interesting look at the demographics of EVE players and MMO gamers in general. According to CCP, the average age of EVE players is around 27 and most players have some kind of degree-level certificate. The EVE community is made up of everything from high-paid professionals to students but did you ever expect to see "Olympic Medalist" added to that list? I know I didn't.

One of EVE Online's defining factors is the idea that you're not completely safe anywhere in the game. If you're not docked in a station or securely logged off, there's always a chance that someone will pick a fight with you. Many pilots opt to stay in the relative safety of high security space but even this isn't an absolutely safe area. Suicide attacks, corporate wars, can flippers and loot thieves are a common sight in New Eden and if you don't know how to handle them, you could find yourself on the business end of a 150mm railgun.

In this guide for newer EVE players, I look at the main threats you could be exposed to in high security space and how to keep yourself safe in spite of them.

Growth in the MMO industry hasn't been limited to companies named after weather phenomena. CCP Games, makers of the popular sandbox title EVE Online and its upcoming spinoff DUST 514, have done quite a bit of growing themselves. Their merger with game publisher White Wolf and their office in China are old news, but they've just added a little more space under their control. It's confirmed that CCP has opened a new office in Newcastle, their first branch in the United Kingdom and a new home of development with a slight console focus.

Much of the staff in the Newcastle office has been absorbed from the former offices of the recently-defunct Midway Studios branch in Newcastle, including executive Robert Troughton. It's slated to work on "current and future" console products, which no doubt includes DUST 514 as well as future games from the studio. After a number of closures and failures, it's good to see the industry regaining its footing, and expanded studios can only be good for CCP's fans and its games. And if you happen to be a software engineer in the area with some console experience, well, they are hiring...

EVE Online is a game that's often lauded for its sandbox style and realistic economic structures. Every quarter, CCP Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson and his team of researchers wade through mountains of EVE usage logs to find some interesting economic statistics. In their Quarterly Economic Newsletters (QEN), CCP deliver graphs tracking in-game prices, trade volumes, ships in use and a whole host of other useful metrics.

Read on for an overview of this QEN's main highlights.

When high-quality ship models were introduced with EVE Online's Trinity expansion, not every ship reacted to the graphical upgrade in the same way. Some ships, like the Megathron and Crusader, saw dramatic visual improvements with panel details and sharp lines. For the Scorpion, however, the upgraded detail exposed design flaws in the original model that spoiled its look for some players. The Scorpion has long been held as one of the ugliest ships in EVE, sporting the signature Caldari asymmetric design and odd metallic pylons. For a battleship, it's always looked small, light and flimsy; a look that perhaps suited its original role as a long-range electronic warfare ship. With it being rebalanced for a close-range "brawler" role last year, the old model really started to look out of place on the field of battle.

In a new devblog, the CCP art department have released screenshots of a new Scorpion model they're planning to roll out with the Tyrannis expansion this summer. Using design themes from their work on Tech 3 strategic cruisers, the team have turned one of EVE's all-time ugliest ships into a masterpiece. Not only does the ship now look more like its namesake, it has a much more solid and aggressive look to it that better suits its role in PvP. This may mark the start of a change for other Caldari ships, many of which sport elements of the same bizarre asymmetric design that spoiled the Scorpion's appearance. As an added bonus, CCP's graphics programmers have created a new texture packing system that vastly improves the visual quality of small details on ships. If you're interested in the new Scorpion model or the finer details of how CCP texture the ships in EVE Online, the latest devblog is definitely worth a look.