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New additions to EVE Online through the Quantum Rise expansion are on the way, some of which are already on the Singularity test server. CCP Chronotis followed up his announcement of the Orca by outlining some big changes to ships that are some of the mainstays of industry in EVE. "Much has changed in EVE since many of the hauler of mining class ships were introduced. With Quantum Rise we felt the time was right to review these ships and make changes where necessary to refocus their roles and ensure they can still perform in the age of New Eden's Great War," he said.

The changes outlined aren't finalized, and will go through testing on Singularity before any of this goes live. Chronotis addressed how CCP Games would like to change three categories of ships: blockade runners, deep space transports, and mining vessels.

Dee Carson is a Director at EVE University, a corporation in EVE Online devoted to showing newer players the ropes of the game. Budding industry-types in EVE (as well as players interested in other professions) will want to refer to Carson's recent post at the Miner with Fangs blog -- he's made his 'EVE University Co-Operative Mining Guide' available as a pdf, and is definitely worth a read.

The guide walks a newer player through all aspects of mining in groups, from the skills required to the different ship choices and their relative merits. Most importantly, he lays out why players should mine cooperatively rather than it simply being a solo pursuit, namely that it's more profitable and adds a social dynamic to the activity. Of course there's safety in numbers, particularly when you've got a good mix of the different professions in EVE represented in the operation -- an ideal operation being comprised of miners, haulers, salvagers and 'top cover' damage dealers. Given that the guide was originally intended for EVE University students, the terminology and information imparted in the guide are accessible to most any pilot in the game, regardless of their familiarity with the industry side of EVE Online. It serves as an excellent introduction to the mining profession, and a stepping stone to more advanced guides like Halada's 'The Complete Mining Guide'. You can find the link to EVE University's guide in Carson's post over at Miner with Fangs.

The next major expansion to EVE Online, known internally at CCP Games as 'Midas', now has a name: Quantum Rise. The winter expansion will bring with it a number of new features and enhancements for the industrial and economic side of EVE, which we've just gotten word about from CCP, as well as confirmation of the rumored "Orca" capital industrial ship:

"Players have great things to look forward to in EVE Online: Quantum Rise. Corporations will be able to set their products apart from the rest by building trust in their goods through customizable storefronts. The backbone of EVE's vibrant economy, industrial ships are being rebalanced and optimized to better suit the needs of haulers and industrialists-including the latest addition to the fleet, a massive capital industrial ship dubbed the Orca. A new certificate system will give a quick and verifiable means to discern a pilot's skill level in trading, gunnery or countless other professions, providing plenty of bragging rights. Meanwhile, the introduction of a medal system allows corporations to distinguish their most valued pilots and honor them for their achievements."

Quantum Rise is being released in stages, some of which we've already seen and experienced, such as Stackless IO and EVE64. But other aspects of the expansion will include weapon linking, continuations of the Trinity graphics update, and other as-yet unannounced features. Keep an eye on our EVE coverage at Massively; we'll be watching closely to see what the Quantum Rise expansion will bring to EVE's players.

Swordfighting in Pirates of the Burning Sea is going through a major overhaul, not unlike how ship combat has evolved since the game launched. Flying Labs' Isildur has written a dev blog titled, "Avatar Combat Revision" which explains why changes were necessary, and how they envision the new system working.

Ultimately, the changes are intended to bring Pirates of the Burning Sea's combat closer to Isildur's ideal system: "I wanted a system that would let me slice through armies of minions like a hot knife through butter, but that would be tactical and complex in a one-on-one duel between evenly matched opponents." Read on below the cut for a listing of the fundamental changes coming to the game's avatar combat.

New changes to EVE Online seem to be on the way as reported by players on the test server, and confirmed by CCP Games developers on the forums: weapon grouping and contract refinements, in addition to the previously-reported certificates.

Having several high slots of weapon turrets and needing to change ammo types mid-combat has likely frustrated most EVE players at some point. Now, it seems that it'll be possible to link up weapons systems (turrets and launchers only, at first), simplifying reloads and ammo swaps. EVE dev CCP Ytterbium says, "This feature allows players to group weapons together into one slot. From there you can swap all ammo at once without doing the usual ritual of right-click gun 1, load ammo, right-click gun 2, load ammo again etc..." He does caution that the feature is nowhere near ready to go live on Tranquility, and should be considered a work in progress. More information on this feature (which is a welcome change for many EVE players) will be detailed in a future dev blog, he said.

EVE Online is a game where players don't need to choose a certain class and remain locked into that role as they progress. Essentially, any player can learn to do anything in the game, given enough skill training time and backed by enough isk. Professions in EVE can be freeform and varied, allowing a player to try their hand at a number of different playstyles in the game. One of these 'mini-professions' is salvaging the wrecks of NPCs and other players. Salvaging can be learned in a rather short amount of time, yet can be quite lucrative, especially for a newer player.

MMORPG.com's EVE Online correspondent, Andrew Wallace, put together a guide to salvaging, laying out how the game mechanics work, and explaining how he salvages in different scenarios and with what ship fittings. Check out MMORPG.com's Salvaging Guide for Wallace's take on how to reap the greatest rewards from the misfortunes of your fellow EVE pilots.

Well, Warhammer Online, in the very least, let me get away with putting that song in the title.

We're in the thick of it now -- WAR has launched and been installed on the machines of many. Some proclaim it to be the new timewaster, others find it to be a rip-off of World of Warcraft, and still others believe that it is, in fact, the digital messiah.

Well I don't know about digital messiahs, I just work the game design angles. And when it comes to game design, WAR is filled with new ideas. I like new ideas as much as the next person, but new ideas aren't very good when they don't work. Does WAR go the distance? I'll be glad to tell you, and you know I'm not going to pull punches.

With that said, let's get to the big gorilla -- the Realm vs. Realm combat. On the surface, it looks good. Letting people walk into clearly defined battlefields to fight over with incentives in the form of quests from the specific RvR warcamps and not to mention exp for killing other players as well as renown points, it looks like it's a winner. And, to be extremely honest, the system does win when you get a bunch of players in one place.

"Player vs. player combat comes extremely naturally to WAR to the point where sometimes I forget I'm in PvP because I'm having so much fun."

Player vs. player combat comes extremely naturally to WAR to the point where sometimes I forget I'm in PvP because I'm having so much fun. Yes, that line just came from the guy who'd rather do reputation grinds than visit Alterac Valley in World of Warcraft. I despise PvP, I despise battlegrounds, and grinding reputation is fun compared to getting killed every three seconds and then teabagged.

WAR makes sure that each person can actualy survive in PvP, have a chance to get away, and they make it into a worthwhile endeavor. Even if you lose a scenario, you can still turn in the specific PvP quest and get experience because you completed the scenario. PvP is tactical, interesting, and just overflowing with rewards. That's a good system.

The bad news comes in the form of World RvR battlegrounds. Once again, they're barren wastelands. No I mean that, they are barren wastelands. Haven't you seen the screenshots? (Insert rimshot here.) But, there's not enough people to really support the battlegrounds system. What we really have here is a "go in, take what you want before someone notices, and leave" system. Sure, there are quests that have owners of the landmarks "check up" on their property --

"Should that problem stop you from playing Warhammer Online? Absolutely not."

quests that will bring the enemy back to their control points -- but even those aren't being taken advantage of by the players.

So, what is WAR good for? WAR is good for a bloody fun time. The game's systems are all well done and are fun to play. The problem is that WAR is missing the fundamental oil in the machine, people to WAR with. The endgame is secure, as everyone is going to end up there, turning the endgame into a giant, vicious struggle (as it should be) but the first and second tiers are going to struggle no matter what. Even in overpopulated servers just a short while from the launch, we're already seeing signs of attrition in the design. Mythic simply thought they'd have more people constantly flowing in or making new characters.

Should that problem stop you from playing Warhammer Online? Absolutely not. The state of the game is still strong, and it's still more fun than you can get in any other game. In fact, if you jump in, you're going to only going to help in curing the problems it has. So go ahead, WAR away. The game is good for it.

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Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who finally is having fun with RvR. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's over running Epic Loot For All! with his insane roommates. If you want to message him, you can do so in Second Life (SL: Seraphina Reymont), or send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com.

It's in the nature of every MMO player to snap at change -- it's what we do. When the patch notes reveal that Class X got a decrease in DPS to make them of a "more balanced power", you can expect all players of Class X to lead a revolt across the forums with pitchforks and torches. This behavior has become so commonplace that we tend to just ignore it after a while.

But for once, the intense flaming power of the World of Warcraft forums is being put to good use, if you ask me. Blizzard has announced that they are letting players transfer from standard servers onto their Player vs. Player servers in an outstanding reversal of their original policy on the matter. Now anyone on a normal server can just waltz up past the Gumdrop Mountains to find Queen Frostine and ask her to use her transporting powers to send them to what could be construed as MMO 4chan. (That Candy Land reference was for you, James Egan.)

Lume the Mad has constructed a deep look at Blizzard's decision to allow transfers from PvE to PvP servers and why it's good for World of Warcraft players. For those who'd rather not read the whole thing, here's a summarized version: There are going to be some economic and social hiccups, yes, but the bonuses will far outweigh the minuses. The whole thing allows for bigger recruitment pool, more friends playing with friends and an overall improved ability for everyone to take risks.

We're inclined to agree with Mr. Mad's take on the whole situation. It'll be an interesting stretch into 2009 for World of Warcraft players between this change and the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. At least everyone should be able to play with all their friends for Wrath and something like that is always a very good thing.

In a move that has stunned many people in the World of Warcraft community, Blizzard has reversed their earlier stance on no PvE to PvP server transfers. Per Bornakk on the official World of Warcraft forums, Blizzard has decided to open up transfers from PvE servers to PvP servers because "World of Warcraft has matured significantly since the inception of Paid Character Transfers, [they] don't feel that PvE-to-PvP transfers will have the negative impact on the game that [they] initially wanted to avoid when [they] started the service in 2006. This change will provide more mobility and freedom for players to experience the game with friends or play in the type of environment they're looking for."

Considering the furor that is now starting up on the official forums regarding this major change in dynamics, we can only wonder why after so many years Blizzard has reversed their decision. Previously, Blizz maintained that they wouldn't allow transfers from PvE to PvP because it would be unfair to players who leveled characters up in a PvP environment. They wanted to avoid PvPers having to deal with people who transferred into the harsher climates that PvP servers provide after having leveled up on PvE servers. With the largely guaranteed bank roll that is Wrath of the Lich King, one wonders just precisely Blizzard seeks to gain by changing a long-standing mechanic such as this. Do they really need more money? Or is this just, as one forum poster suggested, a way to allow players who started on PvE realms to finally 'rescue' their characters? Perhaps it has something to do with the smaller populations traditionally on PvP servers? Only Blizzard knows for sure as to the reasoning.

We recommend packing marshmellows if you go anywhere near the WoW forums for the next while; the flames are coming.

It's safe to say that there are a lot of sci-fi MMO fans out there who would appreciate a game that incorporates dogfighting into a space-based title. Jumpgate Evolution is shaping up to be that game, from what we've seen thus far of its combat. We've been following Jumpgate Evolution for a while now, and Massively's Kyle Horner recently interviewed NetDevil producer Hermann Peterscheck about the upcoming title. New video footage of the game, captured at PAX 2008, is now found at GameTrailers.

The video shows off combat taking place within a massive asteroid belt. Have a look at the video below the cut, and let us know if you think Jumpgate Evolution seems to be your type of game.

We love The Escapist over here at Massively. Take for instance Jared Rea's recent article, "Beautiful 21st Century" -- a piece about one company's attempt to overcome the stigma attached to most older Korean MMOs that make it to the western market: beautiful but grindy. Perhaps the most notable Korean title currently played in the west is NCsoft's Lineage II which, despite being a beautiful game, has drawn some flack from gamers about its steep grind (although this is becoming less of a problem).

NCsoft is working to change this perception of their forthcoming Korean-developed titles, particularly in light of their upcoming MMO Aion: The Tower of Eternity. Much of the problem that NCsoft faces is similar to what all companies, game or otherwise, face when taking their brand overseas -- being recognized as a global brand rather than seen in the limited light of their offerings in a given region of the world.

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.

The backstory of EVE Online is something that CCP Games has put a great deal of time and effort into creating. As all MMOs are ongoing works, so too are EVE's backstory and the storyline that players experience. To that end, CCP has people like Lead Writer Tony Gonzales (author of The Empyrean Age novel) and Lead Content Creator Scott Holden to flesh out the setting's past, while ensuring that the future of EVE's story remains open enough to allow players to do as they choose.

MMORPG.com caught up with Tony Gonzales and Scott Holden at Gen Con, and got them to speak about the story of EVE in a video interview. They discussed how factional warfare finally came to be in EVE, player response to the Empyrean Age expansion, and how CCP is working to better integrate the backstory with gameplay. Be sure to check out MMORPG.com's Empyrean Age interview if you'd like to hear CCP's views on player-driven versus story-driven action.