At a glance

The Chronicles of Spellborn is a game that I have long had a love affair with. I followed it through development and beta, and have played since the very beginning. Immediately its unique atmosphere and wonderful art style drew me in and had me hoping that this game would be one of the games to break the MMORPG mold. I downloaded screenshots, read the lore that I could find and waited with baited breath as the release date drew closer.

Now, here we are a year after release. What happened within that year that resulted in two empty servers and a (seemingly) dwindling population? We haven't learned much through the usual channels, and the players that remain are left wondering. The last word given talked about a re-release, a "Spellborn 2" complete with a cash shop to aid adventurers, but the recent closing of the game in Japan and silence on the forums still have us a little confused.

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On April 27th 2008, the EVE Evolved column kicked off with an in-depth look at the controversy surrounding the removal of NPC supply of shuttles in EVE Online. That first crude article began a continually improving weekly dose of EVE spanning the last two years. In that time, I've written around 100 articles on topics ranging from faction warfare and piracy to mining and economics. It sometimes seems to me that I've covered practically everything of note but in a game as complex as EVE, there's always something to write about. The rapidly evolving universe of New Eden seems to continually produce something new and interesting to discuss.

To celebrate the second anniversary of the column in just over a week's time, I'm giving away an expensive faction battleship worth around 500 million ISK. One lucky reader will win and take his pick from the list of navy or fleet issue battleships. To enter, just drop a comment and suggest a topic you'd like to see covered in a future edition of EVE Evolved. Every suggested topic may be written up as a future article in the column with credit to the reader that came up with the idea. This is your chance to say what types of article you'd like to read from Massively's weekly EVE column. The winner will be the reader that suggests my favourite topic by the evening of Friday 23rd April. In addition to winning an expensive navy issue battleship, the winner's suggestion will be written up as next week's anniversary column topic.

Skip past the cut for full entry guidelines and a look back at this past year of the EVE Evolved column.

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Some time ago, CCP announced their unusual plans to develop their own EVE Online social networking website. Their plan was to tie it into the game, giving players a site they could visit to stay in touch with their EVE contacts and corporation while not logged in. It was expected to be ready by Winter 2009 but never materialised when the Dominion expansion was released. Now named EVE Gate, the website has been rescheduled for the upcoming Tyrannis expansion on May 18th. Recently, CCP released an early alpha version of the EVE Gate website and have begun the slow process of adding features and working out bugs. Some of the features are not active and the site is not yet tied into the active EVE server. Nevertheless, the current alpha build shows what we can expect from the site when it launches.

In this article, I give a run-down of what features we can expect from EVE Gate at launch and what we can expect from it in future iterations.

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In Autumn 2005, EVE Online became one of the only MMOs out there with its own dedicated print magazine. Under contract from CCP Games, MMM Publishing has worked tirelessly ever since to produce EVE's official magazine "E-ON." Four times per year, we're blessed with a dose of the latest and greatest things from New Eden in a comfortingly solid format. The magazine covers everything from strategy guides and ship fitting advice to sneak peaks at upcoming expansions, interviews with CCP staff and incredible fiction set in the EVE universe.

E-ON differs from other game magazines in that they don't any make money from advertising. In an effort to keep the magazine all about EVE, they've taken the unusual but apparently successful route of publishing full-page adverts from in-game corporations and organisations. Advertisers buy space in the magazine with ISK, the in-game currency, and adverts must be for strictly in-game purposes. The ISK is then used to pay volunteer writers, who create most of the magazine's content and produce important things like guides from a true player's perspective. There's even a scheme in the works to reward advertisers with discount coupon codes for the magazine to gift their corpmates. Now nearing their fifth year of publishing, E-ON issue 19 has recently been released. As usual, this issue is absolutely packed full of everything we've come to expect from the mag.

Skip past the cut for a run-down of what you can expect in issue 19 of E-ON Magazine.

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Thanks to one crazy community manager that likes to tease information, we've gotten a sneak peek at the upcoming patch information for Aion -- patch 1.9.

The patch is hosting a wealth of enhancements and updates to the game that includes a new looking for group system, quest updates, a brand new daily quest system, changes to the endgame dungeon Dredgion, a decrease in transportation and soul healing prices, increased experience gain, a two-handed weapon merge system, and much more. The whole thing actually totals over 26 pages of patch notes which NCsoft West are still translating for Western audiences.

Tomorrow, however, we've got a special look into some of the deeper mechanics of the patch, so be sure to come back and visit us at 11 AM Eastern time for all of the gritty details (as we need to be all hush hush until then.) But, for now, enjoy some beautiful concept art in the gallery below (in the form of desktop wallpapers) and a video of Aion's "update 2.0" patch stored after the break.

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It's been known since the last EVE Online Fanfest that the next expansion would be based around planetary interaction, but details on exactly what that interaction would constitute have been thin on the ground. In a bumper devblog today, EVE's Senior Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson gave a first glimpse of what we can expect this summer. Following the graphical overhaul planets received in the Dominion expansion, the next expansion is set to place them in a functional role. The expansion, aptly named "Tyrannis" after the Latin for "Tyrants," will put the fates of New Eden's populated planets in the hands of pod-pilots. Players will be able to survey planets and build planet-bound industrial infrastructures to tap into previously unobtainable resources such as minerals. Planets with harsh environments such as gas giants and plasma planets will be harder to manage infrastructure on but the rewards could be well worth the effort.

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Last week, I took a look at a few of the biggest Caldari and Minmatar trade hubs in EVE Online and how to best put them to use. I examined the phenomenon that is Jita and how Motsu persists as a trade hub due to the presence of mission-runners. I went on to look at Hek and Rens, trade hubs which service the two most populated Minmatar regions and provide a handy trade route for pilots to make a profit on. This week, I complete the picture with a look at four of the biggest Gallente and Amarr trade hubs.

Knowing all of the major trading stations can be of benefit to any pilot, whether you're just looking for a good deal on a new ship or trying to forge profitable trade routes. For traders, listing products in an alternate hub needn't take much extra time or effort. With good trade skills, you can adjust market orders remotely from several jumps away. You can make a short autopilot route that goes close enough to each station you're trading in and adjust your prices frequently.

In this final part of a two-part series on EVE's biggest trade hubs, I look at the biggest Amarr and Gallente trade hubs, what can be found there and how to use them to your advantage as a trader.

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MMO Family is your resource for leveling a gaming-specced family ... From tips on balancing gaming with family life to finding age-appropriate niches for every family member, MMO Family offers you advice on MMO gaming of the family, by the family and for the family.

Next in our look at kids' MMOs is Ether Saga Online, winner of a 2009 National Parenting Publications Award for tweens and teens video games. Compared with the freewheeling, open-ended approach of Free Realms, ESO presents a more traditional MMO face. Even so, you probably weren't expecting a work of classic literature -- but that's in fact what you'll get. ESO, which was first developed for Chinese players, is based on Journey to the West (often known in the West as Monkey), considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. All that, and it's free to play, too.

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A natural consequence of EVE Online's sandbox style market system is that eventually the players will form trade hubs around the most heavily used areas. Before the four empires began gearing up for war, the main trade hub of New Eden was in Yulai, the CONCORD headquarters system with super-highway stargates into the heart of each empire's space. When the super-highways were dismantled, Yulai became more difficult to get to and its popularity as a trade hub dissolved. It was eventually superceded by Jita, a Caldari system in The Forge region. But while Jita is EVE's biggest and most notable trade hub, it's not the only one by a long shot. Smaller hubs have always tended to erupt around centres of population and activity such as popular mission-running systems or the borders of warzones. Understandably, it's traders who reap the largest benefit from knowing all the best trade hubs. Trading in multiple regions can reduce the risk of competition and increase the volume of their sales.

In this two-part series, I look at some of EVE's biggest trade hubs, what can be found there and how to use them to your advantage as a trader. In today's first part I look at a few of the biggest Caldari and Minmatar trade hubs.

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MMO Family is your resource for leveling a gaming-specced family ... From tips on balancing gaming with family life to finding age-appropriate niches for every family member, MMO Family offers you advice on MMO gaming of the family, by the family and for the family.

This week, MMO Family begins a gaming-savvy look at some of the most popular kid MMOs. You know what you like in an MMO – but what about your kids? And what if you're looking for something the whole family could play together? Today's gaming family can nibble from a whole feast of MMOs: games for grownups (we can help you fence off areas for kids who want to play what Mom and Dad do), games for the little ones, games for tweens and teens, and games for everyone to play together. When it's time to find just the right selection for the kids, we'll help you reticle over the most likely targets.

First up: Free Realms from Sony Online Entertainment.

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Who likes sexy screenshots? We all do! It's lucky for us that the The Sundered Frontier, one of the two new zones in EverQuest II: Sentinel's Fate is so darn beautiful. Who doesn't like floating islands, awesome armors, and pandas? How can you turn down pandas?! Easy answer: You can't turn down pandas. You just can't.

Sony Online Entertainment has gifted us with an armload of new pictures of the zone, so go on down below and check out our gallery of high resolution screenshots to see what Norrath has to offer in this upcoming expansion. We think you'll like what you see.

Even though most Fallen Earth fans knew these features were coming, it's still great to see them in writing. In a patch note preview post in the forums yesterday, the Fallen Earth team announced that their much-anticipated Construction tradeskill and gambling taverns will be entering the game this Monday, December 14th.

Construction will bring the ability for players to build camps in the wasteland, complete with their own vaults, merchant NPCs, mailboxes and more. The new gambling system will introduce slot machines, Blackjack tables and more to taverns throughout the Grand Canyon Province. In addition to these major features, the First Night preparations will be added, including special quests and rewards for the winter event celebrations. Pages of bug fixes also accompany this patch, so head on over to the forums to check out the preview of this Monday's patch notes and check out some extensive developer diaries and video on the update over at IGN for more information.