MMOFPS

About five years ago, on April 27th, 2008, I joined the Massively team and wrote the very first issue of the EVE Evolved column. Five years later, the column is still going strong and delivering its weekly dose of EVE Online to thousands of readers. I used to worry about running out of ideas to write about, but regular game updates and hilarious player shenanigans mean there's always something interesting going on in New Eden. When EVE hits its 10th anniversary in May, this column will have been running for just over half of the game's lifetime. In that time, I've written over 250 in-depth articles, guides, in-game stories and opinion pieces on EVE Online and a few on DUST 514.

As usual, I'll be celebrating this anniversary by rounding up this year's column highlights and giving away two 30-day Pilot's License Extensions to two lucky readers. To enter the competition, write a comment explaining which EVE Evolved articles from this year you liked best and what topics you'd like to see covered in the coming year. You will need an active EVE account to claim the prize, so be sure to include your character name in your comment if you want to be in with a chance. If you'd rather not give out your character name or don't have an EVE account but would like to give the game a go, you can sign up a new trial account and use the name of your new character.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at the highlights from the column's fifth year!

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Did you enjoy the first episode of Defiance last Monday? We thought so. If you can't wait to see what's happening in the first four minutes of the next episode, then we have you covered. Tensions are rising as central characters Nolan and Irisa come head-to-head with ancient laws and religions within the city of Defiance, and we're sure that what happens next is going to impact the ragtag community for many episodes after.

Nolan has donned the star of the local lawman and stepped right into the middle of a Castithan ceremony, something that does not sit well with Datak Tarr, the local crime boss. Even after they fought in battle together, is it be possible for these two headstrong characters to bury the hatchet for good? Can't they all just get along?

It's TV, so no, no they cannot. Click past the cut to watch the video!

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EVE Fanfest is next week and the faithful are preparing to descend upon Reykjavik, Iceland, for the three-day convention. If you're one of the travelers who are heading there or are just looking to follow along on livestream, CCP has released the full program with the event's schedule.

Fanfest will have three keynotes about the past, present, and future of CCP's titles, respectively. There will also be several panels, including one discussing EVE Online's inclusion in the New York Museum of Modern Art.

EVE Online also released a new dev blog talking about the team's war on unauthorized client modification and violations of the EULA. Apparently CCP has taken additional steps to beef up detection and prevention, and the team wanted to be clear with players as to what is and is not allowed.

DUST 514's May 6th Uprising patch will revamp the sci-fi shooter's skill system. Among the changes are the removal of multiple prerequisite skills and a new node-based skill tree view that will replace the current list-based approach.

CCP is also refunding skill points and ISK and AUR for certain items based on their market value at the time of the respec. "You may have committed to a certain play style, and with an overhauled layout and collection of skills, you may find yourself regretting some of your prior choices," explains DUST creative director Atli Mar Sveinsson on the PlayStation Blog. "We have thus decided that it is far better to respec not only the skills but items as well. In short, you will get your skill points back and the ISK and AUR value of any item that is removed from your inventory."

There's just over a week to go until EVE Online's massive tenth anniversary Fanfest, and you'll be pleased to hear that Massively will be there this year to cover the action! CCP is aiming to make this the biggest Fanfest yet, promising huge reveals and announcements about EVE's summer Odyssey expansion and beyond. We can also expect to hear some big news about upcoming console MMOFPS DUST 514, and fans of Vampire: The Masquerade will undoubtedly get to see some of the year's progress toward making the World of Darkness MMO a reality.

Tickets to this year's Fanfest sold out in record time, so many players who really wanted to be there for EVE's tenth anniversary celebration weren't able to secure a spot. CCP is running its usual livestream of the main talks for those not in attendance, but only certain parts of the event are being streamed. Here at Massively, we plan to give you an inside look at Fanfest with ongoing news coverage from April 25th to April 27th and in-depth opinion pieces on what each announcement means for players.

In this week's short and sweet EVE Evolved, I lay out Massively's plans for in-depth coverage of EVE Fanfest 2013 and ask what you'd like to see reported on.

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As EVE Online approaches the big 1-0, many can't help but think about how all the events and happenings over the last 10 years had shaped life in this massive space sandbox. But trying to explain a full decade of New Eden's extensive history was no easy task -- until now. CCP has just introduced the EVE timeline, an interactive exploration of the setting and lore of both EVE and its new companion, DUST 514.

In its inaugural form, this timeline sticks with core concepts, discussing how the universe was discovered and colonized. As time progresses, the functionality of the timeline will expand, including the addition of excerpts from the True Stories initiative as well as accounts from other major player events. Check it out on the new EVE.com website, then let CCP know what moments you think warrant mentioning in this easy-to-navigate history via the blog's comment section.

Defiance players are in for a little treat for their patience during a tumultuous opening week. Trion Worlds acknowledged the various issues that the game and its community have gone through, and thus the studio has put together a gift package as a way to thank customers for their patronage.

Current players have received several bonuses in their account, including a "Daredevil" exclusive title and one-week boosts to weapons skill, scrip, loot, and XP.

"We hope this shows you that we do appreciate you on this journey of Defiance, trying out something new, trying something different," wrote Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson.

[Thanks to Balance for the tip!]

In its first major content upgrade since the game's December 2012 launch, Webzen is announcing a new multiplayer mode for its World War III MOFPS Arctic Combat.

Arriving April 18th, the new 4-player co-op mode is said to bring together hardcore and more casual FPS gamers with new maps, weapons, and an upgraded AI system. Plus, Webzen will host a series of giveaways in the near future. Be sure to check out the trailer right after the jump, and watch the game's Facebook page and the official website for more info soon.

[Source: Webzen press release]

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I remember once being excited about the idea that Defiance wouldn't just be a game and a TV series but a cross-platform MMO. Though the game is on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 and was originally intended to be fully cross-platform, Microsoft's unwillingness to play ball with Sony ensured that gamers on each platform are now playing on totally separate servers. You might think the game is just another victim of the console wars, but this is supposed to be an MMO -- nice big worlds, tons of players, and hey, a third party willing to try to bring everyone together!

MMOs and consoles just usually aren't considered a harmonious pairing. Maybe it's because MMOs are seen as PC games, and some PC gamers and console gamers have their own rivalries. Whether it's because of controllers, interfaces, or failed corporate negotiations, we're usually segregated, but I wish we weren't, and I know we don't have to be. The Final Fantasy online games allow for cross-platforming. They may not be perfect, but I personally like the idea of bigger worlds filled with players. That's the point of MMOs, after all.

So what about you, Massively readers? Do you think MMOs on consoles should keep us separated, as in DC Universe Online, or should console MMOs take a note from Final Fantasy XI and let us play with our controller-loving allies?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

The excitement, fun, chaos, and occasional frustration that swirls around every MMO launch is squarely on Defiance's shoulders this week, so Trion Worlds Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson is back with a follow-up to yesterday's post to discuss what the team is currently addressing.

Richardsson says that the team has to be agile and that its priorities change on a daily basis. Because of this, today's critical issues are different from yesterday's; the team is working on game server crashes, lag, patching woes, and client crashes. He promised that yesterday's issues were still being worked on, just that these were more important for the time being.

He did say that console account linking with the Arkhunter website should be resolved, and that the team's already put out a couple of patches in the last 24 hours with another one on the way to make the play experience more smooth.

If you thought that April would bring an overhaul of MechWarrior Online that turned the game into a robust farming simulator... well, no. Why would you even think that? But it will bring a whole lot of other updates to the game as outlined in a new letter from the game's creative director, starting with improved team functionality and UI improvements. That goes along nicely with the addition of air strike and artillery consumables, allowing players (especially scouts) to bring down a little extra firepower in a match.

The development team is also introducing a new class of special 'Mech, the Champions, which are custom configurations that sport a permanent 5% experience boost. That's in addition to improvements to the game's overall performance and more community events for MechWarrior Online players the world over. So that's a no on farming, but a yes on several improvements that should make your days of stomping around in an enormous walking tank more enjoyable.

Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson has mixed emotions in regards to Defiance's release. "This first day of launch of Defiance has been as awesome as we expected it to be," he wrote in a state of the game post. "And by awesome, I mean we're neck deep addressing all the issues that come up when you scale something up to a million people from a test environment of thousands."

Richardsson promised that the large Trion team is working hard to "update, patch, fix, and improve" Defiance post-launch. The most critical problems that he identifies are connectivity problems, missing pre-order items, the scaling of bosses and arkfalls, and broken chat and VOIP.

"We appreciate the trust that you are showing us by coming with us and we will address all these issues," he concludes.

Speaking of awesome, check out the main theme to Defiance, composed by Bear McCreary, after the jump!

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By now, pretty much everyone knows the story of how GamersFirst swept in to save the DOA All Points Bulletin by relaunching it as APB: Reloaded. Since then, the title's done immensely well for the company and has prompted Reloaded Games to look into turning APB into a bona fide franchise.

How this happened was explained to us by PR Manager Darek Connole at GDC. Connole said that the devs are constantly taking suggestions from the community and sorting them into different buckets. While some of the buckets represent doable ideas, one bucket is full of great ideas that are impossible to implement in the current game.

"We're taking the NPCs from APB: Reloaded and bringing them into their own game," Connole said. "It's going to be a traditional first-person shooter, but it's also going to have non-traditional elements."

Read on to discover how APB's world is going to get a lot more crazy with APB: Vendetta -- and how the team is even thinking about future games in the same world.

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On Tuesday, SOE shared a trailer highlighting its Forgelight engine. The proprietary engine not only runs PlanetSide 2 but will also be the foundation for all the studio's future games, including EverQuest Next. The same press release also introduced the upcoming PS2 app. Although it won't be available to the public for a a bit, I had a chance to sit with senior art director Tramell Issac to see the app in action as well as discuss the Forgelight engine and what's coming up for PS2.

The app provides easy access to a ton of gameplay info, from personal stats to weapon information to real-time in-game map updates, and consequently there could be a marked decrease in workplace productivity in store for PS2 fans!

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Want to know more about the warring factions in Warface, the new FPS by Trion and Crytek? Good because today we've got the game's new trailer all primed and ready for you. In Warface, you'll be joining the elite soldiers of Warface and tasked to fight off the forces of the grimly named Blackwood, representatives of the ruling government. The game boasts intense first-person gameplay, multiplayer modes, and regular content updates. You'll be able to level up your solider while customizing and upgrading as well, which will hopefully keep your enemies guessing.

How much will of all this blown-up goodness cost you? According to the developers, absolutely nothing (except for the microtransactions, of course). Click past the cut and check out the new trailer!

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