PvE

EVE Online's tenth anniversary Fanfest promised to be its biggest yet, with over 1,400 players packed into Iceland's Harpa convention centre to find out the latest on EVE Online, DUST 514, and World of Darkness. The first day focused mainly on DUST and its link with the EVE universe, but today the focus largely switched back to internet spaceships. There were plenty of roundtable discussions, and the CSM and Alliance panels were as awesome as ever, but it was the EVE Keynote that really blew the crowd away.

The day got off to a good start with the highly anticipated World of Darkness talk. Most fans were probably expecting to see more airy game design ideas and another shiny trailer, but this year CCP just came out and put all its cards on the table. We saw that the game is still firmly in pre-production, with much of the previous work going into developing the engine and cool content creation tools and shaders. While I was initially disappointed at the lack of gameplay progress or shiny cinematics, I found this approach of being open and direct with fans very refreshing. As I told WoD art director Thomas Holt, honest beats shiny every time.

Read on for a full run-down of the EVE reveals from the second day of EVE's tenth anniversary Fanfest, including in-depth details of the Odyssey expansion's features.

Continue Reading

Details of EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion have been floating around since PAX East, but it seems the company saved some pretty huge changes to reveal at this year's tenth anniversary Fanfest. In two massive devblogs accompanying today's EVE Online Keynote speech, CCP Fozzie discussed plans to overhaul EVE's entire resource distribution system. Everything from asteroid and ice mining to moon harvesting and nullsec industry will be affected by the revamp.

Miners will find their ice belts have been moved from static locations to hidden exploration sites that have to be scanned down, but to compensate it will now mine at double the normal rate. Normal asteroid mining in lowsec and nullsec is also due for a buff with the addition of large quantities of low-end minerals. Hidden asteroid belts will no longer need to be probed down but can be quickly located with the new Discovery scanner, and to top it off there'll even be new high quality ore sites that can only be found in prime areas of nullsec.

Outpost industrial infrastructure is due for an update with new purchaseable upgrade paths expanding factory, office and research lab capabilities to the same level as fully-fledged empire stations. Lastly, moon minerals are finally being addressed with a redistribution of rare materials and several new reaction paths to bypass current bottlenecks. A lot of value will be moved from Technetium back to rarer materials like Thulium, Neodymium, Promethium and Dysprosium, and new supplies of all four will be distributed randomly into moons across the universe. Re-scan all of your nearby moons when Odyssey lands because it could suddenly be worth a fortune!

Whether you're a die-hard fan of internet spaceships or just a gawker on the sidelines, EVE Fanfest is the EVE Online event of the year (and the key source of new DUST 514 and World of Darkness scoops!). Follow Massively's Brendan Drain as he reports back on this year's Fanfest starpower, scheming, and spoilers from exotic Reykjavik, Iceland.

Carbine has released a few info nuggets on Crimson Isle, one of the locales players will visit in its upcoming WildStar sci-fantasy MMO.

The Isle is far off the beaten path and boasts rocky terrain as well as deadly wildlife. In other words, it's shaping up to be an adventurer's paradise. The news blurb gives us a general overview of the location as well as intel on enemies (unidentified humans, designation Species CI36) and allies (the Crimson Isle Strike Team).

Read all about it at the WildStar website.

Pathfinder Online's website has updated with a two-pronged dev blog attack. The first salvo concerns Kickstarter updates and more importantly, when backers will start receiving some of their rewards. The game's pledge management system is coming next week, so be sure you have a Paizo.com account set up and ready to receive rewards like the PDF superpack.

The second portion of the update concerns escalation cycles and escalation mechanics which tie into Pathfinder's version of PvE content. "An escalation is a dynamic story event such as a Bonedancer goblin invasion, an outbreak of widespread banditry from the League of the Wood, or a raid of dark elf slavers," the blog explains.

Goblinworks says that its escalation mechanics are such that players will encounter a wide variety of content and story scenarios. "The combination of different types of strength-based advances, expansion preference, stage advances, and quests associated with stages provides us with a wide variety of tools for creating very different experiences from escalation to escalation," the company says. "Some escalations like the barbarian raid will effectively march across the map; some will reach a defensible limit and fort up; some will keep trying to expand indefinitely and attempt to overrun the entire map."

[Thanks to all who sent this one in!]

It is time to start talking about Guild Wars 2's April update for reals. I've got some serious knowledge to drop on you regarding the Flame and Frost: Retribution update, so let's get right to it.

Retribution will be the final installment of the Flame and Frost living story arc. To tie everything off, we're getting a new story dungeon that'll take us deep underground into the Molten Weapon Facilities. Structured PvP is getting some love in the form of custom PvP arenas and spectator mode. Guilds are getting more missions and new rewards. The gem store will be getting new stuff.

Let's dive in and look at some specifics, shall we?

Continue Reading

If you've been following the development of upcoming crowdfunded sci-fi sandbox Star Citizen with interest, Massively has a brand-new column you might enjoy. The Diablo III test realm hinted at upcoming boosts to life regeneration and the damage output of a few spells, but Blizzard also suggested that a nerf to the Wizard Archon Form might be on the way. Path of Exile started its second season of race events, with over 200 events to take part in and massive prizes to be won.

Third-person MOBA SMITE added the 34th god to its roster this week with acrobatic assassin Ne Zha entering the fray, and Guardians of Middle-Earth released new DLC character Kili the Dwarf. Rise of Immortals added support for game replays and introduced and interesting new White Knight feature that lets players take over from characters who have disconnected or quit in the middle of a game.

Heroes of Newerth announced a huge upcoming balance patch that may finally get rid of the paid-for early hero access and promises to rebalance much of the game's expansive roster of characters. Dota 2's streamlined abuse report update backfired when players discovered they could use the report feature itself to abuse other players. And Firefall may finally be edging toward release with the announcement of a date for the start of open beta.

Continue Reading

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!

Continue Reading

So yesterday I kinda rambled on at length about why I'm loving Darkfall Unholy Wars. I'm not really apologizing; after all, this is my launch week diary! Today, though, I figured I might tone it down a bit and just hit the highlights of my day three play experience. After that, I'll recap and give you some final thoughts on Darkfall as it stands in April 2013.

Continue Reading

I'm doing Darkfall Unholy Wars wrong.

See, I'm one of those sandbox carebears who could not care less about PvP. I'll attempt to defend myself if attacked, and I'll add another body to the zerg if I'm in a clan or whatever, but I don't seek out conflict with other players. I mention this because that attitude obviously informs everything I write about Darkfall, which, at its core, is a great big high fantasy murder simulator.

Yes, the game has crafting, harvesting, player housing, and better PvE than it's given credit for, but on some level all of this stuff exists to power the FFA PvP meatgrinder that in turn attempts to satiate the bloodlust of Aventurine's target demographic.

And would you believe that despite that, Darkfall is still one of this carebear's favorite MMORPGs?

Continue Reading

The Lost Titans, a free-to-play fantasy game inspired by real Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythologies launches into open beta tonight with the creation of a brand-new Olympus server. At 10 p.m. EDT, doors open to a revamped beginners' area as well as new mounts, pets, and events. Players can test their luck by spinning Fortuna's Wheel for a chance at prizes or delve deeper into the Core of Aristos to avenge their Titan ruler Hyperion.

Open beta also brings new PvP features, including a dueling system and a battleground where players can mount up and face both bosses and other players simultaneously. For a sneak peek of the action, check out the images in the gallery below and the trailer after the break.

[Source: ZQGAME press release]

Continue Reading

If you're in the market for a new sci-fi shooter this summer, mark July 9th on your calendar. That's the date that Red 5 has set aside for Firefall's open beta.

IGN reports that the game will also see "major milestones" in the months of May and July. These include a new UI, crafting and progression tweaks, city power levels, Chosen instances, and Melding exploration.

Firefall is an open-world MMO shooter with skill-based combat and a free-to-play business model.

Darkfall Unholy Wars' April 2013 launch was quite a bit like Darkfall's February 2009 launch. For me, at any rate. One crucial difference was that this time I was actually able to purchase Aventurine's fantasy sandbox title even though I wasn't able to log into it.

Four years ago, finding a digital copy of Darkfall was damn near impossible. Fast forward to the present and AV has improved its billing apparatus but certainly not its delivery mechanism. After nearly three hours, DFUW's patcher managed to pull down 90 MB out of 6487. I switched to the torrent download, and while it was faster, I still had to leave it overnight. So technically this is day two impressions even though it's day one for yours truly.

Continue Reading

Snail has updated Age of Wushu's website with its immediate designs for the western version of the recently launched wuxia sandbox. The firm has grand plans to bring content from the game's Chinese server to North America including the Mount Hua PvP competition, new rage skills, and the new Yanmen Pass instance.

Snail also implores gamers to "stop living in the close friend zone" by availing themselves of the game's wedding mechanics. The company has also published its official stance on gold sellers and gold spam, as well as its intention to ban both buyers and sellers.

[Thanks Mikey!]

Muse Games has issued a press release celebrating the successful Kickstarter campaign for Guns of Icarus Online's new adventure mode. The update will add "large-scale PvE combat, player and ship progression, and much more" to the co-op airship title. Muse is breaking down its ambitious plans into a series of funding pillars, the first of which is the AI director that will enable co-op and solo PvE missions to go along with the game's existing PvP.

Next up is a world map with towns, trade routes, player factions, and a "fully dynamic resource economy." After that, Muse will focus on a set of world-building tools.

Guns of Icarus Online is a steampunk-flavored airship combat game with a buy-to-play business model. You can learn more about the adventure mode goals at the project's Kickstarter page and more about the current live game via Massively's hands-on.

[Source: Muse press release]

Continue Reading