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EVE Evolved: Everything there is to know about Crucible

Brendan Drain — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Trailers, Video, EVE Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, MMO industry, PvP, News items, Opinion, EVE Evolved, Dev Diaries, Sandbox

This summer's lackluster Incarna expansion and the ensuing microtransaction drama took a massive toll on EVE Online's player community and development staff. Players were quitting in droves, and CCP eventually had to lay off 20% of its staff worldwide. Two years of half-implemented expansions, broken features, and "first steps" that were never iterated on left players begging for a content-heavy expansion like Apocrypha or those released in EVE's early years. EVE is known for being practically a new game every six months, but since the blockbuster Apocrypha expansion, daily life in New Eden hasn't changed much at all.

To pull things back from the brink, CCP refocused development on EVE Online and gave developers a free pass to work on hundreds of small features and improvements. The company began flooding us with details on new ships, graphical updates, new gameplay mechanics, and desperately needed balance tweaks, and we loved every bit of it. Although it's mostly small features and gameplay tweaks, the Crucible expansion feels like a genuine rebirth for EVE Online. The types of changes made show that CCP knows exactly what players want from EVE and that the company is now willing to deliver it. With CCP's renewed focus on internet spaceships, the Crucible expansion feels like the start of a new era in the sandbox.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I pull together everything there is to know about the Crucible expansion that went live this week, from its turbulent origins to the awesome features and PvP updates it contains.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: Everything there is to know about Crucible

EVE Evolved: Everything there is to know about Crucible originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazing EVE Online video tells epic tale of wormhole conflict

Brendan Drain — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, EVE Online, Culture, Game mechanics, Guilds, Lore, PvP, News items, Sandbox

PvP in EVE Online is more often likened to a game of strategy than of action. If that's true, then Rooks and Kings' impressive track record for tactical genius makes the alliance undeniably a grandmaster of intergalactic chess. The group's instructional video Clarion Call: Triage Special in early 2009 was released to wide acclaim, and the tactics demonstrated in the video became core strategies replicated by military corporations throughout the game. The follow-up video Clarion Call: Pantheon evolved those strategies to counter opponents prepared to come up against triage carriers.

Massively is proud to exclusively reveal Rooks and Kings' third and undeniably most impressive video to date. Clarion Call 3 moves the stage of Rooks and Kings' normal hunting grounds in nullsec and lowsec to the undiscovered lands of wormhole space. But star Alazais says "one does not simply walk into a wormhole," noting that the tight restrictions on the mass of ships that can enter a wormhole presents new challenges. The group fought outnumbered and outgunned against an enemy possessing an ability that later became known as "the infinity gun."

Skip past the cut to learn more about the infinity gun exploit and to watch the full film. Don't forget to set it to 1080p for the full HD experience.

Continue reading Amazing EVE Online video tells epic tale of wormhole conflict

Amazing EVE Online video tells epic tale of wormhole conflict originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Latest EVE dev video talks ship balance and features coming this winter

Brendan Drain — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, EVE Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Patches, News items, Dev Diaries, Sandbox

Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Games restructured its company and announced a new laser focus on in-space features for EVE Online. Since then we've seen an absolute deluge of news updates and devblogs on features due for release in the winter expansion. In the first two of CCP's new In Development video series, CCP Guard explored the art department and showed off the new nebula effects, EVE's sharpened shadows and the new tier 3 battlecruisers.

In the latest In Development video, Guard talks to the EVE feature teams about the absolutely massive list of balance changes and features coming with the winter expansion. CCP Soundwave admits that developers have "probably done more rebalancing in the past month than we have in the past two years," before rattling off an impressive list of changes and new features.

Skip past the cut for a brief summary of the changes and to watch the video in HD.

Continue reading Latest EVE dev video talks ship balance and features coming this winter

Latest EVE dev video talks ship balance and features coming this winter originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 05 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An overview of the EVE Online capital ship changes arriving today

James Egan — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics

The cries of "Free CCP Abathur" have been heard. He's one of the growing number of EVE Online developers recruited from among the ranks of the playerbase, and in Abathur's case -- he's someone very well-versed in the dynamics of nullsec warfare. His dev blog "The All Caps Ship Blog" deals with changes CCP Games is making to EVE that have long been a hot button with the playerbase.

It's not surprising that capital ship balancing is a controversial topic among players of the sci-fi MMO. Capital ship pilots in New Eden have invested significant amounts of training time and in-game wealth into piloting these massive ships, be it carriers and supercarriers, dreadnaughts, or titans. Some of CCP Abathur's ideas on balancing capital ships seemed to be fairly well-received by the playerbase, but later proposed changes from more senior devs at CCP appeared to be taking the game mechanics in a different direction. (Hence the "Free CCP Abathur" meme.) Ultimately, some of the major capital ship changes didn't deploy with the Dominion expansion launch, but are arriving in EVE today.

Continue reading An overview of the EVE Online capital ship changes arriving today

An overview of the EVE Online capital ship changes arriving today originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE's Dominion 1.1 patch to bring supercarrier changes, fighter bombers

James Egan — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, Patches

A substantial number of changes will be made to EVE Online tomorrow with the Dominion 1.1 patch. The supercarrier changes and introduction of fighter bombs coming in 1.1 were originally slated for the Dominion expansion's launch last month but had to be postponed. Beyond the changes impacting EVE's capital ship pilots, nullsec warfare will be affected by how CCP is altering the stats of Sovereignty structures. (Territorial Control Units will receive increased hitpoints with reduced onlining time, likewise Sovereignty Blockade Units are getting a defensive buff.)

New features are being introduced as well, like voice fonts for the Vivox-powered EVE Voice. According to the latest patch notes: "This new feature will allow you to alter your voice during chat to increase or lower pitch or to change from male to female voices. This is certainly not going to be abused in any way."

Stick with us past the jump for some highlights of how EVE Online will change tomorrow.

Continue reading EVE's Dominion 1.1 patch to bring supercarrier changes, fighter bombers

EVE's Dominion 1.1 patch to bring supercarrier changes, fighter bombers originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP Games alters plans for EVE's capital ships in Dominion expansion

James Egan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, PvP

The EVE Online developers have announced that some of their proposed changes to capital ships will not deploy with the Dominion expansion as originally planned. This may come as good news to some of EVE's supercarrier (formerly "mothership") pilots who've expressed no small amount of dissatisfaction at how their ships were slated to be changed. With the supercarrier changes not going through, this also means that the fighter bombers -- anti-capital ship drones intended to bathe EVE's largest ships in waves of torpedo explosions -- will not arrive on December 1 with Dominion.

Changes to other capital ship weapons systems like XL Turrets, however, are another matter entirely. They're discussed at length in a dev blog from CCP Nozh titled "Capital Ships in Dominion" as are the new Citadel Cruise Missile Launchers intended to be a long range weapon system.

Continue reading CCP Games alters plans for EVE's capital ships in Dominion expansion

CCP Games alters plans for EVE's capital ships in Dominion expansion originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AGDC09: EVE's Nathan Richardsson on the Dominion expansion and beyond

James Egan — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Events, real-world, Expansions, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, Consoles, Massively Interviews, Massively Event Coverage, DUST 514

Massively was on the ground at the Game Developers Conference 2009 in Austin this week, and had a chance to sit down with Nathan "Oveur" Richardsson, Executive Producer of EVE Online. We discussed EVE's winter expansion, Dominion, and the new dimensions to the sci-fi MMO's setting that CCP Games hopes to introduce. We also learned a bit more about the company's plans to expand EVE into other platforms, namely through the COSMOS social network which will tie in with the game from Dominion onward.

Continue reading AGDC09: EVE's Nathan Richardsson on the Dominion expansion and beyond

AGDC09: EVE's Nathan Richardsson on the Dominion expansion and beyond originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Major rebalance of capital ships coming to EVE Online in Dominion expansion

James Egan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, PvP

There are few things in EVE Online which provoke more outrage among the playerbase than capital ship nerfs. These multi-billion ISK behemoths aren't just an investment in terms of currency -- being able to pilot a capital ship effectively is a time investment as well, given EVE's real time skill training system. The writing's been on the wall for a long time though. Considering the sheer numbers of capital ships being fielded in the game, some changes might just be a good thing for EVE Online.

EVE developer CCP Abathur's dev blog "Dominion - The Capital Battlefield" frames the current state of capital ship warfare with a look at how dreadnaughts and carriers entered the game, and how over time their significance was eclipsed by supercarriers like motherships and titans. The big announcements are the changes being made to the various classes of capital ships in EVE, and Abathur walks us through the boosts and nerfs that will soon affect the game's numerous capital ship pilots in the Dominion expansion.

Continue reading Major rebalance of capital ships coming to EVE Online in Dominion expansion

Major rebalance of capital ships coming to EVE Online in Dominion expansion originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One Shots: Old-school capitals

Krystalle Voecks — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, EVE Online, One Shots

When it comes to EVE Online, people have been protecting their space for a very long time. Of course, you can also tell who the older-school players are. Not only do they have old-school shots like this, but they also generally fly some really enormous ships. Today's EVE Online One Shots from Poister shows off his old-school cred all over the place. He writes in: Here is a screenshot of Capitals in DY-f70 Destroying Enemy Player Owned Stations to insure the safety of friendly Sovereignty. Everything in the picture is a capital ship.

If you've got screenshots, we need them! One Shots is best when it has community input, so we're reaching out to you. We're looking for any and all screenshots that you think are cool. Have something to show off that you're proud of? Want to tell everyone how cool your group of MMO friends are? Or maybe you just found some area, npc, or the like that you think is pretty awesome and should be shown off. Whatever your reasons, we want to hear from you. Grab a screenshot (or a bunch) and send them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, game and any other information you'd like to add. We'll post your screen and share your tale with all the Massively readers worldwide!
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One Shots: Old-school capitals originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 05 May 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First titan class ship in EVE to be destroyed by non-capital fleet

James Egan — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Events, in-game, Forums, Game mechanics, Guilds, PvP, News items, Politics

Yesterday marked a first in EVE Online -- the first time a titan supercapital ship was destroyed by an opposing non-capital ship fleet. For those less familiar with EVE, titans have been a sensitive issue for many players in the game, as they're New Eden's closest equivalent to the Death Star in Star Wars. That is to say, they can unleash a doomsday area-of-effect weapon blast that typically annihilates whatever it washes over. Only in EVE, there isn't just the one titan. There is a growing multitude of them. Given the titan proliferation in EVE, when a titan dies, players on the other side of the conflict rejoice.

A titan is the ultimate weapon in alliance warfare. Typically only an array of opposing capital ships -- the biggest and baddest -- have the firepower to bring a titan down. But on Friday, November 21st, a concerted effort from the following alliances destroyed a titan with a sub-capital ship fleet: Triumvirate, G00DFELLAS, Atlas Alliance, Axiom Empire, ParadoXon Alliance, Bionic Dawn, HUN Reloaded, Skunk-Works, Eradication Alliance and Band of Brothers. (If you think that's quite a number of involved parties, you should see how many pilots made it onto the killboard.)

ISD Clarity Brown, one of EVE's in-game reporters, states, "This kill was -- as far as we know at present -- unique, in that the killing force contained not one capital ship." The downed Erebus-class titan was flown by Shizah, from Cutting Edge Incorporated, which is part of RAZOR Alliance.

Continue reading First titan class ship in EVE to be destroyed by non-capital fleet

First titan class ship in EVE to be destroyed by non-capital fleet originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online's rumored 'Orca' ship unveiled

James Egan — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Forums, Game mechanics, Crafting, Professions, News items, PvE

Behold, the Orca!

CCP Games developer CCP Chronotis unveiled the much-rumored Orca ship in EVE Online today, something industry-types have been looking forward to for a very long time. Chronotis said, "The development of the Orca has been unusual to say the least. With the introduction of the Rorqual last year Oveur immediately pointed out the remaining glaring gap in the industrial ship line and commanded us to fill it." The end result is a 'sub-capital logistical ship with a mining command focus'.

Read on below for a brief FAQ drawn from CCP Chronotis' dev blog as well as his commentary on the forums, which clarifies more about EVE's newest ship, the Orca.

Continue reading EVE Online's rumored 'Orca' ship unveiled

EVE Online's rumored 'Orca' ship unveiled originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP Games announces Quantum Rise expansion for EVE Online

James Egan — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:45:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, Expansions, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Crafting, News items, PvE

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.

CCP Games announces Quantum Rise expansion for EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Titan proliferation in EVE Online

James Egan — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Forums, Game mechanics, PvP, Opinion

EVE Online has an ever-growing arsenal of ships and weapons available to players. The numerous choices this offers pilots is one of the game's strengths, but is also linked to a growing problem in the game: the arms race. Capital ships, the largest and most powerful ships in the game, have become commonplace. Small (even one-man) corporations in EVE are now easily able to obtain them. Taking this a step further, supercapital ships (motherships and titans) were once a rarity in the game, something that required a year of effort to produce at an astronomical cost, for someone who spent a corresponding amount of time acquiring the skills to fly effectively. Now titans, perhaps EVE's nearest equivalent to the Death Star (only with logistics capabilities as well), are ubiquitous in the large 0.0 alliances, and some are even privately owned. So what happens if the game continues at this pace?

Havohej (<---) from EVE Mag, also from The Defias Blog, points out just how numerous titans have become in EVE, and notes that even non-territorial alliances like Star Fraction are employing titans. In the case of Star Fraction, to what end is unknown, and it should be interesting to see how they put their Erebus to use. Read Havohej's "One Titan Too Many?" for a breakdown of alliance titan ownership, and let him know if you feel titans are a problem in the game, and to what extent.

Titan proliferation in EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively interviews JGE producer Hermann Peterscheck - Part two

Chris Chester — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EST

We read recently that you were against the idea of separate servers for players who want to PvP and players who want to PvE. How do you plan to allow the two groups co-exist and still fulfill both groups' desired play-style?

I'm actually not opposed to that at all. I think it depends on what kind of game you have. The issue of PvP versus PvE is a hotly contested issue in the core gamer circles and the game development industry. Outside of that, it's not nearly as hot a topic. It's like every other almost religious debate, like capital punishment or abortion or whatever. You're never going to convince people that are believers in one versus the other that the other is correct. If I hate PvP, you're never going to convince me that it's a good thing. You have to build the game in such a way that you acknowledge that both of those positions are valid and that you give both sides something to do.

That being said, the way you implement it into your game is largely dependent on the kind of game you want to make. So if you look at a game like World of Warcraft, which is a largely kill-collect, progress-based game, you see the Battlegrounds and Arenas and stuff like that. They've acknowledged that both are important.

The way I see it working in a game like Jumpgate is that the large PvP space battles are largely going to be done by the people who represent a large minority of players. Maybe something like twenty percent. They're going to log in every day and want to engage in massive battles. Those people are being fed by the player-run economy, which is being contributed to by another minority of players. And the rest of the people are in the middle, and are probably going to mostly hang out in the safe areas. Every once in a while though, they'll venture out and see what PvP is all about.

You basically just divide the space. This area of space is safe, this area of space is not safe. But you have to make sure that there is opportunity for fun on both sides. If you make a sort of situation where the first 30 levels are PvE and the second 30 levels are PvP, you're going to make everybody hate you. The PvE players are going to quit at level 30, and the PvP players are going to wonder why they have to grind through all this crap to get to the fun part.

"I'd love to have something like the hardcore servers in Diablo where you lose everything if you get killed."

So by bifurcating the experience, we tell players, 'Go PvP, and you'll get X rewards. Go PvE and your rewards are Y.' There's no bias towards one or the other and you can easily flip between the two. That's kind of how I imagine Jumpgate being. That said, I'd love to have something like the hardcore servers in Diablo where you lose everything if you get killed. So I love the idea of having a server where everything is open PvP, and you can kill anybody at any time, and that's it. We'll see how that pans out, but that's how I imagine the Jumpgate universe working in regard to that.

How does that translate to an end-game. Obviously, PvP players can just continue with their huge battles, what would be the PvE equivalent of that?

That's already reasonably well-established. PvP would be something similar to Battlegrounds, where you have instanced PvP and also open, epic PvP between organizations. And then on the PvE side you have things like really, really tough creatures that you have to band together with a bunch of people and there's limited access to. Those are the things that give you the best rewards in the game.

Personally, I like both. I like engaging in big battles against other players and I also like cooperative battles operating with others people against some giant boss that nobody's every taken out before. So we try and do both of those things.

We've read on your forums that you're knocking around the idea of including capital ships, how big are these battles going to get?

We've been knocking the idea of capital ships around for a while. It's sort of the consequence of the way that we approach iterative development. If you think about space fiction, one of the things that always comes to mind is blowing up the Death Star, basically, or the equivalent in other fiction. It's the huge base that a bunch of people take out. So we've had this idea for a space station. And there's all these reasons why we thought we wouldn't be able to do it. We didn't have time, maybe it's something that we can do after release, but it kept coming up. So we decided that we have to look at this. So we actually made a battlestation. And it turns out that fighting a huge battlestation with a bunch of people is really really fun.

The natural progression of that is to have some sort of large ship that flies around . My expectation at this point is that they won't be player-flyable. One of the problems we had is that since Jumpgate is a skill-based game and if you have this giant battleship that you're flying and you have turrets on it -- now you have to balance it against you and your ship with aiming. It's tricky. We've thought about things like having other players man the turrets and then one person is the pilot, which games like Battlefield have done, so there's a possibility for that. But for now, when we're talking about battleships, on the PvP side they would be largely AI controlled and player-friendly and on the other side, they'd be either giant things you attack or things that fly with you when you attack. You as a pilot would still be controlling your personal ship.

That being said, it's really cool to fly around and get that sort of Battlestar Galactica thing going. You see the huge ship that's sort of hulking along, around it are the little Corvettes that are a little bit faster, and then around that are the sort of quick-moving individual craft. We want to create that sort of experience.

How do you take something like mining for minerals or hauling cargo and make that as fun as a giant space battle?

I don't know, I think it just sort of works out. I spend many hours in EVE just mining. In fact, right now I'm trying to get my isk bars because I want to do that. So I'm happy to spend lots and lots of time just mining, learning how that system works, and just making money in doing that kind of stuff. They have this other kind of stuff there that drives the economy . So it's a different kind of economy. The way we've implemented mining, for example, is to make it a sort of Easter Egg hunt. You're flying around amongst the asteroids, looking for that rare thing. And then you go and find it and it's like a slot machine, and you mine at it and it might drop something rare. Then you can go sell it and make a certain amount of money, and there's an anticipation and reward for that in the same way that there's a reward for taking out a new tough enemy that you've never taken out. I think it's all about giving people a path to achieve something. And you can do that with any number of different verticals -- you can do the same thing with crafting, which we call manufacturing. It's all about putting in time and effort to make progress, and getting rewarded for that is fun.

To me the whole point is that different people like to do different stuff, and those same people like to do many different things instead of just one. I think many successful MMOs have alternative activities that you can do so you don't get bored. As fun as it might be to just blow something up, after you do it two hundred times, you might want to do something else too.

Going back to the PvP, we've heard Jumpgate described as a skill-based game. How much is skill going to weigh in relative to the amount of time invested in player versus player engagements?

We're somewhere between World of Warcraft and Quake. In WoW, equipment arguably matters more than skill (although this tends to change as you get further and further into the arenas), but if you look at a game like Quake, equipment is irrelevant because everybody has access to all the weapons. So we're somewhere in between there. A rank 1 guy coming in with beginning equipment whose the best pilot in the game is unlikely to take out the guy in the most powerful battleship and the best equipment. Our game, however, gives a much larger range where you can participate in PvP. So whereas in WoW if I'm level 65 and you're level 68 and have much better equipment, it's unlikely I'll be able to beat you. But in our game, that's not the case. If you're a much better pilot, you'll probably take me out, even if I'm in better equipment. It's that sort of subtly that I have to balance. So we have to be careful balancing that.

Of course, it's very unlikely that somebody whose played the game for hundreds of hours and has accumulates a bunch of equipment is not to be a better pilot within the rules of the game than somebody who just logs in one day. So it's likely that the people who spend the most time will be the most skilled AND have the best equipment.

Positioning yourselves as a skill-based game, do you plan to use client-side hit detection or server-side?

We're similar to first-person shooters, where we have to trust the client to some degree, but we have a check on the server to make sure that people aren't cheating. In a game that's more turn-based, you can do something where you say you want to hit, and the server says, "OK, now you're swinging" and plays the animation. We can't do that. We have to verify and authenticate and trust more than a lot of MMOs do. But it's really no different than games like Quake and Counterstrike, and those kind of games have. You just have to solve for the cheating using the game style that you have.

Anybody that's developed an MMO before knows that a certain percentage of your resources goes to the eternal battle against people trying to cheat. Every game has it, and it runs the gambit. It's hacking the client, it's trying to break into the servers, it's contacting customers and trying to steal their accounts, it's hacking memory, it's exploiting weaknesses in the system. I can't think of any MMO that doesn't have a constant war between their tech people and groups of people that are trying to exploit the game. The funny thing is that most of the people trying to exploit the game aren't doing it for any other reason than it's a challenge for them to do so.

Without giving away too much, we have to be clever in a way that corresponds to the style of game we have, expecting of course that it'll be an on-going scenario.

Maybe it's too early for you to talk about, but have you decided on a subscription model for Jumpgate? Will it show up on the shelves at Gamestop, or will you use digital delivery or what?

It is too early to say, yes.

That doesn't pose much hope for this question, but we'll ask anyway. How close are we to the closed beta?

Let me put it this way, I want to release a game as soon as I possibly can, which means I want a beta as soon as I possibly can. However, I won't do it until it's necessary. The way I see it, you should go into beta when internally you can't make decisions about where your game is without it. Not just to prove some point. A lot of MMOs go into beta way too early, because they have some schedule that says, 'OK, beta here.' I think what happens when you do that is that, you have these players who are really excited about your game, and we have lots of these kinds of people. And then you release them a pile of crap doesn't work and then they say, 'Hey, why did you give us a pile of crap that barely works?' and they tear you apart. Then you close the beta, go back into development, and work on something else, and maybe it's better, but you've already burned all those people.

So yeah, people ask that question all the time, and I think a lot of the time they think I'm being coy or something, but I really don't know. It's not tomorrow! And there's some period of time where I know it's not, but I don't know, because game development is a tricky thing. You don't really know when a game is going to be fun, you don't know what thing is going to make it work, and you also don't really know what major probably could be lurking just around the corner. So to know more than a few weeks or months in advance for something like a beta is just guess-work. You can beta when you're ready or beta before you're ready, but that doesn't change when it's ready.

I guess the simplest answer is: as soon as we can.

Thanks Hermann, we appreciate it.

No problem.

Massively interviews JGE producer Hermann Peterscheck - Part two originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively interviews JGE producer Hermann Peterscheck

Chris Chester — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Sci-fi, Jumpgate Evolution, Business models, Game mechanics, Interviews, New titles, PvP, Endgame, PvE, Massively Interviews

Ever since ION 2008, the fine folks at NetDevil have been slightly more forthcoming with details from their sci fi opus-in-development, Jumpgate Evolution. First there was the interview that writer Keith Baker did about the game's three factions, filling us in one some of the background lore that's being plugged into the game. More recently, they did an interview on the more technical aspects of the game's development. Not wanting to miss out on the action, we caught up with Jumpgate Evolution producer Hermann Peterscheck, who, as you might recall, is awesome.

Check below the cut for some insights into NetDevil's perception of the recent mergers in the MMO industry, their approach to integrating PvP and PvE into the same game, and some information about Jumpgate's capital ships.

Continue reading Massively interviews JGE producer Hermann Peterscheck

Massively interviews JGE producer Hermann Peterscheck originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rogue Signal: The unwritten rules of EVE PvP, part 1

Phillip Manning — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Guides, PvP, Rogue Signal

EVE Online is a PvP driven game. It is not merely PvP oriented, nor does it only contain strong PvP overtones. The game, its politics, and its economy, are all controlled by the ever-present PvP that takes place. No matter your path in EVE, you are participating in PvP, be it through market competition with another trader, competition for ore rights with another miner, or the time-honored tradition of turning your opponent into space dust. Staying out of the PvP environment requires a conscious effort. Even the most casual PvE enthusiast is contributing to PvP by selling loot or minerals, and may well become the target of some non-consensual combat.

Suffice to say, even though this guide will have some things that will apply only to those looking for a fight, there is something for everyone, since you will get killed, someday. Ignoring these bits of advice is a surefire way to make that inevitable ship loss that much more painful. Also, bear in mind that each and every one of the things I am going to cover here is something that I myself have done in the past. This is not just a guide for noobs, but also a cheat sheet for those of us who get so busy preparing the bigger picture battle, that we forget things that end up making us look like total noobs in the end.

Continue reading Rogue Signal: The unwritten rules of EVE PvP, part 1

Rogue Signal: The unwritten rules of EVE PvP, part 1 originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP proposes rebalancing capital ships/carriers - reactions mixed

Tateru Nino — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics

Zulupark, one of the newer game-designers at CCP, has broached a new notion for balancing capital ships in EVE Online. It's a balancing change, so you can immediately expect a few happy people, a few sad ones, a few threatening to cancel their accounts, and some who already have without waiting to see how it will all pan out, if the changes go ahead anyway - the proposed changes did go live on the test server yesterday.

The basic notion is that capital ships that are equipped with drones and/or fighters have their control of those limited to align them more with a support role than the turn-your-ship-into-a-charred- hole-in-the-void-in-two-seconds role.

Gallery: EVE Online Core Gallery

Continue reading CCP proposes rebalancing capital ships/carriers - reactions mixed

CCP proposes rebalancing capital ships/carriers - reactions mixed originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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