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EVE's Incursion 1.5 patch goes live

Jef Reahard — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry, Patches, News items

Capsuleers attempting to log in to EVE Online today will be greeted with the familiar "new build available" popup. Yep, it's patch day, and CCP is updating Incursion to version 1.5 (although it's only a 16-megabyte download, so you won't be out of commission for long). Nonetheless, the update does bring some significant change to New Eden.

As we told you earlier this week, agents are getting an overhaul, as are associated connection skills. Another helpful bit in today's patch is the new visual differentiation between blueprint originals and blueprint copies. Onboard ship scanners have had their ranges extended to 64 AU, and of course, the changes to jump bridge-capable ships are now in effect as well.

There are a few more tweaks courtesy of Incursion 1.5, and you can read all about them via the official patch notes.

EVE's Incursion 1.5 patch goes live originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 19 May 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Incursion 1.5 patch bringing agent changes to EVE

Jef Reahard — Mon, 16 May 2011 10:00:00 EST

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

Significant changes are in the offing for NPC mission agents in EVE Online. A new CCP dev blog details the tweaks, which are currently on the Singularity test server and scheduled to go live on Tranquility with tomorrow's Incursion 1.5 patch.

Prior to the patch, each NPC corporation had up to 21 divisions (security, distribution, etc.), each with agents that gave out different types of missions. CCP Molock notes that "these divisions and values did little other than adding complexity to an already complex game," and the devs have condensed said divisions into a more manageable set of four: distribution, mining, security, and research. The tweaks necessitated the removal of the game's seven connections skills, which were then replaced with three new skills (distribution connections, mining connections, and security connections). Players who had previously trained connections skills will find their skill points refunded.

EVE's agent quality system was also a bit of a puzzler for both players and devs, and Molock says its "effects were not particularly meaningful." CCP is reassigning both a -20 and a +20 value to all the game's agents, which will effectively make it easier to access many of them as well as raise their payouts. Further details are available via the full dev blog at the official EVE website.

Incursion 1.5 patch bringing agent changes to EVE originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 16 May 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fans speak out passionately on Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom closing

Mike Schramm — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Events, in-game, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, Virtual worlds, Kids

We reported on the closing of Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom the other day, and at the time, it seemed like business as usual -- Disney had created the virtual world for an event, and the event was over, so it was time for the world to close. But the comments thread over on this Virtual Worlds news post about the closing has to be seen to be believed: fans of this place loved it completely and are painfully heartbroken over its closing. There are tons of eloquent, emotional comments lauding VMK for its sense of community, the friends made there, and the opportunity to connect on a virtual level with other people and Disney's attractions when, for various reasons, the same can't be done in real life.

What's most amazing here is that, from these comments, it seems VMK was one of the strongest virtual communities out there. This is why we play these MMO games -- to connect with others online, to experience things that can't be experienced any other way, and to create connections that otherwise wouldn't be there. It's an amazing story -- here's an MMO that worked perfectly in terms of building community and developing social connections between players, and yet Disney chooses to close it down.

There is a petition online, with 11,000 signatures as of this writing, to keep VMK open. Disney has responded to this emotion with a short statement only saying "we hear you," and the game itself is still set to close down as planned on May 21st.

[Via Waxy.org]

Fans speak out passionately on Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom closing originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Identifying with your class

Mike Schramm — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:15:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Classes, Culture, Opinion

Relmstein has an interesting post up about how players develop their identities with the classes they play, and while he marks it as players connecting with the various classes they choose, I actually see more of an effect on me, the player-- when I play with my Shaman in World of Warcraft, I'm more measured, careful, and helpful, and when I play my Rogue, I tend to do a lot more ganking, cheap tricks, and sneaky stuff. My Shaman would never run up to a flag in Arathi Basin without support, because that's his thing-- he supports others with totems and helps groups. But my Rogue loves sneaking off to a flag by himself, hopefully with a clothie there that he can sap or gank.

In exactly this way, classes can help the playerbase form communities and connections of their own-- you start to identify with and support those of the same class around you. Players specialize in one class, and grow more and more familiar with and attached to it. A straightforward skill system (like that in EVE Online) doesn't have that-- you still have races, but no one identifies with the traditional class roles. Miners may stick together, but when everyone can mine, that doesn't mean as much.

And new games can learn from this, too-- we've already seen some great class ideas come out of Warhammer, and there's no doubt that if those are implemented as well as they appear to be, we'll see players stepping up to identify with the roles in that game as well.

Identifying with your class originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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