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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.

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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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EVE Evolved: Player-owned structures

Brendan Drain — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, Game mechanics, Lore, MMO industry, PvP, News items, EVE Evolved, DUST 514, Sandbox

For much of EVE Online's life, warfare has revolved around player-owned structures of one sort or another. When conquerable stations were released at the end of 2003, they became flashpoints for PvP and goals for corporate territorial warfare. This continued even after the release of player-owned starbases in late 2004, as even the most territorial alliance didn't have the manpower to take down a well-defended large starbase. Industrialists held all the cards, and nullsec alliances made deals with them to open their moons for exploitation.

Eventually, player-built outposts arrived on the scene, and starbases were adopted to fill a military role in system defense. Whichever side in a fight could control the most starbases in a system would win the outpost, and fearsome dreadnoughts were introduced to make starbase sieges possible. Today, starbases take a back seat to wars over infrastructure hubs, territorial claim units and sovereignty blockade units. The war will eventually extend to planets, but until now planetary interaction has been an entirely industrial affair without the slightest hint of EVE's typical conflict. With the coming Crucible expansion, the starbase and customs office systems are due to be overhauled in a way that should lead to more conflict and lay the ground work for DUST 514.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at the history of starbases, the impact of the coming starbase revamp, and the possibility of additional conflict brought in by the new customs offices.

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EVE Evolved: Player-owned structures originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: A new nullsec for everyone

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

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, PvP, Endgame, PvE, Opinion, EVE Evolved

Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Greyscale published possibly the single most important devblog of the past two years. Titled Nullsec development: Design goals, the blog laid the ground rules for high-level discussion on EVE's upcoming nullsec revamp. For those who live in nullsec, territorial warfare and nullsec life represent the true endgame of EVE. It's in these massive lawless regions of space that players forge alliances, build their own empires, and lead massive fleets of ships into enemy territory to kick over some space sandcastles.

Over the past two weeks, I've been delving into the discussion surrounding the upcoming nullsec revamp and speculating on what changes we might see. I started with a look back at the early days of nullsec industry and went on to give some ideas aimed at reclaiming those glory days. I followed that up with last week's summary of EVE Online's empire-building history, the problems faced by today's territorial warfare mechanics, and further speculation on how the system could be radically changed for the better.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I conclude this series of articles on the upcoming nullsec revamp with an examination of the discussion surrounding PvE, the local channel, and the potentially revolutionary smallholding system that could give even casual and solo players a taste of nullsec.

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EVE Evolved: A new nullsec for everyone originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: Building a better empire

Brendan Drain — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, Game mechanics, PvP, Endgame, Opinion, EVE Evolved

It's often said that EVE Online is 99% endgame, with only the tutorials and epic mission arcs really providing directed gameplay. Once you get out into the open world, the game is dominated by sandbox laws and social interaction. This is most clear in the lawless nullsec regions where alliances war over territory and build their own empires in the void.

Last week I looked back at the early days of nullsec industry and examined the problems industry has developed over the years. With a massive nullsec revamp scheduled to begin this winter, I went on to speculate on how the game could be changed to bring back the glory days of nullsec industry. Although adequately incentivised local mining and production could transform player-created empires, those aren't the only areas of gameplay being revisited. Sovereignty mechanics, fleet warfare, small gang warfare, exploration and small-scale territorial control will all eventually be redesigned as part of the massive iterative overhaul.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the history of EVE's empire-building and territorial warfare mechanics, some of the problems faced by the sovereignty system, and how those aspects of EVE could possibly be changed for the better.

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EVE Evolved: Building a better empire originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: The Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase

Brendan Drain — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Professions, PvE, Opinion, Hands-on, EVE Evolved, Guides

The EVE Evolved column has been home to dozens of in-depth guides on various aspects of EVE Online. Over the past two years, I've written multi-part guides to many industrial and PvP-oriented topics. On the topic of research and development, we've covered tech 1 research, invention, reverse engineering and five top tips for researchers. Perhaps more useful was the three part series on trading, which first covered the basics before delving into advanced trading strategies and a few useful tips. Other guides which have proven popular among newer players included our three-part guide to mission-running, and the recent three-page guide to exploration.

Members of the EVE community regularly produce new guides and tools to help players make the most of their time in New Eden. This week, EVE player Laci surprised the EVE community with the release of an impressive new guide aimed at new players and industralists. The comprehensive 416-page Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase (or ISK for short) covers practically everything a new player could want to know about the game. Until now, the guide had been available only in Hungarian. After intensive translation and design work, the full guide has been released in English.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I take a look at this impressive guide and ask its creator Laci a few questions about it.

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EVE Evolved: The Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: Five useful starbase configurations

Brendan Drain — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, PvP, Tips and tricks, PvE, Player Housing, EVE Evolved

Player housing is one of those features we love to see in an MMO but every game that has it seems to implement it differently. Sometimes it's limited to instanced rooms the player can decorate and sometimes it's a little more functional like shared guild halls. In EVE Online, the closest thing to widely-available player housing would be anchorable starbases, which can be configured to serve a variety of functional roles. Originally, their primary purpose was to mine moon minerals and react them to produce advanced materials for Tech 2 production.

Starbases can be very useful as tactical staging points for PvP operations. With the right modules anchored around them, they can also be configured for use in other industries, from mining and manufacturing to research and deep space exploration. Until recently, they also played a critical role in EVE's alliance sovereignty warfare as the alliance with the most starbases in a system gained control of it. With that role now fulfilled by Outposts, Infrastructure Hubs and Territorial Claim Units, starbases have mostly returned to their former industrial and tactical uses.

In this article, I look at five different starbase configurations that can be very useful to organised corporations.

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EVE Evolved: Five useful starbase configurations originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP Games seeking Dominion expansion play testers, Oct 15th onwards

James Egan — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Events, in-game, Expansions, Game mechanics

The Dominion expansion for EVE Online will bring some major changes to capital ships and sovereignty when it goes live on December 1st. As that release date approaches, the developers at CCP Games are seeking feedback from the EVE playerbase on some of the changes being made to the game. They aim to do this through large scale fleet battles on the Singularity test server with a minimum of 100 pilots, although hundreds more would be preferable. The tests will first focus on open combat between large fleets and later switch focus to player-owned starbase (POS) sieges. There are three play tests (tentatively) scheduled, with more to be announced:

Thursday, October 15, @ 17:00 GMT

Friday, October 16, @ 18:00 GMT (this is specifically a Sovereignty test)

Thursday, October 29, @ 17:00 GMT

Read the full post from EVE Quality Assurance dev CCP Tanis for more info on the tests and how players can connect to the Singularity test server. Players are encouraged to bring out their capital ships and unleash plenty of drones during these mass-tests of Dominion.

CCP Games seeking Dominion expansion play testers, Oct 15th onwards originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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