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EVE capital ship balancing coming this winter

Jef Reahard — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:30:00 EST

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

The lovefest between CCP and its disgruntled playerbase continues, this time in the form of a new blog entry heralding the impending balance of capital ships.

The proliferation of supercapital ships has been roundly criticized in various EVE Online discourses over the years, and CCP feels the time is right to begin addressing the stagnant fleet fights that often result when hundreds of hard-to-kill megaships are clogging the space lanes.

So what's the ~~nerf~~ solution? According to CCP Tallest, the devs plan to make supercapitals "a little bit weaker, but not gut them completely. We're doing a simple 20% reduction in shield, armor, and hull hitpoints on both supercarriers and titans." Tallest goes on to outline a few more details including planned changes for dreadnoughts, sub-capitals, and the oft-employed logoff exploit. "We are changing the logoff mechanics in such a way that as long as your enemies are actively engaged in fighting you, logging off is not going to save your ship."

EVE capital ship balancing coming this winter originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: Looking forward to the winter expansion

Brendan Drain — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, MMO industry, PvP, PvE, Opinion, EVE Evolved

Since EVE Online's release in 2003, CCP Games has been the center of one of the most interesting success stories in the games industry. Produced by a tiny indie development studio on a frozen volcanic rock, EVE was the perfect example of how to do things right. The game's publishing deal with Simon & Schuster allowed CCP to buy back the rights to the game several months after its initial release. With no publisher taking a cut of the profits, CCP ploughed subscriptions back into the game's development and grew the development team organically. As a one-game company, CCP worked closely with players to make EVE the best game possible for its loyal playerbase.

In a recent letter to the players, CCP CEO Hilmar laments that somewhere along the line, things changed for the worse. The CCP of today bears little resemblance to the "little indie studio that could" of 2003, not just housing over 600 employees in offices around the world but also developing upcoming MMOs DUST 514 and World of Darkness. Resources are spread thin, and EVE Online has suffered for it. Last month I looked back at the blockbuster Apocrypha expansion and asked why every expansion since then has cut down on the in-space development players want. Hilmar's letter and its accompanying devblog answered that question this week with a solid plan for iteration on flying in space features during the winter development period.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look forward to the winter expansion and explain why each of the issues being tackled in the coming expansion is a big deal to players.

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EVE Evolved: Looking forward to the winter expansion originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively's EVE CSM interview: Incarna and nullsec PvP

Brendan Drain — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, Opinion

In part one of our interview with EVE Online's player-elected Council of Stellar Management, we asked council member Deirdra Vaal about EVE Gate, the upcoming forum revamp, CCP's microtransaction policy and other topics discussed at the December CSM summit. In three meeting sessions, CCP and the CSM tackled some hard-hitting issues, the biggest of which were Incarna and nullsec PvP. Most of the details on Incarna are currently locked under NDA, but that didn't stop us from asking the CSM about it. Nullsec PvP has also been a hot topic recently with the revelation that levels of PvP have actually been declining since the Dominion expansion. Dominion was intended to open up nullsec for smaller entities, but we still see EVE's political landscape dominated by massive coalitions of alliances spanning several regions.

Massively: The CSM expressed significant concerns about the Incarna development plans it had access to. Does the CSM think that CCP is heading in the wrong direction with Incarna?

Deirdra Vaal: We feel that the approach taken to Incarna is the wrong one, and we emphasised this to CCP. However, CCPs general idea to set Incarna as an "off the grid" environment where we go for shady deals is something the CSM is reasonably happy with. It's just that so far we haven't really been shown any compelling gameplay. So we think they might be heading in the wrong direction, if they are lazy about it. They might also be heading in the right direction, but so far we haven't seen compelling gameplay that would support this assumption.

Skip past the cut for the rest of our interview with EVE's CSM on Incarna, nullsec PvP and the future of EVE.

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Massively's EVE CSM interview: Incarna and nullsec PvP originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Getting down to earth with Stonefield in Rift: Planes of Telara

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Previews, News items, RIFT

The team at Trion Worlds has been stepping up its game of late with Rift: Planes of Telara, showing off more and more of the gameplay and zones. The preview of the Fire Rift was appropriately dynamic, but with the most recent preview at Rift Nexus, the game shows off a more grounded region in Stonefield. An early zone for the Defiant faction, the area features battles against both titans and undead for low-level characters on their way through the leveling process.

The ancient Eth were responsible for bringing the titans to the land, using them as guards for the precious mines of the area... until the titans raised an army and engaged in a brutal war against their would-be masters. Now the titans are imprisoned within the earth, but their influence still spreads throughout the zone. It's quite possible they're behind the undead that are slowly spreading from Granite Falls, something players will have to investigate for themselves. The description alone doesn't do the zone justice, however, so click past the break for an embedded flythrough of the region. Rift: Planes of Telara doesn't yet have a solid release date, but it's shaping up nicely, especially if it continues to build upon such a solid foundation.

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Getting down to earth with Stonefield in Rift: Planes of Telara originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TERA gets a website overhaul and new lore updates

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lore, Previews, TERA

With a unique control scheme and a great deal of industry talent moving behind it -- not to mention impressive and surreal graphics -- TERA has begun capturing people's attention. And when people first got peeks at the lore behind the game, that interest only increased. While the updates have been slow in coming, the official site has recently undergone a major overhaul, and aside from making the site as a whole far less Flash-reliant one of the major updates has been the addition of new lore on the world and each of the individual races.

As we'd heard before, the world is the product of two sleeping titans that dreamed the entire world into existence. Each facet of the world came about as part of that dream, including the long-standing wars between dreamed-up gods and then the mortal races beneath them. But the mortal races have banded together in response to the Argons, a race from outside of the dream that has the potential to annihilate the very structure of the world. It's an interesting attempt at world-building, and between that and the addition of new music to listen to on the official site, TERA fans will get a much better sense with this update of how the world will feel.

TERA gets a website overhaul and new lore updates originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:00:00 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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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.

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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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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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EVE Online gets rework of 'Destiny' simulation engine

James Egan — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST

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

EVE Online is notable among the MMO titles on the market for having a game with a single shard setting. Whether you're an industrialist mass producing exhumers or fighting in fleet battles for a large 0.0 PvP alliance, you're active in the same setting rather than shards. Keeping as many as 50,000 concurrent users active in one vast galaxy has been a challenge for CCP Games, and of course there have been numerous growing pains along the way. Namely, something called "desync".

Desync has been a catch-all term to describe the various things that can go wrong during gameplay, but in short it's been something that has plagued a number of EVE's subscribers. In the words of EVE Software Engineer CCP GingerDude, desync is "the situation where the server and client disagree on the position of an object in space at a given time." Although it's been an issue for years, the problem has just recently been solved, according to CCP GingerDude's dev blog "Facing Destiny".

Continue reading EVE Online gets rework of 'Destiny' simulation engine

EVE Online gets rework of 'Destiny' simulation engine originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Has EVE's most powerful alliance fallen?

James Egan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, PvP, Endgame, Politics

Band of Brothers (renamed KenZoku) was once the most powerful alliance in EVE Online with a stated goal, even here at Massively, to control all of the game's New Eden galaxy. Now, KenZoku has reportedly left the contested, lawless frontier of 0.0 space after months of resisting the combined forces of rival alliances.

One of EVE's in-game journalists, Interstellar Correspondent ISD Clarity Brown, reports from the site of KenZoku's last holdout: "GoonSwarm and their allies deployed a camp on KenZoku's sole remaining outpost last night. A joint force of pilots from Pandemic Legion, GoonSwarm, Morsus Mihi, Razor Alliance and KIA deployed 27 titans around the station in a show of force and gave a demonstration of the sheer power embodied in such a gang."

Titans are the game's most expensive weapons of mass destruction, massive ships capable of unleashing 'Doomsday' area-of-effect attacks that melt fleets caught in the blast. To unleash 27 Doomsday blasts at once is... quite a sight, as the video footage demonstrates.

Continue reading Has EVE's most powerful alliance fallen?

Has EVE's most powerful alliance fallen? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Is lore important to you?

Lesley Smith — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Lore, The Daily Grind

Lore is the keystone of every good MMO, it crafts the raid instances and pushes the game to new heights in the form of expansions and patches. For many it is the lure of the lore -- and by extension the playable races -- which pulls them into the game. When I was a little younger than I am now, I studied classics and religious studies and theology at a uni in London for almost four years. I dig religion, I adore translations of ancient texts and I really, really like mythology. As a result fantasy games are especially fascinating for me to me. When everyone else sees Titans, I see a mishmash of the actual Titans and the Olympians given new life, where you see Anubisath I see the ancient Egyptian protector of the dead. Where you see Val'kyr, I see Odin's barmaidens.

So come on readers, how important is lore to you? Do you dig finding all the references in game? Does the lore make a game more rich and appealing? Does it make it feel more real? Do you not give a fig? Are you more interested in just killing things? Do you play titles like AoC or LotRO just because of the books they were inspired by?

The Daily Grind: Is lore important to you? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP Games releases findings on EVE starbase exploit investigation

James Egan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, Guilds, MMO industry, Crafting, News items

The EVE Online starbase exploit revealed in December has had a far-reaching impact on the game. Certain player-owned starbases in EVE were producing valuable, high-end materials that they shouldn't have been. Once a group of players picked up on this, they exploited the game on a massive scale, resulting in trillions of ISK (Interstellar Kredits, the game's virtual currency) that never should have existed being injected into the game. To date, this is the largest economic manipulation (via an exploit) ever revealed in EVE Online.

The starbase exploit was the first of several player-triggered drama bombs that hit the game in recent weeks, and resulted in a substantial amount of (in-game) market turmoil and player outcry over the issue. The game's subscribers wanted openness on the matter from EVE's developer, CCP Games, and they've certainly got that as of today. CCP Games posted the results of the exploit investigation, and the caveat "be careful what you wish for" may apply here, given the depth and complexity of the findings conveyed to the playerbase in today's dev blog, "War Makes Thieves and Peace Hangs Them."

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CCP Games releases findings on EVE starbase exploit investigation originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Trinity screenshots galore

Mike Schramm — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:02:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, EVE Online, Forums, Patches

The Trinity patch notes dropped yesterday, and apparently the new graphics also went live on the test server, so screenshots of all the new ships coming in the EVE Online expansion are flooding the forums.

We've seen a lot of these before, both in trailers and official screenshots, but there are so many here that if you want to find your ship-- someone even grabbed some Titans-- it's probably here. Still, my guess is that nothing will compare to what we'll see when we log in on December 5th. Screenshots are nice, but I can't wait to see all these great graphics flowing in motion through the outer reaches of space.

EVE Trinity screenshots galore originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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