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EVE Evolved: New tools for the community

Brendan Drain — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, EVE Evolved, Sandbox

Earlier this week, CCP Games released a much-needed complete overhaul of the official EVE Online website. Having been in operation for nine long years, the old website had become a mismatch of marketing information aimed at new players and tools for the existing player community. The overhaul split the page into two awesome websites, with a new community site to cater to existing players and an impressive new main page to attract future players.

The main page uses HTML 5 to deliver incredible interactive views of the EVE Online galaxy and dozens of in-game ships right there on the website. The community website houses all of the news, devblogs, knowledgebase articles, fictional chronicles, and support tools that existing players use, but with a much neater layout than the old website. In web developer CCP Alice's recent In Development video, she revealed that the team would be working on new community tools following the launch of the new websites. With the community site completely de-cluttered, there's now room to incorporate a lot of the tools players want or currently use, opening up some interesting possibilities.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I discuss the new EVE Online website and community portal and speculate on awesome new community tools we might possibly see in the future.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: New tools for the community

EVE Evolved: New tools for the community originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online player creativity -- Ship fitting edition

Brendan Drain — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture

Two months ago, CCP started a new series of monthly EVE Online devblogs showcasing the game community's creative efforts. The EVE community is known for its artwork and incredible fan-made videos, but through CCP Fallout's monthly blog series, we've come to see some of the community's other creative endeavours. In previous editions, Fallout looked at in-game news and politics website EVE News 24, question and answer site Skill Training Complete, an impressive minecraft video of a scale Gallente shuttle, and a collection of EVE podcasts.

In the latest issue, CCP looks at some of the latest developments that have drawn attention during December. There's an impressive video showing off the new EVE character creator that will be going live with Incursion 1.1 later this month. The video shows off both male and female avatars. Also covered is the Python Fitting Assistant, a cross-platform offline ship fitting tool similar to the very popular EVE Fitting Tool. The highlight of this month's blog has to be LOLFITS, a website where players can post some of the monumentally bad ship setups they've seen players use. If you think your ship setups are poor, I guarantee they're spectacular compared to some of the hilarious setups on LOLFITS.

EVE Online player creativity -- Ship fitting edition originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Storyboard: Demands

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Game mechanics, Opinion, Roleplaying, Humor, Storyboard

Hello, fellow roleplayers! I'm here to yell at all of you, myself included, as well as pretty much every single company producing MMOs at the moment. If possible, I'd also like the opportunity to yell at Gary Gygax for perpetuating certain modes of play far past the point that they were healthy for roleplaying games as a genre, but these days that just seems disrespectful. (Yelling at him about Lejendary Adventure should still be fair game.)

What am I so whiny about? The fact that we're now more than a decade into the existence of MMOs as a genre, and yet the most successful games out there don't give the tiniest crap about roleplayers. And yes, you might say, that's their fault for being bad hosts -- but it's also our own fault. Because while the idea of trying to roleplay has been marginalized, we've been sitting by and nodding our heads and agreeing that yes, we're not doing anything important. So it's time for a rant.

Continue reading Storyboard: Demands

Storyboard: Demands originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Waging WAR: Community guide to Warhammer Online

Greg Waller — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, Guides, Waging WAR

So here it is: the first installment of Waging WAR, a weekly column about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Every Saturday, the column will deliver the latest in information, press news, stories, debates, and more about WAR. What happened in Praag this week? Are they serious about such-and-such going live with the next patch? Are Shadow Warriors fixed yet?

As it is with all new Massively game-specific columns, Waging WAR is launching with a community guide for fans of the game -- old-schoolers, re-enlistees, and new-comers alike -- to use as a collective resource of links and information about WAR. Join us after the break to check it out!

Continue reading Waging WAR: Community guide to Warhammer Online

Waging WAR: Community guide to Warhammer Online originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 22 May 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: A community guide to EVE Online

Brendan Drain — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:00:00 EST

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

Some time ago, Massively started up a whole slew of new weekly columns, each covering a specific MMO. Each week, they bring guides, editorials, interviews and community news in a similar way to what I've been doing with EVE Evolved over the past two years. Each of the new columns started with a definitive community guide showcasing handy links to useful websites, blogs and tools. This week it's my turn to give EVE Online the community guide treatment. This article will be updated periodically with new links as they make themselves known. If you have a useful EVE link you think would belong in the community guide, leave a comment with it.

Skip past the cut for a breakdown of some of EVE's most important community links.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: A community guide to EVE Online

EVE Evolved: A community guide to EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 02 May 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Behind the Mask: A community guide to Champions Online

Patrick Mackey — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Super-hero, Guides, Opinion, Champions Online, Behind the Mask

Behind the Mask is the new Massively column devoted to everything you might want to know about Champions Online. Fortunately for Massively readers, the guys at UNITY have given me the go-ahead to declassify my stories as a super-powered operative. As a result, we'll be giving you the down and dirty facts that you'll need to make it in the superhero world, as well as bits of news you won't hear anywhere else. Behind the Mask will cover issues related to life in Millennium City as well as detailed info about criminal hotspots around the globe.

Our first column will be a community resource for Champions Online. While there were a fair number of community sites at launch, most of them have suffered from a lack of new content in recent months. The ones that continue to be updated are the best of the best -- ranging from community hubs for roleplayers to detailed info on the game's many missions. If there's one thing to be said about the fans of Champions, it's that they are devoted to their game and eager to put out new content for it.

Continue reading Behind the Mask: A community guide to Champions Online

Behind the Mask: A community guide to Champions Online originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Community guide to City of Heroes

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Guides, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

Welcome to A Mild-Mannered Reporter, Massively's new weekly column all about City of Heroes! We were originally going to spin you a dynamic yarn about how I had watched my parents die, then spent years training in secret to strike fear into the hearts of criminals by writing about video games, but that was eliminated during the concept stage due to copyright infringement. Instead, we're just going with a column.

For our first installment, we're highlighting a number of sites that are useful in one way or another to the City of Heroes playerbase. While the game has enjoyed quite a lifespan, the web presence on it has been a bit more limited than some other games, probably due in no small part to the fact that it's much easier to simply pick up and play. That doesn't mean there's nothing here, though -- the community has developed a number of excellent tools and community gathering points to improve everyone's experience in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. Take a look at what we've looked at and see as the highlights.

Continue reading A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Community guide to City of Heroes

A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Community guide to City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Mog Log: Community guide to Final Fantasy XI and XIV

Eliot Lefebvre — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Opinion, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log

The great thing about being a fan of Final Fantasy XI is that you're not lacking in any sort of resources online. After such a long lifespan, pages have been created to suit almost any need the community might have. And for a game whose mechanics can be obtuse at times, that's a good thing.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we? The Mog Log is Massively's new weekly column focusing on all things both Final Fantasy and online, meaning both Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV. For our first installment, we're taking a look at the multitude of fan pages, guides, and other resources for players. Needless to say there are a few more options for the former game than the latter (due to only one of them actually being released yet), but there's already a community building in anticipation of Eorzea's adventures.

Continue reading The Mog Log: Community guide to Final Fantasy XI and XIV

The Mog Log: Community guide to Final Fantasy XI and XIV originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Code something for Ryzom's new API, win cash!

Seraphina Brennan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Contests, Culture, Game mechanics, Launches, Ryzom

If you're bored, have some free time, and enjoy coding programs then do we have the contest for you! The team over at Ryzom have put together a brand new API for their game, and they're celebrating its launch with a contest for budding developers! Even better, the prizes are all monetary!

What the Ryzom team is looking for is people who can utilize their new API for whatever gadgets, tools, or websites they can dream up. The winning use of the API will be the one that displays innovation, usefulness, ease-of-use, multilingual support, validity and completeness, and optimized coding. Popularity, stability, and availability will be taken into consideration as well with all coding entries.

The winning entry will receive 3,000 euros (approximately 4,200 US dollars), second place will receive 1,000 euros (1,400 US dollars), and third place will be netting 500 euros (700 US dollars.)

So what are you waiting for? Get coding!

[Thanks, J3kyll!]

Code something for Ryzom's new API, win cash! originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wayfaring through New Eden with EveMap

James Egan — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:45:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online

EVE Online has an active community of 3rd party developers who release free tools for the benefit of other players. While tools like EVEmon, used to plan skill training, and EVE Fitting Tool, used to experiment with ship fittings, are widely used by players, there are a number of other great programs out there that have gotten less attention. One of those out-of-game tools is EveMap, created by Paul van Santen -- otherwise known as "AcriQuo."

The galaxy of New Eden has over 5000 solar systems, and plotting safe routes or simply some optimal wayfaring can be a bit involved. When in-game, you can pull up an interactive map to help navigate, but it takes up the entire client window while active. Some players prefer to view their maps off-screen, and there are some 2D options available to help in this regard, but until recently, going 2D was the only option players had. That's all changed with EveMap, which is a fully-functional 3D map of the EVE universe, with myriad display options and filters. The beauty of the program is that it literally displays all of EVE's systems without being confined to the client. The system requirements to run it are minimal: Java Runtime Environment version 1.5 or higher, and an OpenGL-capable graphics card. EveMap has been well-received on the official EVE Online forums. If having another way to navigate in EVE sounds good to you, why not fire up EveMap and see how useful it can be?

Wayfaring through New Eden with EveMap originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMOS X: WoWPlot

Mark Crump — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Raiding, Endgame, Opinion, MMOS X

I was trolling through the forums at Arstechnica not too long ago, and saw someone chatting up his latest project: WowPlot. Immediately, that thread went into the well for future column ideas.

WoWPlot is a graphical combat log analyzer for World of Warcraft, in a similar vein to WoW Web Stats. According to the developer, "Its main focus lies in evaluating time-dependant combat performance in a very free-form fashion, which is in contrast to the mainly statistical approach of other tools such as Wow Web Stats." From a technical standpoint, you'll need OS X 10.5.x and, obviously, a Macintosh. As I stupidly found out the hard way, you'll also need combat logs from 2.4 or later. I know it sounds obvious, but early testing and subsequent error messages led to a face-palming, "no duh!" moment on my behalf -- it's been a while since I've raided, so I ended up having to beg some logs from a guildie.

Now, before I get too heavy into my discussion on this, this is early beta software. Rather than just e-mail the developer with my thoughts, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone: I can make my deadline and maybe get him some more exposure and feedback if some of you try it out.

Continue reading MMOS X: WoWPlot

MMOS X: WoWPlot originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jacek Antonelli's special blend

Tateru Nino — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:00:00 EST

Filed under: Guides, Second Life

Jacek Antonelli, whom you already likely know as the creator of the Blender BVH animation exporter for Second Life, has released an excellent tutorial on getting to grips with Blender and the exporter, so that you can get into this excellent free tool for creating animations.

Her tutorial is simple, straightforward, witty and well-illustrated. If you create Second Life animations, but don't use Blender -- or you want to get into creating animations for Linden Lab's virtual world, you owe it to yourself to take a look at this.

Jacek Antonelli's special blend originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New release: Blender animation exporter

Tateru Nino — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: News items, Second Life

Jacek Antonelli has released a new version of her Blender animation exporter that allows use of Blender's sophisticated (and free) animation suite to create animations for Second Life.

This release focuses primarily on the user-interface, improving the layout to make things a whole lot easier for those who are not already Jedi-masters of the Blender package; and a mighty good change it is, too, as you can see above.

Continue reading New release: Blender animation exporter

New release: Blender animation exporter originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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From Blender to BVH via Antonelli

Tateru Nino — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 EST

Filed under: News items, Second Life

One of the more sophisticated animation tools out there is Blender, a cross-platform, free suite of 3D creation tools. Blender allows a lot of animation tricks that are normally only found in packages costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.

The eclectic, artistic, and highly-animated Jacek Antonelli has released a script, scene and animation skeleton that allows users to create and export high-quality animations from Blender into the BVH format used by Second Life.

Continue reading From Blender to BVH via Antonelli

From Blender to BVH via Antonelli originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joshua Slack demonstrates NCSoft worldbuilding tool

Adrian Bott — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Events, real-world, MMO industry, Maps

In the course of a technical session at JavaOne, Joshua Slack and Rikard Herlitz showed off the kind of tools you can build using the jMonkeyEngine, and used the NCSoft world-building tool as an example. This video shows Rikard putting together a hasty landscape that comes out quite nicely, given that he is 'just a programmer' rather than a professional level designer. (Self-deprecatory humor for the proverbial win.)

Although the video is intended to demonstrate the capabilities of the jMonkeyEngine, it's an interesting look at one of the tools used by a major player in the MMO market. NCSoft has been using jMonkeyEngine for the last two years. Joshua doesn't mention any specific games that have used the tool, though he does hint rather strongly that NCsoft's most recent output might have employed it.

The worldbuilding tool presentation follows behind the break.

Continue reading Joshua Slack demonstrates NCSoft worldbuilding tool

Joshua Slack demonstrates NCSoft worldbuilding tool originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 19 May 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hexagon 2.5 sculpts your prims

Tateru Nino — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:30:00 EST

Filed under: News items, Second Life

You may already be aware of DAZ 3D, in fact few people who work with 3D modeling and texturing haven't heard of or tried their lines of tools, models and resources. Today, DAZ 3D have released a new update to their Hexagon 2 3D modeling and texturing package (which is, quite possibly, our second-favorite subdivision modeler).

Hexagon 2.5 now supports sculpted prims for Second Life, among its already impressive array of features, and without much of the fiddling about and constraints that you might have to contend with some of the other software for which plugins are available.

Additionally, Hexagon 2.5 supports far more model export options, and a bridge that allows DAZ Studio models to be pulled into Hexagon, tinkered with and then sent back to DAZ Studio. Yummy!

Hexagon 2.5 sculpts your prims originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 01 May 2008 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vastpark to publically release its tools on April 10th

Akela Talamasca — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:30:00 EST

Filed under: Events, real-world, Game mechanics, New titles, Crafting, News items, Virtual worlds, Vastpark

For those of you who have been hankering after more toys to play with, Vastpark has announced the date for release of its tools as April 10th. What's included in the release? From the press notice:

Browser: Similar to what we used during the stress test, but with a little more polish.
Asset Publisher: Publish your content online to use in the creator.
VastServer: Add real-time multiuser interaction, includes the source code.
Creator: Improved function and shiny new interface

In addition, the 22nd of April will see the next stress test: 'In the StressTest #1 we gave you Dark Park and Shed42. This time we're reworking Shed42 into multiple chat-zones and we've got plans on adding a bit of interactivity and individuality. This will be the first test of our new MetaWSS index. What does the MetaWSS index do? Find out more at the test. Also, during the test we will be making a public announcement concerning some exciting ways you will be able to interact with the index.'

Sounds technical and sexy! We can't wait to see what the world will do with Vastpark!

Vastpark to publically release its tools on April 10th originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sierra making "mass-market" online game with BigWorld suite

Samuel Axon — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items

It seems like every time we hear about a new title, the first thing we hear is an announcement about what engine or dev tools its developers will use. This time, Sierra has licensed the BigWorld Suite, parts of which are also used in Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's Stargate Worlds and John Romero's forthcoming MMO project.

The announcement was made by BigWorld Technologies, not Sierra, and it didn't reveal much about the nature of the game, except that it it will be (according to Gamasutra) "targeting a mass-market audience." King's Quest Online? Probably not, but if only! If you want to know more about BigWorld, Ten Ton Hammer did a great interview with one of the guys behind it earlier this year.

Oh, and just so you know; Sierra is/was owned by Vivendi Games, and so is (like Blizzard) now part of the epic corporate monstrosity known as Activision Blizzard. All your studio are belong to us.

Sierra making "mass-market" online game with BigWorld suite originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Behind the Curtain: A look at skills

Craig Withers — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Game mechanics, Crafting, Professions, Behind the Curtain

In their current state, skills in MMOs could be improved. Tell me exactly what kind of 'skill' is involved in clicking a button a few times until the game decides that you're able to make something better? What if your character's skills were a direct result of how good you were at actually performing the task in question? What if an action's level of success was dependent on how well you actually carried out the action and not on how often you had clicked a button?

The effects of a system like this would be most apparent in crafting; imagine a game where, in the crafting interface, you had direct control over the creative process, a system where the quality of the item varied according to the level of skill employed by the player during the creative process, and not on how many times you had clicked a button to make the item in the past.

The beauty of a system like this is that players who naturally excel in a certain skill would be rewarded for it, regardless of the amount of time spent grinding their skill level up, but at the same time, players who simply created the same item again and again would get better anyway, because after all, practice makes perfect.

Continue reading Behind the Curtain: A look at skills

Behind the Curtain: A look at skills originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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