And finally the CSM and CCP statement about the Reykjavik Peace Summit has been released ! I am not quite sure whether there are winners or losers in this one, but if there were you could say the players won. The very popular eve feature of ‘ship spinning’ will be coming back and furthermore, only vanity items in the NEX store for the foreseeable future. I also liked the statement by the CSM that they very much disliked the leaked email by the CCP ceo, which was very out of touch with reality.
We are convinced that CCP has no plans to introduce any game-affecting virtual goods, only pure vanity items such as clothing and ship skins. We have been repeatedly assured that there are no plans for ‘gold ammo’, ships which have different statistics from existing common hulls, or any other feared ‘game destroying’ virtual goods or services. We have expressed our deep concern about potential grey areas that the introduction of virtual goods permits, and CCP has made a commitment to discuss any proposals that might fall into these grey areas in detail with CSM at the earliest possible stage.
This is pretty much what most people would hope for, and it’s the best CCP could do at the moment. CCP must have looked at the numbers and seen all those unsubscriptions ! Also all the bad press this has giving made them change course. If there was a course to change (well the returning shipspinning is new).
I am sure there will still be drama and forum whining, ‘but they didn’t promise no non-vanity items ever !’. But those people will just have to play the game as it is, and not what it could be in a few years time. From a business point of view they cannot commit to non-vanity forever, as I already stated in my previous blogpost.
Fact remains that I still don’t like where CCP is going. Devoting most of the development time to Incarna, Wod and dust. Releasing crappy ‘expansion’. The sad state their 3d engine is in (this doesn’t bode well for Wod btw) etc etc.. But at least for now we see some light at the end of the tunnel (queue dramatic music).
A devblog that addresses the recent events in Eve has been posted by CCP Zulu. This one is much better in tone and even says “For that I am sorryâ€.
There are no and never have been plans to sell "gold ammo" for Aurum
Note that he does not say ‘there never will be’. At this point CCP has committed to the new Aurum store. I don’t think it will ever disappear. Nor will they make a commitment that it will NEVER contain any non-vanity items. CCP Soundwave in his piece in the leaked bulletin mentioned storage for ship fittings. (Feels a bit similar to bags in LOTRO). Something like that can still happen. Or skill points or whatever.
The CSM has been called up to Iceland, but to be honest I see that as a PR stunt. I have no clue what they’re supposed to be discussing. Performance troubles in Incarna ? The Aurum shop is pretty much untouchable at this point. The CSM won’t make CCP change it’s mind.
CCP knows perfectly well that non-vanity items would make a large percentage of people leave, they might at some point in the future when Eve starts dwindling down take that risk and milk the last few dollars from their cash cow. And we won’t like it, but it’s a business after all.
A series of events have lead CCP and the Eve players base into an NGE like situation. How did we get here ? First of all several pretty lacklustre expensions in a row. Then we got the ‘18 month halt because we’re developing a console game’ disaster last year. Then this year we had the ‘Dust is ps3 only’ debacle, followed by a $99,- for a website license devblog.
And in the last few days we got the badly coded Incarna, which fried some people’s pc’s and made a lot of people wondering why CCP spent three years developing an empty room with a screen. Furthermore the few vanity items (all five or six) were ridiculously expensive !
So far a lot of people were upset, and some threadnaughts appeared on the forum. Some people might have canceled, or at least canceled alt accounts. People demanded the old ship spinning screen back and all that. The situation wasn’t very pleasant.
Then on the night of the 22nd of june, an internal bulletin was leaked. Apparently some people like Mynxee and Teadaze had already seen a similar one, and confirmed that it might very well be legit. A little later that night it also appeared on the forums (well links to the news article).
What exactly was wrong with the bulletin ? I think it was especially the tone of voice ! It made us, the eve players look like cows that can be milked for cash. Especially CCP_Soundwave came across as a money hungry Lead Game Designer, coming up with all sorts of weird plans to make people buy stuff from the NEX shop. Ammo, ships, it could all be bought with cash.
Then we got to a point where people expected some sort of response from CCP, and until now we still haven’t gotten a proper response. Just a ‘bear with us, we’ll make a statement soon’ thing, from a PR person I had never heard of.
So there you go, Eve on the brink of disaster. Most of the older vets saw this coming from a mile away. Even on this blog in early 2010 I posted a ‘I am concerned’ post. CCP has taken a different direction the past few years, since they are trying to develop two new games, financed by Eve players. I think this has turned out to be a little too expensive and they’re a little strapped for cash, but that is pure speculation !
To be continued…
UPDATE A pretty insulting devblog that was supposed to address the issues people have with the current direction CCP is taking actually said absolutely nothing… I guess CCP doesn’t care any more for the existing playerbase and is on the hunt for the new one that does not exist.
Incarna was released ! As you can see below I am watching my screen in my Captain’s Quarters. And that’s just about all there is to it. You can walk over to the hangar and see your ship. Which is nice, though it seemed a bit small to me ? Tried a Raven and a Hurricane. The screens are kinda nice in the CQ though, I have to give em that.
Other than that the lightning is all weird in some places, especially in shadows your face becomes deformed. The walking around bit itself is extremely cumbersome. I keep running walking into walls and other objects.
Overal feeling: So this is it ? After three years (as far as we know), this is all they can come up with ? I am sure there are plenty of freeware games out there that do walking around in a room better. After spending about 2 minutes in your 3d room you have seen all there is and might as well turn it off. It doesn’t add anything to the game for now. I think they would have done better to wait until we can actually spend some time with other people, at least a corp meeting or something would have been interesting.
And I am not even getting into the whole MT shop thing, there are now only a handful of items for sale, at ridiculous prices. You can browse the Eve-O forums for more drama.
After reading the news this morning that Dust 514 would be a PS3 exclusive, I was planning on writing an extensive blogpost about it, but Roc Wieler already wrote one that I might as well link:
He exactly words my sentiments, when he says ‘could I afford a PS3, yes I can, but not for just one game!’. I already own an xbox 360 and quite a few games, but it’s catching dust (!) already. I am not going to buy another console.
Furthermore from what I understood so far, Dust 514 will be free on the PSN network, and you can buy stuff like weapons through the RMT store. On the xbox I have played games like that, or spend a few points in the marketplace to do so, and usually you play these games a few times and then just forget about it. Won’t the same happen to Dust ?
Anyway, I am not quite enthusiastic lately the way things are going in Eve-Land…
In a devblog published 27th of may CCP announced the upcoming Microtransactions Store coming to Eve. You’ll be able to buy cloths (and monocles) for your character from this store. And you’ll need ‘Aurum’ to be able to buy them. Aurum comes from turning in Plexes. So what’s the argument from CCP to it this way ?
So we’re left with the question of how to give you the customizability and uniqueness you want without simply raising the subscription rate.
Aha ! If this is the case then you simply suck at doing business. Why invent a new ‘feature’ that you claim you can’t actually afford to bring at the current subscription rate ? I don’t believe the above argument for a second. Eve is already one of the most expensive MMOs out there. It’s used to fund the upcoming other MMO, and Dust. CCP simply wants to make more money, why not be honest about it.
Basically they have been working on Incarna all this time, and letting the space game slide, while working on a side game which doesn’t even offer gameplay, and you need Real Money to be able to use. Your $15,- a month is only good for an orange noobie overall. Also ship decals, alliance logos on your ship etc will have to be bought through above mentioned store.
This is also is a step away from a player driven economy. CCP will set the price of cloths and no one else.
You might also wonder who is interested in this ? I think they want to just get a new player base that wants to spend money on these kind of things. I don’t see Eve players as the type that enjoy playing Barbie in space. And where will it end ? Faction ammo next ? Faction blaster ? +10% missile damage boots ?
As you might have guessed from the above, I am not enjoying this decision by CCP at all. The responses to the devblog have been mainly negative too and #tweetfleet wasn’t too excited either. But then again as I said, I don’t think we’re the target audience any more.
Incursion will be deployed on May 19th, which is tomorrow as I write this. A couple of big things in this one, which quite surprised me as I wasn’t even aware they were coming !
Blueprints
Unique icons have been created for Blueprint originals and Blueprint copies so you can visibly differentiate between them.
Wow, just wow. A change all industrialists have all been waiting for ! And for years CCP said that it couldn’t be done, because they couldn’t distinguish a copy from an original if I remember correctly. Finally that nonsense comes to an end and finally you can see if you’re dealing with a copy by just glancing at the icon instead of having to click on it and go to the appropriate tab etc..
Ships
The capabilities of the onboard scanner have been substantially increased. The range is now 64 AU and the delay to return results is only 10 seconds.
Ships with jumpdrives are now unable to use jump bridges with the exception of ships belonging to the Black Ops ship category.
Mixed response to this one. I don’t dwell in 0.0, nor do I use jump drives so it doesn’t effect me personally. I guess CCP thought traveling around was getting a bit too easy and toned it down. The onboard ship scanner will be improved as well. Nothing wrong with that I guess.
Agents & Missions
Agent Quality has been removed meaning that all Agents are now +20 in terms of payout and -20 in terms of access. Go forth, Capsuleers, and explore the world outside of Motsu and Dodixie.
Agent Divisions have been simplified from 20 down to just 3. The new Security, Distribution and Mining divisions now provide uniform types of missions instead of a mission type that was percentage based.
Ah another big one ! The very confusing Agent Divisions will be simplified and you actually know for sure you’ll get a combat, courier or mining mission. Very welcome change in my opinion. Also the quality system is basically removed. I guess putting them all to +20 was easier than just removing it. This will bring in somewhat more cash into the economy I guess, but will spread people out more, which can only be a positive thing. Although I am sure people will still sort of stick together as it’s easier to buy and sell your goods. But still, people will probably spread out. It will be interesting to see what will happen.
Furthermore the various connections skills will be removed as a consequence of the above. Only a few remain from what I read in the patch notes. The skill points for those that have already gotten the skills will be reimbursed.
Players who have the old skills already trained will have those skills removed and receive replacement skillbooks in the hangar of their home station and have the skillpoints reimbursed.
There are some more fixes and changes, but these are the really big ones. Some very welcome changes I think !
Welcome to the twenty-sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month’s topic was proposed by @KatiaSae of the much praised “To Boldly Go” blog. Katia asks: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As an astrophotographer, I’ve found it in the stars and planets of New Eden. Where have you found it? Perhaps you’ve found beauty in the ships we fly? Maybe it’s the sight of profits being added to your bottom line? Or maybe it’s the pilot portraits you see in the comm channels? Where ever you’ve found it, write about it and post an image.” Don’t be afraid go beyond the simple visual aspects of EVE as well. Is the EVE Community in itself a thing of beauty? What makes EVE the game, the world, the Community, so appealing to you?
This is a tough one ! Where to start ? I decided to pick three
First of all there is the graphics, just a pic here from a while ago which also appeared in one of the earlier episodes of EON. Don’t think I need to add more explanation :). It’s a joy to fly around in Eve.
Second of all is the community. Eve’s community is different from a lot of other MMOs. It’s difficulty and steep learning curve attracts different people. Yes we too have the forum warrior / whiners, but overall it’s a much more tight knit community. I don’t know of any MMO that has something comparable to #tweetfleet for example. Or just an active blog community. People might be fighting each other in game but still be very friendly outside of it.
Third of all is the progression you make. Although this sort of fades a bit when you have been playing for a long time, it’s just a joy when you can finally fly that ship you always wanted. Or to finally be able to do exploration properly, or use those tech II crystals (for the miners amongst us). The time based skill system is very friendly to those who can’t spend 23/7 in the game. You always progress (as long as you keep paying), you don’t have to kill 10 space pirates.
Last but not least: all of the above (and many more) combined in one game. Sometimes the sum is more than it’s parts ! And that for me is the beauty of Eve.
Unfortunately I couldn’t install the test client because of a ‘time out while downloading’. I was planning on making a little youtube video, but unfortunately cannot at the moment. Luckily someone posted a link to a youtube video in the feedback thread, which I have now linked below.
It looks very rough around the edges. After years of development, it’s apparently still in ‘Early Alpha’. It would be quite an achievement if they would get this up and running, in a reasonable shape in a few months time. Somehow I have my doubts, but we’ll see.
Quite a while back I had my eye on this game, I thought it would be interesting, a more action oriented Space MMO ! Then I sort of forgot about it, until I saw a good looking ad on YouTube. Yes I know about ad blocker, but I keep the ads on on some channels to support those who provide great free content. I tried it out over the past few days and will share my first impressions here. I am not going to call this a review as I think you need a lot more game time than the first few levels.
You get a fairly lengthy intro into the lore behind the game, including you taking a seat in a gun turret. This felt a bit Star Warsy for some reason. Also it took a little too long or I didn’t understand the objectives correctly. Whatever the case, eventually you get to fly an escape pod of sorts and that is your first ship. In this game as opposed to Eve you always have only one ship. As you level up and gain experience and skill levels you can pimp out your ship with various weapons, shields and wings. The cockpit determines your speed, mass etc.. You can change your look a little by using paint. One of the first missions shows you how to create paint, you can then apply it to your wings.
To get a general impression of the gameplay I put up a video on youtube.
The missions consists of ones you can pick up at a docking station at a terminal (these are repeatable) and there are ‘story line missions’ that you get from characters in the game (an Admiral and your Commander for example). They have fairly long intros that are actually voice acted. How long this will last I don’t know though, but I thought that was impressive for a Free To Play game. The missions are usually a go here and check this out and / or meetup with this person. Then suddenly enemies appear etc. It reminded me a bit of Star Trek online.
Your spaceship handles pretty well. It uses the wasd keys for thrust and turning left and right, Q and E are for rolling left or right. Left mouse for shooting. In combat there are some abilities that come into play. There is adrenaline which comes into play when doing special maneuvers. Also there is concentration, you can read up on the website what it does, at the lower levels it doesn’t seem to play a big role.
The graphics are very nice. Even in crowded areas my machine help up pretty well. The space areas do look nice. The interface is at times a bit cumbersome. For example I had to switch to mouse mode (by pressing space) to identify some items in space in order to grab them for a mission. This stopped my thrust and other movement. Maybe I am doing it wrong, but in that case it should be more obvious what you’re supposed to do. The docking interface is a standard affair. There is a dealer where you can buy guns and cockpits and the like, a hangar where you can change your ship layout, and a crafting window where you can for example modify your weapons or craft the before mentioned paint.
All in all the game made quite a good impression on me and I will definitely keep playing it every now and then. The difficulty level is also pretty good, it’s not a straight walker even at the lower levels. I haven’t tried the pvp yet, as I felt I was a bit low level for that. There are pvp missions as well, so it’s not just for shits and giggles. You can also choose sides at level 5 or 6 I think, but it wasn’t quite clear to me at the moment what the point was of either side (I even forgot their names as I write this).
Since it’s free to play, I hear you thinking ‘Can I buy my way to victory ?’. From what I have seen so far, I don’t think so. What is in the store at the moment is mainly stuff that makes you level faster, xp boosts and stuff like that. Also some vanity items, like various paint colors etc..
So besides the somewhat lengthy download (5 Gb for the initial client) there is nothing holding you back trying out the game. It’s not the sandbox game as Eve is (or at least it didn’t look like it from the little I have seen so far), but the space combat is very entertaining and getting better skills and gear is always nice.
You can read the future plans for the game in ‘a letter to the comminuty’ including Walking In Stations !
