EVE Online adding real money item store
Filed under: EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Video Games
CCP recently announced that their long awaited “walking-in-stations” feature will now include an item store selling character customization options exclusively for real money (actually for Aurum another in game currency only available for real money).
Some people have lamented the idea of EVE finally entering this area and selling items for real money. After all today you can buy a monocle, tomorrow a ship. This is a slippery slope that will lead to death of EVE Online as we know it. Except, of course, it won’t. Since PLEXs were introduced anything in game has essentially been purchasable for real money. Take the price in ISK, devide that by approximately 350 million and multiply by half the price of a 60 day gamecard. These items are slightly different since they aren’t available in game without using real money at some point (but it is possible to trade them between players so you don’t personally have to spend real money).
One final note: the same customization opens are likely to be available to DUST 514 players once it’s released.
EVE breaks PCU record again
Filed under: EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Video Games
Yesterday EVE Online broke the peak concurrent user record again for an online game with 60,453 players online simultaneously.
Just for the record, the reason World of Warcraft doesn’t hold this record (despite having by far the most subscribers of any MMO) is because of it’s sharded nature. All sixty thousand EVE players were in the same game world.
Revelations (Kali part one) for EVE Online is here
Filed under: Computers, EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology
Well Kali is finally upon us. I haven’t really had chance to play yet. But the first thing I noticed was 29,000+ players online, the most I’ve seen personally (although I was apparently online when they first broke 30,000 – I was stuck in Jita with 700 other players).
They did post a dev blog about yet another cool idea they’ve had for the release beyond Kali – the ability to walk around stations in a nice 3D rendered world. Although they pointed out it will be mainly cosmetic at first. And to be honest isn’t high on my list of wanted features…
EVE Online events are real…
Filed under: Computers, EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology
Ooh, EVE Online has suddenly become a lot more interesting to me. When you log in to EVE you get news stories from within the EVE universe. For example there was something recently involving the Gallente and a convoy delivering aid to a planet and something blew up or something. I never really paid much attention figuring it was just some light fiction to keep the universe “real”. Well apparently they are a little more than that. They are actually acted out by a group called Aurora, part of the Interstellar Services Department (a volunteer group responsible for things like the buddy program and forum moderation).
Gang warfare in EVE
Filed under: Computers, EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology
There’s a new blog entry about the overhauled gang system in EVE Online. It’s basically gone all hierarchical. You can still create gangs as normal, but they no longer receive gang bonuses. To get the bonus the gang must be upgraded to a fleet. A fleet contains wings, wings contain squadrons and squadrons contain members. And each level has commanders. And all the commanders give gang bonuses (meaning a player can get a bonus from all three of his superiors).
Oh, and the first half of Kali now has a name: Revelations.
Back in EVE Online
Well after taking a little break from EVE Online (damned real life getting in the way again 
), I’m back in. And although I haven’t been playing for a couple of weeks, since this is EVE Online I’ve been able to keep my skills ticking over 
Of course when the JETA counter reaches zero (that would be Julia ETA – cute eh?) I’ll have another two week break. But I have a skill that needs 16 days to train so I’m prepared.
More Kali Goodness
Filed under: Computers, EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology
Yet another dev blog entry includes more information on what will be in the first two phases of Kali. Since it’s all there I’ll just summarise.
The seamless map is integral to the new scanning format and exploration. It seems the scanner interface is now built into the normal view. Lots of hidden things will now be available everywhere for people to find.
Related to the seamless map is improved combat awareness including hierarchical gangs. Have fleets of squadrons of ships along with better gang situational awareness and apparently built in voice chat.
Invention will provide a new path to tech II. Gather random materials and mix them with tech I blueprints to create limited run inefficient tech II blueprints.
Loot will be revamped. No more shiny canisters dropped from ships but actual wreckage with “components” that can be used to make rigs – things that work like implants for ships allowing greater customization.
And all this is in Kali 1, before we get factional warfare.
The Focus of Kali 1 versus Kali 2
Kali Coming Soon
Filed under: Computers, EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology
The current problems with EVE Online mean that Kali, the next big update will probably be delayed at least a month. But some more details have been released in the latest blog, including screenshots of the new seamless zoom feature. The idea is to integrate the map into the main display and simply let you zoom out – from your ship, through to solar system, region and finally all the way to the whole galaxy.
The most specialized ship in EVE Online
Filed under: Computers, EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology
I was just looking through the ships and found the most specialized ship in there. By “most specialized” I mean one that is suited really well to a single task and really badly to anything else. There is vaguely a choice of four (one for each faction) so I went for the best one.
It is the Charon.
The Charon is a freighter designed for carrying stuff. And that’s basically it. It’s very good at it though. A Badger, the Caldari industrial can carry about 5,000 cubic meters of stuff. The Charon can carry 785,000 cubic meters. All this comes at a price. Firstly, it’s very slow – 60 m/s without skills. And you can’t even put a microwarp drive on it. And it’s not that the Charon has limited CPU or power or anything (which it does) but that it has no fittings. That’s right, not a single slot.
There are a couple of other sneaky uses for it though. It has high shields and very high armour and hull which means it might distract the enemy in a big fight. You’d hope that they’d assume it was carrying something important. Or along the same lines you could use it as bait maybe but there are much better ways to do that.
Life is getting better in EVE
Filed under: Computers, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology
A new post has been made in the EVE Dev blog by a guy called Redundancy about the EVE economy. Lots of interesting thing about GDP and stuff. The most interesting is that GDP per capita is on the increase – that is the average amount of money a player earns is going up. In fact is has double since January.