CCP Fallout recently announced on the EVE Online dev blog that Incarna 1.1 will be released on August 30 and will feature the results of the team's progress on improving the existing Captain's Quarters.
"Later this year we plan on deploying the remaining racial quarters to Tranquility as well as the next Incarna feature, establishments," Fallout said.
According to a new dev blog entry by game designers CCP LeKjart and CCP Remnant, socialization will be a key aspect of DUST 514. "We want players to be able to communicate in-battle and out; to be able to easily find and play with friends; to have the tools to meet and make new friends (and enemies) while they’re sitting in front of their PS3 and even when they’re not," they said.
Here's how CCP plans to accomplish this task:
Wargaming.net, the developer behind World of Tanks and the upcoming World of Warplanes, has announced that it is the official headline sponsor of this year’s European Games Award. The EGA is the first award exclusively for European video and computer game developers, which lets professionals and gamers from all over Europe participate in the voting for the best games.
Want to know which games are up for awards this year? Head over to the EGA categories page for the full list. Here are the titles that are in the running for best online game:
The European Games Award ceremony will be held on August 13 on the event ship Pure Liner 1, moored on the Rhine river in Cologne.
CCP has launched their new EVE is Real site, which they're calling a "multi-purpose EVE memory repository and social sharing hub." It's a place to share your EVE stories and content, such as screenshots and videos. As an incentive to use the site, CCP will be rewarding the entire EVE community with Aurum each time various milestones are reached. This currency can be used in the new NeX store.
In addition, CCP is hosting an image contest and a video contest for shots at a GeForce GTX 460 SE graphics card and an Alienware Area-51 PC, respectively.
In his latest dev blog entry, CCP Headfirst hints that there are some new live event plot lines coming to EVE Online. Here are the details:
"Beyond that, there are entirely new live event plot lines in the works, with at least one of them already in its initial stages of deployment. As both CCP Dropbear and I have advanced onset ADD, permanent insomnia, chronic workaholism, we're going to roll them all out simultaneously. There are going to be several stories unfolding, hopefully enough to appeal to a wide array of play styles. We’re aiming to please you lore hounds with some in-depth historical revelations, but everything we learned from the Sansha events let us know that players love to fight as well, so be ready for more of that, too."
As CCP Headfirst puts it, "It’s going to be one hell of a summer."
Many EVE Online players were shocked at the high prices for virtual goods in the Noble Exchange store that launched with the Incarna expansion. We recently attended a press conference with Senior producer Arnar Gylfason and CSM Chairman Alexander "The Mittani" Gianturco regarding the issue, and Gylfason promised to release a dev blog that explaining their pricing strategy. That blog has arrived! Here are the details on the three main pricing tiers:
"The items in the Noble Exchange come in several price ranges. Normally, an outfit will all come from one pricing tier. An affordable tier outfit can be purchased and assembled for roughly the value of one PLEX in total - slightly cheaper if you are fortunate enough to time your purchase well.
Mid-tier outfits will be priced such that an outfit will total approximately 3-4 PLEX, depending on individual elements.
Deluxe tier outfits are aimed at flamboyantly rich capsuleers regardless of whether they measure their wealth in ISK, Aurum, PLEX, or currencies from Earth. While price is of little concern for these players, they could find themselves spending two or three times the price of an affordable outfit on a single piece for their ensemble. An exceptional tier is rumored to exist that represents a very special and rare investment for the wealthiest members of the EVE community."
CCP also reminds players that these items can and will be available for ISK as long as someone puts them up for sale. That means there is a way to get the items without using real cash.
Following a wealth of controversy surrounding the high prices in EVE Online's new Noble Exchange store and a pair of leaked internal CCP documents, the company invited the Council of Stellar Management to Iceland on June 30 and July 1 to discuss these concerns. Both CCP and the CSM released written statements following the summit, which are required reading for any EVE Online player.
In response to the special summit, CCP held a press conference yesterday with representatives from various news outlets, including ZAM. We had the opportunity to speak with EVE Online Senior producer Arnar Gylfason and CSM Chairman Alexander "The Mittani" Gianturco about the summit, micro-transaction prices, the leaked documents and more. Keep reading after the jump for their answers.
Following a wealth of controversy surrounding the high prices in EVE Online's new Noble Exchange store and CCP's response to players, the company invited the Council of Stellar Management to Iceland for a special meeting to address all of these concerns. Both CCP and the CSM have provided written statements regarding the summit.
CCP emphasized that the NeX Store will be used for the sale of vanity items only, and that dev blogs will be written to explain their pricing strategy. The teams plans to focus on further fleshing out the lower price range and will give visual examples of upcoming items. They promised to keep communication open with players and acknowledged "that the reaction following the leaked internal communication could have been handled better."
As for the CSM, they "were shocked and appalled to discover how badly the planning and implementation of the Noble Exchange was executed." However, they are convinced that CCP has no plans to introduce any game-affecting virtual goods in the store and accept that the leaked Fearless internal newsletter does not represent the policy of CCP management. Despite Arnar Hrafn Gylfason's recent angry blog entry, they accept his apology and are united in their support of Gylfason as the game's senior producer.
After the special summit ended, CSM Chairman Alexander "The Mittani" Gianturco sat down with Gylfason to discuss the meeting and these recent events. You can watch the interview below.
It's been quite a controversial week for EVE Online. The launch of the Incarna expansion brought with it a virtual goods store, and many players were surprised and angered by the high price tags. For example, a monocle costs almost $70. A leaked internal newsletter added fuel to the fire, leading Senior Producer Arnar Hrafn Gylfason to respond in a dev blog entry. Here's an excerpt from his discussion on the pricing structure:
"What do other people think about you when they see you wearing [designer jeans]? For some you will look like the sad culmination of vainness while others will admire you and think you are the coolest thing since sliced bread. Whichever it is, it is clear that by wearing clothes you are expressing yourself and that the price is one of the many dimensions that clothes possess to do that in addition to style and fit. You don't need to buy expensive clothes. In fact you don't need to buy any clothes. Whatever you choose to do reflects what you are and what you want others to think you are."
Some players didn't appreciate the tone of Gylfason's post, and he apologized in a follow-up entry. He said that CCP needs to "strengthen the deep mutual trust and respect" with their players and emphasized that there "never have been plans to sell 'gold ammo' for Aurum."
In order to decide how virtual goods and services will evolve in EVE Online, CCP has invited the Council of Stellar Management to Iceland for a special meeting on June 30 and July 1. CCP plans to refrain from making any further comments on the topic until after the meeting.
Over the past several months, we've been working on revamping our forum interface to make posting on ZAM a more streamlined and enjoyable experience. We are proud to announce that our upgraded forums are now live! We've stripped away the clutter and added a variety of new features, from updated contact information options to the ability to embed YouTube videos in your posts.
The main focus of this revamp is to make our forums easy to use. Posting buttons are more prominent, you can quickly reply to a thread directly from the thread view page, and you can now search within a thread. We've also expanded the options for our non-premium members. They can now select from a variety of pre-made avatars, use emoticons, enjoy mouse-over previews and post images and polls after reaching a specific post count.
We have forums for multiple games and topics, and we've made it easier to move from forum to forum. In the top right corner of the main forum page, you can quickly jump to any category. Whether you want to talk about games like Rift and World of Warcraft or more general topics like computer hardware or TV and movies, we've got you covered. We even have a new Star Wars: The Old Republic forum, so be one of the first users to share your thoughts on this highly anticipated MMO!
For more details on all of these changes, check out our design update notes after the jump. We hope you enjoy our forum upgrade! If you have any feedback or comments, please feel free to post them in this thread or send a private message to Kaolian, our senior forum administrator, or Darqflame, our customer relations manager.
