Even I, as a retired EVE Online player, remember how big of a deal the Incarna update was going to be, as even back in the first few years of the game I thought, man, wouldn't it be nice if your avatars actually did something? And then it...didn't happen. Incarna came out, it went, and no out-of-ship exploration or station-wandering was there. What happened?

According to PCGamesN, it was just put on the backburner while they made it feel fun. CCP's own Ned Coker explained,

As a platform it still works out really well for us, but based off player feedback we took a step back from our Incarna full development plans. We've had a team doing prototyping work on what Incarna gameplay might look like in the context of EVE's gameplay. They've done a couple of iterations on what that might be, with the 'EVE-ness' of it in mind. So you know, things like risk and reward, multiplayer action, stuff like that.

On the bright side, even though it's been put as a lower priority, they're planning big things, including Star Trek-like environmental exploration, including wrecked ships. Right now, though, it's just not feasable, so they're beefing the main game up before the sideshow gets brought out.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Not many MMOs have been as successful as EVE Online, with the number of registered capsuleers growing every year since launch. Nine years and seventeen free content updates later, CCP’s spacefaring universe is as popular as ever. With Retribution -- the game’s 18th update -- and free to play shooter Dust 514 due out later this year, the Icelandic developer shows no signs of slowing down.

For Jon Lander, executive producer for EVE Online, part of that success is because his team view themselves as caretakers, and that the game CCP has built over the years actually belongs to the players that inhabit it. It’s a unique viewpoint that emerged as we spoke at the Eurogamer Expo last month, a focus on being respectful of the legacy inside the sandbox MMO, while being bold in improving and expanding it.

In a wide-ranging interview, Lander shared his opinions on kick starting player created content, and why rebuilding core game mechanics doesn’t make EVE a safer place. He also revealed how CCP is extending their sandbox out of the game through the introduction of CREST, the new read/write API available to third-party developers. But, with the development studio based in the unlikeliest of places, Lander shared some insight into the culture that gave birth to this incredible world, and what lessons other MMOs can learn from it. 

It’s fair to say that EVE Online is one of the longest running MMOs, with the game’s 10 year anniversary coming up next year. But, although Icelandic developers CCP have some “interesting moments” planned to mark the event, the team is very much focused on business as usual. For Executive Producer Jon Lander and Lead Game Designer Kristoffer Tuoborg, that means continuing to deliver regular updates. 

EVE Online: Retribution, announced today at a fan meeting in central London, is the team’s 18th free expansion. Previous updates, such as Crucible and Inferno, focused on encouraging warfare, through either traditional space combat or trade warfare and infiltration.  Retribution, due for release on December 4, continues this trend, following 12 months of player feedback.

As both Lander and Tuoborg explained, much of the update is a result of going back to the core systems of EVE Online and fixing the things that broke after nine years of continual development. The Bounty system has been radically overhauled, aggression mechanics have been streamlined and weapon safety systems have been added. Destroyers, Frigates and Cruisers are all being rebalanced, and new ships including racial Destroyers are being added. There’s also a whole host of added extras, including the start of a read/write API for third party developers, and improved NPC AI. 

As reported last week, CSM member for EVE Online VileRat was killed in Lybian protests. And at the time I saw momentum starting for fundraisers and support for the family he left behind. Now here it is - a YouCaring.com fundraiser that's already broken $15,000 in his name.

As much as EVE Online players get for their reputation of being jaded and crude villains, it's heartwarming to see a respected and loved member being lost truly get their charitable sides motivated. Props to them all.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

One of the many awful aspects of attacks like those in Libya, is how far reaching the aftermath can be. Among the casualties of the horrific destruction on this occasion was a diplomatic official for the American consulate and senior member of the EVE Online community named Sean Smith AKA Vile Rat.

It's a bit technical, but it's important to read - CCP has moved around some servers and tweaked some settings, and they're letting everyone know what happened. To prepare for DUST 514's beta - a game that is primarily about inter-communication between it and big brother EVE Online - they had to make some adjustments to servers, and Singularity was the server it was handled on. Buckingham, originally, was used for testing DUST, but now has become the EVE public test server while Singularity is used for DUST.

Did you get all that?

If not, there's diagrams and breakdowns for those interested, and best of all you can download the full build and log in using the tutorial they give you on the site. It's not a requirement, but they are testing out orbital strikes from EVE on DUST battlezones...so, you know, there's that. 

Julian "Mirai" Williams

For those of you who missed it - EVE Online's Inferno expansion rolled out a ton of changes, including a huge oversight that allows you to farm more gold out of faction warfare than you should be able to. Rather than report it, five players from the Goonswarm took advantage of it, harvested trillions of in-game ISK, then manipulated the stock market on items and inflated prices (literally "just because we could."), then rolled around Scrooge McDuck style in the rewards. 

The chart above is the first of many things explained by CCP in a newspost today. The new faction points rewarded for nuking enemy ships - Loyalty Points - are listed above, and you can see the absolutely absurd jumps when the players manipulated the system. Sreegs said it's comparable "to foreign exchange manipulation," which is really really bad, economically. 

CCP isn't the most outspoken about other games, until today. An interview with PC Gamer has brought some harsh words about the rest of the MMO market.

"I think that's part of why there's such an attrition with MMOs. People go and play an MMO for a month and they just want to throw up because they've leveled to 60 in ten different titles." [...] "I think the next time there's a massive smash hit MMO, I hope it's something different. Otherwise the same ones are going to continue on the trend we see every time, where they sell a load of boxes and people play it for three months, and then they go somewhere else. There has to be something else out there."

Given the fact that EVE Online, a game that is still on a subcription service, recently had massive bugs that were exploited for trillions of in-game money, one can definitely say that their MMO is unique. 

Once again, EVE Online continues to prove how it's the most fascinating MMO in the market. There's the full text on the site, broken down by (apparently not yet banned) players who did the crime, but I can condense it. Effectively, one of the new features of the Inferno update was to revamp Faction Warfare so it gave you a bounty for not only the ship, but for the cargo as well, even though the cargo was recovered. So a bunch of players - Goonswarm, to no surprise - rolled new characters, drove out into the middle of nowhere, nuked passing ships, collected the cargo and reward, and resold the cargo.

It's always nice to see EVE Online changing things up a bit, and the Inferno 1.1 patch is having some surgery done. To start with, mutual wars are being modified, they are now only one-for-one, mano-a-mano. Hiring allies now has a cost to it after the first, and the first is free. War declaration cost is being capped at 500 million ISK. The UI for war declarations is prettied up slightly. And, lastly, there's a new skill, Armor Resistance Phasing, which reduces the timer on Reactive Armor Hardeners by 10% per level.