Last week, CCP Games announced that the EVE Online server was heading for a move and a bit of an upgrade. Hidden within a few cabinets in a single datacenter is everything that makes up the EVE universe, from characters and ships to planets and the market. The cluster of hardware has been expanded over the years and now exceeds the limitations of the hardware cabinets it occupies. Moving the cluster to a new location within the datacenter should help support future upgrades to keep up with the game’s growing subscriber-base.
The shuffle began early yesterday morning at 09:00 UTC and was planned to be completed by 15:00 UTC the same day. Unfortunately, the transition to a new locale has had some unforeseen side-effects for Tranquility. After a long day of server work, final testing of the cluster revealed database issues that must be corrected before the game can go live. At 03:00 UTC this morning, the estimate for restoring Tranquility and the EVE website was mid-day today. With that time having now passed, CCP has released a new estimate of 16:00 UTC. If necessary, further delays will be announced on the official EVE Facebook page, the CCP Games Twitter page and the game’s main website.
Castro EVE Online
Four times per year, CCP Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson and his team of researchers publish the Quarterly Economic Newsletter (QEN). In addition to providing trackable statistics on EVE Online’s in-game market, each issue focuses heavily on analysing one particular topic. This quarter’s report focuses on wormhole systems and the state of the tech 3 market. Updated player demographics show more and more players entering wormhole space, with a drop in the number of characters in high-security space. Statistics for the number of jumps in wormhole space over the past year show a similar trend of growing activity.
This QEN provides some enlightening graphs on the popularity of various tech 3 offensive subsystems and how tech 3 material costs have changed in EVE over the past year. Perhaps most illuminating is the sharp rise in the use of tech 3 strategic cruisers in locations that put them at risk. While the majority are being flown in mission hubs and market systems, over 35% were found outside the safety of high-security space. In addition to this quarter’s focus on wormholes, the report contains the usual graphs tracking in-game prices, trade volumes, ships in use and other useful metrics.
Castillans EVE Online
When EVE Online’s Tyrannis expansion went live last month, its main planetary interaction feature was initially disabled. The command centre structures required for planetary interaction weren’t released as more time was needed for testing. This had the unfortunate side-effect of causing havoc with the starbase market. Until now, players were only able to scan planets for resources and train the required skills in preparation for the inevitable planetary gold rush. Today the markets in EVE were seeded with command centres, opening the flood gates on planetary exploitation.
To help you get to grips with planetary interaction, several helpful guides and instructional videos have already been made. EVE University have produced an impressive and thorough guide, along with a handy chart of what you can produce with each of the planet materials. Similarly, EVE player Korai Iarok has taken the initiative and produced a great flow-chart style PDF showing the manufacturing processes for each item. With these helpful guides and CCP’s own video tutorial, even new players should have very little problem setting up their own planet-based industrial networks.
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Castro EVE Online
With its single-server structure, EVE Online is home to over 330,000 pilots, all playing in the same instance of the game universe. As subscriber numbers rise, EVE continues to set new records for the number of players simultaneously online in a single 3D game world. Records tend to be broken in the days leading up to or following a big expansion, usually during EVE’s peak activity on Sunday evenings. The previous record of 56,021 set following the Dominion expansion was beaten yesterday with a peak concurrent user total of 60,453.
The high active subscriber levels we’re currently seeing can be attributed to both the buzz caused by EVE’s eighth alliance tournament and the newly released Tyrannis expansion. The main feature of Tyrannis goes live tomorrow, when the command centres required for planetary interaction will be seeded on the market. With two more weekends of the alliance tournament to go and the imminent Tyrannis land grab, we’re sure to see this new record pushed even further in the weeks to come.
Catelet EVE Online
Aion’s North American players are now basking in the post-patch glow of the much ballyhooed 1.9 update. With such an extensive list of tweaks, its hard to get a good gauge on what works well and what doesn’t given the short gestation period. Nevertheless, your humble columnist is here to make the attempt.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be examining all of the patch additions in much finer detail, but for now I’d like to use this edition of our weekly look at the Aionsphere to examine a few of the smaller nuggets from this week’s update. In no particular order, we’ll try out a few things that you may have missed, given that the vast majority of the update’s hype focused on the larger issues such as the Armsfusion system, the new quests, and the stun (or is that Assassin) nerf.
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Kiuperli EVE Online
Of all the MMOs on the market today, few are as polarising as EVE Online. While the game has over 330,000 active subscriptions and I’ve absolutely loved it for over six years, I still find myself introducing new people to it with the words “It’s not for everyone.” It does seem to be the case that EVE just doesn’t mesh with some gamers. The user interface can look overwhelming, the combat can seem detached and the gameplay is often written off as boring.
Players coming from other MMOs are at risk of bringing some fundamental preconceptions about MMO design with them that don’t really apply to EVE. These basic misunderstandings in how the game works can be a source of frustration or confusion for people who genuinely want to get into EVE. I find myself answering the same barrage of questions each time I introduce someone to the game, ranging in complexity from “What’s the best race?” or “What’s the best ship?” to the inevitable “How can I catch up to older players?” or “What should I do now?”
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Kins EVE Online
Each weekend for the next three weeks, teams from 64 alliances will face each other on an even playing field where strategy and execution are the deciding factor. Using expert commentators sourced from the EVE community and live video streaming of the event, CCP Games do their best to make the tournament a great spectator sport for the average player. For those that enter the competition, it’s a chance to prove that their alliance has what it takes to come up with winning tactics and execute them flawlessly. The first qualifying round is already underway and you can tune into the matches through CCP’s live video stream.
The first round continues through today and tomorrow, with the second going live next weekend. In these two qualifying rounds, the 64 teams will be drawn against each other in a knockout-style tournament. 32 teams will make their way to the finals on June 19th and 20th, where they’ll clash in a bid to prove their alliance has what it takes to win the big prize. For match schedules and details of how you can tune into the matches live via CCP’s video feed, visit the official Alliance Tournament 8 website. If you’ve missed a fight you’d hoped to see, CCP will be uploading high definition match videos each week as the tournament progresses.
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Castillans EVE Online
Last week I discussed the basics of the “ratting” profession in EVE Online, from picking a good system to three popular ratting strategies. If you’re planning to hunt NPCs in nullsec, of course, you’ll need to get there first. Pilots who aren’t in an alliance with secure access to nullsec will have to run the gauntlet from empire space to their chosen ratting system. The entry points into EVE’s nullsec regions are often camped during peak hours and you can expect to run into roaming gangs. Things get a little easier once you’re at your destination, but you can still expect to see the occasional pilot or gang passing through the system. Your ability to get into nullsec safely and your efficiency at ratting will be determined largely by the ship you’re using and how it’s set up. For someone who’s never been to nullsec before, setting up a ship for the task and heading into the void can be a daunting task.
In this article, I look at selecting the appropriate ship for ratting, some popular ship setups and important safety tips that will help keep your ship safe in hostile territory.
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Kiuperli EVE Online
The down side to EVE Online’s truly massive single-server design that puts all players in the same universe is that lag has been a constant problem since the game’s launch. For the most part, the game runs smoothly and lag doesn’t affect the day-to-day lives of players. It’s when too many players congregate in one place that the server node they’re on begins to grind to a halt. Circumstances can rapidly go from bad to worse, with server nodes collapsing under the strain and database failures occurring.
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Kins EVE Online
EVE Online has always been one of the most open and accessible MMORPGs in terms of in-game data. The new Tyrannis expansion, recently delayed a week to May 26th, will expand on the game’s history of making its APIs (application programming interface) available to players and enterprising programmers.
“In Tyrannis we are delivering a vastly improved contacts system and the new calendar. For these features, we will be providing a new set of APIs for you to consume in your own applications. Not only will we expose this new data to you, we have made some changes to existing APIs, and two Outpost related APIs have been added to help ease outpost management,” writes CCP Stillman in an EVE dev blog entry posted earlier today.
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Castres EVE Online
EVE Online players have been following the build-up to EVE’s Tyrannis expansion with a great deal of anticipation. The expansion is set to launch in just under two week’s time on May 18th and brings with it the ability to colonise and industrialise planets. Here at Massively, we’re even celebrating Tyrannis with a series of contests each Saturday leading up to its launch.
The official Tyrannis expansion page has been up and running since mid April, giving players a peek at what features to expect on release. The one thing we’ve all been waiting for is the official expansion trailer. CCP have a history of producing incredible trailers for EVE and the new Tyrannis trailer is no exception. It seems to take some of the best ideas from EVE’s latest fan masterpiece “Future Proof” and develop them further. With CCP’s usual level of professional polish and dramatisation, this is a trailer that has to be seen.
Castiglione EVE Online
In Autumn 2005, EVE Online became one of the only MMOs out there with its own dedicated print magazine. Under contract from CCP Games, MMM Publishing has worked tirelessly ever since to produce EVE’s official magazine “E-ON.” Four times per year, we’re blessed with a dose of the latest and greatest things from New Eden in a comfortingly solid format. The magazine covers everything from strategy guides and ship fitting advice to sneak peaks at upcoming expansions, interviews with CCP staff and incredible fiction set in the EVE universe.
E-ON differs from other game magazines in that they don’t any make money from advertising. In an effort to keep the magazine all about EVE, they’ve taken the unusual but apparently successful route of publishing full-page adverts from in-game corporations and organisations. Advertisers buy space in the magazine with ISK, the in-game currency, and adverts must be for strictly in-game purposes. The ISK is then used to pay volunteer writers, who create most of the magazine’s content and produce important things like guides from a true player’s perspective. There’s even a scheme in the works to reward advertisers with discount coupon codes for the magazine to gift their corpmates. Now nearing their fifth year of publishing, E-ON issue 19 has recently been released. As usual, this issue is absolutely packed full of everything we’ve come to expect from the mag.
Catherine EVE Online
The Alliance Tournament is one of EVE Online’s annual highlights. Loved by participants and watched by hundreds of excited fans, the tournament is a showcase of EVE’s combat mechanics and pure strategy. With the interesting new “flagship” rule to shake things up and the usual commentary on EVE TV, this year’s tournament in June is definitely something to look forward to. In a recent news post, CCP confirmed that sign-ups for teams officially open on April 12th. Alliances wanting to enter have until April 23rd to submit their interest in taking up one of the 64 slots in the event.
Most of the slots for this year’s tournament will be assigned to applicants completely at random, with last year’s winners being guaranteed a spot. In an effort to make sure EVE’s big alliances aren’t excluded by the luck of the draw, eight slots will be reserved for auction. Alliances will bid against each other for one of the eight guaranteed spots, allowing eight of EVE’s richer alliances to choose to secure their slots. There are enough slots left over, however, that those who don’t enter the auction will still stand a very high chance of winning a slot at random. To help reduce the number of absentee entrants from last year’s total, every alliance entering will also have to pay a 2 billion ISK non-refundable sign-up fee.
Castillans EVE Online
From
http://www.massively.com/2010/02/28/eve-evolved-staying-safe-in-high-security-space/
One of EVE Online’s defining factors is the idea that you’re not completely safe anywhere in the game. If you’re not docked in a station or securely logged off, there’s always a chance that someone will pick a fight with you. Many pilots opt to stay in the relative safety of high security space but even this isn’t an absolutely safe area. Suicide attacks, corporate wars, can flippers and loot thieves are a common sight in New Eden and if you don’t know how to handle them, you could find yourself on the business end of a 150mm railgun.
In this guide for newer EVE players, I look at the main threats you could be exposed to in high security space and how to keep yourself safe in spite of them.
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gmaxwell EVE Online
EVE Online is a game that’s often lauded for its sandbox style and realistic economic structures. Every quarter, CCP Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson and his team of researchers wade through mountains of EVE usage logs to find some interesting economic statistics. In their Quarterly Economic Newsletters (QEN), CCP deliver graphs tracking in-game prices, trade volumes, ships in use and a whole host of other useful metrics.
Read on for an overview of this QEN’s main highlights.
In addition to the usual price indices and market snapshots, the latest QEN comes with a triumphant announcement. Following the Dominion expansion last December, EVE reached an important milestone with over 330,000 active, paying accounts. There are now more EVE accounts than there are citizens of Iceland, CCP’s home country. Other highlights of this quarter’s report include interesting population density demographics showing the distribution of players throughout EVE, with a particular stress on their distributions in the nullsec regions. Following from this, the report contains a special segment looking back on the development of trade hubs throughout the game’s history.
Of particular interest this quarter was the effect that suicide attacks had on the market for Hulk mining barges. The first player-run Hulkageddon event concluded with hundreds of mining barges being killed but this didn’t cause an increase in the number bought on the market. Despite demand being the same, prices rose during and after the event from 120 million ISK to 170 million. Publicity of the Hulkageddon event’s success and the news that Hulkageddon II was being planned for the following January may have caused Hulk manufacturers to ramp up their prices in anticipation of a rise in demand. Since Hulks were killed in droves but no more units were sold than expected, the number of Hulks being actively piloted has also dropped this quarter. The Hulk is now the second most popular ship in EVE, being overtaken by the universally useful Drake.
Castille EVE Online