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Tag: CCP
Eve Online Celebrates Friendship
CCP Launches Eve Online Quadrant 3: Zenith
CCP Games Acquired By Pearl Abyss
CCP Games announced this week that the studio, developer of popular MMO Eve Online, has been acquired by Pearl Abyss, best known for their work on Black Desert Online. The deal, which does not close until October (expected), claims that CCP will continue operating as an independent entity, the sale amounting to $425 million in cash and bonuses leveraged on certain financial results.
CEO Hilmar Petursson, CCP Games, stated:
“Pearl Abyss is a fast-growing company with lots to offer in terms of technology, capability and vision. I believe our two companies have a lot to learn from each other. We are very excited to join forces with them and achieve great new heights for our companies, our games and – above all – our players.”
(Source: GI.Biz)
Eve Online Improves Free to Play With Arms Race Update
Eve Online just got even more attractive for those looking to play around without dropping a wad of cash. In an update this week, CCP revealed that free accounts (dubbed alpha pilots) will have access to a wider array of ships and skills.
The update allows alpha pilots to train and pilot all sorts of new ships including the Battleship and Battlecruiser classes, among others. Daily alpha injectors can be used to grant pilots skill points on a daily basis rather than the current monthly.
“There has never been a better time to join the universe of EVE and begin your own unique space adventure, or re-join and continue your journey,” said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CCP’s CEO. “The increased flexibility and depth of the free Alpha Clone experience means that EVE is more accessible than ever. EVE players can return and fly their favorite ships for free, re-uniting with old corpmates or continue forging their own destiny to make their mark on the universe.”
To celebrate the update, CCP is running an even until December 12, offering free access to Battlecruisers and Battleships, with rewards themed around both classes. For more information on the update, check out https://updates.eveonline.com.
(Source: CCP Press Release)
Eve Online Introducing Unlimited Trials
Eve Online is going free to play!
Well, not really. While other websites are heralding today’s news as the coming of free to play for the 13 year old MMO, the term doesn’t entirely fit the package. What Eve Online is receiving is more akin to the unlimited trials that we saw in subscription games like World of Warcraft and Warhammer, allowing players to play endlessly but only obtain a certain level that restricts them from progressing past a certain point.
For Eve Online, this means being restricted to tech one ships, only allowed to use skills native to your faction, and having your skills locked out if you drop your subscription.
The most important thing to know about Alpha clones is that they may only use a specific set of skills and skill levels. To begin with, we are planning that the Alpha skill set will be focused on using tech one Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers. Alpha clones will only be able to use ship and weapon skills native to their faction. If you have skills trained on a character in Alpha State, which are not part of the Alpha skill set, those skills will be locked and unusable until Omega state is reactivated. Characters will start the game with the same 400,000 skill points as they do now and will be able to train freely within the Alpha list. A fully trained Alpha will have roughly 5 million skill points. You can find the full Alpha list in the Q&A below the blog.
You can read all of the details on the official website.
DUST 514 Will Shut Down In May
CCP Games has announced that their console shooter DUST 514 will be shutting down later this year. Initially launched on the Playstation 3 in 2013, DUST never really caught on with either the Eve Online community or the console community. The idea was pretty unique, players in DUST would form corporations that would fight over territory control on planets in the Eve universe, contracted by players in the MMO. Unfortunately the game failed to catch on with shooter fans, who had numerous other well-established console shooters, and Eve players who heavily criticized the game only being available on consoles.
We are very proud of what we’ve learned and accomplished with DUST 514 on PlayStation 3 over the past three years and it is an honor to be a part of such a dedicated community. We consider DUST 514 one of the best free-to-play offerings on the platform, but the years have caught up with us. It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that DUST 514 will be shutting down on May 30th, 2016.
The forum post announcing the sunsetting also mentions a new PC shooter set in the Eve universe, to be given more detail at Eve Fanfest in April. The most loyal DUST players can expect some sort of recognition when this game comes around.
(Source: DUST 514)
CCP Proposes Tradeable Skills, Community Not Enthused
CCP’s latest dev blog talks about coming improvements to the character bazaar, where players can buy and sell fully formed avatars in order to discourage less safe sales that would happen anyway on websites like Ebay. A majority of the updates concern the fact that the bazaar, while handy, is still too complicated for many players to confidently use, CCP has stirred the hornet’s nest with the announcement that players will be able to break their characters up into chunks and sell them piece by piece.
Effectively, you’ll be able to buy and sell individual skills without taking on the associated, and highly sought after, username xXx_420sm0k3W3eD_xXx.
By putting more control of your characters in your hands we hope to improve the game for everyone. Whether you’re an older player who would rather have ISK than those mining skills you don’t use any more, a clever new player looking to invest your fortune into your character, a Corp leader trying to move everyone into a new doctrine or someone like me who just realized that they would rather fly Armageddon’s than Stilettos, this feature has you covered. This all fits nicely to our overall game design philosophy of giving you control over your experience through cooperation and competition with each other.
The associated forum thread has broken two hundred pages, with CCP’s supporters pointing out that the function has essentially existed for years, albeit in the form of a full character rather than its individual stats.
(Source: Eve Online)
$1,500 In PLEX Destroyed
Eve-kill.net this week recorded a player killed while transporting 84 PLEX items. The player, Ozuwara Ozuwara of the State War Academy corporation was killed by player Diorden at about 3:30pm in the high security sector of The Forge, while piloting a rookie ship Ibis outfitted with virtually nothing.
Unfortunately for the attacker, all of the PLEX was vaporized in the explosion, leaving nothing behind to loot. The total in-game value amounted to 70 billion ISK. PLEX costs $19.95 at its highest price per unit, making the real money value somewhere between $1,469.58 and $1,675.80.
PLEX, which stands for Pilot License EXtension, is an item in Eve Online that can only be purchased in the game’s cash shop, and is redeemable for 30 days of game time. The item exists within the Eve Online world and can be looted from ships.
Even more incredible is the fact that this isn’t the most valuable kill in the past seven days. The most valuable goes to a Leviathan owned by Goonswarm that saw 106 billion ISK (valued at $2,100 USD).
(Source: PCGamesN)
Eve Online Unfurls Rhea Expansion
CCP is set on ending 2014 with the release of the latest update Rhea being declared both the last and the largest update of 2014. Rhea adds dozens of new features, new ships, and more to the space MMO, with a reminder that the next big update is just five or six weeks away.
Rhea introduces 100 new wormhole systems, the massive new system called Thera, as well as new exploration sites to be discovered. Several under the hood enhancements have been made to make Eve Online look and handle better, from the modernized UI and WASD keyboard controls, a new physical based rendering system, and upgrades to the Eve star map.
On the potentially more controversial side, Rhea also brings with it the removal of skill point loss and the clone upgrade system upon death, in the name of forcing veterans to risk more while punishing new players less severely. Two new ships and several redesigned spacecraft offer a new way to blast your way through space, or just die and lose all of your minerals.
(Source: CCP Press Release)
MMO Fallout 