Tag: mmo

On the Wagon Again

eve

Slowly getting back to my regular EVE routines, starting off with getting the podcast back on to a regular schedule of recording and editing.  New comic’s out, I’m this close to getting out a long-promised new set of parts for Nature Vraie, and I’m almost caught up on my backlog of evemails.

Coming back to EVE after a few weeks or months worth of less-than-average play time is always somewhat interesting.  It’s not exactly like riding a bike, I mean if you’re not used to how a particular ship flies you can end up dead really fast.

For me it usually entails first dragging out my Kronos for some level four missions.  It lets me make a few bucks, get reacquainted with my overview settings, and most importantly lets me get into the general flow of corp and alliance chatter.

Maybe I’ll make this a topic for tomorrow’s Massive Gamer Magazine article.. hmm 🙂

Advanced Marketing

This week, I look at how CCP is embracing new styles of marketing to reach a larger audience.

CCP has embraced these newer methods of marketing, and successfully so. You might have noticed it here and there, but I figured it might be a good idea to list what they’ve been doing lately and whether it’s worth paying attention as an EVE player.

Source: Advanced Marketing

Official News About the Starbase Exploit

As previously reported, CCP has taken action with regards to an exploit involving player owned starbases.

We discovered seven corporations with multiple Starbases set up for the express purpose of exploiting the issue.  Three of those corporations were members of two alliances. We took immediate action against the offenders and banned over 70 accounts and destroyed all the Starbases run by the corporations in question.  All the offending corporations are now effectively inactive as a result of our actions.

I’m still very curious how all of this fits with the post on Scrapheap claiming it was petitioned four years ago.  I imagine we’ll hear more from CCP on this over the coming days or weeks, but the discrepancy needs to be addressed by one party or the other.

The corporations were producing high end materials for T2 production. Working with the Research & Statistics team we have established that the effects on the markets have been considerable and far reaching. The effects of our actions against the exploiters will also be felt on the market as the production of the materials has been cut substantially. However, supply should increase again once players have mastered the alchemy process.

It’s going to take more than a massively wasteful new mechanic to fix what’s currently going on in the markets, I’m afraid…

In the meantime I hereby designate this as the official mascot of this exploit.

Source: Update Regarding the Starbase Exploit

Starbase Exploit Fixed… finally?

CCP has made a post on the EVE forums regarding a rather interesting exploit that’s being patched into oblivion.

We have discovered an exploit involving starbases that made it possible for some players to gain an unfair advantage over others. We have taken measures to address this by removing the starbases used in the exploit. Additionally, assets gained from its use have been seized and bans levied against the players involved. We will continue to monitor the game for issues such as this one. We encourage players to create a petition if become aware of any activities which may permit others to gain an unfair advantage in the game.

Some additional details can be found in a thread here on Scrapheap Challenge. Assuming this information is correct and the timeline of this exploit being in the wild is true.. wow. Depending on how widespread the abuse of this was, the economic impact to EVE could be unbelievable.

Already pilots are reporting massive increases in the price of certain items on the market related to Tech 2 manufacturing, as a direct impact of this fix.

I’d say send CCP a T2 shovel to dig themselves out of this PR hole, but it probably costs 10 times higher today than it did yesterday.

Source: Forum thread “Starbase exploit addressed”

EVElopedia Beta

The long-awaited EVElopedia is now available to be tried out in beta form!

This is essentially a managed Wiki for EVE Online, and is intended to marry a lot of things, including a new (updated) item database, officially created content, and player created content such as guides and other submissions.

Check it out, but remember it’s still in beta. 🙂

Source: EVElopedia Beta

Alliance Tournament VI Details

Well people have been wondering whether a new tournament was going to happen, and the answer is here: Alliance Tournament VI is happening.  There’s been some considerable changes to the format this time.

The traditional bracket system tournament will be done away with, in favour of a system that allows a larger number of alliances to compete meaningfully in the same time frame. A slightly modified Swiss System tournament will be used for qualifying, with a single elimination tournament occurring on the final weekend.

One of the biggest complaints from the last tournament was the limited number of spots, so that should at least help alliances get in that would like to compete.

It looks like in general the format of the competition itself is pretty similar to the last tournaments, but I haven’t had a chance to give it a thorough comparison.

Click on for more details:

Dev Blog on Alliance Tournament VI

Alliance Tournament VI Format

Alliance Tournament VI Official Rules