We got the chance to sit down with the team from CCP this year at E3 to go over some of the updates and talk balance within the EVE Onlineuniverse. The game has reached its ten year milestone and continues to be a strong sandbox for players to explore. That is if you don’t mind getting shot out in space. For the remainder of the year, and with the recently released Odyssey, CCP is doing a lot to enhance the new player experience and is also taking a look at continuing the integration with DUST 514.
EVE will be branching out into other mediums this year with a comic book series by Dark Horse and a source book covering the history and universe of the game. The biggest push is for players to submit their own true stories which will be covered in these other mediums. Not to mention a future television show highlighting some of the past moments that players had over their ten year experience. CCP said that it is better to take the true stories of players in the game and build the fiction around those events rather than just starting fresh with new material. If you are a decade long EVE player you may soon see your story on television.
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Now that Odyssey has launched, the team will be focusing on more rapid updates for the game. Odyssey has opened the door for new players in EVE and makes the experience much easier when trying to get past the huge learning curve in the game. They have seen a boost in numbers because of it and back in May were able to host 65,000 concurrent users in the galaxy. The expansion brings back the ability to explore space and has a number of features based around finding and gathering resources. The team also did a large rebalancing of 36 ships and some remodeling of larger ships. These changes plus the redistribution of resources should make it more competitive for veteran players and much more rewarding for incoming players. They also added in the ability to have two characters train at the same time.
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DUST 514 continues to bring players into the EVE universe on foot and give them battle grounds to fight over. One of the big events recently that connected the two games was The Battle for Caldari Prime. An event which allowed EVE and DUST players to work together on a planetary attack. The team is currently working on balancing out the guns after receiving some player feedback. Right now the game is running smoothly on the PS3 with plenty of ways for players to survey the EVE universe as a whole and find out what is happening out there. As CCP grows their monster sandbox out there. They continue to look at more ways to get players involved in their universe. EVE is no longer one game, but many worlds working together.
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The only thing missing from CCP’s presentation at E3 was any news on World of Darkness. We asked though don’t worry, but the team remained silent. Hopefully by next year we will get some news on the horror MMO that has so many people sitting on their hands. Right now CCP remains committed to improving the gameplay experience on EVE and continuing to integrate DUST 514 into the epic universe. Look for the EVE Collector’s Edition coming this October with lots of goodies for fans.
Garrett Fuller / Garrett Fuller has been playing MMOs since 1997 and writing about them since 2005. He joined MMORPG.com has a volunteer writer and now handles Industry Relations for the website. He has been gaming since 1979 when his cousin showed him a copy of Dungeons and Dragons. When not spending time with his family, Garrett also Larps and plays Airsoft in his spare time.
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