Remember when CCP mentioned the new EVE Launcher before releasing Crucible? So here they mentioned it again. It seems that the Launcher is almost ready – it is now part of the Singularity client, so it is possible to give it a go.
What does it do?
- It shows a handy collection of EVE related links: Account Management, PLEX services and Buddy Program.
- It shows the current news from the game
- It checks that EVE Online client is up to date and patches it automatically if it isn’t
- It can repair the client in case it’s broken
- No need to restart the client when there is new patch to download
- Works on Windows and Mac OS X
To the contrary of what CCP is saying, the EVE Launcher is not something new. The original EVE Second Genesis client also featured a launcher, although it was not this powerful. The original Launcher did not feature anything useful, so it has been removed at some point.
If you do not have/do not want to install the Singularity client, here is a screenshot from the most current version:
And here is the forementioned original launcher dating back to 2003:
What happens next?
CCP Topknot has mentioned three things
- peer-to-peer technology for downloads instead of current CCP content delivery network
- limited gameplay (corporate forum access, chat channel interfaces, etc.) while patching
- more smaller patches instead of big staged releases
One impression I can’t get out of my mind is that some other colourful, fluffy singleplayer MMO have such p2p-based autopatching launcher already implemented for a while… Is CCP learning from Blizzard?
A lot of MMO games use a launcher these days, not surprised Eve is going that route.
True, I have a Star Trek Online account (it’s free to play now so I recently checked on it) and STO has a launcher as well. It’s a common trend.
But I don’t think STO is using P2P downloads, and I know for sure that Blizzard does. They use it for all games which can be acquired as a digital download.