Tag: new nebulae

Don’t miss the next episode of EVE Online!

Lukas Rox EVE Online, Games , , , , , , , , ,

Crucible has been out for 11 days and most players who engage in POS logistics have already prepared the new Fuel Blocks for their precious starbases.  There is no need to rush however, because CCP Soundwave has published information about delay this afternoon. According to the news, towers will begin consuming Fuel Blocks on January 24th. Apart from this, people who like to shoot stuff have been shooting (and dying) in the new Tier-3 battlecruisers, the masses are enjoying lots of small improvements, and beside some tears regarding the postponed Fuel Block switchover, most players seem to enjoy Crucible very much. Oh and by the way, CCP is doing the Live Events again. Wanna loot some t2 mods or even a PLEX? Head to Great Wildlands now!

But seriously, what is coming next?

We all know that DUST 514 is going to be released on PS3 somewhere in 2012, so all the mechanics linking it to EVE Online should come to the latter as well. Does that mean we are going to see establishments, War Barges and other Orbital Platforms?

Everything below this line is a pure speculation based on some known facts.

The mechanisms for the Planetary Warfare structures seem to be already existing on Tranquility, and they have been introduced with the Player Owned Customs offices.

In their trailers, CCP tend to use actual game footage, sometimes edited a bit, but for the most part it is the real thing. So lets compare, side by side, what can we see in Crucible, and what was shown on E3, when this DUST trailer had been released:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw0gOjOWDuI]

Okay, now since you have seen the movie, did you notice anything unusual? Yes, the trailer has been published in June, whole five months before Crucible, and it already has the new nebulae! Proof:

Next, the Planetery Warfare Interface. It looks just like the revisited PI screen from Crucible, but instead of orbiting Customs Office, on the DUST Trailer there are other types of structures, possibly related to combat and warfare.

 

Lets move to another feature, which I would really enjoy a lot: new nebulae on the star map! It would add to this already immersive feeling of distance and direction, that the new nebulae brought to EVE. These nebulae should be translucent and barely visible, but still noticeable, just like on the DUST video:

For sure we are going to see more V3 ship shaders, namely Minmatar and Amarr, which did not receive facelift in Crucible. I was a little disappointed with this, but on the other hand, if CCP waited for all the ships get reskinned, Crucible would not be a winter expansion, but more likely spring or even summer one.

I won’t be speculating about the name of the summer expansion, as it is too early and there is not much solid information available, but the codenames are already on the official Bug Reporting website (feel free to check yourself at bugs.eveonline.com). If you don’t feel like it, check the image on the right. So Crucible is project CALIGULA, and the summer expansion will be called either NERO or TITUS.

Only time can tell if the above is going to happen or not. In the meantime, let’s enjoy the Crucible, one of the most successful EVE Online expansions to date.

First night in the heat of the Crucible

Lukas Rox EVE Online, Games , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The waiting is over, Crucible has been deployed, one emergency reboot already took place and it seems everyone is happy. It was a very exciting time for all of us to wait for the 15th expansion, and the amount of work whoch CCP has put into it is enormous. Before the Crucible was deployed I tried to stick to the facts, rather than make opinions, but I think now is the right time for the latter.

On a side note, my blog kept on beating its daily visits count record, which now stands at 574 unique visits on November 29th. Thank you all!

New nebulae & warp tunnels

Are simply amazing. I like this feature of phenomena being closer or further away depending on where you are, since I saw it for the first time on SiSi. This adds a sense of global direction in EVE, which could never be experienced before; it is possible to tell where in New Eden you are just by looking at the sky (Gallente space – this way, Caldari space – that way). Stargates pointing at nearby stars add even more immersion in this area. The warp tunnel effect is simply awesome and can even make you dizzy if you keep staring at it for too long! It looks good even with shaders set to low. Passing through planets never looked so good. The EVE lore claims that ships in warp are outside of normal space, so they can pass through other solid objects. And now it looks that way (it always felt unfinished to me). Graphically this is EVE 3.0.

New shaders and ship models

Raven Navy Issue shader in CrucibleI already mentioned the new Raven and the other Caldari ships in my blog posts. Unfortunately, Minmatar and Amarr… didn’t make it for Crucible. Very good job @ art departament for the Caldari and Gallente though, new skins are beautiful. All ships are more detailed and the light interacts with them in a more natural way. Also the Navy variants look more realistic (hey, who would paint starships in camo? Wouldn’t plain black be better than that?). And the Raven model looks even more bad-ass now. Perhaps CCP should delay the deployment until mid-December, but with more V3 ship skins? Almost forgotten: the new engine trails look neat, I was missing them a lot.

Jump on contact

Jump on contactOne of the most useful features when travelling around high sec and low sec. I like it very much, and many others already love it, too.

Tier 3 BCs

I didn’t have much time to play with new EVE yesterday, but I managed to buy the Talos BPO (715 mill ISK?! You’re kidding me. That’s more than a Dominix BPO!) and already made 3 of them by the morning (currently they sell for about 150 mill isk apiece). So just 4 more and my initial investment will be covered.

Of course, the mineral prices have jumped, mainly due to speculation, so it was a good idea to prepare supplies before Crucible deployment.

And I’ve noticed some people already flying the new glass cannons. So far the most popular one I saw is the Oracle.

Of course the Tier-3 battlecruisers BPOs are sold by the empire Navies.

Destroyers vs Interdictors

Difference between Interdictors and Destroyers in CrucibleDestroyers got a serious buff, and they will be new nemesis for Assault Frigates in Factional Warfare complexes, which have a frigate size limit.

Wait, what about the Interdictors?

No love. They only got nerfed: previously, when you have deployed the Warp Disruption Probe, you only got agression, when your web actually caught some flies. Now, you get agression timer just for deploying the probe, and cannot dock or jump for 60 seconds. Moreover, Interdictors signature radius is still 80-90m and they have less HP and Capacitor than their tech I coutnerpart. Did you deliberately overlooked this, CCP? Make love, not nerfs!

More Incarna than in Incarna

In Incarna we have received one CQ (Minmatar), in Crucible we got 3 more. And more than just that: high sec CQs look clean, low sec ones are a little bit dirty, and null-sec quarters haven’t seen a janitor for ages. But I don’t really think people are going to spend much time in them, and not because players hate them. The usability of CQ has been improved, but still the hangar view loads faster, is more useful, and players got used to it. Spinning counter is one more reason not to enter the CQ at all (spinning counter starts to be visible after 10 full spins).

War for PI

I haven’t seen any player built Customs Offices so far, but thats because Interbus ones need to be destroyed first. According to the dev-blog, it is possible to entirely shut off access to anyone but your corp and your blues. This is a potential source of conflicts in low sec and maybe in null sec as well. If Customs Offices would change ownership along with sovereignty, this mechanic would be even better.

Is this EVE 3.0?

I know there is more changes than the ones above (this post contains all of them). But this is my first impression, it’s what shows the most after launching the new game client. The Crucible brings back the freshness, new opportunities and new combat styles to EVE, not to mention the graphical overhaul. Even though there were some silent nerfs to Interdictors and EVE API (which were not mentioned until final patchnotes), from my point of view Crucible makes up for both the Monoclegate and Incarna. Good job CCP!

EDIT: Fuel blocks BPOs have been seeded today and are sold for 11 mill ISK by Thukker Mix corp in Minmatar space.

Comments about what you like or dislike about the Winter Expansion are welcome!

New backgrounds in EVE

Lukas Rox EVE Online, Games , , , , ,

The Winter Expansion is focused on “Flying-in-Space” experience, so it is not a surprise, that the new nebulae announced together with updated turret models will make it to this expansion. I must admit that the art departament at CCP really did a great job. The new nebulae look very detailed and quite realistic, much better than the current ones.

There is one more change. Existing backgrounds are different for each constellation, but there is not much sense in how they are placed. The new backgrounds will be different for each region instead, but as you travel around the New Eden, you will see some phenomena closer and some further away, giving a feeling of distance and adding more immersion.

New backgrounds will affect one more thing as well: the reflections. This will cause ship textures to look slightly different, depending on the nebula and sun colours. Similar effect can be seen with the current backgrounds, especially when jumping from a red-background system to one with blue or green nebula. Art department promised however, that all the ships will be just as cool with the new backgrounds in place.

Knowing EVE community, one thing is certain: the new backgrounds will witness some serious boat violencing. EVE is a serious internet spaceship game after all 😉

Since one image is worth thousand words, CCP will swap this dull red cloud:

with these pretty nebulae: