Apocrypha Expansion Patch Notes

WORLD SHAPING

• Appearing randomly throughout New Eden, gateways to the unknown will open up access to thousands of new solar systems, new Tech 3 technology, new resources and deadly new enemies, The Sleepers, who have awakened to defend their space with deadly force. With new scanning mechanics you will eventually find these new areas of space which are rich in resources but are heavily guarded. CCP Whisper explains more in his blog Building a new bridge to the stars.
• Wormholes will bring a whole new level of adventure and exploration for every pilot who dares to probe out an entrance to the unknown. CCP Abathur, in his blog, The darkness at the end of the tunnel tells us about the laws of Wormhole space, the use of starbases, mass effects and tactical environments.

Skills

• Players can now schedule automatic training of multiple skills. The new interface offers filters, a graphical display of the total queue and the ability to pause or resume the queue at any point in its progress. The skill training system allows you to queue skills that will start training over a 24-hour period. You can enter in up to 50 skills in a queue, as long as they all start training within 24 hours. CCP Eris Discordia tells us why More Queue Queue is the way of the future.
• Character attribute distribution can now be rearranged in order to diversify or specialize skill training. This means that you can now reallocate attribute points once per year. CCP Flatboy tells us how neural remapping works in his blog A Virgin Mind.

Character Creation and New Player Experience

• Rebuilt from the ground up, the new player tutorial reveals the many career paths a player can embark on while arming them with the knowledge and gear necessary to start carving their niche in New Eden. The character creation windows are now simpler and easier to follow, attributes can now be re-arranged once per year and new player missions have been revamped to educate players on industry, business and military occupations. CCP Fear provides more details in his blog Your Revamped Rookie – Part 1.

Hit the jump for the full patch notes and prepare your warp drive.

EVE Online Apocrypha / CCP “Behind the Scenes” feature

Hey CCP – Hire me, please? They are seriously making me think they are one of (if not) the best MMO developers out there right now. Their success story is just amazing. They are obviously doing something right.

What are you playing this weekend?

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After work tonight, I’m going to hunker down and try to knock out the last three Tome Unlock quests for the Bitter Rival’s event in WAR. I’m 7/10 right now, needing 8/10 to unlock Slayer/Choppa next week and 10/10 for the “Seriously Bitter” title. I don’t care for the title much, but I might as well get two more after unlocking the Slayer/Choppa at 8/10.

I installed the Vanguard Isle of Dawn Trial to check up on it, so I may hop on that and try a few classes. I really love how they start you off with a special armor set now, but at the same time, there is something fun about starting in rags and getting your first full set as you level up in an RPG that I’ve always found exciting.

I’m done with Darkfall. A friend and I have basically been sharing my preorder, and I just personally think the entire operation is a train wreck. Trying not to go on an uber nerd rage of disappointment from 5+ years of waiting, I’ll just say the game is not worth $50, is clunky in pretty much every facet of game design and execution, is the most sloppily handled MMO launch I’ve ever been a part of, and harbors a horrible player community (like most FFA pvp games). Some people seem to be having a blast in it, but I seriously can’t see why. I guess I just have higher MMORPG standards, now that the bar has been raised by over the years. The genre has evolved but Darkfall is living in the first generation of MMOs still with its buddies UO and AC.

Speaking of games I’m done with. I think I’m just over World of Warcraft. I want to get sucked back in, but I just can’t.

Other than that, maybe some Unreal Tournament 3 since it’s free on Steam this weekend. I’m mainly just counting down the days till March 10th and EVE Online: Apocrypha dropping so I can go pick up a copy in a store!

What are you playing?

Excellent EVE Online interview @ Gamasutra

CCP’s Tinny gives high praise to the EVE Online community and credits them with part of EVE’s success and has a little to say about the business side of MMOs.

“A lot of MMOs that have beene out there for 4-plus years and developed a steady playerbase, those aren’t the ones you’re seeing layoffs in right now,” he says. “Even if you have only 100,000 people playing, if it’s a subscription model, you know what your income is going to be next month, and if you’re a prudent businessperson you build your company’s model within that framework.”

Advice Tinney would offer to startups launching a new online product? “I don’t think that I would start going after a million people, a million WoW players,” he says. “I would not try to launch a new virtual world that has no community support behind it against any of the large, established virtual communities,” he says.

“Because you’re not just competing against the program’s client –you’re competing against the social community that engages and supports that world,” he advises. “Set a very reasonable goal to build a very small community — don’t aim low, but build a biz model that supports an early-adopter mentality and then support the hell out of this community.”

“There’s a lot of strategies out there, and there’s so many ingredients in the recipe of a successful MMO any one of them can throw the whole thing off,” he adds. “But I think the community is one of the most important ingredients.”

Check out the full interview here.

New official Black Prophecy website launched

Hannover (Germany), March 5^th 2009 – Reakktor Media GmbH today announced the launch of its new official Black Prophecy web site.

Kirk Lenke, CEO of Reakktor Media GmbH, said, “With the launch of the new official website we have reached another important milestone in the development of our recent project. The new website offers the latest breaking news, screenshots and concept arts of our next-generation Space Action MMOG “Black Prophecy” and is definitely worth a visit.”

Official Black Prophecy website: http://www.blackprophecy-game.com

This game has been off the radar for me, but consider my interest piqued. I’m going to sign up for the beta right after I publish this news post.

Hit the jump for the fresh screenshots and a little more about the game.

EVE Online Apocrypha/Retail launch snuck up on me!

Another day, another MMO to get excited about. The retail (re)release of EVE Online is just days away now, dropping on March 10th, and I feel like it totally snuck up on me. I’ve been waiting to give EVE Online a fair shot and pick up the retail box from the moment they announced it months ago, had no idea the day was almost upon me. I’m flooded with great games to play, but this one may rise to the top of the queue.

*suggest the HD version*