I’ve never played Eve Online past the trial period, but I do enjoy a good Eve story. So when I received an email from Anthony today, one of the enemy Eve players in the video, asking us to check out an Eve Online PvP video, I bit. I have to admit I wasn’t really expecting much, but was soon shocked by the quality and production value of this 40 min film, as this cannot simply be called a video.

While the film was released a few weeks ago and is the third in the series, the first two concentrated on battleship tactics and PvP battles with little storyline behind them. Rooks and Kings: Clarion Call 3 on the other hand is an epic story that spans more than a years time chronicling the conflict between two Eve Online corperations, the Rooks and Kings and AHARM.

No knowledge of Eve Online is needed to enjoy this film as the narrator breaks down the storyline and technical aspects for all. This is hands down the greatest machinima film I’ve ever seen and quick possibly the best machinima video ever made.

Now go grab some popcorn, get comfortable and get ready to enjoy of 40 mins epic Eve Online action. Big thanks to Anthony for sending this to us!

Continued…

The latest Eve Online expansion Crucible is now live and today we have the official trailer for it.

Eve Online: Crucible introduces three new battlecruisers, three new Captains Quarters, brings backs engine trails, a massive graphics update, time dilation and many more UI improvements and balance changes.

Crucible marks the 15th free expansion to Eve Online, which is quite a feat in itself. I gotta say, CCP makes some kick ass trailers although everytime I watch one I wish Eve had real flight combat.

Check out the Eve Online: Crucible trailer below.

Continued…

The fifteenth expansion to Eve Online now has a official release date, Eve Online: Crucible will be launching on Nov 29th. The Crucible expansion will introduce new ships, bring enhancements to the graphics, user interface and will include over three dozen updates to game-play mechanics.

Below we have a list of some of the new features that will be included in the expansion, however a full list has not yet been released.

• Improved chat windows
• New Station-themed Captain’s Quarters
• Time Dialation: Improved server performance for massive fleet battles
• Ship spinning and graphics tweeks
• Hybrid weapons balancing
• Assault ships
• Capital ship balancing
• New T2 modules
• Starbase logistics management
• T2 Rigs manufacturing

Today CCP announce they have reached the final level of sharing on their website eveisreal.net, which is a site where players can upload images, videos and stories about Eve Online to add to the history archives.  The final level rewards 2,000 Aurum to the characters with the highest SP on all active accounts.

Also announced today are two special promotions to lure in new Eve players and a little something for veterans who invite friends through the Buddy Program.

First all new paid accounts (including those converted from trial, invited through buddy program, created through special offers, etc.) will receive a free Cerebral Accelerator implant, available through the redeeming system. This is a limited time offer, so if you’re contemplating joining Eve, this is a good time to do it.

Cerebral accelerators are military-grade implants that significantly increase a new pilot’s skill development. They allow new capsuleers to more rapidly absorb information of all kinds, and as a bonus also enhance spatial processing abilities that are critical for weapons handling. The only drawback to this implant is that capsuleer training renders it ineffective after a while; as such, it will cease to function for pilots who have been registered for more than 35 days.

Also added is a bonus rare EVE ship for those that invite a friend through the Buddy Program and that buddy upgrades to a paying account.

The second sale, which starts today and lasts until November 28, 2011, is also aimed a new players who create an account, they’ll be able to get 180 days of game time for $49.95 or 3 PLEX.

Today CCP announced that they will be laying off 20% of their workforce as part of a reorganization effort to focus more on Eve Online and DUST 514 stating,

Developing EVE expansions, DUST 514 and World of Darkness has stretched our resources too thin.

While for the most part Eve Online and DUST 514 will not be affected by this, World of Darkness development will continue with a significantly reduced team. While CCP stated that World of Darkness is definitely not dead, it is not at the point where they need to dedicated a large amount of resources to it yet.

CCP also mentioned that while Eve Online is in good health, with subscriptions numbers higher than they were this time last year, they did say over the last two months the numbers have slid down from their summer peak. Which can be attributed to the whole Incarna expansion fiasco.

In a new developer blog, CCP announced that Eve Online has added player-owened Customs Offices, allowing players to profit through planetary taxation.

Customs Offices in all Low Sec, 0.0 and Wormhole systems will be decommissioned and removed. Customs Offices in High Sec will remain under the authority of CONCORD who will, in turn, charge doubled import and export taxes. Customs Offices are now targetable and destructible.

In order for players to open up their own Customs Office, they will need to construct one in a planets orbit, with each planet only allowing one such structure. The process requires players to haul a Customs Office Gantry into position, anchor it, then upgrade it.

These new offices can only be owned by a player corporation and only players with Station Manager role can edit the settings. Once constructed, the player can control the taxes on the resources that pass through that office, from a 0% to 100% tax rate.

Offices will use the reinforcement system and will trigger once the shields have reached 25%.  This allows the corporation up to 24 hrs to react and aid in the stations defense. Once out of reinforcement, that shields will be at 0% and the Customs Office can re-enter reinforcement if the defending corp can get the shields back to up 25%.

In a recent interview with SCEE Playstation blogger James Gallagher, CCP talked about their upcoming MMOFPS DUST 514 and discussed a little about classes, combat, beta as well as other things. Below we have the highlights of the interview for you.

When discussing combat, CCP stated,

Essentially it’s a vehicular combat game on an extremely large scale, and then when you move into installations and outposts, it’s more infantry based.

CCP went on to say that there will be a vast array of vehicles for players to choose from, ranging from buggies to tanks to aircraft. While there is a general class system, light, heavy, etc, they are not labeled as such due to the Fitting system, which was ported over from Eve Online. This system basically allows players to use any type of weapons and equipment for their characters as well as vehicles, giving players a massive amount of freedom to basically create any type of class they wish.

When discussing how beta would work, CCP basically stated there would be no beta and instead there would be something called Private Trials. Since DUST 514 is being integrated into the already live MMORPG, a normal beta testing phase would not work. The trials will be rolled out in small groups and once the first group goes live it will be in essence the start of DUST 514 game service. The Private Trials will also be rolled out with accompanying story-lines for Eve Online players, with the story continuing with each new added group.

Some interesting info, I didn’t realize vehicles would be playing such a major role in the game.

Today was a big day for CCP, the developer behind Eve Online, as they not only released a public apology to their fan base for the whole Incarna/Captain’s Quarters/Virtual Store fiasco, but also announced their plans for a winter expansion.  The expansion, which is planned for 2011, will help alleviate players concerns about the direction Eve Online is heading by completely refocusing the Eve development teams on Eve’s core gameplay: spaceships.

The winter expansion’s goals will be to introduce improvements to warfare and PvP, which will include, but are not limited to the following:

• Hybrid weapons balancing
• Factional warfare
• Assault ships
• Capital ship balancing
• New T2 modules
• Starbase logistics management
• New EWAR-Drones
• T2 Rigs manufacturing
• Ship spinning
• New font
• More captains quarters
• Time dilation

Good new for Eve Online fans who were upset about the direction Eve was heading over the last few months. It seems CCP is not all talk and is following up their words with real action. Can we all be friends again?

A new update was posted on the DUST 514 website recently detailing some of the communication features that players will have to communicate between Eve Online and DUST 514.

One of the main features will be Eve Gate, which will act as the communications hub between the two games both in-game and out. Players will be able to setup contact lists, check in-game mail, post on forums, and setup calendars with events amongst other things.

Corporations play a major role in Eve Online and will as well in DUST 514, which will be seamlessly integrated together, allowing corporations to recruit players from both games.

The idea is that a corporation staffed with members from both EVE and DUST 514 should be able to access all available functions. Common functionality includes creating corporations, managing membership, managing finances, and joining alliances.

There will be of course both voice and text chat available to players to communicate with each other from both games.

DUST 514 players also get their own War Room, where they can go to view vehicle and character specs, stock up on items from the marketplace or corp inventory.  The War Room can hold up to 32 players at a time, so players will be able to chat with fellow corp members or hires and strategize about their gameplan.

Today CCP announced that Eve Online Incarna 1.1 will be released on August 30th, via the Eve Dev Blog. No patch notes have yet been released, but are expected before the deployment of the update.

CCP also commented on the question of when the rest of the Captain’s Quarters will be released, stating,

later this year we plan on deploying the remaining racial quarters to Tranquility as well as the next Incarna feature, establishments.

Still no solid date or even a ballpark estimate, so it looks like Eve players will just have to wait a bit longer.