Information AboutEve Online |
''EVE Online'' is a Persistent World Multiplayer Online Game set in space. It is developed by CCP Games and was published from May to December 2003 by Simon & Schuster Interactive , after which CCP purchased the rights back and began a Digital Distribution scheme. Players are spaceship pilots in craft of varied style and purpose. BACKGROUND The fictional background story for EVE Online explains that long ago mankind had used up almost all of the Earth's resources, and was on the verge of extinction. The game's environment is a fictional area of space once accessible from Earth through a wormhole (the gate of EVE) into a solar system named ''New Eden'' which has since closed, isolating the new colonies. After the wormhole had closed, links to Earth had been severed and supply routes halted. Space flight was lost as common knowledge and ''New Eden'' entered a dark age. Once it was rediscovered, five distinct colonies survived. These make up the five major empires in EVE and players may choose from four of these when creating a new character. The Amarr were the first of the playable races to rediscover interstellar and faster-than-light travel. Armed with this new technology, they set about expanding their empire, enslaving several races in the process, including the Minmatar, who had only just invented space flight for themselves. The Gallente and the Caldari homeworlds were situated in the same star system. The Gallente homeworld was originally settled by French-descent colonists from Tau Ceti, while the planet that would later become Caldari Prime was purchased by a mega-corporation, which began to Terraform it. However the process was incomplete at the time of the gate collapse, and Caldari Prime remained environmentally inhospitable for millennia, delaying the rise of advanced society. The Gallente, with a more hospitable homeworld, restored a working civilisation some hundred years before the Caldari, however the Caldari were able to Reverse-engineer the terraforming equipment, giving their technology a substantial boost. Owing to ideological differences, the Gallente and the Caldari proved incapable of co-habiting the same star system, and the increasing friction between the two races culminated in the sabotage of the Gallente sub-aquatic city of Nouvelle Rouvenor on Caldari Prime, killing millions. This act sparked the Caldari-Gallente war. During this time, the Gallente Federal Navy unleashed a campaign of orbital bombardment against Caldari prime. The Caldari, however, were able to hold off and distract the Gallente with their superior technology and great determination and sacrifice, allowing for Caldari Prime to evacuated. The war continued for several decades until the Gallente came into contact with the Amarr, and finally brokered a peace deal. Meanwhile, the Caldari had encountered the Jovians, and benefited greatly from the older race's advanced technology. When the Amarr encountered the Jovians, their first response was to attack and to attempt to subjugate them. The battle of Vak'Aioth was a humiliating defeat for the Imperial navy, as a single Jove mothership massacred their proud fleet, destroying even the formidable "Apocalypse"-class battleships with a single shot. Seizing their moment, many of the Minmatar slaves used the consternation this caused within the Empire as an opportunity to rebel, succesfully earning their freedom and establishing their own sovereign domain and founding the Minmatar Republic. Although the Minmatar are by far the most common race in the world of EVE, their territory is relatively small, and the majority of Minmatar are either still enslaved by the Amarr, or else make up a significant portion of the population of the Gallente Federation. The Amarrians hold the greatest territory (controlling 40% of occupied space), and view themselves as the most powerful of the factions. The Gallente are the only true democracy in New Eden, and field a powerful navy, as well as being mostly responsible for intergalactic media and entertainment, while the Caldari are the smallest of the main factions, but continue to ride high in interstellar politics thanks to their superior technology and strong economy. GAMEPLAY ''EVE Online'' is different from MMOG s such as World Of Warcraft and EverQuest II because the player's character does not gain experience points by actions or by completing tasks. Instead, the player "learns" skills by training a specific skill over time, determined by the player's attributes and how many "skill points" a certain skill requires. This allows all players to advance their characters' skills at a roughly equal (but not fixed) rate, regardless of the amount of time spent playing. The skill training system is connected with attributes: Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, Willpower and Memory. Each skill has a primary and secondary attribute, thus the higher these attributes, the faster skills that use them are trained. There are also skills and implants that can increase attributes. While this system is effective at preventing "power leveling", complaints have been raised by some newer players that this system makes it impossible for "newbies" to compete with the veteran players. This argument has been countered by pointing out that a player who specialises at a particular facet of the game's play can quickly come to match or even exceed the ability of an older player within their chosen field, even if they don't have the same breadth of skills and abilities. Similarly, some players complain about the lack of an "end game", whereas other players claim that this is precisely what makes the game attractive - there is no "level 60" at which all players plateau and become incapable of significant progression. Rather, there is always something new to do around the corner. Players can engage in tasks involving mining, fighting, completing missions, and transportation of cargo in the ''EVE'' universe. ''EVE'' features a "security index system". Every solar system in the ''EVE'' universe has a public security status which ranges from 0.0 to 1.0. Systems with a rating of 0.0 are completely lawless. 0.1 to 0.4 have absolutely no protection by CONCORD (the NPC ) law enforcement, but are covered by sentry guns at stargates and stations. 0.5 to 0.8 have moderate protection, with 0.9 and 1.0 systems being considered extremely secure. Any time a player commits an act of aggression in a system with a security rating at or above 0.5, CONCORD ships and/or stationary weapons platforms will attack and destroy the aggressor. Since its release, ''EVE Online'' has claimed awards for its graphics, gameplay, company, and , 2006, ''EVE Online'' achieved a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous avatars online with 25,665 concurrent accounts logged on to the same server [http://www.eve-online.com/]. As of April 2006, Eve Online has over 117,000 subscribers [http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=317]. The servers have a scheduled daily downtime between 11:00 and 12:00 GMT. Game Acronyms and Abbreviations EVE Online sometimes requires fast communication, and therefore, unless a program like Teamspeak is used, short hand typing is. Thus, the use of acronyms and shortened slang versions of various items in the game is widely used. COST CCP purchased distribution rights back from Simon & Schuster in 2003, and now distributes the game client via free digital download. Free 14-day trials for EVE Online are available at:
Those who are playing ''EVE Online'' can send 14-day trials to their friends via the 'Buddy Program', available from the ''EVE Online'' website. If the buddy upgrades their trial account to a paying account, the person who sent the invitation will be entered into a monthly raffle for various prizes.
MAJOR CONTENT PATCHES Gemini Gemini was not actually a content patch, but is included here for the sake of completeness. When ''EVE Online'' was released, the base was codenamed Gemini, version 1.00.0000. Castor Castor was the first major addition focused on refining current functions along with adding Tech Level 2. With its release, EVE players saw conquerable stations in 0.0 security systems, the introduction of the agent system, the introduction of research agents, and many other features released between the launch of Castor and its follower, Exodus. Exodus Exodus was released on 24 November 2004 and added new content such as player owned starbases, multi-level "deadspace" scenarios, new environments, a new alliance system (which included formal alliance formation), new ships, better handling of conflicts, new market functionality, User Interface improvements, and an updated in-game web browser. Starbases now counted towards "Sovereignty," the ability to own a system in-game. Prior to its official release, this expansion was codenamed "Shiva". Cold War Edition Cold War Edition added larger structures and ships, new environments, more user interface changes and new agent functionality. Newly added "COSMOS" constellations contain new in-space agents with story-driven missions and unique rewards. The content patch also contained an extensive new tutorial sequence and a storyline background introduction. The Cold War Edition was released in July 2005. Red Moon Rising Red Moon Rising contained much of the content slated to be in 'Kali'. Red Moon Rising was split off in order to maintain a more regular patch schedule. It included many code optimizations and updates to combat, research, and manufacturing. Red Moon Rising added new Tech 2 ships and rebalanced the existing Tech Level 1 ships. Added to the ship classes were Recon Cruisers (cruiser class ships designed to cloak and/or operate in support roles), Command Cruisers (battlecruiser class ships that grant bonuses to leadership), and Interdictors (destroyer class ships that can stop warp activation). Mining and manufacturing players have new items, implants, and ships to use. Carrier, Mothership, and Titan ship classes were added. Some of these ships utilize extra-large drones (or 'Fighters') as their primary weapons systems, and have many abilities focused at supporting fleets of lesser ships. Titans additionally have special abilities such as wormhole generators and super weapons. Finally, NPC ships have received a significant overhaul, with new abilities and new ships. Red Moon Rising or 'RMR' was released on December 14 2005. Blood Blood is the codename for the small content patch ( patch notes at OGRank.com ) that adds several new bloodlines to each race. It introduced four new Asian bloodlines: The Achura, citizens of the Caldari State and expert scientists; the Jin-Mei, members of the Gallente Federation renowned for their legendary leadership traits; the Khanid of the Amarr Empire, the primary fighter-warriors of their culture; and the Vherokior of the Minmatar Republic, the established manufacturers and engineers of the tribes. This patch included additional code optimizations and bug fixes, and was released on 2 March 2006. Kali Kali is the codename for the fifth content patch. With it coming new Factional Warfare and Combat Organization such as introducing Medals, Ranks, Titles and Certifications which are to be awarded to corporations, alliances, and factions. Factional Warfare allows a pilot to declare allegiance to a side in the inter-factional conflict in the EVE universe. A contract system and combat boosters will be implemented, as well as the arrival of Tier-3 Battleships and Tier-2 Battlecruisers. Red Moon Rising was a split of the Kali patch and contained the first half of the original Kali ideas, Kali has been pushed back to Q4 2006. SERENITY AND THE CHINESE EVE-ONLINE As discussed in the recent dev blog with LeKjart, Serenity is the nickname given to a recently-announced EVE-Online partnership with Optic Communications to bring EVE-Online to the Chinese mainstream. Serenity is taking its first baby steps, and has been in closed alpha testing on a small cluster for a month now, with about 3,000 players chosen from an initial pool of 50,000. The Chinese EVE web site is up and already some events have been, and are being, held. At the end of March, several CCP Devs went to China to participate in PR activities in preparation for Launch of EVE China by the end of summer, 2006. Following the alpha, Serenity will go into closed beta running on the brand new hardware that Optic has invested in to run the game. If that goes smoothly, it will go into open beta just before the launch itself, scheduled for some time this summer. The code base between Serenity and Tranquility will be strictly in synch, so that any new development will be distributed to all players. The main new addition that had to be done was converting the whole of EVE-Online to Unicode, as well as putting in place a whole new back-end system to enable localization of each and every aspect of the game's content and UI. The developer blog can be seen here (NOTE: You must be a registered player to view) SHIPS See Also: Spaceships of EVE Online Ships in the EVE universe are organised into a variety of weight classes, with each weight covering a broad variety of ship class. Using the Caldari fleet as an example, the small vessels in the top right of the chart are Frigates, along with the Shuttle and Destroyer. Moving counter-clockwise around the Caldari fleet, the next four vessels are Cruisers, while the following is a Battlecruiser. Following the Battlecruiser are the two Battleships, then the Carrier, Mothership, Titan, Freighter, three Industrials, and finally the Dreadnought. Comparisons to real world structures can be seen then the far bottom left hand corner. WEAPONS See Also: Weapons of Eve Online Weapons in ''EVE'' are divided into four categories - turrets, missiles, combat drones, and smartbombs. Each category requires a different set of skills in order to use effectively, and have distinctive behaviours. Additionally, certain types of equipment have an important effect on tactics used in combat, namely warp scramblers/disruptors (and their counter, stabilizers) and webifiers. GRAPHICS ENGINE AND WINDOWS VISTA On March 14th, 2006, the EVE-Online development team announced that they would be upgrading the graphics engine of EVE-Online to a DirectX 10 / Vista graphics platform. As a five-year-old engine, the 'Trinity' engine that EVE-Online currently runs on is nearing the end of its lifespan. However, no one has to upgrade their client. If you can run EVE-Online now, you will continue to be able to run it and enjoy all its gameplay has to offer. The current version (Eve Classic) will continue to be the preferred version for performance and stability for a long time. More information on this upgrade will be released during the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo . SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS Official
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