The Legion of DUST514

Fanfest 2014 is on at the moment, but the live feed begins at a horrible time for me and only gets worse.

So catching up on news from the get together is tough.  However overnight CCP released news about a version of DUST514 for the PC.

[Dust 514 News] Introducing Project Legion

[CVG] Dust 514 dev announces Project Legion for PC

[Eurogamer] CCP re-imagines PS3 shooter Dust 514 for PC as Project Legion

[Massively] EVE Fanfest 2014: Project Legion brings DUST 514 to the PC

[PCWORLD] Meet Project Legion, the epic new first-person PC shooter from EVE Online's creators

While it is still at least a year away, possibly more when real time is used instead of CCP time, at least it shows a forward step from the parent company.

Good Game Reviews DUST514!

Hex on the left and Bajo on the right.  

One of the Australian television shows dedicated to gaming, cunningly called Good Game, has reviewed DUST514!

Good Game DUST514 Review Article

Good Game DUST514 Review Video  (strangely it sounds like they've been huffing helium)

After the unexpected cautiousness:

BAJO
Yes, I have made it half-way through the games tutorial however. The EVE fan base is made up of some of the most committed players in the world. For example the community has its own government known as the "Council of Stellar Management", which is made up of elected players from around the world. And the developer actually flies them to Iceland to discuss potential improvements and changes to the game. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is.

HEX
So we apologise to the diehard fans, but your game is massive and intricate beyond belief and no doubt we'll miss some amazing fact or say something wrong. But now that we've covered ourselves, let's talk about the game! So Dust 514 is an online only shooter which at first glance doesn't seem particularly different from other team based shooters out there. Although it is free to play and it's nice to see more quality free to play games coming to consoles.

They then move on to the game itself:

BAJO
Yeah, so you've got your standard variety of classes to choose from including assault, medic, engineer and snipers. Matches are played out on fairly large maps, usually with sixteen players a side, although it apparently supports up to forty eight players, but we never found a match that big.

HEX
There are a few different game modes including a team death match but mostly you'll be playing a 'capture the point' mode where taking a point activates a large missile battery that will start attacking the enemies command ship. And the first team to take down the enemy ship, wins.

The usual misunderstanding about the lack of a PC version:

BAJO
I did love the gritty sci-fi design of the worlds, and the maps are great with plenty of room for vehicles and some excellent opportunities for snipers. But I gotta say it's not the prettiest game around tho, it's not awful but it's not great. It is interesting that it's a PS3 exclusive.

HEX
Yeah, you would think they would include at least a PC version given that the PS4 is just around the corner, and the uncertainty of backwards compatibility. Does this game have a limited shelf life?


Which admitedly they address further later on. For the final scores and other comments follow the links but it was a pretty well rounded review. The haters are going to hate but I was happy enough with it.

Eve Online TV Series?

File this in the "Believe it when you see it" but an Eve Online TV show is being talked about in connection with a guy who is shooting something on HBO which goes by the moniker "It's not TV, it's HBO" or something similar.

Somehow the viewing public are going to become enthralled with one house against another, treachery and honour, yada yada yada.

Yes I'm making a not very subtle Game of Thrones reference.

I'm struggling to see how a series "about" Eve Online will become popular but what it may be able to do is increase the profile of both Eve Online and DUST514.

If this happens, and it's an if that reaches Everest high, the ETA is most certainly a couple of years away.  The obvious problem there is DUST514, as by that stage the PS3 has been replaced by the next generation kit by at least one year and the players could be dropping away.  With luck DUST514 has compatibility with the "PS4", they'd be mad not to.  This assumes the series will visit the guys down there in the mud at all.

Here are some links which may just be reporting the same hoax source.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/29/there-is-going-to-be-a-tv-show-about-eve-online/

http://kotaku.com/coming-soon-to-the-small-screen-eve-the-tv-show-483795472

So watch this space but at the speed CCP travels I'll be playing Eve Online in a holographic tank before this series ever sees the light of day.

Digging Up Newton

In Eve Online the physics are a bit strange.

For example, the space ships "fly" as if they're submarines and the surrounding space has mass.

Which it actually can in an almost not there way but in a more correct sense it doesn't.

Following on from this we have sound in space and shock waves.

When you destroy a ship the remaining wreck just stops like it deploys an invisible anchor into the dark matter.

How do you know Dark Matter is fast?  It's so fast it's already there before you are.

Anyway...

These are just some examples of the weird physics in Eve Online, I don't doubt their are others.

With the introduction of the DUST514 players into our server and therefore our universe something else strange has happened.

Some planets have stopped rotating.

You may, or indeed may not have, noticed the planets in Eve Online rotate upon their axis.  However they don't orbit the local gravity well, almost always a single sun.  The moons don't orbit the planets either.

The planets the DUST514 players are on do not rotate.  As the battles are in places called Districts and the pilots in Eve have to stay above those to provide bombardment support from above, CCP found it much easier to just stop the rotation so the capsuleers don't have to do anything hard, like navigate a tiny bit.

In the real universe, our universe, everything is moving!  Everything!

How cool would it be in Eve Online if the solar systems orbited around a central point, planets orbited stars (why are binary system under represented in Eve Online?), moons around planets, asteroids around suns or other solar systems gravity wells.  What about lagrange points?

The obvious response is the computing power this would require, to that I don't know the answer, outside of CCP I don't think anybody could provide an accurate one.

I'm not asking for accurate Newtonian Physics but a closer approach to reality would be appreciated.

Insertion of the Blue Helmets

The year is 2013.

With luck you've had an enjoyable Christmas and New Year holiday season.

CCP have introduced the ground dwelling expendable "humans" otherwise known as DUST514 players to our server.  They can be found in various system including Soshin should you wish to chat with them about who knows what.

While I've been ignoring this blog for the past, has it been that long, almost two weeks, I've been PVP'ing!

The usual run of the mill stuff generally except for last night when the Thorax's visited.

Two of them in fact, they approached me at the station in my Hurricane, pointed one and he died, the other ran away.

I suppose a pair of Thorax would hope to catch smaller stuff or haulers on gates but I cannot figure out what they thought could be achieved by attacking much more capable ships at a hostile station.

Good fights?

Not really.

December Update

It's difficult to know what to post about at the moment.

The latest patch update expansion (Retribution) seems to have been a success, especially the bounty system.

War declarations have been massaged to stop the eternal wars, new ships are now available with names that take some getting used to when seen in the overview.

Downtime (DT) is still annoying, especially the almost nightly long DT's that followed Retribution, as it impacted heavily on my prime time zone for internet space ships.

Ganking still seems to be happening, neutral repping the same.

The freezing in carbonite (mixing franchises for the twitches) of Walking In Stations is rather depressing, mostly as this will miss targeting a brand new Eve Online audience.  It would have also been cool to stand around with the corp mates while chatting, but that doesn't actually add much to the game play.

Planetside 2 has stolen the thunder of DUST514, both on the SONY console regrettably.  With the current glut of console shooters, Planetside 2 out dusting DUST514 with the kiddies I'm struggling to see how DUST514 it will be relevant upon eventual release.

I would like to be proven wrong but I think DUST514's life will be short and ugly.

Not forgetting the new consoles are due out in 2013 which given the pace of the DUST514 release schedule means the new SONY console will be out several years before a general non-beta DUST514 release.

Probably joking.

Might not be.

My characters are healthy, ie. they all have a task and are doing it well enough.

The corporation is also healthy, as is the alliance.

We are changing alliances though, going back to one we were in a while ago.

Checking out the velvet glove of a previous hot girlfriend as it were.

Hoping she hasn't had too many kids yet.



It should be a good move, I hope it is.

I found something to write about after all.

Go me.

DUST514 Delayed

Originally expected to launch in late 2012, CCP Games' PlayStation 3 exclusive Eve Online first person shooter spin-off will be (unsurprisingly) extending its closed beta period through until 2013, according to a report on Eurogamer:


"Things are going well," CCP Games exec David Reid said. "We'll be in closed beta through the end of 2012, but it won't take much longer. With a bet this big you want to get things right."

Eurogamer's Dust 514 preview, written in August, found the game "unsteady" with "a lot of work" still needing to be done.

Reid said these criticisms merely showed the game was still in a "real beta" phase.

"You should expect to see some rough edges, some things not working so well," he said. "Other recent console betas have tended to be working launch demos. We're doing something unprecedented here, and we want to get everything right before we join those two worlds."

This will push DUST514 very close to the big gaming conventions of 2013 and the expected displaying of the new Xbox and Playstation consoles.

However this will also move the release away from the typical Christmas AAA titles like Halo 4 etc etc, which is probably a good thing.

Dust in my Eve

Looking through my jump clones, find the one I don't need, destroy it.

Consider what I've done for a bit and realise that was the wrong clone, no implants, but annoying to re-create.

Later on, after last nights patch which added amongst other things some more DUST514 integration, I looked at a couple of temperate planets in high security space to see the new districts.  I also wanted to check out how many DUST514 players were in local.

Of course their were none as they are still on a different server.

Fatigue you strike again!

Seriously though seeing the first clear addition of DUST514 content to Eve Online is pretty cool, even though the "dusties" are playing somewhere else at the moment.

The Eve Online update due December 4th 2012 is shaping up as an interesting one, have a look at the Retribution page on the Eve Online web site for more information.  At some stage I'll probably, maybe, talk about it some more but for the moment have a look and a considered think.

My corp activity has been picking up again which is awesome.  To make moving ships easier a new JB link has been created between ( not telling ) and ( not telling ) which saves much jumping and heartache.

Anyway just a quick post, have to get back to the fight and help the bad guys triumph over the good.

Hey that's not right...

DUST514 Comes to New Eden

Meanwhile over in DUST514 land...

On August 21st the next update will be released for CCP's console shooter.  This will start the integration process between it and Eve Online, also DUST514 with moves servers from the current one to Singularity.

Read more here.

Increasing DUST

While I'm pretty meh about Eve at the moment, both due to a slow down in game due in part to others playing D3 and my increased work commitments, I had another look at one of the DUST514 sites.

http://www.dust514.org/home/item/dust-514-welcome-to-new-eden-trailer

At that link is a video explaining various parts of DUST514 and how it exists in the Eve Online universe.

Also, if it is to be believed, a release date of June 30 (I assume in 2012 but...you know...CCP) so finally we can see if the masses will flock to the Icelandic creation.

Penny Arcade! Again!

CCP CEO Hilmar practising Vienna from Ultravox on an Air Piano

Penny Arcade have posted another article about Fanfest 2012, DUST514, Eve Online and some of the issues over the past year or so.


http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/fanfest-feature


I find it interesting that now is the time CCP and Eve Online are being focussed upon in the more main stream press, certainly the more cynical part of me thinks this is part of a marketing strategy by CCP, not necessarily a bad thing.  What seems to have been the catalyst is the impending release of DUST514 as the masses should be able to connect more readily to the CCP shooter if they haven't already with Eve Online.


A quote from the PA article:

"Dust represents a huge shift for a company that’s dependent on a hardcore PC game. The biggest change is the platform: Dust 514, for the time being, is a PlayStation 3 exclusive. “I think if you were to put it on PC we would have brought with us all the complexity of EVE into a shooter-style, and we would have ended up with something like an Excel shooter,” Pétursson said, poking fun at people who characterize EVE Online as being a game about flying spreadsheets. “It has been really helpful to make it for consoles, to make sure it is simple and intuitive and all the sort of rules and expectations that a console product has have been helpful to make sure when you play it, you think this is not difficult to get into."

With luck DUST514 will be successful, perhaps because it isn't just another generic first person shooter, and this will also have some bleed across to Eve Online.

However the success of DUST514 may have a cloud on the horizon with the news Sony's new Playstation will be released before December 2013, and will not be backward compatible.

I'm sure CCP are aware of this but the potential to shorten the life of DUST514 is certainly there if this news turns out to be true.

Fanfest 2012 #3

To try and start the post-mortem on Fanfest 2012 here is a round up of information either directly from the Eve Online forums or from external sites commenting on the event.

While I've yet to find a clear stand out item from this years Fanfest, in respect to Eve Online, the main contender at the moment would have to be the update to criminal flags and factional warfare (more on both of those in the near future).

What has surprised me is the speed the next update is arriving, the first part of Inferno is due April the 24th 2012 with subsequent parts of Inferno being rolled out regularly after that.

So much information!  Enjoy.

ESCALATION/INFERNO

Inferno Details - Info Overview
Link: http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/rbltt/escalation_to_inferno_and_inferno_details/
Source: Valadian

Crimewatch Panel - Info Overview
Link: http://scaurus.com/?p=689
Source: Marc Scaurus

Fanfest 2012 Writeup
Link: http://www.lightspeedinteractive.net/2012/03/fan-fest-special-report/
Source: Light Speed Interactive


GENERAL KEYNOTES

Blog - Keynote and presentation recaps
Link: http://eveblog.allumis.co.uk/
Source: A Scientist's Life in EVE

Forums - CCP Keynote bullet points
Link: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=995538
Source: Lacrime DelSole

Video - Presentation and Keynote Videos
Link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEF9C7121272AC727&feature=plcp
Source: IZERAWarheaD



DUST 514

DUST 514 - Info Overview
Link: http://dustmercs.blogspot.com/2012/03/eve-fanfest-dust-514-keynote-demo.html
Source: KAGEHOSHI- on DUSTERS

DUST 514 - Info Overview
Link: http://mmoattack.com/mmorpg-articles/dust-514-missed-eve-fanfest/
Source: Kirk Wallace from MMO Attack

DUST 514 PvE Mode - Info Overview
Link: http://www.dualshockers.com/2012/03/24/dust-514-will-get-pve-horde-mode-at-launch-gladiator-arenas-in-2013/
Source: Giuseppe Nelva



VAMPALICIOUS STUFF

World of Darkness - Info Overview
Link: http://planet-vampire.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=k4bolhm3aj9g9vubsamiutrds7&topic=5929.15
Source: Cahalith, Valamir and the Planet Vampire crowd

WEB COMMENT

http://kotaku.com/5895683/watch-an-mmo-pc-gamer-shoot-his-way-into-an-fps-players-console-game

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/24/eve-online-players-will-watch-their-dust-514-minions-deathmatch-in-arenas-place-bets-on-their-lives/

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=29377

http://tentonhammer.com/eve/fanfest/2012

http://massively.joystiq.com/tag/eve-fanfest-2012

Fanfest #2 - Dust514 Soldiers Forever!

From Fanfest 2012 CCP have released a video that seems to introduce the soldiers for DUST514 as well as the implants they require to persist.

Enjoy!

Fanfest 2012 #1

Fanfest 2012 is go!

Well for the people in Iceland as CCP really dropped the ball with both the free and premium video feeds, they were either frozen or the audio was well out of sync for many hours.

The problem has now been fixed but it was incredibly frustrating.

I've been able to catch some of the live or recorded video, most of what I've seen so far was part of an Eve Online economics presentation and some info about DUST514.

The economics presentation was pretty dry, I guess it's hard to sex up what is essentially accounting, but when the camera breaks away from the presenter to the audience and I can count at least three people yawning that's not a good sign.

One set of figures that was repeated is that bounties introduce a much larger amount of ISK into Eve Online than Incursions and Mission Running combined.  PLEX was mentioned and also permanently banned accounts.  Over 10,000 units of PLEX currently reside in those accounts, CCP have said they will re-introduce those currently orphaned PLEX back into the Eve Online economy at some point.

Another more ominous piece of information relates to inflation, more ISK is coming into the game from various "faucets" than is leaving the game via various "sinks", so look forward to more "sinks" in the future.

I've also seen some of the DUST514 presentations with nothing terribly new being announced that I could see, mostly already announced features or obvious iterations.  Rather than this site re-inventing the wheel just head on over to http://www.dust514.org for a more in depth look at what information has been released so far.

So far Fanfest 2012 for me has been quite frustrating with the CCP video problems, my time zone in relation to Iceland, catching video repeats in a random way due to their broadcast schedule and my local commitments.

I suppose it will be like the other years and I'll just have to wait for several days to a week or two after Fanfest to really have access to all the information that was on offer.

Blue Balled & Fanfest & Douche FC's

On deployment at the moment at the behest of the alliance.

YAWN!

We were roaming around a couple of nights ago and the best intel we received from another roaming blue group was "we think a red went down through here a while ago".

Incredible.

Massive blue ball so far.

So currently in corp voice chat a few members are competing to see how high they can make their ship spinning numbers.

Yes that's actually happening.

Whereas the region we left behind has become a whirling dervish of activity as PL seem to be hot dropping pods with legions of carriers, I suspect they are also bored.

Fanfest 2012 is in a day or so, some live video will be available, either SD for free and HD for about a PLEX, though you'll receive a "free" hauler and t-shirt for that.

The only real thing I'm looking forward to at the Fanfest is the reception that DUST514 will receive, hopefully a good one.

Getting back to deployment and fleets.

I heard the other day that in a fleet, upon DBRB being announced as the FC, about thirty pilots left fleet but not before saying why.

Turns out they had "experienced" a DBRB fleet one too many times.

So I thought about the best way to describe to somebody who hasn't experienced the majesty of a DBRB fleet.

Being on voice comms with DBRB as FC is very similar to three hours of the worst Adam Sandler humour machine gunned at you, and you cannot leave.

How Long Is It?

Without attention they fade away

Welcome to March 2012!

We are not too far away from the Fanfest in sunny Iceland, which also means it's voting time for the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) number 7!

This year we have seen the usual grandstanding from those you style themselves after Nero or Caligula, mass spamming of in game mail boxes (ignoring spam charges and blocks), scams with promises for PLEX in return for a vote and some other shenanigans that just go on and on and on.

Eve Online is becoming more like real life everyday it would seem.

I have to wonder what percentage of people want a spot on CSM7 to actually help the game, grandstand or "win" a few free trips to Iceland.

Obviously with the goonies voting as a block I'd be very surprised if Mittens, the Grand Poobah of that particular juggernaut didn't get up again, and quite possibly as the chairperson.

Unless some obstacle stops him from being chairperson again that I'm not aware of.

Chairperson is such a dumb description, it's like saying "I'm a male nurse".  Well of course you're a male nurse, you must likely have "meat and two veg" swinging down there and a five o'clock shadow so the "male" description is rather redundant.

I digress.

CSM7 could be a very important gathering as the coming year will bring us DUST514, the continuing re-focusing of "internet space ships" in Eve Online, I would say some more improvements to Walking In Stations, and, the complete elimination of Down Time (DT).

We live in hope.

Although I do say that with some seriousness as the other night, DT, which for us is slap bang in the middle of prime gaming time, was only six minutes long. You might think that six minutes isn't much and you'd be somewhat correct but the disruption it causes ripples out well past the "server up" time.

DT is officially 30 minutes so that is what everybody plans for, so a 6 minute DT is still essentially at least 30 minutes if you are planning an operation or roam as it takes that long for everybody to get ready.

So the other night DT was 6 minutes long, but it took 45 minutes to finish.

Future WIS Musings

Introduced with the Incarna update Walking In Stations (WIS) was a long promised expansion to the game of Eve Online that should have expanded the options available to game play and the amount of players in the game as a whole.

As we now know WIS was more or less DOA, the new currency known as Aurum (AUR) was mostly useless with items well over priced and without much function, and the lack of development for the space ship part of Eve Online was very evident.

Things went bad.

However to their credit CCP have recognised they dropped the ball, have reorganised the company and seem to be kicking some goals of late with the Crucible update and subsequent mini-updates.

Lurking in Eve Online we still have the Captains Quarters, the only Walking In Stations part of WIS actually released.  Called that room Walking In Station is quite deceiving but it sounds better than Trapped In A Small Room I suppose.  We also still have the NEX store and the Aurum currency.

This week CCP announced they are continuing with work on WIS, and by extension the NEX store and Aurum.

This is fair enough as WIS has the potential to expand the player base as it will cater to a new audience, while Eve Online Internet Spaceships has on average probably grabbed the most amount of players it will.

So CCP have dedicated some staff to figure out the best direction for WIS to take, which also pretty much confirms the last four years of WIS development has been mostly pointless.

So CCP needs a direction.

How about a shared corporation room so the avatars of my corp mates can gather.

Then a map showing our sovereignty space and surrounds, then a scrolling news board that displays the corp bulletins.

Then perhaps some mini games, they don't even have to be new creations, like chess, or go, or whatever.

But you can gamble ISK and/or AUR on the mini games.

Then have a common area that people of the alliance can meet in, with much of the same stuff as the corp rooms.

All this rolls out over time so CCP can keep pace with the updates and also deal with any major issues as they arise.

Finally we arrive at public areas, and by this stage the DUST514 folks should also be able to participate in some way.

What about a complete free to play option.  People will be able to play DUST514 free as it will be a F2P title, but what about Eve Online?

The F2P folks can wander the station, take part in some activities, play some mini games, etc, but they cannot undock a ship and enter space as they don't have a licence, a PLEX.

They can then purchase this PLEX using real money or even ISK they have obtained somehow, undock and explore the wonders of New Eden.

Then the F2P player has been converted into a potentially paying Eve Online space captain, and if you looked back far enough we'd have Incarna to thank.

DUST514 Interview

The assumed fellows over at dust514base.com have interviewed CCP Praetorian and CCP CmdrWang about DUST514, their play testing of the game, and what features we may see in DUST514.

The interview and transcription is here.

Some quotes from the transcript.

"CCP CmdrWang: Yes we can. Yes we will support the mouse and keyboard for DUST514 including in-game shooting. And I just want to add that you know we are aware of how critical this is to get it right because we've seen other games try to attempt this and there were some problems. But we are dedicated considerable amount of resources into this particular feature because we want to do it right and we want to make sure that our players when they use the mouse and keyboard they will have a very good experience comparable to what they're used to on the PC."

Well this may confirm what has been previously reported, it would seem the keyboard and mouse control system will be available to players of DUST514, how many PS3 owners have a keyboard and mouse connected to their console is an unknown figure though.

"CCP Praetorian: Yea, exactly. And just like my assault suit, my dropsuit, it's pretty weak on the defence side so it's good to have a friend that remote armour reps. You know, spider tanking."

Remote armour reps, spider tanking?  Sounding very Eve Online.  What I'm wondering is how effective heaps of guys all remote repping some big bastard with a huge gun will be?

"CCP Praetorian: Yes. We share EVE's passive skilling or the overall concept of passive skilling. And then that is modified with active skilling, or success in battles and other PvP can speed up your skill point accrual. There's a lot of nuance that I don't think is possible to dive into right now but we have a dev blog very soon explaining this properly."

So this essentially sounds like a reward system for doing well in a battle and other combat, to reward the player and also speed up their training somewhat so they don't languish too far behind.

"Grideris: Basically from one of the fitting screens that you released as a screenshot, there was a particular module that was a Minmatar faction module. But it also had imposed on the screen saying that there was a particular achievement or level you had to get in service for the Minmatar Republic to be able to use the module. What was the deal with that?"

This may tie in with the above in that you have to meet some sort of achievement before it will let you fit the more advanced modules?    What happens if a bunch of geared up guys go against some new players to the game?  Maybe some sort of match making system will exist?  Or can it considering this is corp based combat? Questions, questions, questions!

"CCP Praetorian: Ejyo is really good by the way,"

Well at least we now know why the quarterly economic reports stopped.

"Grideris: So you'll be able to stand on the ground in your dropsuit and basically talk to the guy in the Dreadnought up in orbit shooting at the other guys. Directly?

CCP Praetorian: Yep"

Direct communications using the in game system between the DUST514 players and Eve Online is pretty cool, of course I don't know of any alliance that actually uses the in game voice system.  I suppose we could use that in addition to Teamspeak for the occasional times we need to order a ground squad to do whatever it is they do. 

For full disclosure I have only read the transcript and not viewed the video as taking 18 minutes to watch a video when I can read the text in 2 is not a great way to use my time.

Not much new information here to be honest but all the same it is handy to have much of this in the one place.  I look forward to the various videos they say are being worked on at the moment.

Superior Control of DUST514

Yesterday in the world of Twitter this happened...

While I'm not entirely convinced this is an actual "official" official announcement it is possible that keyboard and mouse support for DUST514 may be a reality.  With luck at the Fanfest we'll find that out for sure.

Dusting the Potential Account Issues

The DUST514 closed beta sign up is now finally with us, more information and a link to the sign up page can be found here.

Also a couple of interviews have been made with CCP about Eve Online, DUST514 and World of Darkness.  The interviews are fairly light on information and very little new information has been released but one educated guess has been confirmed.

DUST514 will be playable at Fanfest 2012!

That will be very interesting as for the first time we'll hear from actual gamers about DUST514.

I hope CCP have it working properly for the sake of everybody.

Some other news regards the updating of the Eve Online web site, this will be a multi stage process and seems geared more towards helping new players understand the game and what it can offer, rather than the grizzled veterans grousing about a 0.25 second delay in activating some module that only three other guys in the game use.

It's also that time of the year when my Eve Online game play account is due for renewal.  For some reason this was a drama last time and it would seem we are heading towards the same problem this time.  Anticipating some issue I started contacting CCP about the possible impending situation more than a week ago via the petition system.  I was then asked to contact somebody else, fair enough, but after two emails I'm still waiting for a reply.

On the plus side I've recently bought a Kindle, so I'll be better catered for entertainment wise should I have forced downtime.