Edge's webiste has posted the big feature on the game that formed the cornerstone of the mag's latest issue, which gives us our first real details on how the game is going to be worked into the existing EVE experience.

CCP's creative director, Atli Mar Sveinsson, explains how the game's multiplayer combat is a little different. "You're given some interesting choices before the fighting's even started. There are ten vehicle classes, but the commander can only commit five for each battle. We have 15 installation types, and he can only choose five. It's simple, really, like Magic: The Gathering: you prepare your deck and then fight."

Those choices are made by a "commander", either a human player or AI, who literally hovers over the battlefield in a large ship, able to give orders and witness the entire battle at once.

Which is fine, as far as shooters go. But Sveinsson is aware that Dust's real chance to shine is not as a shooter, but as shooter with links to EVE.

"The most ambitious element is the Eve link," he says. "The other stuff has been proven in other games. Running around with a gun is a proven concept: let's just make it really good. It's when Eve comes in that it becomes special. We're sharing the universe: your basic interface to the world in Dust is even through the same star-map as Eve."

"Essentially, the Eve players need to control planets," Sveinsson continues. "Planets give them resources and affect sovereignty. So they can issue contracts to win over territory on their behalf: either open-ended contracts for all to accept, or more direct contracts to specific mercenary corporations. You could almost liken it to the setting of a match: I want this kind of player, this kind of skill level. The difference is that it's being handled by players. It's not game designers or server admins setting games in motion or deciding where things should be, it's actual players in Eve, building up their districts and fortifying their areas."

And when those planets are conquered in Dust, the results will be reflected in EVE. Exciting stuff.

There's plenty more of interest in the piece, from the way Dust will work to how CCP are handling development across two continents, so hit the link below for all that and more.

Enter Planet Dust [Edge]

Dominion is EVE's 12th free expansion, and it's out today.

It's not just pretty to the eyes. Listening to this with headphones on, there's some great sound this - although I swear that Warthog-looking thing comes to stop with a Flintstones-car skidding sound at 1:54.

DUST 514 [CCP on YouTube]

This is perhaps the most glorious self-promotional thing I've ever seen a company do. Not only do they have the attitude down, the lyrics are pretty damn inventive too.

Every day is a fight, there's no room for bloopers
Bugs coming at us like in Starship troopers

And just when you think it can't get any better, Techno Viking shows up. I cried real tears.

I've gone ahead and included the full lyrics for the song below. Feel free to sing along, though if you're at work you might want to keep it down a bit - the language gets a bit rough.

Thanks to everyone who directed us to the clip! We owe you more than you will ever know.

Lyrics:
Intro
First off - let me make a short introduction
I'm the space 5.0, keeping EVE from destruction
Guard is the name, Lead master of the game
Top dog in the gamemaster hall of fame

Im chillin at my desk with two girls and one pimp cup
Sippin champagne, reading mails checkin what's up
Isk spamming scum bags disturbing the peace?
WOOP WOOP its the sound of space police!

Every day is a fight, there's no room for bloopers
Bugs coming at us like in Starship troopers
We help when we can, every child, every man
Treat the boogie man to a permanent ban!

CHORUS x2

We're CCP! We march on fearlessly!
Excellent is what we strive to be!

If you're going to follow us to the top

HARDEN THE FUCK UP!

You best watch out bitch if you're an exploiting scammer
Guard will gank you in the face with his big ban hammer
Remove all your Isk , throw your ass in the slammer
Make you share a cell with a manic ISK spammer

Like a never ending spam thread on racist biking
This song has something for everyone's liking
Holy shit I see local spiking

...ladies and gents, its techno Viking!

Chorus x2

Ever flowing - never standing still
We roll with the punches, move in for the kill
The competition ends up six feet in the ground
With fists full of awesome we go round after round

United we stand never ever growing weary
We cannot fall cause gravity is just a theory
We reach higher than the giants in operations
Patience soon well be crip walking in stations

We're more agile than a president dodging a shoe
We need three continents for our massive crew
From Atlanta to Shanghai to the Icelandic nation
Throw your hands up for World Domination!

Chorus

Why have an amazing time in a foreign land when you can sit at your computer desk, staring at a screen for hours? EVE TV will begin streaming from this year's EVE Fanfest on Saturday at 12:00GMT, broadcasting the finals of the 2009 PVP tournament live on stage. That will be followed up with a replay of Torfi Frans Ólafsson's keynote on EVE's next expansion, Dominion, wrapping up with Saturday's keynote on the future of EVE Online and CCP's new console shooter, DUST514.

I begged to be allowed to go this year, but since the cosplayers are mostly spaceships we ultimately decided to pass.

EVE TV [2009 EVE Fanfest via Voodoo Extreme]

People walking about in vinyl clothing; barely dressed women writhing about on stage; and men performing the art of fire poi for screaming women in the audience - this is what I saw during my brief visit to CCP's Succubus Club party last night at the Heavens night club in downtown Seattle. After standing in a rather long line for a good half hour I was allowed to enter the dark, smoky depths. So smoky and strangely-lighted that the few pictures I managed to shoot look like they were taken in a smoky, strangely-lighted club. Go figure.

After snapping off a few shots and avoiding the crowd at the bar, I found a quiet corner in the back room where the DJ was playing The Sisters of Mercy's "Temple of Love." Singing along quietly to myself it struck me - I had been here before. Sure, the smoke was cloves back then and not a smoke machine and I had more hair and a penchant for mascara, but otherwise this was pretty much a normal day for me a decade and a half ago.

And that's why didn't I stay longer. For some visitors to The Succubus, last night was a brief, tantalizing glimpse at a deliciously dark and bizarre lifestyle. For me it was ages 19 through 23, and then 27 through 29.

While work continues on the eagerly anticipated Walking in Stations update for EVE Online that will introduce avatars to the mix (recently renamed Incarna), EVE's 11th free update will be the newly announced Dominion. Dominion is all about the end game, or as CCP puts it, "Dominion is all about ownership-how you conquer and hold space, how you hold sway over fellow capsuleers and how you wage war against any who stand in your way. How do you make a name for yourself in a universe of 300,000 other players?"

The update will feature a more dynamic alliance combat system, allowing for more tactical strategy to be utilized in combat, a direct result of player feedback on the current state of the game.

Dominion will also bring enhanced social networking features to EVE Online to help foster social interaction, epic pirate mission arcs (arrrrr!), and more updates to the graphics engine, doing for planets what Apocrypha did for asteroids.

CCP promises to reveal much more about the expansion in the coming months. For now, keep your eyes on the official EVE Online: Dominion website.

Apparently the game will "interact directly" with the PC title, allowing console gamers to manually fight out the battles for planets that are part of the larger MMO conflict.

It will do this by combining FPS and RTS mechanics. The game is being worked on by CCP Shanghai, and there'll be more details (including which platforms this is actually for) announced during CCP's big fan get-together in Reykjavik, Iceland in October.

This is an example of what could happen if you find yourself flying the sometimes friendly skies in EVE Online, CCP's massively-multiplayer online space sim. I've never had an experience like this personally, having spent most of my time watching my ship auto-pilot itself from sector to sector. I'm sure if I did get a chance to stop, and was lucky enough to see a freighter being attacked by pirates, I'd be far too surprised to do anything even remotely helpful.

I'll get there eventually. Baby steps!

While other massively multiplayer online games have drawn huge numbers and then struggled to retain them, CCP's EVE Online has spent the past six years growing. So far 2009 has been very good to the game, with the concurrent user record being broken three separate times so far, with a standing record of 53,850 online at one time in one universe. The launch of the latest expansion, Apocrypha, has drawn even more players to the game, with active subscribers passing the 300K mark in the past week. Having started off the year with approximately 244,000, that's a 22% growth - for a six year-old game.

Along with the announcement, CCP sent along this picture of the celebration cake they enjoyed at their North American headquarters in Atlanta. I'd congratulate them, but they know I live in Atlanta and neglected to invite me over for gamecake, a transgression I'm afraid I can never forgive. Check out their full announcement below, while I curl up on the couch with a Little Debbie Swiss cake roll and cry.

Happy Birthday EVE Online!

EVE Online celebrates its 6th year of existence today—May 6th. That's six strong years of continuous growth thanks to tireless integration of user feedback into game design and pushing to release around two major free expansions per year. Our single-shard world, where everyone plays on the same shared server, has seen tremendous benefit from having each player able to interact and affect each other player in a persistent manner. From massive fleet battles to individual bonds of trust, every pilot in EVE has the potential to rock the ship of hundreds of thousands of others by their actions.

At one population milestone we saw agreements form between alliances. At another we were able to fully turn over the economy to the players. As the population of New Eden has grown, so have the instances of emergent behaviors of its pilots. A 6 year persistant history. A living history where truly brilliant strategies have unfolded. Truly terrible betrayals unveiled. We are excited to see what will happen next.

This year has been very successful for EVE Online, thanks in large part to our latest free expansion EVE Online: Apocrypha and a return to retail. We started out the year with around 244,000 subscribers and in five short months we've had a 22% growth in subscribers. In the past couple days we surpassed the impressive milestone of 300,000 active subscribers. That doesn't include trial accounts. We've broken our peak concurrent user record 3 times this year alone, standing now at an impressive 53,850 in the same universe. That is exponential growth. We couldn't think of a better birthday present than having more people playing EVE Online than ever before. It is another sweet reminder of EVE's boundless potential.

As always, we encourage you to bring your friends, family and even enemies to New Eden by visiting www.eveonline.com and downloading a free trial or by heading to your local retailer and purchasing a copy of EVE Online, which includes 60 days of game time.

The recession hasn't been kind to online game developers, with companies like Mythic, Nexon America, Funcom, and NCsoft all experiencing job cuts and studio closings over the past few months, yet EVE Online creator CCP is growing strong. Mike Tinney explains that it's all a matter of self-sufficiency.

While all these other companies are doing layoffs and scaling back, because we're pretty self-contained - we're not a developer beholden to a publisher; we're not a publisher waiting for a developer. We self-publish EVE Online and support it in its entirety, so we have a lot more ability to react as the world economy shifts, and that's allowed us to retool focus on the core drivers for our business, and steadily grow while a lot of other companies are shrinking.

Growing while other companies are shrinking also gives CCP the benefit of a rather large pool of talented individuals who suddenly find themselves looking for work, as well as developers who are employed, but losing confidence in the way their employees are handling the harsh economic times.

It's given us an opportunity to go into a rapidly filling job market and open up new positions at all three of our locations and start looking for the next round of industry like-minded professionals.

Between EVE Online's steady growth and the development of the World of Darkness online title with its built-in audience of dedicated fans of White Wolf's Vampire role-playing game, CCP has all the pieces in place to continue its growth well into the next decade.

Tuesday marks the official launch of EVE Online's Apocrypha expansion, and it will indeed change the way both new and old players survive in the online game. New players are being treated to epic mission arcs that actually guide them through the factions of EVE Online, making the game more new-player friendly than ever before. Meanwhile, veteran players venturing through the newly appearing wormholes will find riches and enemies unlike anything they've ever encountered. Enemies that change tactics based on player performance, calling in backup, changing targets, and strategically using debuffs to keep the players on their toes.

EVE has been steadily expanding since it was launched, and Apocrypha stands poised to up those numbers even more. Check out the official expansion website for full details on the new features in EVE's latest free expansion.

Speaking with MTV, Noah Ward, from developers CCP, reveals that after the latest user-induced meltdown to hit the game - in the form of the disbandment of the largest player alliance via treachery - people didn't really seem to mind. Prepared for a backlash of users leaving the game in their droves, Ward & CCP actually found that:

The largest alliance in the game was broken up by a trader on the inside and when this happened we were really worried at first because we were like, "Oh no! Everyone's going to quit!" And it was really horrible for us.

That was in the morning, but a couple hours later the buzz on the forums was crazy, subscriber numbers were growing, and everybody was really excited. Because everyone was becoming complacent and bored with being the biggest alliance, and then all of a sudden now there's war and turmoil. People who used to be in the alliance were re-subscribing and everyone was really excited about it so it's not necessarily always a bad thing when this sort of stuff happens.

Gotta say, despite MMOs as a whole never really grabbing my attention, it's this kind of thing that has me leaning towards giving EVE a good, hard look. You just don't find that kind of real-world intrigue in other games.

‘EVE Online' Designer: Players Actually Like In-Game Scandals, Corruption [MTV]

The trailer does an excellent job of highlighting Eve Online's strengths while skipping over the game's weaknesses, which I suppose is what a good trailer is supposed to do. An excellent voice over grants the production an air of mystery and power as they highlight some of the most beautiful space scenes available in any video game, showing off massive battles waged across a backdrop of shining stars and swirling nebulae.

What the trailer most notably does not show is the first lonely hours spent wandering around the expansive universe, with nothing but the generally unhelpful help channel to keep you company, or the user interface that clutters up said beautiful vistas. It's essentially the trailer version of a photoshopped MySpace picture. Still, I'd hit it.

Combat versus NPCs in EVE Online has generally been a rather simple affair, requiring the player merely target the enemy, start firing, and wait for them to explode. With the upcoming Apocrypha expansion to the massively multiplayer online game, that's all about to change.

...for Apocrypha, we are unleashing an ancient race into the universe: the infamous Sleepers, lurking throughout the vast unknowns stretching at the other side of the Wormhole maws. Do not underestimate them, as they will remain radically different from the regular pirate factions you are used to. More often than not, they will give you some substantial bang for your buck and will require player gang coordination and effort to be dispatched. More details are left for another Dev Blog, but at the moment, know they have comparable player attributes and thus require variations of PvP fits to engage.

The Sleepers are only the beginning of an effort to slowly ramp up the enemy artificial intelligence in the game. At first only the Sleeper and Officer spawns will be getting an upgraded A.I., but developer CCP is looking to slowly ramp up intelligence across the board, making for a slightly more difficult but ultimately more enjoyable gameplay experience.

When evolution leaps forward [EVE Online Dev Blog via Eurogamer]

Having found himself in the position of investments manager for the in-game bank Dynasty Banking, player Xabier had massive amounts of in-game currency at his fingertips. Between 80-100 billion ISK. But instead of looking after it, he...took it. All of it. Then took off to the stars.

The Chairman of Dynasty Banking, Manalapan, has issued a statement trying to put a good spin on things, but it's hard to put a good spin on things when your statement reads:

The most recent event and one which has caused the most controversy is surrounding Xabier. First and foremost I would like to point out that it is still not known for certain whether Xabier has, for lack of a better word, scammed. What we DO know is that he has missed a dividend payment on a personal bond, and his bio now states “Thanks for all the fish”.

Over 80 billion ISK embezzled from player-run bank in EVE Online [Massively, via Eurogamer]

The dual-client nature of EVE Online in its current form allows players with more modern PC technology to enjoy spectacular graphics, while an older Classic Client allows the game to be played on pretty much any system from 1998 onwards. It's a great system for stubborn PC gamers who haven't seen the inside of an electronics store in 10 years, but not so much for CCP, who have to basically create all graphics twice every time they add something to the game. Not anymore.

Starting with the launch of the next expansion, EVE Online: Apocrypha, CCP will discontinue support for ShaderModel 1, replacing the Classic Client with the new Premium Lite Client, which uses downsampled textures from the Premium Client, allowing the company to cut their graphics work by half.

After that, CCP is looking at possibly discontinuing support of ShaderModel 2 with the Winter 2009 expansion.

So how many people will be affected by these changes?

We know this will affect some players out there. What we don't know is exactly how many. We estimate that about 95% of all subscribers currently have hardware that is SM2 compatible. We further predict that in q4 this year over 97% of subscribers will have SM3 capable hardware. This means that an estimate of anywhere from 3%-5% of current subscribers would have to update their computers or graphics cards to be able to continue playing.

Seriously? 3-5% of EVE Online players are running on computer systems from the previous century? Maybe we should start a video card drive for these poor unfortunate souls.

i can totally run that on my amiga [EVE Online via 1UP]

Using the tried and true giant wormhole mechanic, Apocrypha will open up unexplored areas of the universe to adventurers brave enough to explore them. With new regions of space comes new technology, enabling the crafting of what they are calling the most dynamic ships ever - "Tech 3 modular ships with an astounding amount of customizability that can fill any role from skirmish muscle to industrial support".

They are also redoing the new player experience completely in order to give newcomers a better idea of how to survive and prosper in the vast, oftentimes confusing universe, which makes me think that maybe I should start over again for the fresh experience. Hmm.

Eve Online: Apocrypha will be available for free in March, coinciding with the Atari-aided retail release.

EVE Online: Apocrypha Uncovers a New Version of the Universe Itself

Reykjavik, Iceland January 8, 2008- CCP, one of the world’s leading independent game developers, today announced the launch of the tenth free expansion for EVE Online, its popular science-fiction massively multi-player online game (MMOG). EVE Online: Apocrypha is the most ambitious EVE expansion in the game's over five year history and it coincides with the March 10th, 2009 release of EVE Online as a boxed product through a partnership with Atari.

The fabric of space itself will be transformed as vast, unpredictable wormholes open to connect previously unexplored regions of the universe to the stars of New Eden. The seeds of advanced new technology await inside of these cosmic anomalies for those brave enough to explore them. This infusion of technology will enable production of the most dynamic vessels ever – Tech 3 modular ships with an astounding amount of customizability that can fill any role from skirmish muscle to industrial support.

Furthermore, NPC agents in EVE Online: Apocrypha will be authorized to assign Epic Mission Arcs to the pilots of New Eden. These branching, far-reaching mission strings are full of meaningful stories and more intelligent and deadly adversaries.

In addition, we are offering an entirely reworked New Player Experience for those joining (or rejoining) the game – giving them better insight into how to thrive in a truly limitless universe. We’ve already launched EVElopedia—a great repository for information on all things EVE where our players are also building their own living history of the previous five years of Alliance warfare, political intrigue and nostalgic recollection

“Just this past week we broke our concurrent user record with 45,186 people flying unbound in the same game world at the same time—a huge percentage of our quarter of a million current subscribers and a true testament to EVE in our sixth year of operation,” said EVE Online Senior Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson. “Today is an unprecedented time to start playing, as you can get ahead of the curve before Apocrypha releases in stores and our hard work hits the server cluster. It’ll be easier than ever to get ‘lost in the wormhole’ that is EVE with what we have planned for the future of our expanding universe.”

Leading up to the release of EVE Online: Apocrypha and the boxed version of EVE Online in stores, we’ll be revealing more features on www.eveonline.com.

Availability:
EVE Online: Apocrypha will be available at retail stores across the galaxy in March this year and as a free download at www.eveonline.com/download/ for existing subscribers. A new Premium graphics client for Mac will also be included in the retail box.

Visit the EVE website now to sign up for a free 14-day trial account or to reactivate your account to get ahead of the curve.

The exact number is 45,186 users, all going about their business in New Eden. Perhaps not impressive numbers when compared to the number of people playing World of Warcraft at any given time, but as Massively points out, EVE is all one big server where everyone plays at once.

What a great way to start out 2009—a new PCU (Peak Concurrent User) record of 45,186! While we've made tremendous serverside changes in the EVE Online infrastructure with the EVE64 and StacklessIO initiatives, it is truly a testament to our loyal fans that 5 years into EVE's existence we are still breaking records and more people are flying in New Eden than ever before.

Great news for CCP! Perhaps not so great for EVE players, forced to deal with an influx of new, stupid players, but it's a big universe. They'll cope.

Over 45,000 Players In New Eden [EVE Insider via Massively]

I've signed up for the EVE Online free trial program countless times now, and each time I've been faced with this massive universe of possibilities and absolutely no idea what I should be doing in it, which generally led to me wandering around for a few hours before giving up. Massively's Brendan Drain has written an extremely helpful article that goes over the various steps you should take in order to get the best feel for the game during that limited time.

Helpful hints included going with a combat profession instead of trying to get into trading and diplomacy within the span of 14 or 21 days, depending on where you get your trial, which is exactly what I had been doing wrong the past several times I tried to play. He walks you through attributes, professions, and even taking your ship to the next level.

I know there are other such articles out there, but this one came along at a time when I was really digging in and trying to find my way in the huge universe, and has helped immensely. I may still be lost in space, but now I'm lost in space with a strong sense of purpose!

EVE Evolved: Making the most of your EVE Online free trial [Massively]