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Alongside the new dungeons and deep EQ lore that the developers have pushed out to EverQuest II with their latest expansion, there have been a load of new changes and updates to the game's crafting metagame. We touched briefly on those changes in our full on tour of The Shadow Odyssey, but Emily "Domino" Taylor dropped by the official forums to give more details. There she outlines her logic behind improving the overall crafting experience for non-combat players rather than focusing on a ton of new recipes or craftable items.

EQ2Traders bears the responsibility of hosting several in-depth looks into the new crafterly content in the expansion. The site looks deep into the Far Seas Supply Division Headquarters, the numerous changes to the Isle of Mara, and the new instanced-based crafting content. The site also features a quick reference guide for players wanting to jump right into the expansion-y, crafter-y goodness. Click on through to these great resources for the full skinny on this sword-less way to pass the time in Norrath.

Culture Armor, just what is it exactly? Better yet: How is it going to work? Well, Funcom has some answers to your questions. First of all, culture armor (and weapons) are designed to be end-game crafting creations, thus giving more weight to the crafting aspect within Age of Conan. Eleven cultures are being represented in the armor sets and yes, certain classes won't be able to wear culture armors that don't fit their origins. For instance, Priests of Mitra probably aren't going to be running around in Kushite gear.

The player-driven economy of EVE Online is very much a playground for those interested in being financiers, traders, or whatever variant of corporate tycoon their greedy little hearts desire in the virtual space. EVE is a far cry from most MMOs in that its market isn't manned by NPC vendors, it's almost entirely player driven and remains dynamic due to the fact that EVE is a single-world game, where all player interactions can conceivably affect the game's economy. For some players, EVE's economics is where they immerse themselves. Indeed, in some cases it's even where they PvP with their rivals in price wars and market manipulations. To them, the market is where they live and breathe, just as much as lowsec is the ideal environment for many pirates, and lawless 0.0 space is where players interested in large-scale alliance warfare feel at home.

While EVE doesn't officially support a stock market or banking institutions, the sandbox approach CCP Games took to the game has allowed players to establish their own financial ventures in-game. However, without safeguards put in place by CCP Games, and with New Eden being a place where players can act as they wish, there's always the risk of embezzlement in any large-scale, player-driven financial institution. While it doesn't happen as often as most assume, there have been incidents like the EVE Intergalactic Bank (EIB) scam that have eroded investor confidence in such ventures. Fortunately, not all players are daunted by this, both in terms of those with a vision to establish a financial venture and the investors they rely upon. One such visionary in New Eden is "Ricdic", Founder and Managing Director of EBANK.

Among the numerous professions available to players in EVE Online, there are few that seem as arcane to an outsider as engaging in the booster (drug) trade and smuggling. One of the newest EVE blogs out there -- part of the ever-growing Blog Pack -- is something quite different. "Paradise Engineering" is written by Uhr Ptrak, who is part of the Es and Whizz cartel of drug producers and smugglers in EVE.

Paradise Engineering is a blog dedicated to giving readers some more exposure to this shady side of the game. "Many pilots may not even be aware of the vibrant black market in contraband in EVE... combat boosters get a hard rap from the larger EVE community, either scorned or unknown to many pilots. I thought I'd try to correct the record through a series of posts and guides on boosters and smuggling," Uhr Ptrak writes.

Much of what's written about EVE Online focuses on the darker aspects of the game. It's not surprising, as those topics are often the ones most interesting to players and non-players alike, but EVE has a very deep industrial side to it as well. It's a side that gets much less fanfare; R&D (invention), manufacturing, trading, and investment are all possible within the game and occur in tandem with EVE's more violent pursuits. Most every ship, after all, has been manufactured and sold (or re-sold) by another player. Those who engage in EVE's industry on a serious level often come into conflict with rival corporations and alliances in wars played out on the market, which sometimes spill into formal war declarations and combat. But if you're not interested in or inept at PvP, what are EVE's industrialists to do?

While an industrialist may not be well-versed in the art of war, he or she can play to their own strength: financial influence. EVE has a number of merc corps who are willing to solve problems, be it through armed escorts in hostile space or simply obliterating your opposition... assuming you can meet their price. Benilopax, of Warp Drive Active: Industry podcast fame and an E-ON contributor, relates his experience with contracting mercenaries to solve such problems, in what he refers to as 'the dark side of industrialism'. "There is a growing use of mercenaries by industrial entities to either take out the competition or keep them from easily making a profit," Benilopax writes for EVE Tribune. If you're interested in knowing a bit more about this side of the game, start with Benilopax's article (and A-Team reference) to see what it's like to deal with mercenaries in EVE Online.

New additions to EVE Online through the Quantum Rise expansion are on the way, some of which are already on the Singularity test server. CCP Chronotis followed up his announcement of the Orca by outlining some big changes to ships that are some of the mainstays of industry in EVE. "Much has changed in EVE since many of the hauler of mining class ships were introduced. With Quantum Rise we felt the time was right to review these ships and make changes where necessary to refocus their roles and ensure they can still perform in the age of New Eden's Great War," he said.

The changes outlined aren't finalized, and will go through testing on Singularity before any of this goes live. Chronotis addressed how CCP Games would like to change three categories of ships: blockade runners, deep space transports, and mining vessels.

CCP Games generally takes a hands-off approach to EVE Online's economy, letting the collective actions of players determine what happens. But at times there are bottlenecks in terms of supply. CCP Greyscale cites the example of how the limited number of T2 blueprint originals (BPOs) decreased availability of items while driving up prices. CCP stepped in by introducing 'invention', where players can attempt to create higher-end items via R&D, eliminating the issue of supply and normalizing prices.

CCP Greyscale's latest dev blog is called "Alchemy" and looks at the newest issue they've identified with EVE's economy, the inflated price of rare moon minerals. Greyscale says, "In particular, two rare moon minerals - dysprosium and (to a lesser extent) promethium - are becoming ever-more expensive as increased demand puts pressure on a limited supply. This is likely to become an increasingly large issue as time goes on, with prices for these minerals continuing to rise due to demand, and the increased price being passed on to the consumer of the final product." As we've mentioned in the past, these rare minerals in New Eden are something that the largest, most powerful alliances have sought to control and thus has been one of the drivers of conflict in lawless 0.0 space.

In-game economies can make MMOs more vibrant places to play, lending depth to these games that generally isn't found in regular PC or console titles. Then again, the perceived value attributed to virtual currency and items can lead to a slew of problems, not limited to acts of real world violence, the plague of gold spamming, and the slippery slope of ownership in the virtual space.

At least one company out there is working with MMO publishers to create a regulated secondary market, the hope being that it's possible to reclaim the black and grey market commerce so often attached to massively multiplayer titles. Do you think this approach is a viable solution to some of the problems associated with MMO economies? What are your ideas on how these issues intertwined with virtual currency and items should be resolved? Is there even a solution at all?

CCP Games developer CCP Chronotis unveiled the much-rumored Orca ship in EVE Online today, something industry-types have been looking forward to for a very long time. Chronotis said, "The development of the Orca has been unusual to say the least. With the introduction of the Rorqual last year Oveur immediately pointed out the remaining glaring gap in the industrial ship line and commanded us to fill it." The end result is a 'sub-capital logistical ship with a mining command focus'.

Read on below for a brief FAQ drawn from CCP Chronotis' dev blog as well as his commentary on the forums, which clarifies more about EVE's newest ship, the Orca.

Corp theft is a daily occurrence in EVE Online. Unlike most MMOs, stealing from other players or organizations in EVE is permissible, assuming that normal in-game methods were employed to pull it off. Simply stated, corp theft in EVE involves becoming a member of the corp and then stealing from the target corporation's hangar(s). Once a thief has access to assets, they can literally clean the corporation out to whatever extent they are able to, depending on their level of granted access. Sometimes corp theft is premeditated, other times it's a crime of opportunity. There are players who approach these heists as a profession, others may do so out of revenge. Regardless of the reasons behind theft in EVE, it's a part of the game and does help establish New Eden's setting as being a harsh, corporation-dominated galaxy where deception is a style of play.

Most corp thefts that this writer is aware of inflict minor damage, often a few billion isk in losses. Generally this isn't enough to cause serious harm to any solid corporation's future, and the only real impact on the corp is emo rage and a few pages of forum drama, and the offender's name being added to Fitz VonHeise's list "The Thieves of EVE" which should be required reading for corp CEOs and Directors who are involved in recruiting players.

We've blogged at length before about the crafting changes coming to Age of Conan, and every new piece of information we find out makes them look even more intriguing. Take the Culture armor and weapons: new pieces that crafters can make that don't require a guild city, with recipes that drop from bosses as blue loot. Now designer Dave Williams has put up a thorough Q&A about these pieces.

As well as adding visual diversity to AoC, with many more cultures represented than we expected to see, they'll be worth wearing for mechanics reasons: stat-wise, the pieces will be somewhere between dungeon-dropped blues and epics. Dave explains that the first batch of recipes to be patched in is only the initial iteration of something that will be much larger.

From the look of it, there will be plenty to be going on with: 'There are 24 culture armor recipes. Each recipe makes three pieces of set. Thus for patch 3 we are releasing twelve 6 piece armor sets -- one set per class. There are four culture weapon recipes grouped by geography, and each weapon recipe can make 3 weapons related to that theme. There are a couple of details that I'm going to leave to discovery, that I think players will find interesting.'

EVE Online is unique among MMOs in that its economy is so complex and dynamic that CCP Games hired an economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, to keep track of how the market evolves. One would imagine this is no easy task, with an overall trade value of all EVE markets ranging between 2 and 2.5 trillion isk per day. Lead Economist CCP Dr. EyjoG released a Quarterly Economic Newsletter (QEN) for EVE Online today, which is 18 pages full of data which should keep EVE's market and industry-oriented players happy (and hopefully make up for the delayed QEN, which Dr. EyjoG addresses in his announcement).

The Q1 2008 QEN kicks off with an editorial, and here are some brief highlights of what follows:

• Demographics (number of accounts, most and least populated regions)

• Price Level Changes (Mineral prices, Primary Producer Price Index, Secondary Producer Price Index, and Consumer Price Index)

• Mining ship production and losses (with the venerable "Hulk" exhumer losses accounting for a staggering 6 trillion isk in destroyed property in Q1 2008)

• Market Snapshots

• Five years of EVE Market history

If you're interested in reading the Q1 2008 economic newsletter, you'll find the download link to the PDF in Dr. EyjoG's dev blog. A discussion of his findings is already underway on the EVE forums.

The next major expansion to EVE Online, known internally at CCP Games as 'Midas', now has a name: Quantum Rise. The winter expansion will bring with it a number of new features and enhancements for the industrial and economic side of EVE, which we've just gotten word about from CCP, as well as confirmation of the rumored "Orca" capital industrial ship:

"Players have great things to look forward to in EVE Online: Quantum Rise. Corporations will be able to set their products apart from the rest by building trust in their goods through customizable storefronts. The backbone of EVE's vibrant economy, industrial ships are being rebalanced and optimized to better suit the needs of haulers and industrialists-including the latest addition to the fleet, a massive capital industrial ship dubbed the Orca. A new certificate system will give a quick and verifiable means to discern a pilot's skill level in trading, gunnery or countless other professions, providing plenty of bragging rights. Meanwhile, the introduction of a medal system allows corporations to distinguish their most valued pilots and honor them for their achievements."

Quantum Rise is being released in stages, some of which we've already seen and experienced, such as Stackless IO and EVE64. But other aspects of the expansion will include weapon linking, continuations of the Trinity graphics update, and other as-yet unannounced features. Keep an eye on our EVE coverage at Massively; we'll be watching closely to see what the Quantum Rise expansion will bring to EVE's players.

We've been talking about it since our interview with Dane Caruthers during PAX08 in August, but it's finally here! Tabula Rasa's megapatch, Deployment 13.4, has hit the live servers today, and with it comes some enormous gameplay changes, a new crafting system and more!

Plus, the new Command System is now set into place, which we've discussed briefly when it first went to the Public Test Server. This has been highly-anticipated among TR players as it gives a whole new dynamic to the existing pets. Instead of simply linking to the patch notes as we'd normally do, we've included everything for you just below the cut. Enjoy!

New changes to EVE Online seem to be on the way as reported by players on the test server, and confirmed by CCP Games developers on the forums: weapon grouping and contract refinements, in addition to the previously-reported certificates.

Having several high slots of weapon turrets and needing to change ammo types mid-combat has likely frustrated most EVE players at some point. Now, it seems that it'll be possible to link up weapons systems (turrets and launchers only, at first), simplifying reloads and ammo swaps. EVE dev CCP Ytterbium says, "This feature allows players to group weapons together into one slot. From there you can swap all ammo at once without doing the usual ritual of right-click gun 1, load ammo, right-click gun 2, load ammo again etc..." He does caution that the feature is nowhere near ready to go live on Tranquility, and should be considered a work in progress. More information on this feature (which is a welcome change for many EVE players) will be detailed in a future dev blog, he said.