Filed under: Economy

The Inferno expansion is set to launch on Tuesday May 22nd, promising a complete revamp of EVE Online's war declaration system and a whole host of new modules. If you're in a wardec corp, you'll need to make a few adjustments to the way you operate when the patch goes live. The minimum war fee will increase to 50 million ISK even if you're declaring war on a small corporation, making very small corps less-appealing targets. The fee increases based on the number of members in the target corp, but it doesn't start increasing until around the 130-member mark. If you want to get your money's worth, you'll be best off picking a target corp with 100-150 members or selecting very high-value small targets.

Be very wary of wardeccing large alliances after the patch. While the previous war system swung in favour of the attacker, the new system has gone to the opposite extreme. Large corps and alliances are now significantly more costly and dangerous to declare war on, especially as the defender can now call mercenaries into the war at any time. Players have complained that the increasing war costs could be abused by getting all alliance members to add alts to the corp, but this would be a logistical nightmare to apply in practice and would increase fees by only a few hundred million ISK. If alt padding becomes a problem, CCP will undoubtedly step in and revise the fee structure.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the new modules and gameplay changes coming in Tuesday's Inferno expansion and give some tips on preparing for the patch.

I spent an hour romping through the woods of Salem last Friday with Seatribe head honcho Bjorn Johannessen. The tiny indie company (current dev population: two) is hard at work on its followup to Haven and Hearth, an acquired taste of a sandbox game notable for its no-holds barred approach that includes permadeath and the ability to summon (and kill) criminal characters -- even while their lulz-loving puppet-masters are offline.

Publisher Paradox bills Salem as "the crafting MMO," and boy it's not kidding. Over the course of this particular dev tour, I saw crazy amounts of tradeskill functionality, all kinds of cool world-building stuff, and ultimately, more than enough reasons to spend time with the game when it launches later this year.

GamersFirst has formally announced its next update for Fallen Earth. The Global Territory Control patch, or 2.4 if you're counting at home, will bring quite a bit of new functionality to denizens of the game's Grand Canyon wasteland.

As you might expect given the update name, territory control plays a big role. The devs are adding new outposts and settlements throughout the game world that can be conquered by each of Fallen Earth's six player factions. Capturing a settlement grants sole property rights to the controlling faction, which in turn provides valuable mineral extraction capabilities.

The 2.4 patch also features a new 50-plus PvP zone called the The Foothills, new player-crafted prospecting and harvesting technology, and various quality of life tweaks like bulk purchasing, merchant buyback, and faster mounting. Check in with Massively later this week for more exclusive info on the new patch as well as an interview with the devs.

[Source: GamersFirst press release]

In EVE Online's early years, one of its core design philosophies was adherence to a strict risk vs. reward balance scheme. There were riches out there to be found, but to get them, you had to put yourself in the firing line. Police ships patrolled high-security space to keep players safe from piracy, but the only resources available there were low-bounty frigate NPCs and inexpensive ores like Veldspar, Scordite and Omber. In the lawless far-reaches of nullsec, huge NPC bounties and rare ores containing Megacyte and Zydrine tempted hundreds of pilots to head out and make their fortunes.

Nullsec offered absolutely no protection against player attacks, and the only safety to be found was in sheer military force. The biggest and best corporations hoarded these gold mines for themselves, locking down the few entrances into the regions and patrolling the skies for unwanted visitors. Low-security space offered a middle-ground between these two extremes, a place where the everyday pilot could enjoy increased income and pirates were easier to spot. At some time in the past nine years, lowsec lost its place in the game and became simply not worth the effort. But how did that happen, and what can be done to fix it?

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at why lowsec systems are now ghost towns and suggest an alternative design philosophy that I think could revitalise these under-used areas.

What a long way EverQuest II's come! If you had said back in 2004 that the game would not only go free-to-play but have microtransactions and emerge largely intact, I probably would have run to get my pitchfork. But here we are in 2012, and EQII's website has a huge green button that says "Play Free" in big letters, with a long list of special deals on station cash and Marketplace items.

In this week's Tattered Notebook, I want to look back at the evolution of EQII to see how it successfully transitioned while gauging where it's headed down the road when it comes to its payment model. The official move to free-to-play might seem like the final hurdle, but I think we still have a few more around the bend.

Free-to-play is generating big bucks for Nexon. Who knew, right? The Korean gaming giant's profitability is profiled in a brief blurb at Gamasutra that focuses on Q1 2012 results.

Nexon exceeded its first-quarter performance projections on the strength of F2P growth in the Korean and Chinese gaming markets. These gains were "slightly offset by an underwhelming performance for its games [in] North America," which was blamed on "certain operational challenges."

Though Nexon's monthly active user count declined from 86.2 million to 82.8 million, its paying user rate increased (from 8.3 to 10.9 percent in year-over-year comparisons).

One of the more controversial aspects of the upcoming Guild Wars 2 is its microtransaction system, the details of which were tightly under wraps until the recent NDA-free public beta weekend. Now that the public's had a look-see, ArenaNet brought its gem store out into the open for all to see.

The browser version of the store, which is also available in the game itself, is only partially functional at the moment. While it does list the categories, items, and icons for its wares, it's lacking any prices, descriptions, or ability to purchase.

It's worth a look if you want a first-hand view of the goods that ArenaNet hopes will power Guild Wars 2's profitability, of course. The categories include style, consumable, support, account, boosts, and minis.

Forbes reported on a rumored takeover of Electronic Arts by Nexon earlier this morning. The magazine noted that EA shares spiked following a supposed bid by the Korean gaming giant.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter weighed in on the rumors at GamesIndustry.biz, saying that the deal "cannot happen." He guesstimates that EA will balk at any such deal because "Nexon couldn't pull off a stock-for-stock deal [...] and would have difficulty financing an all-cash deal to make EA shareholders happy."

Pachter floats a few numbers in his analysis, and he also notes that EA CEO John Riccitiello isn't likely to cede control of the company to anyone outside of EA management.

Inferno is right around the corner, with the Escalation to Inferno patch due to hit in two days on Tuesday, April 24th. The patch prepares EVE Online for the coming PvP apocalypse with titan balance tweaks, a new interactive status effect bar, and two very important changes to the NPC drop tables: Manufacturable tech 1 modules will be removed from NPC drop tables, and Rogue Drone NPCs will have their mineral drops replaced with ISK bounties. These are changes players have been suggesting for years, and together they have the potential to bring back mining as one of the most profitable professions in EVE.

If someone asked you where all the minerals come from to build the thousands of ships destroyed in EVE on a daily basis, you might say that you assume most of it comes from mined ore. Mining was originally the biggest source of minerals in the game and one of the most profitable professions, but over the years, that's changed. When level 4 missions added an infinite source of battleship-sized NPCs to high-security space, mission-running quickly overtook mining as the most profitable profession, and bizarrely, as a very good source of minerals. When the drone regions were later released, ratting there also became a huge mineral faucet far in excess of that produced through mining.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the problems faced by mining as a source of minerals and speculate on what will happen to mining as a profession when the Inferno expansion hits.

Stop us if you've heard this one before. Expensive themepark MMO launches to critical and fan acclaim (minus a healthy contingent of naysayers, of course). A few months after launch, rumors of bleeding subscriptions abound, followed by analyst predictions of... well, business as usual.

Gamasutra reports on one such forecast for Star Wars: The Old Republic by Cowen and Company. Analyst Doug Creutz says that though TOR's subs peaked at 1.7 million in February, he expects them to drop to around 1.25 million by March of 2013. The analysis is based on statistics gleaned from TorStatus.net, which tracks daily users as opposed to sub numbers. Electronic Arts' recent SWTOR promotional blitz also factored into the report.

"While the game got off to a good start, the relatively light amount of end-game content does appear to be taking a toll," Creutz wrote.

Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column.

"Yaaay!"

"FU-- yeah!"

"Finally."

"WOW! This is the best MMO news I have heard in a long time!"

These are just a few of the comments that greeted our recent announcement of Vanguard's upcoming free-to-play conversion. The reactions were overwhelmingly positive, and Sony Online Entertainment's open-world fantasy themepark was lavished with praise by a wide cross-section of Massively readers. This makes me wonder where all these folks have been since the game's launch in early 2007. It's not like Vanguard shut down and is being resurrected, you know? More importantly, I wonder whether free-to-play can actually save the game from the scrap heap of shuttered SOE MMOs.

TERA is soldiering on toward its May 1st North American street date. En Masse Entertainment, the game's American publisher, has quite a few features lined up to distract you from the brouhaha going on outside the game's lush fantasy world, and the firm has updated its website accordingly.

You'll find info on TERA's staged invasions, public quests, and economic system archived in the lengthy new post. The update also recaps the game's reputation system, its dungeon roster, and a few of the more interesting class tweaks to boot. Head to the official TERA site for all the goods.

One of the Asian market's gaming behemoths is in a spot of financial trouble, according to a story published last night by Develop.

You might remember The9 as Blizzard's former publishing partner for the Chinese version of World of Warcraft. The company also invested heavily in Red 5 Studios and its upcoming Firefall shooter, and it will be publishing Sony Online Entertainment's PlanetSide 2 in China when the MMOFPS sequel ships.

Develop reports that rumors of The9's cutting half of its workforce were exaggerated, but the firm is nonetheless downsizing. "We are optimizing operations programs and the relevant human-relations structures, and this optimization to increase the efficiency of the company is a necessary adjustment," the company said in a prepared statement.

It's a good time to be in the market for a new mode of transportation, especially if you're a cash-strapped wizard or witch in Wizard101. The annual Mount-a-Palooza is back, and KingsIsle Entertainment is magically shrinking costs and teleporting in rare inventory to make as many customers as happy as possible.

From now through Sunday, April 22nd, players can snag any permanent mount in the in-game store at a whopping 60% off the list price. Some of the mounts in the store will be only available during this brief window, as KingsIsle is retiring four mounts at the end of the sale while bringing back three other previous retirees for impulse shoppers to peruse.

And if you like Wizard101 mounts, you might want to keep an eye on Massively tomorrow. Our crystal ball says that your future may look bright if you do!

Thought that the Cardassian lock boxes and those ever-present "So-and-so opened a lock box and got a Galor-class cruiser!" messages were the end of Star Trek Online's foray into pay-for-treasure items? Think again! As of today, STO players will begin to see Ferengi lock boxes dropping in the game.

As with the Cardassian boxes, the Ferengi boxes can only be unlocked with a special key that must be purchased in the C-Store. The contents of the boxes contain a mystery prize that ranges from the D'Kora Marauder Class starship to combat pets to Lobi Crystals. Gold lock boxes have a higher chance of delivering a better prize.

In addition to proliferating lock boxes across the galaxy, STO's Ferengi are opening a store on Drozana Station that will sell a variety of fun items in exchange for Lobi Crystals. The store will offer Ferengi shuttles, photonic tactical bridge officers, costume pieces, and pets.