Filed under: Expansions

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.

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Perpetuum's new player-build settlements functionality and its new test server. Now, the devs at Avatar Creations have even more exciting news: an expansion!

It's called Gamma Frontier, and Avatar calls it the biggest expansion since the game went live over 18 months ago. Player corporations will be able to build home bases, launch industrial projects, and colonize the new Gamma islands (not to mention defend them from invasion-minded players).

The expansion also features extensive new terrain-shaping abilities. Avatar has given players full control over the land, including the ability to form hills, dig holes, and level the surrounding terrain as they see fit. Due to complications with pre-existing systems and landmasses, the terraforming capabilities are available only on the new Gamma islands (24 in total). Click past the cut to see a brief video of terraforming in action, then head to the Perpetuum website to read all the expansion details.

[Source: Perpetuum newsletter]

Turbine continues its Menace of the Underdark info blitz this morning with a new video centering on Dungeons and Dragons Online's maiden expansion. If you've been hiding in a troll cave for the last month, you may not be aware that the devs are taking players from Eberron to the Forgotten Realms starting on June 25th.

There's also a new Druid class, which is the focus of today's dev diary clip. Executive producer Fernando Paiz calls the Druid the single most requested feature by the DDO playerbase over the last six years. Click past the cut to learn more about the class and see if it measures up to your expectations.

[Source: Turbine press release]

Pay attention: The universe is going to war on May 22nd. That's awfully nice for the universe to schedule these things and give us a heads up, don't you think? If that isn't enough, the makers of EVE Online: Inferno have given us the official expansion website with an infolicious, nougaty center.

The brand-new website has information on EVE's 17th expansion, including details on the graphics update, the war declaration system, the mercenary marketplace, the unified inventory, and more. According to the website, "Inferno invites new players with a lower barrier to entry, empowers veterans with more control over their wars, and entices combatants of all types with advanced new weaponry."

Our own EVE Online columnist Brendan has been busy covering the expansion, with analysis on Inferno's mining system and the PvP revamp.

War of the Immortals' new expansion is officially live. Perfect World Entertainment is adding a new Harbinger class, the pet ascension system, a new instance called Proof of Divinity, and an extensive PvP revamp with the Lost Omen patch.

This last bit involves "re-tooling the team matchmaking system," PWE says. The changes allow for three teams of up to 180 players to duke it out in a single battle arena (that's 540 players at once if you're counting at home).

There's also a new trailer for the Lost Omen expansion. Check it out by clicking past the cut.

[Source: Perfect World Entertainment press release]

If it hasn't become clear over the past two and a half years, I really enjoy speculation. I like crazy theories, I like exploring possibilities, I like thought exercises, and so forth. There's some speculation that I find particularly ill-informed or lacking in some fundamental point of logic, but that doesn't mean I don't learn about them first.

Why am I making a point out of this? Because I've developed a theory about the state of City of Heroes, and I want to make it clear before I launch into this somewhat grim theory that I'm basing this entirely on outside observations. I want it to be clear that I could, in fact, be totally wrong, and when I say that City of Heroes nearly committed unintentional suicide a couple of years ago, I don't want that to be seen as some grand behind-the-scenes revelation.

And if it weren't obvious from that line, yes, that's where I'm going. I think Going Rogue nearly gutted City of Heroes and burned the whole game to the ground. And I think everything the game has done since can be directly traced back to that expansion.

On Thursday, Turbine will take the wraps off of Dungeons and Dragons Online: Menace of the Underdark and commence with the closed beta. It's a heady time for both the team and playerbase, as this 2007 title steps into the big leagues of expansion-holding MMOs. And because we know you hate waiting for all the goods, we joined Turbine on the test server for an advance look at some of the hottest features coming with June's launch.

On the phone with us was Senior Producer Eric Boyer, Community Specialist Amanda Grove, and Design Director Ian Currie. "We want to show players how big the expansion pack is and how much it'll be changing the game," Boyer began, telling us that levels one through 20 were merely "heroic" -- now it'll be time to make the move into epic territory.

From a look at the much-anticipated Druid and the previously vague Epic Destinies to a lightning tour of your first day in the Forgotten Realms, the team was out to convince us that Menace of the Underdark is fully worthy of the "expansion" moniker. How's it looking so far? Take a look for yourself!

Aztecs. Chronomancers. Mounts. Halberds. Golems. Dual wielding.

These are all but a hint of what a fourth Guild Wars campaign could have been, a campaign that was under development in the mid-2000s but was scrapped by 2007. Replacing it was the expansion Guild Wars Eye of the North and the workings of a super-secret sequel to the game (which you've probably never heard of). It was the forgotten campaign, swept under a rug while it was still under the rug.

But what if, in some alternative timeline, ArenaNet had gone ahead with this campaign? What if it became an established part of the Guild Wars legacy, as familiar to us today as Nightfall and Factions?

What if Guild Wars Utopia had lived?

Last week I celebrated the fourth anniversary of the EVE Evolved column with a competition to win one of two 30-day pilot's licenses. Congratulations to winners Dong Yi and Atrameides Denard, whose prizes have been contracted in-game. Today EVE Online itself turns nine years old, and so this week's EVE Evolved column takes a look back at the top EVE stories of the year. It's been a rollercoaster of a year for CCP, with the infamous monoclegate scandal hitting subscriptions hard during the summer and only recently starting to recover.

The drama kicked off as the much-touted Incarna expansion drew close and CCP revealed that it would contain no multiplayer elements and would introduce a microtransaction store for vanity items. Players didn't seem to mind the cash shop as long as it contained only vanity items, and CCP had previously promised that microtransactions would be limited to those types of items. When the Incarna expansion finally launched and players got a first-hand look at the cash shop, however, it became apparent that something was fundamentally wrong.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at the top EVE stories of the year, from the incredible videos and scams to the story of how CCP brought EVE Online back from the brink of disaster.

Over the last couple of months, I've been trying something different. As I mentioned back in my anniversary column, I spent a year trying out a strictly alternating format for Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV, but it wasn't working out to my satisfaction for a number of reasons. Backing off and focusing on the game with more activity seems to be working quite well (from my perspective, anyway), but it also means that I haven't really been discussing Final Fantasy XI much.

This isn't entirely by coincidence, as the game itself hasn't changed much over the past several months. In an earlier column, I had mentioned that the roadmap made it pretty clear that if change was on the horizon, we wouldn't be seeing it until the new roadmap finally came out. And here we are, one new roadmap later. So what do I think? Is this the promised vision of the future, the prophecy to lead us all into a new era of joy and light across the game's continents?

Last week we showed you some screenshots of Eveningstar, a new town in Dungeons and Dragons Online's upcoming Menace of the Underdark expansion. Today Turbine has released four additional shots taken in and around the small settlement that greets players as they transition from Eberron to the Forgotten Realms.

Turbine has also told us that the expansion closed beta will kick off on May 10th. The testing period will be exclusive to pre-order purchasers of MotU, so head to the official DDO site to learn more!

[Source: Turbine press release]

You might recall that Conquer Online made the jump from free-to-play PC MMO to iPad action RPG last December. Today NetDragon has announced the title's first expansion, called Invasion of Pirates. Unsurprisingly the content drop features a new Pirate class. You can see a video of it in action after the break.

The class wields pistols and rapiers, and NetDragon describes the resulting gameplay as the "most fiery, action-packed combat" in Conquer Online. The expansion pack is currently free if you download Conquer Online HD in the iPad App Store.

[Source: NetDragon press release]

Another week, another set of screenshots for Dungeons and Dragons Online's new Menace of the Underdark expansion. This time around, we've got two new areas to explore: the town of Eveningstar (and some night battles set therein) and the Ruins of Temple Mystra.

DDO players can check these areas out after leaving Eberron behind and stepping into Turbine's version of the beloved Forgotten Realms campaign setting. The expansion, DDO's first, is slated for June 25th. Head to the official website for more, but not before you peruse our screenshot gallery below.

[Source: Turbine press release]

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.

Turbine has released the next installment in its Menace of the Underdark dev diary series. The video clip runs for two-and-a-half minutes and features various developer personalities discussing Dungeons and Dragons Online's jump from one fantasy world to another.

"It's really important to us that Faerun feels unique and is more true to the classic high-fantasy setting," says producer Fernando Paiz. Whereas Eberron featured elements of fantasy-tech and magicpunk, the Forgotten Realms is one of the more iconic and traditional high fantasy settings around. As such, Turbine says, it has collaborated closely with Wizards of the Coast to ensure the authenticity of the expansion experience.

So what is the link between these two different realms? In a word, Lolth, the drow spider-queen goddess who is powerful enough to connect the worlds. Turbine remains mum on the specifics, though, so you'll have to check out the expansion to see for yourself.

[Source: Turbine press release]