ccp posts

CCP's first and so far only game has been the space-based MMO EVE Online which launched over five years ago. However it's been known that the company has been working on other projects. This August CCP plans to give a first look at one of those projects.

The reveal will come as part of the keynote address for GDC Europe which will be held from August 17-19 in Cologne, Germany. The address will be made by CCP's CEO Hilmar Petursson . CCP announced some time ago plans for a new supernatural-themed MMO World of Darkness, and at last year's EVE Online FanFest showed some footage of a Halo-style FPS without any more comment.

CCP's EVE Online is a spacefaring MMO held in reverence by its players, and a certain amount of respect/fear by those who haven't played it. One thing that both groups seem to agree on is that EVE isn't something to be taken lightly. Word of its complexity has spread among those who don't generally play MMOs, and even the game's developers sometimes refer to the learning curve as more of a Learning Cliff, which tempts the unwary with promises of gameplay riches, only to dash them to the rocks below.

With that in mind, we were hoping that our recent interview with Noah "Hammerhead" Ward, Lead Game Designer for EVE Online, would provide some clarification. Is EVE as hard as everyone says? How can new players manage the overwhelming number of features? What can players look forward to in the upcoming expansion, Apocrypha? What follows is all the information we could extract from Mr. Ward, gotten in much the same way as one might extract ore from an asteroid. See? You're learning already!

World in Conflict: Soviet Assault: PC owners will be able to download this stand alone expansion pack to the terrific 2007 RTS game this week. It's set in the 1990s where the Cold War never ended and the Soviet Union stages a full scale invasion of the US. The expansion from developer Massive Entertainment and publisher Ubisoft adds six new single player missions on the Soviet end of things along with two new multilayer maps. If you don't have the original game you can also pick up World in Conflict Complete in retail stores this week. it has both the original game and the expansion pack.

Torfi Frans Olafsson, Senior Producer of EVE Online takes some time out to clear up a lot of misconceptions people might have about the sci-fi MMO. The video is roughly seven and a half minutes long, and shows Torfi standing in front of a backdrop and talking about different issues that might keep players from picking up EVE, such as the steep learning curve. He also talks how updates will improve the player experience.

There's no game footage or peeks of the upcoming Apocrypha update featured in the video. It's also worth mentioning that Torfi has a fairly strong accent. However, if you're curious about EVE, but intimidated by some of the things you've heard, this should help clear things up.

Download HD EVE Online Torfi Frans Olafsson Presentation Video (284 MB)
Check out all EVE Online downloads

This teaser trailer can also be found on EVE Online's recently launched Apocrypha site, and provides some early looks into the upcoming free expansion.

Download HD EVE Apocrypha Teaser Trailer (34 MB)
Check out all EVE Online downloads

While EVE Online was released first as a retail product many years ago, nearly all of the subscribers to CCP's space based MMO have come from the game's digital distribution model. In March, Atari will finally re-release EVE Online to retail stores and today both CCP and Atari announced what people can expect when they open up the box.

One of the cooler things about the EVE Online retail release is that CCP is giving players 60 days of free play time in the game, rather than the normal 30 day time span most MMO games give to beginning players. Existing subscribers to the game can add that 60 days to their time period if they buy the expansion or sell the time off in the game itself to other players in two 30 day increments. The box also includes a 21 day guest pass for a friend to play the game. If that player decides to become an EVE Online subscriber, you as the giver of the pass will get 30 days of free play.

In addition to the original game and all the previous expansions (including the upcoming Apocrypha) the EVE Online retail box will have an exclusive in-game ship, quicker access to space combat than the normal beginner and a web-based career guide with tips on how to play the game. The retail version ships on March 10. Meanwhile you can get more info on the Apocrypgha expansion via a new web site.

Iceland-based CCP has been growing its space based MMO EVE Online for several years now but they have also been developing another MMO, World of Darkness, for some time. The supernatural themed game is based on the series of pen-and-paper RPGs from White Wolf that CCP bought in late 2006.

Now the fan site World of Darkness Online has discovered an PDF file that appears to be a leaked business document from CCP. The document gives some info into the company's inner finances. More importantly the document has a little concrete info on World of Darkness which the document states is due out in 2010 (it's dated July 2008 so things may have changed since then).

You can check out the info revealed about the game after the jump:

The rumblings have been happening for a few months but today CCP announced that their next free expansion for their hit space based MMO EVE Online will be released to subscribers on March 10. On that same date, Atari will release the long awaited retail store version of the game that will contain the core title and all of the expansions.

The new expansion is titled Apocrypha and is described in the press release as the "most ambitious EVE expansion in the game's over five year history". New modular ships will be added to this new expansion along with wormholes in space that will take players to new and unexplored areas of the game's universe. There will also be a revamped way for new players for EVE Online to quickly get started to play the game. Mac games will be happy to know that the retail version of EVE Online will also contain a Premium graphics client for their hardware.

The folks at CCP seem to continue to grow interest in their long running space-based MMO EVE Online. Earlier today the game's official web site announced that they have reached a new concurrent user number for the game (that is the total number of players at one time)

That new record number, reached sometime in the first few days of 2009, was a whopping 45,186 players online at once. That's impressive for a game that for most of its life has been distributed via download. That will change later this year as Atari plans to distribute a retail version of EVE Online that will contain the original game and all of its extensive free expansion.

{Via Massively]

The worldwide economic crisis has hit the island nation of Iceland particularly hard. The banking system and Iceland's own currency, have collapsed. One victim of this could be the otherwise successful game developer CCP, the creators of the popular space based MMO EVE Online.

The UK based web site The Guardian has an overall look at Iceland's issues with a mention of CCP's problems as well. According to CCP team member Eyjolfur Gudmundsson states, "The present currency restrictions are putting us in a straitjacket. We are in talks with the government, but if we can't let capital in, we might be compelled to leave Iceland, even though this would be against our wishes." CCP does have offices in Atlanta and China as well so a move out of Iceland, while painful, could be done.

[Via Massively]