Elite had its 25th birthday yesterday. The milestone in space-combat and trading games and predecessor of our mighty EVE. I can still remember when I was 14. I bought the game for my Amstrad CPC and initially got addicted to that sheer endless world that unfolded in front of me. I pew pewed, traded nearly every night after homework was done (and sometimes not). EVE had the same impact on me, except that now I’m significantly older with the first grey hairs, but also more experienced when it comes to girls. grinnn… So here is an original news-post from Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
…if you’re reading this in Honolulu and within 35 minutes of me publishing this. Otherwise, it was released 25 years ago yesterday. On the 20th September of 1984 David Braben and Ian Bell’s Elite shocked an shy world of 8-bit videogame heads. Really, it doesn’t get more seminal than this. Frontier Development have celebrated by making a micro-site featuring assorted Elite memorabilia plus a forthcoming interview with Braben on the 23rd (Via twittering them questions). Go See! I suspect one of RPS may weaken and do a retro piece before the week’s out. But until then, here’s something that’s testament to Elite’s majesty.
Edit: Inspired by the anniversary, I was surfing through the net in order to find a C64 Emulator just to have that little ELITE experience on my work-computer. And it worked! Here are the ressources for your gaming pleasure and a little screeny I just took a few moments ago:
Capsuleer Flamewave made a short video which demonstrates the new planet-surfaces in EVE Dominion. The video was shot on the singularity testserver on the 16th September. No more blahblah here, just enjoy what’s up to come in winter time.
EVE Online Apocrypha 1.5 will be released on 20th, August, 2009. This mini expansion will bring new and exciting content to New Eden including four new Epic Mission Arcs, one for each of the main Empire factions. These arcs will be at Level 4 mission difficulty to provide a challenge even to experienced mission runners. Multi sized rigs will be available, allowing pilots to fit smaller rigs on smaller ships while maintaining the same effect.
Changes have been made to Factional Warfare; lag has been reduced substantially allowing for much smoother fleet fights, loyalty point stores now offer substantial discounts on Navy Issue ships while incorporating unique faction modules to pilots. Players can earn loyalty points for the stores both by completing agent missions and by killing player ships belonging to the enemy militia. Black Ops Battleships now have a dedicated fuel bay that can be used to store fuel for their covert cynosural generators and jump drives while the Orca and Rorqual now have a dedicated bay for storing ore.
In addition to all of this new content we have made multiple changes to the scanning and probing mechanics, added to our ‘Need for Speed’ initiative to reduce lag and improve performance along with a host of other fixes and changes.
Dust 514
CCP today revealed DUST 514™, a console-based hybrid MMO/FPS set within the EVE universe. The announcement, which included a video featuring gameplay footage, was made during a keynote address by CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson at the Game Developers Conference in Cologne, Germany.
DUST 514, featuring first-person shooter and RTS-style gameplay, will interact directly with EVE Online, CCP’s critically acclaimed flagship MMO. This interplay between the two games opens the EVE universe to console gamers and gives them a chance to become part of one of the most massive cooperative play and social experiences ever.
“We launched EVE Online in 2003 and have experienced steady annual growth– a fact we appreciate as a rarity in the world of MMOs, especially given the global economy of the past year,” said Petursson. “Our success with EVE Online has afforded us the highest caliber global design and production talent in gaming. With a team of the best minds in the industry, we conceived an ambitious new take on virtual world development with DUST 514.”
The primary gameplay of DUST 514 features brutal ground combat that takes place on the surface of planets from EVE, delivering the visceral, adrenaline-fueled experience of futuristic firefights. Developed for the current generation of consoles, DUST 514 combines equal parts battlefield reflexes and strategic planning, giving commanders and ground infantry real-time configurable weapons and modular vehicles to manage dynamic battlefield conditions.
Now entering its third year of production, DUST 514 is the primary development focus of CCP’s Shanghai studio. The team includes veteran designers of EVE Online and experienced talent from various sectors of the video game industry.
“Since opening our Shanghai studio, we have invested in building a team that wants to push the envelope in gaming and be pioneers in the industry,” said Kjartan Pierre Emilsson, Managing Director of CCP Shanghai. “Having led the design and development efforts of the project from start to finish, our studio is honored to call DUST 514 our first title release.”
Further details will be revealed at CCP’s annual Fanfest event October 1-3, 2009 in Reykjavik, Iceland.
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