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The Dust 514 closed beta has been going on for quite a while, favoring players of its parent game EVE Online. Now the game is letting mere civilians register for the beta too. It's still closed since players are being let in on a limited basis, but it's less closed.
With its deep ties to EVE Online, DUST 514 is drawing from a "massive, persistent" online world containing "hundreds of thousands" of players, spanning "thousands of solar systems and individual planets. But does any of that matter? Can this intricate and dense world be relevant to PS3 gamers? Turns out, DUST is more than okay for non-EVE players. It doesn't require any knowledge of the EVE universe and is "designed to provide great moment-to-moment shooter gameplay."
Dust 514 has interesting plans for tying the PlayStation 3 shooter with the PC MMO EVE Online. But the cross-platform pitch may be getting even more ambitious, with recent hints that the game could use the PS Vita as a controller.
"Once you get your hands on the Vita, you can imagine it as a controller for your Dust experience," he said. "Suddenly you can think about all the things you can do with that screen."
Read more: CCP talks about 'all the things you can do with that screen' »
EVE Online developer CCP gave the first in-game-ish peek at World of Darkness at its annual EVE Fanfest event in Iceland over the weekend, trickling out a few more details on the MMO adaptation of White Wolf's vampiric RPG too. And, of course, there was bags of new information on EVE and its free-to-play PS3 FPS tie-in Dust 514.
EVE Online fans are on top of the world right now as the EVE Online Fanfest 2012 has kicked off in Iceland. Even if the fans can't make it to the home of developer CCP in Iceland, they can still keep up with the events through the first live streaming of the get-together.
As CCP winds up to launch Dust 514 later this year, it's given the business model a shake-up. The PlayStation 3-exclusive EVE Online tie-in FPS will be entirely free-to-play, turning away from previous plans for a "cover charge."
Dust 514 will have an option for keyboard and mouse control on the PlayStation 3, making it one of the few games to take advantage of that option on PS3. (Unreal Tournament 3 allows for KB&M play.) Given the game takes place in the same persistent world as EVE Online, the control option should come as a nice concession for those crossing over from the PC.
EVE Online developer CCP is preparing to embark on a new experiment in online game convergence with its upcoming console tie-in, Dust 514. In a recent interview, CCP's CEO Hilmar Pétursson discussed some of the steps that are being taken to integrate the upcoming PlayStation 3 shooter--Dust 514--into the same persistent universe as the PC-only MMO, the methodology that will be used to ensure the games will compliment each other in meaningful ways, and the challenges of supporting both games into the foreseeable future.
If you're an active subscriber to EVE Online, good news: you get the first crack at signing up for the closed beta of Dust 514. Developer CCP announced today that it is taking closed beta sign-ups, first from the EVE faithful. All others will have to wait a bit longer.
It seems as though EVE Online developer CCP bit off a little more than it could chew when it decided to embark on simultaneous development of EVE expansions, the console-crossover EVE tie-in shooter Dust 514, and the new MMO World of Darkness. The company has stated that it has chosen to lay-off twenty-percent of its workforce, due to thinly-stretched resources and a desire to refocus more development attention on EVE.
"We have come to the conclusion that we are attempting too many things for a company our size," the developer admitted.
EVE spinoff Dust 514 is preparing to launch its beta test, but developer CCP Shanghai is attempting to avoid the term. "We're not calling it a Beta," executive producer Brandon Laurino said.
Instead, the company is planning a "private trial," one that will be careful to preserve the ongoing EVE story. Progressive waves of trials will slowly introduce the story behind the game's mercenary wars, and their role in the EVE universe. According to Laurino, a normal beta test would break the EVE fiction.
As EVE Online's microtransaction controversy fades away, developer CCP has revealed a little more of its plans on that front for console tie-in Dust 514. The shooter will essentially have a "cover charge" reimbursed with in-game currency, CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson has told GamesIndustry.biz.
"In the beginning you have to pre-buy credits, so you pay something like $10-$20 to enter the game and you get the equivalent number of credits in the game once you do that. We call this the 'cover charge,'" Pétursson said. Read more »
EVE Online players have nothing to fear from microtransactions, the MMO's player-elected liason body, the Council of Stellar Management, has decided following an emergency meeting with developer CCP Games. The world of Internet spaceships became an unhappy place last month after leaked internal documents fanned upset over microtransaction items, suggesting that CCP planned to sell items giving distinct in-game advantages for EVE and future games.
"We are convinced that CCP has no plans to introduce any game-affecting virtual goods, only pure vanity items such as clothing and ship skins," CSM chair 'The Mittani' has written in a joint statement with CCP. The developer shared its plans with the CSM under non-disclosure agreements, and apparently all's well in Iceland. Read more »
QUICKTAKE: Dust 514 is a an incredibly ambitious massively-multiplayer shooter, tied directly to EVE Online, the internationally acclaimed space-faring sandbox MMO. Whereas EVE Online allows players to choose one role from a variety of specific professions and strategically participate in a persistent universe that accommodates up to 360,000 simultaneous players (and is PC-only), Dust 514 is a PlayStation 3-exclusive title (not coming to PC) that will allow console players to form factions and take part in battles orchestrated by EVE Online players, with events in each game being instantly reflected in the other.
EVE Online developer CCP has announced that its upcoming persistent shooter entitled Dust 514 will be exclusive to the PlayStation 3. The game will share the same world as CCP's cult-hit MMO EVE Online.
The MMO-FPS was first announced in 2009. The PlayStation 3 version of Dust 514 will feature support for Move and a dedicated Home space, along with unnamed support for Sony's upcoming NGP device. Read more »
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