Vista client screenshots and a new "trailer"

[Wolf]

The trailer can be found here.

The screenies are here along with EVE Classic comparisons.

Comment.

The movie is AWESOME. Black Sun Empire rocks. On the screenshots - GIFV MEGA.

[Llyse]

I prefer the old for scorp and megathrone.

New Executioner is nice though

[Sparky]

Sexy.  Any chance of directional thrusters? 

[Megrim]

The Megathron looks much more predatorial. Nice, very nice.

[Toast]

My take was that the new textures are more metallic and shiny. I just hope the client performance doesn't take a hit. I love playing 1900x1220 in an agp system with no worries.

[Wolf]

The devs are saying that you're going to be able to play the game at the same settings you are using now without taking performance hit. All you need is Vista.

To Llyse - I can't see how you can like the old greenish Mega. This one is tight. It looks like a Federate Issue/Vindicator but shinyer and in higher res :)
I can only guess the AWESOME level on the Federate Issue is going to be off the scale. And here's me hoping the Vind gets its own model :)

[Chenghiz]

My only gripe is that a lot of the textures are darker and it's tough to make out details on them. Otherwise.. man, those Amarr ships look awesome.

[dwindlehop]

I think it look darker because the lights aren't coming from a light map any more, they're directional from a source (the sun).

[Nija]

http://www.asgeirjon.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5&pos=0

[Merusk]

A new battlecruiser for Minnies? Oh my heart it does leap.  If it's a replacement for the Cyclone, then No, no no!  I like my frilled dino of doom.

[WayAbvPar]

I am considering a Cyclone in the next week or so- will that help with Level IIIs?

[Simond]

It's a new battlecruiser, not a replacement. All races are getting a new BC and a new battleship.
Edit: The Abaddon in the 'before and after' pics is actully the new Amarr battleship, for example (and it's rumoured to be the Arbitor's bigger brother i.e. a drone boat).

[Merusk]

I am considering a Cyclone in the next week or so- will that help with Level IIIs?

I do L3s in it, so, yes!.

  I don't own a battleship, too time-consuming to farm for the cash in Empire. The BC cost me 30 mil vs the 100+mil for a BS. Plus the skills & ammo are highly compatable with my cruiser, since both use Medium guns.  Biggest change for you will probably be that Cyclones are much more efficient shield tanks than armor tanks... you lose some of your toys and have some other skills to train up to make them really efficient.

And yay for a new battlecruiser.   I collect ships, too.

[Strazos]

Yay, finally our ships get the proper amount of windows.

Also, looks like the Gallente are shifting from "sleek and sexy" to "badass." Perhaps it will be tied to storylines?


But bleh, the new Caldari BS is just another flying brick.

[Simond]

Youtube-hosted copy of the trailer

[Yegolev]

Fucking sweet.

[bhodi]

You know, I'd be happy with some freaking hotkeys... how about a hotkey to engage autopilot? that would be nice... and a hotkey for lock on current target, target nearest enemy, orbit, go-to, how about hotkeys for disabling and enabling, not just activation? I'm in click-hell.

Also, how do you people live without a widescreen? I'm going through the flash player guide and on the screenies I can't help but wince... so cluttered!

[Yegolev]

You can reassign the few things that do get hotkeys.  Autopilot toggle is default CTRL-A, I think.  All-stop is probably CTRL-Space.  I have those mapped to the D-pad of my Nostromo, though, so I really can't remember.

A target-nearest function, that wouldn't be abused.  If there is one thing that irritates me, though, is not having my custom distance in the context menu, meaning I have to select something and press the button in the overview instead of right-click and choose whatever I set as default.

I compensate for the clutter by running at a resolution/text size where I can hardly read anything, and hunching over the keyboard.

[bhodi]

How about target storage/recall? ctrl-1 to store, 1 to reacll.. I can only imagine how fleet battles are... Oh well, I'll get more of an idea how to adapt once I really start the combat.. I've only destroyed an unarmed drone so far, tonight should be the first night I go out 'hunting'.

[Yoru]

I'll do some Eve stuff once E3 clears up; we shot a bunch of photos of the devs showing us Vista. Yes, it's really pretty and really smooth.

From my notes:

* Kali in 2 months.

Big new stuff:
* Solar System view. 3-D view replacing the Scanner that lets you see stuff around the solar system you're currently in. Improved and more usable scanning. Blob size apparently influences how easily you can be detected. Also, there's a spore-like 'seamless' transition from ship view to solarsystem view to galaxy (map) view. Scanprobes will be changed and improved. They will now be 3-D aware and not a giant pain to use. No details on what that actually means.

* Along with the SS view will be more hidden complexes and hidden asteroid belts with goodies in them. This is to "enhance the exploration aspect".

* When ships explode, they no longer blow up into cargo cans. They will now leave a hulk that you must 'scavenge' for loot, parts and stuff. Scavenging will have skills associated with it. Hulks will last longer than current cargo cans, "a few hours".

* Booster system, where you take drugs to confer temporary bonuses at the expense of temporary drawbacks (e.g. +5% turret rate of fire, -2% velocity). Tolerance, so if you shoot up a lot, the bonuses won't last as long as the drawbacks, thus simulating addiction. This second bit is not finalized.

* Gas clouds and gas cloud mining, which are used in booster manufacturing. Gas clouds are all in 0.0.

* Reverse Engineering. Basically, using parts found in complexes or salvaged off of the hulks of your enemies, you use reverse engineering to fix them up and then 'assemble them'. The game mechanic way of describing it is that you 'put parts in a box' and seal it; this locks in a set of advantages and disadvantages. You can then drop the box into your ship ("like implants for ships"), conferring those bonuses and drawbacks to that one ship. The 'box' will be destroyed when your ship explodes. Skills associated with all of this, naturally.

The Vista graphical upgrade is slated for the fall.

Windows Vista support "some time in 2007".

Long term, they want to make planets controllable and colonizable, with planetary flight, sieging, bases. An RTS-like building game. When I asked about the old French MMORTS "Mankind", the guy I was talking to said "kind of".

[Merusk]

So the Reverse Engineering is the 'ship customization' stuff that had been mentioned previously?   I certainly hope so, because there had been folks speculating you'd be able to switch-around slots and such.  Doing something like allowing folks to take a 6/4/2 ship and turning it into a 4/3/5 seemed like a bad decision.

[Yoru]

It may be; reverse engineering definitely allows you to Customize your Ship, but it may not be Ship Customization.

[dwindlehop]

Anyone have a hint about how the T2 lottery will look after Kali?

[WayAbvPar]

I'll do some Eve stuff once E3 clears up; we shot a bunch of photos of the devs showing us Vista. Yes, it's really pretty and really smooth.

From my notes:

* Kali in 2 months.

Big new stuff:
* Solar System view. 3-D view replacing the Scanner that lets you see stuff around the solar system you're currently in. Improved and more usable scanning. Blob size apparently influences how easily you can be detected. Also, there's a spore-like 'seamless' transition from ship view to solarsystem view to galaxy (map) view. Scanprobes will be changed and improved. They will now be 3-D aware and not a giant pain to use. No details on what that actually means.

* Along with the SS view will be more hidden complexes and hidden asteroid belts with goodies in them. This is to "enhance the exploration aspect".

* When ships explode, they no longer blow up into cargo cans. They will now leave a hulk that you must 'scavenge' for loot, parts and stuff. Scavenging will have skills associated with it. Hulks will last longer than current cargo cans, "a few hours".

* Booster system, where you take drugs to confer temporary bonuses at the expense of temporary drawbacks (e.g. +5% turret rate of fire, -2% velocity). Tolerance, so if you shoot up a lot, the bonuses won't last as long as the drawbacks, thus simulating addiction. This second bit is not finalized.

* Gas clouds and gas cloud mining, which are used in booster manufacturing. Gas clouds are all in 0.0.

* Reverse Engineering. Basically, using parts found in complexes or salvaged off of the hulks of your enemies, you use reverse engineering to fix them up and then 'assemble them'. The game mechanic way of describing it is that you 'put parts in a box' and seal it; this locks in a set of advantages and disadvantages. You can then drop the box into your ship ("like implants for ships"), conferring those bonuses and drawbacks to that one ship. The 'box' will be destroyed when your ship explodes. Skills associated with all of this, naturally.

The Vista graphical upgrade is slated for the fall.

Windows Vista support "some time in 2007".

Long term, they want to make planets controllable and colonizable, with planetary flight, sieging, bases. An RTS-like building game. When I asked about the old French MMORTS "Mankind", the guy I was talking to said "kind of".

My nipples are hard. Gimme!!

[Yegolev]

Slobber!

[Nija]

Long term, they want to make planets controllable and colonizable, with planetary flight, sieging, bases. An RTS-like building game. When I asked about the old French MMORTS "Mankind", the guy I was talking to said "kind of".

Man.

This is one of the things that they've wanted to do since release, but it's also something that requires lots of players to actually be fun. Hopefully they'll be able to figure out ways to implement even a quarter of this stuff.

I can think of so many ways for this to be awesome. I'm sure everyone else can too so I'm not going to bore anyone any longer.

To sum it up - YES.

[Viin]

So what was that MIRV-like missile launching weapon we saw in the video, anyone know?

And when we say Vista, are we just saying Vista as in Windows, or Vista as in the next expansion for EVE (like Kali)?

[Simond]

The starburst thingy was a Minmatar Titan megaweapon...I think.

[Yoru]

So what was that MIRV-like missile launching weapon we saw in the video, anyone know?

And when we say Vista, are we just saying Vista as in Windows, or Vista as in the next expansion for EVE (like Kali)?

There's two different things. Eve Vista is a graphical upgrade due out this fall. Eve for Vista is basically Eve with its graphics engine upgraded and rebuilt to work with DirectX 10, which is only available on Windows Vista.

It's confusing, but, well.. I'm not CCP.

[Llyse]

Is Vista the new windows os in the making?

and will eve for vista run for xp and such older systems

[Strazos]

Gah, that's might make me upgrade to Vista...thought Vista is 64-bit Only, correct?

And damn, at least for the smaller ships, we finally get some flight behavior that doresn't make the ships look like they are on rails. Banks and Spins = Win.

And I lol'ed at the squadron of Ravens. They purposely made them look faster, hehe.

[Trippy]

Is Vista the new windows os in the making?

Yes.

Gah, that's might make me upgrade to Vista...thought Vista is 64-bit Only, correct?

No.

[Merusk]

And I lol'ed at the squadron of Ravens. They purposely made them look faster, hehe.

Just played around with QuickFit.  If I had Caldari Battleships IV, and equipped a Raven with 5 Overdrive Injector System II's and a Quad LiF Fueld I Booster Rocket I could get it's max Velocity up to 2036.62 m/s.  Wheeeeeeeeeeeee.

[Yoru]

"Eve For Vista" is going to be DX10, which is Windows Vista-only according to Microsoft as of Feb '06. Windows Vista will be available both for 32-bit and 64-bit machines.

"Eve Vista", the graphical upgrade, will ship using DX9.

[Miasma]

Woah, are you telling me they won't be upgrading past DirectX9 for anything but Vista?  That would pretty much well force every PC gamer to upgrade.  That is huge.