Abandu

Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, EVE Online, Expansions

While the Dominion expansion for EVE Online has been focused on changing how alliances claim and hold territory in New Eden, CCP Games has also given the game quite a facelift. We've mentioned the updated starry backgrounds and shown you a bit about how the planets have changed before, but we came across something new today.

While the footage put together by the players was great, CCP has put together a "Planet Tour" video that's quite stunning. It flies the viewer past the different planet types that players can now encounter -- lava and ice, planetary rings, green continents and swirling clouds. We've got a video embed of the EVE Online Dominion Planet Tour (check out 3:34!) for you after the jump.

Continue reading CCP Games releases video tour of EVE's new planets

CCP Games releases video tour of EVE's new planets originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Read More... [Source: Massively]

Filed under: MMO industry, Opinion, The Digital Continuum

Nowadays it seems like a newly released MMO has an estimated lifespan the length of a bag of chips left open overnight. That doesn't leave much hope for older MMOs, right? It appears that way, but games like EverQuest and EVE Online are doing well enough and they've been around for years. Sure, they may not be massive subscription behemoths, but they play home to thriving communities -- which is a lot more than I can say for the sunset titles of yesteryear.

Continue reading The Digital Continuum: Revitalized

The Digital Continuum: Revitalized originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments
Read More... [Source: Massively]

Filed under: Video Games, Breaking News

Finally, a third party has confirmed what many have been saying for a while: Xbox 360 failure rates are much higher than the three to five percent Microsoft claims. Though not quite as high as the 30 percent some retailers have suggested, the 16 percent failure rate reported by SquareTrade is way beyond an acceptable rate.

SquareTrade is an independent warranty provider, covering products after the manufacturers warranty has expired, so its numbers don't include 360s that fail while still under Microsoft warranty. Microsoft recently extended the warranty on Xbox, leading SquareTrade to suggest that the failure rate is actually much higher than 16 percent since customers may have been bypassing its reporting system and going straight to Microsoft.

The infamous Xbox 360 failure has been colloquially called the "Red Ring of Death," because the console displays a red ring upon startup (like the photo above) to let its owner know that it's time to dial Microsoft 911. Causes are unconfirmed, but the most recent reports say that poor component choices in a rush to get the 360 out to market are to blame.

SquareTrade's study tracked 1,040 Xboxes over six to ten months after Microsoft's warranty expired. In that time, 171 claims were filed.

From Team Xbox

Related Links:

• Peeved Bill Gates Says Everyone Copies Microsoft
• Microsoft Celebrates Five Years of Xbox Live With a Free Game
• Xbox 360 Elites Showing Up Dead on Arrival

Report Confirms That 16% of Xbox 360s Are Broken originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments
Read More... [Source: Switched]

The critics weren't kind to Damien Hirst's latest collection, which was exhibited at the Wallace Collection. It doesn't seem to have mattered. All news is good news in Hirst-land, as evidenced by the sales of his most recent effort. Hirst opened a new show yesterday at White Cube. Even if the media isn't crazy about his, the artist's collectors haven't ended the love affair. Five of the seven largest pieces in his new "Nothing Matters" collection sold before the show opened, with the highest-priced piece hitting $15.7 million, despite an initial point of only 235,000 pounds.

The show runs at White Cube through January 20, 2010, but you'll have to accept that you'll be checking out what is now other people's property. Hirst collectors are nothing if not loyal.

Filed under: Art

Hirst Gets Last Laugh originally appeared on Luxist on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Read More... [Source: Luxist]

Filed under: Cameras, Breaking News

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will award contracts to design and build an unmanned spy plane they've dreamed up that will stay aloft for for an amazing five years. The pseudo satellite will circle the globe for years at between 60,000 and 90,000 feet, gathering photos, communications, and generally watching everything you do.

The craft will have to answer a number of design challenges, not the least of which is how to keep this thing powered for such a long period of time. The sub-orbital satellite will also have to carry a 1000-pound payload in extremely high winds (and become airborne in the first place).

DARPA would like to have the craft built ASAP, but you know how these things work, the government will be lucky to have non-functional scale model by the year 2020.

From Gizmo Watch

Related links:

• Two-Hour New York -Tokyo Flights Coming Soon?
• The Defense Department's New Robot Dogs
• Spy Satellites to be Pointed at U.S. Citizens

Unmanned Spy Plane To Stay Aloft for Five Years originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments
Read More... [Source: Switched]

Filed under: Meta BD

The Spike TV Video Game Awards were the source of a lot of new game announcements and reveals but they were not the only major news items in PC gaming this week. Let's look back at the past seven days at Big Download:
Exclusives

• Big Versus: In our latest look comparing games we pit Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare against Modern Warfare 2.
• Interviews: We chat with the people behind the upcoming shooter The Scourge Project and also with the head of Smoking Gun Interactive.
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed PC review: We give our final verdict to the PC port of LucasArts's action game.
• The State of Mac Gaming: Part 3: It's the third part of our four part series that examines Mac gaming.
• Boot Disk: Our retro games feature checks out X-Com Apocalypse.
• Freeware Friday: Our free PC game column checks out the unusually titled Magic Planet Snack.

Continue reading The Best of Big Download: December 7-13

The Best of Big Download: December 7-13 originally appeared on Big Download Blog on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments
Read More... [Source: Big Download Blog]

Nobody wants to pay for iPhone apps, and some people simply don't. The good news is, you don't really need to: For almost every paid app, there's a free app that's nearly as good. Here are the best of the best.

A lot of these apps will be familiar to anyone who's checked out our Essential iPhone Apps directory before, and yeah, there is a lot of overlap. What we've done, basically, is strip out the dollar signs from list, then fill in the gaps with more free.

With the new list, you can turn a fresh, untouched iPhone or iPod Touch into a decked-out powerhouse without spending a single dollar.

(To view the following gallery as a single page, click here.)

What counts as an essential iPhone app changes all the time, and so should our guide: If we've missed anything huge, or you've got a much better suggestion for a particular type of app, let us know, or say so in the comments. We'll be updating this thing pretty frequently, and a million Gizmodo readers can do a better job at sorting through the app mess than a single Gizmodo editor. Enjoy!

Read More... [Source: Gizmodo: top]