The side projects of EVE Online are bursting with news today, as the integrated FPS EVE Vanguard has decided to open up its testing for curious players and blockchain game EVE Frontier is selling founder’s packs – and trying to dissuade people from calling it a blockchain game.
We’ll start with Vanguard and its newly opened testing access, which makes the shooter available to those without an EVE subscription or game key between now and December 12th. In addition to this open test, Vanguard player contributions to suppression or corruption will be ramped up over the weekend, and there will be some goodies on offer to those who join in, though once again these items will be locked depending on whether one is a subscriber or free player.
As for Frontier, the blockchain game is now selling founder access to its closed alpha, offering three different bundles that range in price between $30 and $90 and grant goodies like subscription access, cosmetics, and headstart access to the blockchain survivalbox. The game also put out an FAQ that explains its gameplay, what founder’s packs grant, and why it’s on the blockchain to begin with.
Rationalizing use of blockchain tech is also a throughline in an interview from PC Gamer with CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson and Frontier product manager Scott McCabe, both of whom continue to argue that blockchain tech is the only way the title’s mechanics can work – while also wanting people to stop calling it a blockchain game. Here’s Petursson’s rationale:
“When we were building EVE Online, we decided to build it on top of a database […] and never did we really position the game, ‘Eve Online: The First Database Game!’ [W]e’re not really looking to do that with EVE Frontier either. It is not really a blockchain game, no more than EVE is a database game. We’re just being very explicit about it because it is a hot topic, and we don’t want to hide it away. Blockchain is involved, sure, but it’s more about the fact that it is distributed and not centralized.”
As for what blockchain tech brings to the game, the devs explain once again that it’s primarily linked to Frontier’s smart assemblies system, which effectively makes the MMO moddable without sacrificing the game’s integrity: Players will be able to create things like unique station services or king of the hill-style PvP arenas, while also allowing governance of the game to be handed to gamers instead of CCP itself. While CCP says it won’t offer NFTs, it also claims a blockchain that supports and facilitates crypto trading is the best way to build this moddable MMO. Convenient!
