14 DAY TRIAL // EVE Online: Tyrannis was launched this week on Steam for both the PC and Mac, marking the first release for both platforms at the same time for Valve's digital distribution platform. This new expansion for the CCP space massively multiplayer online role-playing game lets the players descend on planets, construct colonies and harvest resources directly from the planet surface. Some graphic upgrades like improved textures and triple shaders are on the list of new features of this free expansion for EVE Online.
EVE players will be able to colonize over 60,000 planets from the game world, ranging from oceanic worlds to ice and lava planets. The resource type and location vary from planet to planet, as CCP has designed a system that generates a unique surface map for each one of the New Eden Worlds. Planet owners are able to build their colonies how they want, adding a new layer of strategic depth to the game as the placing of the structures determines the efficiency of the harvesting and refinement of resources.
Tyrannis also introduced EVE Gate, a social-networking platform for EVE fans that allows the management of characters from any computer terminal, instant messaging, an event calendar and many other features. EVE gate will be accessible from anywhere, no special requirement, like an EVE Online installation, being needed for it to run from the browser.
Planetary interaction and the EVE gate have been added in anticipation of the very interesting online first-person shooter for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 developed by CCP at the moment. It will be called Dust 514 and it will permit gamers on consoles to coordinate their actions with PC players of EVE, as both games will take place in the same online universe at the same time. No release date has been announced yet and the game is developed using Epic’s Unreal 3 Engine.