Category Archives: Iceland

CCP Games has announced the final schedule of events for the sold out EVE Fanfest.

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CCP has opened ticket sales for EVE Online Fanfest 2012, which takes place on March 22-24 at the Harpa Conference Center in Reykjavík, Iceland. A special early bird pricing deal will run until January 31 to secure your entry for $100, after which you’ll be asked to cough up $125. This year’s event boasts the usual announcements and presentations from developers; competitions; tournaments; parties; pub crawls; Iceland tourist tours you can purchase with PLEX; and exclusive access to DUST 514, including new info, playable demos and a beta key. Visit the event’s website for more information.

Thanks, Massively.

Okay, Iceland: you are now on the naughty list. We’re taking Sigur Rós from you as well. You can keep Bjork if you want.

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Mindscape, the Australian distributor for Konami, has revealed to Kotaku that some of its upcoming releases have been delayed due to canceled flights around Europe.

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Just in case you thought Icelandic developer CCP was in some kind of lava survival situation, you can stop panicking: it isn’t.

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EG has for you four new screens of CCP’s console MMO Dust 514.

They also have a massive preview of the game taken from the developer’s fanfest at the weekend in Iceland. Read it here.

Get the screens through the first link. No date yet for the game.

The Guardian’s reporting that Iceland’s banking collapse may mean CCP may have to move itself, and EVE Online, out of the country.

Says the piece:

On three shiny floors of a former fish factory is CCP, a company best known in computer gaming for Eve Online, which has 300,000 participants all over the world – as many inhabitants as Iceland itself. However, restrictions on access to foreign currency for individuals and businesses and on foreign investment into Iceland are making life difficult. “To make new games, we need foreign investors,” says Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, formerly an assistant professor at the University of Akureyri, who
supervises Eve’s virtual economy. “The present currency restrictions are putting us in a straitjacket. We are in talks with the government, but if we can’t let capital in, we might be compelled to leave Iceland, even though this would be against our wishes.”

Unthinkable. Via Massively and Blue.

CCP’s told attendees at the EVE fanfest in Iceland that the graphics of the MMO’s Premium version are only half complete.

The Premium version was introduced with the Trinity expansion late last year.

“EVE in a a state where, if you run the Premium graphics edition, half of it is done, you could say,” said CCP’s chief technologist Halldor Fannar.

“The particle system really shows its age now if you’re flying a Premium ship,” he added. “The effects are like from another era.”

There’s much more on Eurogamer.

CCP’s put tickets for this year’s EVE Online Fanfest on sale, at the bargain price of $75.

The fifth Fanfest takes place from November 6-8 at the Laugardalsholl Conference Center in Reykjavik.

Go. Iceland’s amazing and it should be windy enough in November to make lead boots necessary.

The first democratically elected MMO body, EVE Online’s Council of Stellar Management, has put out a press release saying it’s “pleased” with its first meeting with CCP in Iceland.

“We had a great dialogue with the developers and they were exceedingly open to our ideas and suggestions and pretty straightforward in explaining technical limitations where not. It was clear that some changes we suggested were already on CCP’s agenda, but it was also nice to see the occasional ‘eureka’, ‘why didn’t we think of that?’ moment amongst the developers. This clearly demonstrated the value of the process both to us as players but also to CCP,” said Andrew Cruse, CSM chairman.

Game aside, having a meeting in Iceland would be pleasing to anyone, frankly. Amazing place. Full thing after the link.

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CCP’s dated the fifth EVE Online Fanfest. The annual meet will take place this year from November 6-8 at Laugardalur in Reykjavik, Iceland.

If you get in quick you may be able to get cheap flights with the various Early Bird packages, as detailed here.

If you’re into EVE and you’re a player you should consider the trip. Iceland’s mental. You certainly won’t forget it in a hurry.

Jim Rossignol’s first book, This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities, is now available for pre-order here. Synopsis:

This book offers an insider’s view of online games and how they change us. “In May 2000 I was fired from my job as a reporter on a finance newsletter because of an obsession with a videogame. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” So begins this story of personal redemption through the unlikely medium of electronic games. Quake, World of Warcraft, Eve Online and other online games not only offered author Jim Rossignol an excellent escape from the tedium of office life. They also provided him with a diverse global community and a job – as a gaming journalist. Part personal history, part travel narrative, part philosophical reflection on the meaning of games, “This Gaming Life” describes Rossignol’s encounters with gamers in three unique gaming cities: London, Seoul, and Reyjkavik.From his days as a Quake genius in London’s increasingly corporate gaming culture, to his encounters with Korea’s high stakes, televised professional gaming culture to his adventures in Iceland, the national home of his ultimate obsession, the idiosyncratic and beguiling Eve Online, Rossignol introduces us to a still emerging and largely undocumented world of gaming lives.

Torn between unabashed enthusiasm and optimism about the future of gaming and lingering doubts about whether games are just a waste of time, “This Gaming Life” also raises important questions about this new and vital cultural form.Should we celebrate the “serious” educational, social, and cultural value games, as academics and journalists are beginning to do? Or do these high-minded justifications simply perpetuate the stereotype of games as a lesser form of fun? Could it be that the true value of games lies in their ability to stave off boredom? In this beautifully written, richly detailed, and inspiring book, Rossignol brings these abstract questions to life, immersing us in a vibrant landscape of gaming experiences.

Jim – one of the RPS quartet – covered GDC for VG247, and is generally a non-twat who’s prepared to offer free life-counseling in the middle of the night from Moscow, so do him a favour and buy it. You may well enjoy it.