In this episode we talk to CCP Praetorian, the creative director for Dust 514, and CCP Nullarbor, a senior programmer working on the connection between Eve Online and Dust514.

We apologize for the dips in quality at times, we were plagued with network issues throughout the entire effort to record this.

In this cast, we discuss various things in the upcoming major content build such as their new terrain system, as well as things to come in upcoming hotfixes including a fix to ambush spawns, the very soon addition of racial dropsuits, and more!

As part of CCP’s initiative in providing meaningful engagement to the player community, they will be introducing a series of in-game events based on the developing background fiction that is taking place within the New Eden universe.  To veterans of Eve online this will be a familiar occurrence.  For Dust “Newburies” it will be a great new experience.

This series of events offer players a chance to participate and act out proceedings that will alter the balance of power between the 4 main rival factions within the EVE universe. So, keep an eye on dust514.org  as CCP announce more weekly events that will be rolled out in the coming weeks!

This week’s event will involve EVE capsuleers fighting to gain control of DUST mercenary clones. Read on to find out more info about this event.

// Mercenaries do battle with Caldari Navy forces; escape with Guristas help

As the Caldari Navy and Caldari Providence Directorate continues its assault on cloned mercenaries throughout the Caldari State, one embattled enclave on Vellaine III managed to escape thanks to the assistance of the Guristas Pirates. A contingent of troopers led by Koraski Hakatain issued a call for assistance which was answered by the Guristas, who extracted the enclave and made their escape via a Rhea-class jump freighter.

Further details of the events can be found in this news article.

The DUST Development Team have announced a new game mode to be released today after DT. It is a new Instant Battle category called “Ambush Off-Map Support”, hereafter referred to as Ambush (OMS).

Players will be able to select between Ambush and Ambush (OMS) in the Instant Battle section of the Battle Finder. The difference between these game modes is as follows:

Ambush: Two teams of mercenaries will fight to the death, each team attempting to deplete the available clone reserves of the other team within the allotted mission time. If the mission timer expires before a team is eliminated, the team with the most available clones will be deemed victorious.

Ambush (OMS): Two teams of mercenaries will fight to the death, each team attempting to deplete the available clone reserves of the other team within the allotted mission time. As the battle progresses, off-map support in the form of turrets and other assets will be dropped from orbit onto the battlefield to assist whichever side is able to claim them. If the mission timer expires before a team is eliminated, the team with the most available clones will be deemed victorious.

You will be able to select "Skirmish", "Ambush", and "Ambush OMS" from the instant battle tab after DT tomorrow January 29th.

Also, as part of the changes to map rotation, they will be removing the “Fetalis North Ward” and “Fetalis Central Ward” maps/game modes from current map rotation. They will also be removing the Skirmish "Skim Junction" and Ambush "Skim Junction" map/game modes after today’s DT.

A full review of this game mode will be posted once we have had a good play through.

CCP Frame has just announced changes to the Skill Point System:

Dear players,

Thank you for voting on the following options on the Skill Point system. We carefully followed the discussion and the voting process, and in the upcoming days we will be deploying the following system to the server:

Weekly skill point cap of 190.400 SP (without boosters) from fighting in battles

Players who have maxed out their cap will receive 1 SP per warpoint up to a limit of 1.000 SP per each battle

We chose to go with Option #2 (limiting skill points earned to a maximum of 1.000 SP per battle after the cap has been hit) as it was both the safer and the most popular option among the players. We will monitor the situation after the changes are live and look forward to receiving feedback from you. Once again, we would like to remind you that weekly skill point rollover system is being worked on and that this is just the temporary solution that we are implementing.

Thank you once again for your participation and feedback!

We will see you on the battlefield.

We welcome your feedback in the comments section.

If you haven't played EVE Online, winning 15 billion ISK would be a great way to get yourself started. This is easily one of the most popular and durable MMO's, allowing players to build their own massive empire in space, buying ships and making the choice to subjugate everyone you come in contact with or to set up strategic alliances with established corporations. EVE players can issue contracts to DUST 514 soldiers and will actually be responsible for coordinating air strikes (that will take place in DUST 514) to help the DUST mercenary get their job done.

Head on over to FPS General to find out more.

Excited for DUST? So are we.It seems we're not the only ones though.

CCP has teamed up with PSU to bring you a DUST 514 contest where you can win some sweet gear. Categories include "Best Moment", Artwork and best DUST 514 meme.

Head on over to PSU for more details and to enter. Good Luck!

With the weekend over, we now have the results of the first round of the DUST 514 Testers Tournament:

EU:
Seraphim Initiative. - W: 3 | L: 0
Zion TCD - W: 3 | L: 0
The Southern Legion - W: 2 | L: 1
What The French Beta - W: 2 | L: 1
Grupo de Asalto Chacal - W: 1 | L: 2
ON THE BRINK - W: 1 | L: 2
Up 4 Anything - W: 0 | L: 3
MAPHIA CLAN W: 0 | L: 3

NA:
ROFL House - W: 3 | L: 0
Imperfects - W: 3 | L: 0
SyNergy Gaming - W: 2 | L: 1
Kill 'em Quick - W: 2 | L: 1
Planetary Response Organisation - W: 1 | L: 2
Anonymous Killers Corp. - W: 1 | L: 2
OSG Planetary Operations - W: 0 | L: 3
SHADOW MERCENARY CORPS INC. - W: 0 | L: 3

With these results, we now have the following matchups for next week's quarter finals:

Seraphim Initiative. VS What the French Beta

The Southern Legion VS Zion TCD

ROFL House VS Kill 'em Quick

SyNergy Gaming VS Imperfects

Well done to all the teams that made it though to the quarter finals, and good luck in your upcoming matches!

That's right, folks.  CCP has just announced the first of what should be many awesome tournaments in the years to come for DUST 514!

Those involved in the closed beta testing can check out information on how to apply, rules, and the awesome prizes  by clicking this nifty link right here.

Can your corporation beat out the rest and come on top?

Title says it all. CCP Hellmar (CEO, CCP) CCP Praetorian (Creative Director) and CCP Jian (Executive Producer) all came to chat on Friday the 28th of September at 04:00GMT (Thursday 21:00 PDT, Friday 00:00 EDT) on IRC!  Here's what they had to say when you (the players)  asked them whatever was on their mind!

[CCP]Frame: Welcome to the Live #DUST514 IRC Q&A! :)

[CCP]CmdrWang: Let's get started

[CCP]Hellmar: great to be doing this again, this is becoming a regular thing everytime I visit shanghai

[CCP]CmdrWang: We will start with the questions

[CCP]CmdrWang: Here's the first one.

[CCP]CmdrWang: Q: will the mini map get some improvements? (height and distance information, better enemy presence etc.)

[CCP]Praetorian: We continue to improve all aspects of the game, and the minimap is no exception. In the next release you'll see a lot of improvements, both functional and visual, but we have more things planned ofc.

[CCP]Praetorian: And brandon will probably kick me for disclosing...

[CCP]Praetorian: we will be adding a pretty cool grid system on the overview map, to allow you guys to better communicate locations

Title says it all. CCP Hellmar (CEO, CCP) CCP Praetorian (Creative Director) and CCP Jian (Executive Producer) are all coming to chat on Friday the 28th of September at 04:00GMT (Thursday 21:00 PDT, Friday 00:00 EDT) on IRC. This will take place in the #DUST514 channel (not the beta channel). You can either connect using your own client (point it to irc.coldfront.net, ports are 6667 and 8080 for standard, 7778 for SSL) or use the Mibbit client provided here on DUST514.org.

This event is going to be run in two different channels. #DUST514 is where the questions will be posted, and then answered by CCP. You will be unable to talk in this channel during the event. #DUST514.q will be where you can discuss with other participants, and pose your questions to CCP. (Note that neither of these channels are restricted so no registration is required to join) If you're unfamiliar with IRC, I recommend you arrive early so that you don't miss anything and so that we can give you a hand if you're having trouble.

If you are using the Mibbit client
The Mibbit client linked will only join #DUST514 by default. In order to join the second channel, you can click the "#DUSt514.q" link at the end of the topic message that comes up when you first connect, or you can type (without quotes) "/join #DUST514.q"

To help us actually pick out questions from general discussion, we would ask you to add "Q: " to the beginning of your question. An example is:

This will help us filter out questions from the rest of the discussion. While forgetting to add "Q: " won't mean your question won't get picked, it just makes it harder for us to pick it out from everything else.

Logs will be provided after the event for those that can't make it. If you can't make it but wish to ask a question, I suggest that you find someone that does, or post it in the thread linked below and hope someone will ask it for you.

If you have any questions about anything else regarding the event, feel free to post here or ask me on IRC (you can connect via the Mibbit client - prior to the event #DUST514 will be open to everyone to chat, or you can PM me using /query Grideris).