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Dust 514
Official cover
Developer(s)	CCP Shanghai
Publisher(s)	CCP Games, Sony Computer Entertainment
Engine	Unreal Engine 3
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3
Release	May 14, 2013
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Dust 514 (stylized as EVE: DUST 514) is a free-to-play first-person shooter developed by CCP Games for the PlayStation 3. It was announced on August 18, 2009 at the Game Developers Conference in Cologne, Germany where it was introduced with a short trailer featuring real time footage of the game.

Dust 514 takes place in New Eden and is directly connected to CCP's first game, Eve Online. There is direct interaction between the two; player actions in one game affect the political and economic status of the other. The two games were officially connected on January 10, 2013, while the open beta started on January 22, 2013. The full game was released worldwide on May 14, 2013.

Setting

Dust 514 takes place in the same fictional universe as Eve Online, a science-fiction massively multiplayer online role-playing game set 21,000 years in the future. The Eve Online backstory explains that humanity, after using up the Earth's resources, began to colonize the rest of the Milky Way. The development of faster-than-light travel allowed mankind to expand at an extremely fast pace, leading to violent competition between space-faring corporations. A natural wormhole was discovered, and humanity entered through it to find an empty new galaxy which they began colonizing. However, the wormhole connecting the two galaxies collapsed, leaving the young colonies cut off from the worlds that had supplied them. Without support, many of the colonies in the new galaxy died off, and over time the few that remained lost their knowledge of both their technology and of their origins from Earth. Eventually, a new era began when civilization was rebuilt and faster-than-light travel was rediscovered. Five unique space-faring cultures emerged from the colonies to become the only interstellar powers in the new galaxy.

Eve Online players take the role of capsuleers, who are elite starship pilots made immortal using cloning technology and consciousness transfers. For much of Eve history, only capsuleers were immortal because the technology required to download consciousness was linked to a capsule that encloses them and leaves them in suspended animation. The capsule was designed specifically as an interface for pilots to control the ship that they were placed within. However, the discovery of a special implant made it possible to achieve a transfer of consciousness without the use of a capsule, so it became possible to make immortals that were not pilots. Dust 514 players take the role of immortal ground-based soldiers which were created by the military shortly after the implant was discovered.

Gameplay

Dust 514 is a first-person shooter with elements of massively multiplayer online games. Combat takes place on the various planets found in Eve Online, each of which offers a unique map. Planets are divided into several large districts, which hold resources and installations that dust players must fight for control over. Only the natural landscape of each planet remains constant; the placement of buildings and surface structures is controlled by the player corporations.

Infantry in Dust 514 are equipped with "dropsuits" which function similarly to the ship hulls in Eve Online. Dropsuits have various module slots which players can utilize to fit different weapons and equipment. This gives players a broad range of customization choices and the ability to create specialized fits to perform specific roles and tactics on the battlefield. Skill training, in a manner similar to Eve Online, is also available. CCP has stated that it would take seven years to train all skills, and that it was not intended for any player to learn all of the skills. Instead, CCP believes that players will naturally become specialized by selecting a certain set of skills and becoming "really, really good at them." Player-driven vehicles are also available in the game; these can be transported to anywhere within the battlefield using "rapid deployment vehicles" at the request of players. Vehicles share the modular fitting system that infantry dropsuits have.

Both teams will have a "commander" who can oversee the planetary combat and make tactical decisions from a real-time strategy-style perspective. The commanders reside within a massive aerial fortress known as the "mobile command center". According to CCP, mobile command centers require fuel to run systems such as turrets and energy shields, and it is up to commanders to extract fuel from sources within the battlefield. The goal of each team is to destroy the opposing mobile command center.

Although Dust 514 players are mercenaries, they can also seize territory from planets within the Eve universe for their own alliance and corporation, which takes place in the form of Corporation vs. Corporation matches. This allows Dust corporations to build infrastructure on captured territory, but it is unclear what manufacturing power Dust corporations will hold. Currently the only planets that battles take place on in which both eve players and dust players can work together reside entirely in faction warfare space. Control of a district on the planets currently directly affects the difficulty of system capture through the use of the new Dust 514 district capture status modifier.

Although Dust 514 does not have a single-player campaign, CCP has confirmed that there will be a survival game mode which pits players against A.I. controlled rogue drones.

Connection to Eve Online

All combat within Dust 514 takes place, in real-time, on planets found in the Eve Online universe. The player alliances and corporations of Eve Online can hire Dust 514 players as mercenaries to fight for control over planets; the outcome of such battles will affect the sovereignty of player-run political powers in Eve Online. A direct form of interaction comes in the form of "orbital bombardments". Orbital bombardments allow a player in Eve Online to provide direct assistance to friendly forces in a battle in Dust 514. If a player in Eve Online is in position within 100km of a district satelite above a planet with a ship loaded with weapons and ammo capable of firing at planets, the player can support his or her side of the Dust 514 battle if there is a battle currently taking place and a Dust 514 player has designated a target for the ship to fire upon. This was first shown to the public as an actual ingame mechanic during EVE Fanfest 2012, although it had been previously featured during the 2011 fanfest in a cinematic trailer titled A Future Vision.

Both games share the same namespace, so a player in Dust 514 cannot choose a username that already exists in Eve Online or vice-versa. This allows players from both games to join the same corporation or alliance, as well as communicate between the two games in real-time. Currently Dust 514 corporation and alliance members only show up in corporation chat and do not spike the eve online local chat when a battle begins. This makes it important for dust players to coordinate with eve pilots prior to a battle as it is not feasible for eve online pilots to visit all the districts.

In an interview conducted by Simon Carless of Gamasutra, Hilmar said that he hopes "these communities will meld over time", bridging the two environments. He described the relationship between the flying-oriented nature of Eve Online and the infantry-oriented nature of Dust 514, saying "while the fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying". The massive Eve universe will be the platform for all planetary combat. Brandon Laurino, executive producer of Dust 514, has confirmed that there will not be a set number of maps at launch, saying "We are covering literally a universe of planets, so there's thousands of different maps and they're all available to everyone who's playing."

Development

In 2010, CCP updated Eve Online with the Tyrannis expansion. Tyrannis introduced planetary interaction, allowing players to harvest resources from planets using ground installations. A developer blog by CCP mentioned that, while the expansion alone would not include planetary combat, the upcoming Dust 514 game would deal with the combat aspect by allowing players to "project military force for attack and defense of planetary installations." Planets in Eve Online previously held no value; the Tyrannis expansion was intended to tie into Dust 514 by giving players "a reason to want to fight over ."

CCP Games reached an agreement with Epic Games China in 2010 to license Unreal Engine 3 for use in Dust 514.

During E3 2011, it was confirmed that Dust 514 would be released exclusively on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. A beta would be held before the end of 2011 followed by a release in the summer of 2012. However since then CCP has opted to put more work into the game to improve it further and have a release date in 2013, which again has yet to be announced, rather than a 2012 release date. Dust 514 was initially slated to be the first cross platform game, pitting Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players with each other but CCP has since dropped the Xbox 360 as a potential platform; the choice of PlayStation 3 exclusive was determined by Sony's more open platform allowing Dust 514 to connect to the Eve Online server Tranquility, whereas Microsoft's Xbox Live did not. It was also confirmed after E3 2011 that Dust 514 utilizes Havok middleware technology.

Dust 514 was connected to Tranquility, the live production server of Eve Online, on January 10, 2013. The complexity of running two games on one server proved to be a unique challenge for the developers. To mitigate any performance issues that this might have on either of the two games, CCP has designed a server architecture such that the majority of Dust 514 gameplay will be run on various "battle clusters" across the world. These server clusters will handle all the latency sensitive first-person shooter aspects of Dust 514. The main Eve cluster, located in London, will only communicate with Dust 514 for information such as character names.

The game was released on May 14, 2013, with an update titled Uprising. This release build improves many aspects of the game, such as the graphics and character progression, and introduces the planetary conquest mechanic. Although Uprising is the release build, CCP says that it will not be the final major update: "Even when we take off the beta tag the launches don’t stop. We’ll launch significant updates indefinitely... It’s an on-going service that will keep getting better and better."

Future developments

In the Eve fanfest of 2012, even before the release of Dust 514, CCP has already revealed ideas for expansions in 2013. Possible future features include the ability to traverse on planets with "hostile" environments (such as lava planets) and the addition of mechanized exoskeletons that players can use, called MTACs.

PlayStation Home

In the PlayStation's online social gaming platform PlayStation Home, a game space for Dust 514 was released on June 13, 2012. The game space provides information about mercenaries and the Eve Universe, as well as a mini-game known as Slay, a tabletop strategy game. Users can also earn special rewards such as a Merc Dropsuit and a Companion Drone.

Business model

Unlike Eve Online, Dust 514 does not require a monthly subscription. It instead uses a micro-transaction model, making the game free to play. The game has two currencies, Aurum, which can only be bought with real money, and ISK, the currency in Eve Online which can be earned in both games. CCP's chief marketing officer, David Reid, has compared this model to that of League of Legends. Reid has added that Dust 514 is not a "pay-to-win" game; Aurum can only be used to buy cosmetic items or items similar to what can be earned ingame without paying real money.

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
Destructoid	6/10
GamesRadar
Eurogamer	50/100
GameTrailers	4.4/10
Metro GameCentral	4/10
Hardcore Gamer	2.5/5
PSU.com	9/10

Pre-release

Before release Dust 514 has been recognized as ground-breaking and innovative for its connection to another game. IGN said that the game was highly ambitious and called it the future of gaming, while PC Gamer praised the orbital bombardment mechanic and the unprecedented amount of customization available.

Release

Upon release the game has received a lukewarm reception from critics. It has attained an average aggregate score of 58 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating mixed or average reviews.

Criticisms were generally focused on the bugs and poor execution of the gameplay. Destructoid's Chris Carter gave the game a rating of 6/10, calling it an ambitious and complex shooter that still needed "a ton of work". Among the aspects that he criticized were the underwhelming graphics, uninnovative game modes and tedious grind. Eurogamer reviewer Paul Dean wrote that Dust 514 has great potential but is "saddled with a very dull debut." Dean noted that despite having interesting factors, such as the metagame and social connection to Eve Online, the game itself was mediocre and contained many bugs. However Alex Locher of PlayStation Universe praised the unique nature of Dust 514, commending its technological accomplishments and meaningful player interaction. As Locher remarked, "Dust 514 isn't some superficial and meaningless military shooter; it's a pioneering endeavour of programming, technology and consumer communication that has already created something unlike you've ever seen in gaming".

References

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2. ^ Dust 514 trailered; to use Move | VG247
3. "Dust 514 Neocom Vita App Promises "MMO on the go" - PlayStation Blog". Fred Dutton (SCEE Blog Manager). 2012-08-20. Retrieved 2012-09-02.
4. Sliwinski, Alexander (2009-08-18). "FYI: CCP announces 'Dust 514,' FPS RTS MMO in Eve universe". Joystiq. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
5. Cocker, Guy (2009-08-18). "CCP announces console-based Eve game". GameSpot. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
6. ^ Phillips, Tom. "EVE Online, Dust 514 servers will merge tomorrow". Eurogamer. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
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30. Havok™ Commends Award-Winning Partners on Recent Awards Sweep at E3 2011
31. EVE Fanfest 2012: Growing EVEs infrastructure (YouTube video). CCP Games. March 29, 2012.
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37. ^ Carter, Chris (May 17th, 2013). "Flashes of greatness covered in dust". Destructoid. Retrieved 2013-05-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
38. Adam Harshberger (May 24, 2013). "Dust 514 review at GamesRadar". GamesRadar. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
39. ^ Dean, Paul (May 24th, 2013). "Dust 514 Review". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2013-05-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
40. Ben Moore (May 22, 2013). "Review - Dust 514". GameTrailers. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
41. {{cite web|url= http://metro.co.uk/2013/05/29/eve-dust-514-review-connected-universe-3813758/%7Ctitle= EVE: Dust 514 review - connected universe|publisher= [[Metro (British newspaper)|author= Roger Hargreaves|date= May 29, 2013|accessdate= May 30, 2013}}
42. Bradly (24 May, 2013). "Dust 514 Review". Hardcore Gamer. Retrieved 28 May, 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
43. ^ Locher, Alex (May 20th, 2013). "DUST 514 Review - Liberating FPS players from a prison they don't know they're in yet". PlayStation Universe. Retrieved 2013-05-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
44. Moriarty, Colin (June 06, 2012). "E3 2012: Dust 514, the Deepest FPS You've Ever Played". IGN. Retrieved November 06, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
45. MacDonald, Keza (March 26, 2012). "Dust 514 is a Glimpse of the Future". IGN. Retrieved November 06, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
46. Hill, Owen (March 23, 2012). "Dust 514 preview". PC Gamer. Retrieved November 06, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

External links

• Official website
• Dust 514 on PlayStation.com

• 2013 video games
• Eve Online
• First-person shooters
• Free-to-play video games
• Science fiction video games
• Science-fiction MMORPGs
• MMORPGs in space
• Unreal Engine games
• Video games developed in the People's Republic of China
• PlayStation 3 games
• PlayStation 3-only games
• PlayStation Move-compatible games