Thursday, June 28, 2007

Have you seen my EVE Mobile?

Well neither have I for that matter. When I first read about it back in EON 002 (page 9), I was very excited to see how this would go and made a mental note to make sure my next phone ran whatever OS needed to run EVE Mobile. A few month later, in May of 2006, Oveur mentioned it in an DEV Blog, letting us know that it was still in the work, and actually gave us some nice juicy tidbits on it.

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EVE Classic, EVE Vista, EVE Mobile?

Yes, that's right. A client strategy is being molded, where we will be able to have different interfaces to the universe of EVE. "EVE Mobile" is probably a misnomer for the client shown at E3. "EVE Lite" would perhaps be more appropriate, since the E3 client is only a PDA client, for Windows Mobile 5 and has nothing to do with mobile phones.

EVE Lite is our way of providing a simplified client with a core set of functionality which does not necessarily require a 3D interface to use. Think EVE mail, Chat, Market, Assets, upcoming Contracts, Corporation Management and so forth. You'll be able to do a lot of things without having to have a laptop.

The reason we started with Windows Mobile 5 as a platform is because it was very similar to what we do in house, it's quite easy to work with and Microsoft helps us out a lot. However, the server-side groundwork opens up possibilities for other clients to be written.

Which ones? I don't know. Personally, I'd like to be able to check my contracts and train a skill on my Xbox 360 between playing Oblivion and PGR. Or on my smartphone. My PSP? DS? At work on my EVE Lite PC client? ("Uhm, this is the newest MSN messenger ... it has a market ... and stuff ..."). Let your imagination go wild. I know mine is. I'm thinking voice chat with my Directors in-game via my EVE PC Lite. :)
But since then.... well nothing. Except for a couple of other curious players like myself trying to find out more (here, here and here).

I could see a ton of use for this mini portable version of EVE: access to station facilities, chatting, skill changing, monitor markets, escrows, etc. Hell, even voice chat now that EVE Voice is out. Hopefully we'll get some juicy piece of news in the next issue of EON (crosses his fingers and toes).

If you've heard anything new, please be kind enough to share it with the rest of us. Or else, I'll let the Amarr Emperor know you're hiding something!

4 comments:

Kvarium said...

The mobile client was beeing developed by students at the Reykjavik university. Unfortunatly the project was stoped or canceled, I blame it on beer.

CrazyKinux said...

Mmmm, lack of beer is never a good think. Should we order them a couple of barrels of the good stuff? Maybe that would get them going again.

Let me know if you hear anything else!

brettski said...

Just the ability to change skills would be great, all the other stuff is no more then a bonus in my eyes. I don't know how many times I have been out and about and it hit's me, "My skill is up in 20 min!" or worse, it just finished.

CrazyKinux said...

I hear you! Can't count the number of times where that has happened to me. The ability to do so on your mobile would bring some peace of mind.