Shortly the new expansion will be upon us. Yet another free expansion I might add. And anticipation is running high. So what is coming and how will it impact the game? What features am I looking forward to the most? Or the least? I thought it was about time I said something about the biggest event in Eve, so here it is.
As usual, I'm doing this entirely from memory.
Spaceships
I'm a spaceship fan. It is the primary reason I play Eve, to fly spaceships in space. So any expansion that adds more spaceships to an already spaceship filled game is automagically a good expansion in my book. And Retribution is adding a bunch of new ships to our palette. Primarily these are in the form of four brand spanking new Destroyers.
More importantly however, is that these new ships are coming into the game at a time when ship re-balancing is going nuts. The brainiacs at CCP ave decided to re-shuffle the deck under our feets once more and change everything. Plus this and minus that, more slots, less slots, better at this thing and less better at that thing. So the overall impact on the universe remains to be seen. Personally, I fully support the tiericide efforts and look forward to even more as things progress.
We will also be getting some newly skinned V3'd ships! The Tempest, Megathron and a few others are getting updated looks. And the best news of all - the FRILL RETURNS!! I can't wait to undock my Vagabond and probably have it exploded in some horribly stupid manner.
Crimewatch
Huge subtle changes are coming to the way people label me in local. And now I'll have these nifty new icons on my screen to remind me constantly about how bad of a person I am. Sheesh. People will even be able to buy and trade kill rights on me! As if being a scum-sucking pirate person wasn't hard enough already.
Seriously though, I fully support the changes and modifications. And the bounty system is extremely interesting, although I have some doubts that it will significantly change much. You still have to take an active role in assigning bounty and I believe most people are just lazy. But I remain optimistic and hopeful that I will be proven wrong.
UI
We are also getting some upgrades to the user interface. Primarily these include round and not square target icons. I preferred the original design, being intelligent I didn't have a problem figuring out the order of damage. But, the new design makes sense, since it looks like a tiny version of our HUD, so that should make the idiots happy.
The new target camera system looks to be incredibly interesting, but I still wonder how it works in practice. Hiding it up under that tiny little corner seems a bit cumbersome when flying around, but I hope it works easily. The idea has been a long time coming, just wondering about the execution.
Those are the big features. I'm sure there are, as usual, a load of smaller tweaks, changes, updates and whatnots that I am forgetting. But all in all, this looks to be yet another awesome expansion in the continuing evolution of Eve. Nothing earth-shattering, but the game gets better and better, so who am I to complain?
Ok, so I wish it was more. I wish the Jovians had become a playable race ( something I predicted last year! ) but they aren't. I wish Providence had finally been turned into Low Sec! But it isn't. I wish intelligent dust clouds invaded!! But they haven't. The wish list is really long, so I'll stop there.
Hopefully the Thrasher won't be the only Destroyer I think about when I want to fly a Destroyer. And Frills.
I'm good.