If you didn't know it yet, the latest expansion was released earlier this week. It was a tad anti-climatic after the events of the weekend, but it is still a FREE expansion of some new stuff into the world's very best... whatever it is. I hate labels, but I love Eve.
I can say this much - Eve is better right now than it has ever been. Right now, at this very moment, Eve is the best looking, best running, most balanced, most intuitive (!), it has ever been. Luckily, we still have much further to go on our journey. But progress, significant progress, has been made.
Every expansion since Incarna has buit upon the previous one to form a somewhat new kind of Eve. This new Eve is a tad shocking to the older players, or at least it is for me. Shocking in the sense that we probably never really believed we'd live to see it. Things are starting to work together and make sense. This is a tad unsettling.
I'll leave the specific feature talk to other writers, I'm more concerned with the big picture. And I also happen to be focused on the pirate perspective at the moment. The pirate thing was dealt with in the last expansion and we don't get much in this one. Besides some additional ship balancing, which is starting to arc above our pay-grade now, new Gate effects, and easier probing ( I'll take your word for it.), pirates don't get much to chew on. Which is ok, we had our day.
As the name suggests, Odyssey is really about travel. Exploring. New ships for PvE, whatever that is. Jet cans spewing things in an annoying way and generally finding things popping up on your overview that didn't previously pop up on your overview. I still flinch when all those icons pop up in a system I just jumped into. Or when the people in local pop up on my overview before I've loaded grid.
Many people seem upset by the re-location of the undock button. I might be, if I had ever, ever used it. I never do. Since day one, when that guy in the belt told me, "Right-click everything in Eve" that's what I've been doing. There was a short period of time this week when even that didn't work, but I complained and CCP fixed it. So no harm done. Yes, you can right-click your ship floating in the hanger and access a full menu of options, including undock. Try it, it is pretty great.
For the sake of Eve I hope that the next expansion is focused on Null. We've covered Hi-sec, Low-sec and exploration, FW, etc. It is time for a dramatic re-balance of Null Space. In my humble opinion.
Those people need some help.
Another solid expansion. We are starting to get spoiled. I like it.
Comments
Good blog post ,totally agree
"For the sake of Eve I hope that the next expansion is focused on Null"....
Right, and the enormous transfer of wealth to null sec with the ice mining atrocity, the order of magnitude increase in mfg and R&D null sec station slots, the absolutely HUGE buff in the value of null sec ice and asteroid belts, the addition of 227 new null sec moons, the complete revamp of moon goo wealth distribution, the buff of either null sec sanctums or havens (with a slight nerf of the other one), and the addition of new, incredibly valuable, game-changing decryptors, only available in null sec, guess none of that never happened 4 days ago.
Your comments remind me of the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the Judean's are whining about "what have the Roman's given us", and then one of the Judean's starts rhyming off a litany of improvements the Romans had made to everyday life.
side note - Any reference to Monty Python is gold. Good laughs.
Yes those things happened. Of course. That doesn't change the fact that Null needs some attention, and if you notice I didn't say exactly what kind of attention. I did that on purpose, it is a really smart way to write. You should pay better attention to what people are actually saying, and not what you want them to say. You'll find life is much better that way.
"Always with the negative waves, Moriarty, always with the negative waves."
People who don't play EvE know how much your life has just been raked over the coals by Goons... and they have reached the same point all the rest of us have... we don't effin care.
Dear Gods man, if our beloved 'verse, or them as own and create and run it piss you off that bad... please just shut up and go play WoW already.
Sorry Rixx but damn man... the constant stream of negativity is such a downer every time he pops up anywhere...
Great post and we concur. =]
There have been, are and remain many things that need addressed in Null. Really since Dominion. These recent changes are fresh and what effect they will have remains to be seen.
I hate them because they are bad for the game. I hate the propaganda they spew about that is geared precisely to increasing the RMT income for their leadership.
As for what Rixx said, I will quote another line from his blog " Those people need some help.", does not sound like the attention they deserve is negative.
This sounds more like he is suggesting that poor null sec has not just received a buff in wealth transfer of huge dimensions, at the expense of high sec. Did the failed lawyer not state today in his address to the willfully ignorant that suddenly null sec ice mining is now worth the top end of 60-100 M / hour?
According to Rixx, guess they need more "help" than that.
Do you find hisec payouts too low?
Well there you go, head out to null.
There are plenty of nullsec corps: choose one and get a slice of that recently buffed nullsec ice cake.
Risk and reward, my friend.
Nullsec ice miners will at least have to pay some attention to the screen, much unlike hisec ones.