My opinion about expansions is probably a tad different than other player's opinions about expansions. Which I'm guessing you probably already figured would be the case. I'll mention right up front that CCP could have walked away from Eve around the time Apocrypha came out and I would still be playing and perfectly content to do so. I'm not a huge fan of "Jesus" features, frankly the last time CCP tried ratcheting the epic we got Incarna. So I'd much rather they stop trying to do that.
"Additional" game play features are great however and I'd much rather see more expansion and growth on existing features, a steady continuing re-balance of ship classes, new (small) stuff added, and the continuing effort to make Eve a tad more friendly to new players.
And guess what? That is exactly what Rubicon is.
In other words, I am perfectly content with incremental free expansion progress that improves the game, adds new content and generally seems to be non-intrusive to existing game mechanics. Plus we get two new shiny, white Sisters of Eve ships which are pretty awesome looking. Hopefully this means even more faction ships will be coming soon.
We're also getting some player structures, some ships that transform, interceptors that fly thru bubbles (!!), and other things yet to be fully announced. Mostly likely because they don't want to make anyone mad if they don't happen.
Let's drop the re-cap and get to the important issue... what the Hell is this?!?!
Unless my eyes have betrayed me, those are Badgers building a Gate. We've got nothing much to go on here, a few words about new space, player built or controlled Gates perhaps, blah blah. The sheer idea encapsulated in this piece of concept art is simply mind-bottling.
If you haven't noticed, I'm ok with what we know about Rubicon. Nothing to write home about, but Eve will be better after it is released, more interesting, more engaging, and there are new things to play around with and explode.
And sure, I'd love it if CCP addressed the really big issues, like Null Sec Sov mechanics, or POSs, or stuff like that. But I'd also rather they not screw them up trying to fix them either. Goodness knows they could be much worse than they are now.
We keep getting new, FREE expansions, and that is a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. The rest is gravy.
More later.