This is the new Sisters of Eve Command Battlecruiser coming to New Eden in November with the new expansion - Catalyst. You can read all about it here.
I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the new expansion. The news just came out and we all need time to digest all the upcoming changes and new stuff. Which is great. I want to focus on what this ship design represents, or what I hope it represents, for the future of our 22 year old game.
First of all, I love this ship design. Congratulations to the art team, as always, you knocked it out of the park. Thank you. Second of all I hope this is a sign that we can start moving forward even more towards a slightly new direction, a big direction, in future graphical developments for Eve Online. This game is two decades old and I honestly believe bold, dynamic, new direction is needed to breath fresh life into our universe. Go big or go home. And I hope this new ship hints at the possibility that others share my instincts on this.
Gaming has changed a lot over the past twenty years and Eve can often struggle behind its own massive history to keep up. The UI, the environments, the ship designs, everything gets pushed down by years and years of that weight. And changing something, updating it, bringing it into a new world can often seem impossible. But change has to be part of the evolutionary process and sometimes drastic change is needed. I would argue that the UI is in desperate need of sweeping updates. I would also argue that it is becoming increasingly obvious which ships are new and which ships are twenty years old.
Over the years I've made numerous design suggestions on how to help bring the UI into the modern world. I even wrote a design report on how the Overview could be modernized and modulated to make it easier and more intuitive to operate. And that report was made a decade ago. Which only proves how quickly time passes and how challenging it can be to make changes that get ahead of that process. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen or that it can't be addressed. It can and should.
Anyway, enough soapbox yelling at clouds. I'm excited by the design. I have no idea if I should be excited about the ship itself yet. But I do love how it looks.
More of this please.