First of all let me state that I entered the world of Eve during ‘Cold War’ right before ‘Red Moon Rising’. Since I didn’t have a clue what was going on back then I can’t comment much about those two expansions, let alone the very first two ‘Castor’ and ‘Exodus’. Castor must have been exciting though, bringing in T2 components and ships !

I had to consult the wiki page on Eve expansions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansions_of_Eve_Online to check what features were actually in what expansion. Then it hit me that 2006 – 2008 must have been the golden years of Eve looking back at how much effort was put into these expansions, and how many features they had compared to the very meagre ones CCP released the past few years. Here is a summary of the ones I remember best and enjoyed the most.

Revelations I

Think this is my favourite, it had so much in it, Exploration, Invention, New battlecruisers (ie. the Drake) and battleships, and rigs / salvaging. Also the voice over IP thing was in this, that didn’t really catch on until later, when factional warfare was released and FW fleets started using it. So much new stuff to do and find out and to train for, it was pretty insane looking back on it now. Revelations II didn’t bring that much new features to the table, only overheating comes to mind.
Links to Rev I features:
http://community.eveonline.com/features/revelations/
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Revelations

Empyrian Age
This one introduced Factional Warfare that I really enjoyed a lot when it came out. So this was one of the most game changing ones for me. Especially since I didn’t have a lot of pvp and fleet experience before. I was a proud member of the Minmatar Fleet (and still am in my heart) ! One of the best times I had in Eve was in this period, also met a lot of nice people back then.

Trinity
20 new ships and a graphics engine update ! Also the infamous boot.ini feature .

Quantum Rise
Not as big as the previous one, but still nice, the Orca was introduced, very nice ship for us miners at the time. Grouping of modules and  more graphic updates. Also some stuff like StacklessIO was tauted by CCP, but I never understood why serverside things were introduced as features for an expansion.

Apocrypha
The introduction of T3 and wormholes / sleepers ! As it turned out the last major expansion that really added new content. Since I never cared much for wormholes I didn’t care that much for this one, but I know it is widely regarded as one of the best expansions for Eve.

What followed then were a bunch of lacklustre expansions that were lacking in real content and quality control wasn’t so great either. This all accumulated in one of the worst expansion in MMO history Incarna which introduced (or failed to do so) ‘walking in stations’ and the ‘real money monocle’ store. But enough has been said about this I guess, if you want to know more, google around or go back a few pages on this blog .

So here we are, some of my favourites and some bad and ugly ones. The other participants of this interesting blog banter will be mentioned below.

Start Post at Freebooted

Others who have contributed to this Blog Banter:

1. It Takes Seventeen Expansions to Build a Game as Successfull as EVE Online - Torchwood Archives, by Lukas Rox
2. BB36 – A (Relative) Noob’s View on the Expansion of EVE – Structure Damage, by Anshu Zephyran
3. BB36: The Wonder and The Blunder – Eveoganda, by Rixx Javix

A balancing overhaul of several Incursion sites shows our long lasting commitment to care about and to improve all existing gameplay: we are continuously working to make EVE an even better place!

CCP are being serious about improving the game and don’t want to miss an opportunity to get the point across .

The myrmidon video they released is rather nice, if not a little short.

The drone loot change is probably the one that will have the biggest impact though. It will be interesting to keep an eye on the mineral prices !

Check it out at the CSICON website.

The polls have just opened for the election of candidates to occupy the 14 seats on the 7th Council of Stellar Management. To kick-start a topical CSM-themed banter, CCP Xhagen – fierce champion of freedom of speech and in his words, “the guy that gets yelled at when the CSM dudes do booboos” - has offered this question:

“How would you like to see the CSM grow, both in terms of player interaction and CCP interaction?”

I have always been rather skeptical about the CSM. I figured it was used as a marketing tool to boast about in press releases that could be read on various gaming sites. This feeling was confirmed during the summer of rage last year, when the CSM was totally bypassed on rather critical gameplay decisions. But then the CSM bit CCP in the foot and they were forced to let them participate in order to try to calm down the masses, which gave me somewhat more faith in the CSM.

A CSM politician

But then the most recent devblog appeared on rather fundamental skill changes and the CSM seems to have been ignored once again. I guess CCP is happy with the CSM on the sidelines and discussing POS fuels, but rather not involve them in fundamental game changing decisions. So that would be the first thing to change. At least them have their say. It’s CCP’s game, so they will always have the final word, but at least listen to what the players have to say.

That brings me to the second point, I would feel better represented if there was not an 0.0 block in the CSM. After all most players in Eve still dwell in highsec. I do understand it’s a democratic process and I wouldn’t know how to exactly solve it, but it would be nice if the CSM would consist of a better representation of the player base.

Further Resources

• Diedra Vaal’s CSM Vote-Match (candidate/voter compatibility test)
• Jita Park Speakers Corner (Discussion Forum)
• Council Candidates Voting Page
• The Council of Stellar Management – Implementation of Deliberative, Democratically Elected, Council in EVE by Pétur Jóhannes Óskarsson (CCP Xhagen

And a personal endorsement, a pilot that I voted for, someone who really understands Eve and (most) of it’s players: Roc Wieler.

I hadn’t really been paying much attention to what exactly had changed and found myself utterly confused with the new UI. Where are my buttons I had been used to since I started ? Ah you have to click on the Eve E at the upper left corner… Took me a trip to the Evelopedia to figure that one out. It’s a nice change though, you can now move your buttons about and leave out the ones you don’t need and the ones you use often you can put on the bar on the left. The Eve Wiki now actually contains useful information. Another shocker to be honest. Been reading up on it on several subjects. Very nice.

Upon the first undock, i was struck by the awesome new nebulas ! Great work there. Makes space come to live a bit more and give each system a bit more character. I went out to pick up some ships I had scattered here and there, figured flying about would make a good start. Even that has changed, the autopilot can now even take you to a specific space station. Also you can now order your ship to jump when you’re not in jumping range yet.

Now of course the big question, what am I going to do in-game ? First of all I really miss my alts. So used to doing things ‘together’. I have joined my own corp that I used to use for my POS. I still got a medium tower somewhere I might start using again. Another shocker (yes there were a few), to see that fueling a pos has changed as well. I have also been reading up on blue vs. red which sounds interesting, or maybe I get in touch with the folks from the VanHemlock forum, they seem to be having fun in-game. I could also go back to Hidden Agenda, but I am afraid I would be doing the same ol’ same ol’ again and be bored soon.

For now Assault Ships 5 is on the skill queue. Was a bit surprised I hadn’t done that one already. Oh there is also a bpc of a Tornado waiting for me, so I can put my stack of minerals to good use. Not sure what I am going to do with that ship, but at least now I can spin it . All in all I think CCP did a nice job of focusing on space again, and the seem to be back on track. Unlike my Eve career at the moment haha.

Links:

Funny enough a few days after I resubed @jonshute posted this:

http://howtomurdertime.com/blog/2012/02/21/eve-whispers-quietly-in-your-ear-after-a-while.html

Blogbanter #31 focused on reviewing Eve after the winterexpansion. I thought it would be appropriate to link to it, since I am not subbed at the moment and won’t give you an opinion without actually havening played the new expansion.

This special ‘End of Year’ Blog Banter edition aims to be a crowd-sourced game review. Using your gaming knowledge and experience, join the community in writing a fair and qualified review of EVE Online: Crucible. This can be presented in any manner of your choosing, but will ideally including some kind of scoring system.

Freebooted : Blogbanter #31 and the end result.

Incarna 1.1.2

Main thing this new update brings is Ship Spinning 2.0 ! The dread door is gone, you can now see your ship in your hangar without having to enter the captain’s quarter. CCP Aporia explains what’s up in this devblog. Other changes can be found in the patchnotes.

Eve Is Real

Shame the site is somewhat of a nuisance to navigate, but the idea is nice. The third level has been unlocked at the www.eveisreal.net website. This means Aurum reward, so you can finally buy those fancy boots you always wanted. I have been watching some videos and pics and it’s nice, also brings back some memories when I was still actively participating in (factional warfare) fleet battles.

Blog Banter #29 – Immersion

Which brings me to Blog Banter #29. The freebooted Eve Blog started a blog banter on Immersion in Eve. To be honest, I never really felt that much like a cold hearted Caldari business man when I played my main character. But when I was playing factional warfare in it’s prime, I felt much more immersed in the game, and it’s backstory ! I also learned to hate the Amarr. There are some very nice contributions to the banter, al in all a good read, check it out at Blog Banter #29.

The Lay Offs

No need in repeating the news here, every one who reads this will know about it now. Keith Neilson has a nice blogpost that also includes a list of names. What a lot of people already had been saying turned out to be true, CCP cannot sustain development for Dust and World of Darkness on just the income EVE generates. Maybe they barely could, but the drop in subs since MonocleGate hit hard. Of course it’s sad for those people that worked on WOD, but I can certainly understand CCP’s move here.

What I don’t get, and a lot of people with me, if I read the response to the layoffs on the blogs and forum, is that the Community Team was also layed off. Well almost all of them anyway. This comes across as if uppper management is somehow blaming the community team for the events that unfold around the Incarna release. Some of these people (for me CCP Fallout especially) were the face of CCP in a difficult time, and they made the most of a difficult situation. Ok CCP Pann’s post at the time was not so great but uhm, well we’re gonna let that slide… Needless to say the ‘suits’ are free of blame as it seems only ‘lower personel’ was fired.

It’s interesting how every time when CCP seems to get things right, ie focusing on Flying In Space instead of Incarna etc, they blunder in some other sort of way. I also wonder what all of this means for Walking in Stations, will it ever expand beyond the single room, where you walk around like a drunken sailor ? That would make Incarna the most useless expansion in an MMO ever, 4 years of dev time wasted.

Not much in game news as of late on this blog. My sub ran out (like so many active Eve bloggers it seems ?) late July. I still read failheap challenge, take a peek at evebloggers.com whether there is anything that catches my interest, and now and then the Eve-O forums. Since I hadn’t been playing much the past few months anyway, I don’t miss it much. I must thank the Hidden Agenda corp for making the last year and a half or so in Eve a fun experience. The events like frig tournaments were fun and there was a nice balance between activities and freedom.

My last blogpost refered to the press conference CCP and the CSM did after the events in july. I was reading Life in Losec’s post which refered to a post by Seleen that touches this very subject. I alread thought the statements made in that press conference were a load of crap, but to see a CSM member agree with that is interesting.

If I take a look at eve-offline it seems this time people actually did vote with their feet and a lot of subs are indeed starting to run out. I do find the graphs there somewhat hard to read, but if you look at the  ‘past three months’ one you can see a decline in active players. Of course it being summer and all has to do with that as well. And since we’re not getting the economic quartly any more that had sub numbers, we’ll probably be in the dark for a while on the real numbers.

Just a few silly quotes:

The CSM-members themselves arrived in Iceland “worried, angry and paranoid” but soon they realized that it was actually a “shadow of a controversy” since there was actually no real controversy in the first place.

Ah there was no controversy ! Right …

According to the CSM, CCP should have explained the pricing of the items in the Noble Exchange from the start and what kind of strategy they had for it. If they had, Alex said, the whole thing would have disappeared in a “puff of logic.”

Oh rly ?

Meh, I have enough of the whole affair to be honest . Let’s move on…

We are convinced that CCP has no plans to introduce any game-affecting virtual goods, only pure vanity items such as clothing and ship skins. We have been repeatedly assured that there are no plans for ‘gold ammo’, ships which have different statistics from existing common hulls, or any other feared ‘game destroying’ virtual goods or services. We have expressed our deep concern about potential grey areas that the introduction of virtual goods permits, and CCP has made a commitment to discuss any proposals that might fall into these grey areas in detail with CSM at the earliest possible stage.

This is pretty much what most people would hope for, and it’s the best CCP could do at the moment. CCP must have looked at the numbers and seen all those unsubscriptions ! Also all the bad press this has giving made them change course. If there was a course to change (well the returning shipspinning is new).

I am sure there will still be drama and forum whining, ‘but they didn’t promise no non-vanity items ever !’. But those people will just have to play the game as it is, and not what it could be in a few years time. From a business point of view they cannot commit to non-vanity forever, as I already stated in my previous blogpost.

Fact remains that I still don’t like where CCP is going. Devoting most of the development time to Incarna, Wod and dust. Releasing crappy ‘expansion’. The sad state their 3d engine is in (this doesn’t bode well for Wod btw) etc etc.. But at least for now we see some light at the end of the tunnel (queue dramatic music).