Winter Is Coming

  It's true, winter's coming.  Trust Mr. Stark there, he knows what he is talking about after all.

  But what I mean to reference with the mention of winter's impending arrival is, of course, more closely related to sooper srs interweb spaceships.  In particular, the Winter Expansion that now has a devblog release of its own.

  Before you run off to read that though, take a look at an interesting letter to the Eve public from Hilmar, if you haven't seen it already.

Did....did he just apologize? He's....soul searching? As a corpmate put it,

"Is...is that for real? I'm not reading an elaborate mirror of eveonline.com with wish-fulfillment written on it? Cannot wrap head around a CCP that self-aware."

 It is a bit surreal coming from the company that seems to permanently have its head buried in its own nether regions. What is this, renewed hope I feel budding warm in my chest? It springs eternal after all. 

  But now we move on to the good stuff. Or at least the stuff that has me really excited, but is probably just me putting off my justifications for fail execution and the need for a billion patches. Still. Hope.

Linky to devblog

"We hinted that we’re up to something big. Following Hilmars letter to the community it’s time to unveil the first step of actions we’re taking. As we said we are planning something unparalleled. A significant part of that plan is the immediate refocusing of all the EVE development teams on EVE’s core gameplay: spaceships.

 More programmers, more testers, more designers and more artists than ever working on bringing you meaningful and engaging improvements and additions to EVE.

 Before we can elaborate on long term effect we will need further internal planning to take place and we will keep you updated on that progress. However the short term effect of this refocus will be evident immediately in dev-blogs coming out in the next days and weeks and in actual changes hitting our test servers. Right now we're going to give you a high level sneak peek of the winter 2011 expansion. The specific deployment date has not been set in stone but it will be on Tranquility well before Christmas.

 EVE Online´s Winter 2011 expansion will be themed around improvements to warfare and PVP. We will be talking more specifically about each of the features and items in the coming weeks but, for now, here‘s an overview of what functionality, systems and gameplay we‘re going to improve and add to.

 Hybrid weapons balancing

 Factional warfare

 Assault ships

 Capital ship balancing

 New T2 modules

 Starbase logistics management

 New EWAR-Drones

 T2 Rigs manufacturing

 Ship spinning

 New font

 More captains quarters

 Time dilation

 I want to make it clear that this is not a final list. As we go through design and implementation phases some things may require more work than initially expected and others may not hold water in the design phase and therefore may not make it into this particular expansion. Similarly some things might get added to the list. We will keep you updated on our progress every step of the way because, as Hilmar said, communication is one of the things we are dedicated to improve.

 It‘s time to get serious about these spaceships.

 Arnar Hrafn Gylfason Senior Producer of EVE Online"


....



....


*squeeeeeeeeee*


*cough* Pardon me.

  First of all, this has the biggest potential to break Eve asunder. Worse than Incarna, although it has things that faaar more people want and the game needs. So...um...let's break this down a bit.

Hybrids- It's about time and man am I glad to have a Vindi now. But I wonder how they think they will do so. Less damage, better tracking or range? Rails need more dps so nerf tracking? No clue..

FW- That'll be a nice injection that is late but hopefully will be appreciated. You know...as long as it's done right.

ASFs- You mean they might actually be a viable ship to use instead of just a more expensive gimp? Sweet, my Hawk thanks you.

Caps- Again, about time. I hope this balancing includes longer logoffski timers and no SDing..or at least a much longer SD timer.

New T2 mods- I'm guessing for caps here? Can't imagine what other mods don't have T2 variants. That'll be an interesting one to keep an eye on.

Starbase Logi- I know a few people that will certainly appreciate that. Not sure what it will entail in CCP's mind though.

EWAR- new drones? Now that I will definitely follow, because...well I love EWAR. But new drones? Didn't know any new ones were needed.

T2 rigs- If this means that I could viably fit T2 rigs on my ship without double or tripling the price from that alone I'm all ears.

Ship spinning- Ok here I call shenanigans. You're putting this as a feature? Really? Before it was what you were relegated to, not some privilege and it never should have left since CQs suck at being intuitive.

New font- Well that's definitely good on the communication front and it's been needed for years. But not really FiS feature.

CQs- Oh...good....mk...so instead of a rust bucket to walk in circles in, I'll have shiny walls to stare at? Call me when I can actually leave said room.

Time dilation- This one is pretty cool and you should check it out on SiSi. Bullet time in space FTW.

  So I certainly appreciate the new "SRS BZNS GAIS" attitude, I just hope it keeps momentum and that we can see the actions clearly reflect the words and intentions. It is just a game, but if it's your job and you wanna claim to listen then we pay attention to what is done, not what is said.

  That being said...I'll keep this warm and fuzzy a bit longer if you don't mind.

Cheers,
-Mem