I heard CCP had some layoffs recently, wondering if many of them were in the marketing department.

Got an email yesterday annoucing the new expansion (Inferno) and the bridge patch (Escalation) and these are the features they lead with to entice me to return.

Bridging the path from Crucible to Inferno is Escalation, a patch that adds several crucial changes and a couple cool new features as we ready for the big expansion.

» Loot table updates
» Drone reward changes
» Titan tweaking
» Interactive Effects Bar

OK, EVE fans, help me out here, where are the critical changes and cool new features in this list.  There was a link which lead to more detail but truthfully, nothing in the above list enticed me enough to bother if this is the highlights of this patch.

More importantly I guess, when Inferno launches in May, what sort of cool things are they adding that might encourage me to return, because the above list certainly isn't doing it for me.

And I apoligize if I'm coming off as trollish in this post, it's 7 am and my dog got me up early on a Saturday against my will.

Definitely nothing in this Escalation that I would see worth sending them money again.  That said, there are some interesting changes here and this summer.  If you have some form of RSS aggregator (like Google Reader) I highly recommend that you follow EVE's official news and devblogs.  They have gone into much more detail on each of those items listed as well as discussed a number of things happening this summer - some of it quite possibly game changing as it were.

Time will tell.

o7

Loot Table Updates

I didn't even reflect over that. After I went to the site reading this.

"?NPC ships will no longer drop manufacturable T1 loot. NPCs will continue to drop modules, however T1 items which have a blueprint will no longer drop, making player manufacturing the primary source for these items."

Perhaps they take for granted that the reader of the email knows what they (the sender) know.

I thought that shallownes of Crucible was exception but seems like CCP is setting a new norm with content-less expansions...

I guess we will have to wait for Inferno release and how will it turns out, so far not much was released about the content.

Yeah not hugely impressed either.  However I do want to try my hand at manufacturing again.  The patch will definitely boost the prices of minerals, not sure if that such a great thing though.  More miner bots I guess :P

I am just kind of biding my time until DUST comes out..Until then I don't expect to see any significant changes..imo.

It's just a mini expansion that they can release now instead of waiting a month.  Why is that a bad thing to you?

If you don't want them to send you any more mail about the game I'm sure there's a way to get them to stop.

This pre-expansion is actually huge in terms of inpact on in-game economy. Miners are going to be the main mineral faucet again, so if you enjoyed that particular playstyle, now is a good time to join. It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc. All of those  things are healthy for the EVE ecosystem in my opinion. 

CCP has temporarily abadoned the big shiny feature expansions after the Incarna rage in favour of fixing the existing gameplay and making obsolete or never iterated upon game systems usable again - Faction Warfare (which was horribly broken) is the first example coming in Inferno. I, for one, am happy for their shift in focus.

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Originally posted by Chram

It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc.

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Except this does not work...for obvious reasons...

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by Chram

It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc.

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Except this does not work...for obvious reasons...

Care to spell out the obvious reasons? I think I have been enough times both on the hunting and defending side to know how the dynamic works. But feel free to correct me.

Originally posted by Chram

This pre-expansion is actually huge in terms of inpact on in-game economy. Miners are going to be the main mineral faucet again, so if you enjoyed that particular playstyle, now is a good time to join. It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc. All of those  things are healthy for the EVE ecosystem in my opinion. 

 

CCP has temporarily abadoned the big shiny feature expansions after the Incarna rage in favour of fixing the existing gameplay and making obsolete or never iterated upon game systems usable again - Faction Warfare (which was horribly broken) is the first example coming in Inferno. I, for one, am happy for their shift in focus.

OK, now this is interesting news, I always thought faction warfare was a good idea...except it didn't work out.

I'm not angry they sent me emails btw, I'm looking for a good reason to return to EVE and so far, not seeing much. (not even revised loot tables, lol)

But I'll keep my eyes on it, the game keeps improving, someday they may bring out something I'm more interested in.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Chram

This pre-expansion is actually huge in terms of inpact on in-game economy. Miners are going to be the main mineral faucet again, so if you enjoyed that particular playstyle, now is a good time to join. It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc. All of those  things are healthy for the EVE ecosystem in my opinion. 

 

CCP has temporarily abadoned the big shiny feature expansions after the Incarna rage in favour of fixing the existing gameplay and making obsolete or never iterated upon game systems usable again - Faction Warfare (which was horribly broken) is the first example coming in Inferno. I, for one, am happy for their shift in focus.

OK, now this is interesting news, I always thought faction warfare was a good idea...except it didn't work out.

I'm not angry they sent me emails btw, I'm looking for a good reason to return to EVE and so far, not seeing much. (not even revised loot tables, lol)

But I'll keep my eyes on it, the game keeps improving, someday they may bring out something I'm more interested in.

 

The details are not yet set in stone (=written in a dev blog), devs are still discussing this heavily with CSM and presumably adjusting some stuff. The idea is to give faction Warfare some actual meaning by giving the controlling (player) faction some means of enhancing a system.

Also coming is a war declaration revamp featuring an integrated option to hire a merceranry corp. Should hopefully make high sec wars less lame (I still doubt they can magically make them enjoybale for both sides though). Changes are also coming to aggresion mechanics, which is another thing that hasn't been touched in ages.

On the horizon for winter are changes to poses, by making them easier to use, more modular and "cooler", then null sec sov revamp and presumably some shiny stuff CCP hasn't told us yet.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Chram

This pre-expansion is actually huge in terms of inpact on in-game economy. Miners are going to be the main mineral faucet again, so if you enjoyed that particular playstyle, now is a good time to join. It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc. All of those  things are healthy for the EVE ecosystem in my opinion. 

 

CCP has temporarily abadoned the big shiny feature expansions after the Incarna rage in favour of fixing the existing gameplay and making obsolete or never iterated upon game systems usable again - Faction Warfare (which was horribly broken) is the first example coming in Inferno. I, for one, am happy for their shift in focus.

OK, now this is interesting news, I always thought faction warfare was a good idea...except it didn't work out.

I'm not angry they sent me emails btw, I'm looking for a good reason to return to EVE and so far, not seeing much. (not even revised loot tables, lol)

But I'll keep my eyes on it, the game keeps improving, someday they may bring out something I'm more interested in.

 

Fine, I'll play along...  It's an empire expansion but there's some goodies for everyone that, from what I hear, will change the way we fit our ships.

This mini expansion:

They are removing the drone alloy loot drops.

Incursions are going to be more random.

Some ships are being balanced.

The actual expansion:

FW changes.

War Dec changes and an additional introduction of a mercenary market place. .

New modules that will "change the cookie cutter setups people have for their ships" the ultimate goal (probably not this expansion) is to remove separate PvE and PvP fits.

Remaning ship designs will get their improvements, some graphical effects are being improved, launchers are going to get the love that turrets got.

More ship balancing.

More ui improvements.

I'm still waiting for the final info but the FW changes are by far the most interesting to me.  I'm a pessimist anyway but from what I can tell they are going to make FW more like Null.  If that is the case I'll likely just quit again.  I'm in lowsec FW because I DON'T WANT to be in Null.  They've added Alliances.  Okay.  But this occupancy can't dock non-sense is silly, imo.  Sure, we need some reason to win but hey - why not have the zone add some effect like Incursions do?  Positive effect for those that hold occupancy and a negative one (or none?) for those that don't?  Or vice versa?  Anyway, if they make it more like Null then fail.

Aside from FW though, I keep up with all the DevBlogs and, as I said previously, there are some potentially game changing uh...  changes...  coming down the pipe so we'll see.

o7

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by Chram

It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc.

---

 

Except this does not work...for obvious reasons...

What are those reasons?

They will remove alot of the mineral flow from missions when they remove the T1 drops from mission NPC's and the drone alloy.

How will that effect mining and how will it effect the ships cost, and ISK flow from mission/ratting (vs the price of minerlas and then ships).

We will most likely see more people mining in low/null to kill, or?

Will it balance things up so that expensive ships no longer is a throw away ship?

Originally posted by Chram

This pre-expansion is actually huge in terms of inpact on in-game economy. Miners are going to be the main mineral faucet again, so if you enjoyed that particular playstyle, now is a good time to join. It will also make mining in low/null somewhat profitable again, which encourages more roaming gangs, which encourages more home defense fleets etc. All of those  things are healthy for the EVE ecosystem in my opinion. 

 

CCP has temporarily abadoned the big shiny feature expansions after the Incarna rage in favour of fixing the existing gameplay and making obsolete or never iterated upon game systems usable again - Faction Warfare (which was horribly broken) is the first example coming in Inferno. I, for one, am happy for their shift in focus.

This exactly.

The "new shiny" in this expansion is mainly graphics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXNWgeQmiOE

Along with that we are getting new frigate models. I imagine all ship models will be redone within the next few expansions to have tech 3 textures.

Along with that, expect major ship rebalancing. CCP wants to make under-used or what are commonly believed to be terrible ships atm up to par. Their stated goal to make every hull used on a regular basis.

As for brand spanking new, there are a few new modules and stuff being released which while not a whole lot should prove rather game changing. For example, a micro jump drive which is inderdiction nullified and can jump your ship out 100km. Or the new salvaging drones.

EVE already has more features than other several other MMOs combined. I think they can afford not to add features for a year in order to revamp whats already there.

I think they SHOULD revamp. A lot of stuff is outdated and well.......doesn't make sense anymore (FW).

Originally posted by BizkitNL

I think they SHOULD revamp. A lot of stuff is outdated and well.......doesn't make sense anymore (FW).

Yeah, I'd rather see realistic expansions that improve the game and that they can actually deliver on time than more half assed and incomplete Jesus expansions some of the people in this thread are looking for.

not enough to keep me subbed.  If you didnt find it in the game to stay before I honestly don't see anything on the horizon.  Lately CCP is marketing nerf after nerf as some type of feature improvement.  There are some neat turret effect changes and missle changes but other than that I have found no real compelling reasons to play lately and I've let me subs lapse.

The economy is going to hell with rampant inflation due to many factors (that CCP would BS their way through) and the game just isnt fun for me anymore.  The drama with the meta game used to be entertaining but on top of everything else the fact that goonswarm has such a pressence in the game basically nails it for me.

I never , never say never but I dont think I'll be returning this time (2004 player).

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Originally posted by Chram

Care to spell out the obvious reasons? I think I have been enough times both on the hunting and defending side to know how the dynamic works. But feel free to correct me.

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Increasing rewards won't attract more players as limiting factor is risk, people care very little about rewards.

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Originally posted by Orphes
 
We will most likely see more people mining in low/null to kill, or?
Will it balance things up so that expensive ships no longer is a throw away ship?

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We will see the same amount of people mining in null/low sec, or some negligable increase at best.

What will happen is that supply will drop rapidly and prices go up. How the change will turn out in long term depends how will CCP react on supply shortage - they either increase the supply or leave the shortage.

No big deal anyway, there is so much ISK spawning into EVE economy that those changes won't really matter - prices will adjust to reflect mineral supply.

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Originally posted by Rekindle

The economy is going to hell with rampant inflation due to many factors (that CCP would BS their way through) and the game just isnt fun for me anymore. 

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EVE is deflation since 2004 and CCP has very little impact on the economy.