Looking back on the past and ahead to the future, CCP Games in a recent post to the EVE blog detailed the recent changes to hit New Eden, as well as what's to come.
The big story that has dominated EVE Online for two years now has been the Scarcity Era and the undertaking to, as CCP puts it, "bring the economy into a healthy state, and to set the game up for a third decade." This has been a major talking point in nearly every interview we've conducted with the team since about 2019, as well as the focus in many of the updates and dev blogs throughout the last few years. CCP starts off by acknowledging the strain this has put on the players, especially as resource scarcity and both player and NPC-prompted war has depleted war stocks of alliances, big or small.
The recent devblog was the focal point of a lot of the community ire recently, being seen as a tipping point for many and sparking protests in Jita 4-4, one of the major trading hubs in EVE Online. CCP states that they have been "listening" and more to the feedback being given, as well as working with the Council of Stellar Management on the changes.
"From Extraction to Production announced a bevy of changes. We typically don’t post updates as comprehensive, dense, and raw as we did with this blog (it was more a Dev Proposal & Discussion than Dev Blog) but with so much changing – and so much at stake – we wanted as much feedback on the changes as possible.
On that note, it has been a lively few weeks. We’ve been listening, discussing, and adjusting based on comments and responses. A huge thank you must go out to all those players who started conversations and provided constructive feedback on the forums, podcasts, blogs, streams, Discord communities, and elsewhere. We’d also like to thank CSM16, with whom we’ve been working with on these changes since August, for providing valuable feedback and context for the upcoming changes."
CCP goes on to reiterate mining as the cornerstone of EVE Online, and statres that the team is seeing an increase in mining activity as a result. The team also talks briefly about Battleships, an iconic ship type in EVE (and navies in the real world too, for that matter), stating that the approach to these ships will be more in line with making them more powerful to coincide with the "cost and ocmplexity associated with building them."
The team goes on to talk about where they will be focusing leading up to 2022's return to EVE Fanfest in Reykjavik, notably mentioning two points of contention the last few weeks: the nerfs to the Rorqual and the new compression mechanic introduced in the extraction blog post. Compression was presented as a way to add "decision-making - not tedium" to EVE Online, something which the team promises that the upcoming compression update will make clear.
Additionally, the team talks about the Rorqual and how the mining vessel took over the meta being so universally powerful. With the changes to the Rorqual being reverted to what CCP calls an "on-field support ship," it's being positioned as a must-have ship in any Lowsec and Nullsec mining fleet, though CCP is also looking to make it more of the command ship fantasy by improving its group-jump features.
You can check out the full blog post on the EVE Online website. New Eden is currently celebrating Yoiul with its Winter Nexus event, which sees ice storms and plenty of rewards for capsuleers to earn whilst playing. In case you're curious what EVE is like for a new player nowadays, check out Mitch's most-recent MMO ReRoll column.
