posted on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 7:07 AM
by
Endie
Eve Online - Am I Getting My Wish?
Like a good (occasional) PvP gang leader searching for an edge, I ordered the Eve Maps product a couple of weeks ago. Upon enquiring as to why I had had no delivery, I received an email, part of which said:
"..due to the release of The Empyrean Age expansion in a few months, there will be new content added to the game, and we want to ensure the first edition of EVE Maps will be as up to date as possible. The delay will be no more than two to three weeks. CCP has released the data for this new content to us, and we are frantically updating to ensure you are ahead of the game."
Will this new content be new regions? A radical new game mechanic that makes a noticeable difference to the maps (possibly involving some version of the touted change to asteroid belts spawning and despawning rather than being in static locations)? Or just a rebalancing aimed at reducing lag, with further shuffling-about of belts, agents or stations?
With the titular reference to the Empyrean Age - an upcoming expansion whose theme may be factional warfare - my guess is that it will be a combination of the asteroid change with enhanced factional sovereignty attributes. The expansion is tied in with a book of the same title, by Tony Gonzales. Given the average quality of MMO tie-in product, I shudder to think.
Edit: On the upside there will, indeed, be new regions. On the downside they will not be 0.0 space. This can be gleaned from the CCP responses to Mynas Atoch's thread here. If this ties in with loooong-promised alterations to lowsec to provide a point in going there then this will be some compensation. Otherwise, it will do little to solve the over-crowding issues of 0.0, since almost nobody goes to lowsec or the majority of highsec systems anyway, except when travelling elsewhere.
Also noticeable in that thread is the extent to which Bob and their alts use an atack strategy try to divert attention from yet another example of special treatment (sensitive here since Bob moved to their current home region, Delve, a short time before it became public knowledge that the region was to be substantially improved, but after senior Bob members had been informed of the changes).