There is a saying “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. While it may be true for drunken adventures of lucky Capsuleers who manage to fly to the EVE Vegas fanfest, it’s entirely not true for CCP’s announcements. Let’s check out what was revealed!
Expansions are back! With cool posters, trailers, music and login themes, and of course, their main goal; Bringing major game features and improvements into EVE Online in a kick-ass, epic style. The upcoming one is called Citadel and will be launched next year in the spring. What can I say? This is going to be the longest winter eve-r!
Coming in the next week! Wait, what? You don’t know what Brain in the Box is? Well, then let me elaborate. Basically, EVE has a problem of exaggerated reaction times and lack of smoothness due to the fact that your character skills, ship rigs and other factors are recalculated for every little thing that affects those attributes. You don’t have to be a computer scientist to imagine how cumbersome it is. Brain in the Box was a year-long project of CCP to move these calculation into a proper package. This way, they could be calculated then stored until you skill up, plug in a new implant or change ships, saving the server a lot of excess hassle. In other words, we can expect a better undocking experience (curse You docking lag and Your unfulfilled bloodlust!) and overall improvement of game flow.
If You look close, You may notice Avatar class titan near that X-Large Citadel!
Citadels represent a complete overhaul of player-built and owned structures. While we are still waiting for a panel related to them, the following points were confirmed so far:
– You can build these stations anywhere in space.
– You can rotate and plan your station in space to have that sweet undocking instawarp direction.
– They will come in three sizes; Medium, Large and X-Large.
– Prices are aimed to be 608 million ISK for Medium, 7 billion ISK for Large and 70 billion ISK for X-Large.
– They are going to be completely destructible.
– They can function as open stations and trade hubs for neutral players (ever dreamed about running a space bar, eh?)
– They are going to be able to be completely fitted with special weapons systems (AoE torpedoes! Ship tractor beams! Arc doomsdays!), electronic warfare modules, passive support and even rigs. Also, with customizable services with special “Service slots”.
– Around these citadels there will be a special field providing artificial protection for every friendly ship. That will be the equivalent of the Soon(tm) to be outdated POS shields.
If you are a Capital or Super Capital pilot, please sit down now. You may love these upcoming changes, or hate them, but You will not be able to remain indifferent to them.
Lets start with new features:
– New modules! Capital Armor Plates, Shield Extenders, PROPULSION modules, Neutralizers, Cap Boosters & Batteries. Did I mention new anti-sub capital weaponry, designed solely to wreck smaller targets? In meta flavors, Tech II variation and even faction equivalents!?
– Fleet hangars, ship hangars and refitting capability for EVERY capital. Yes, Dreadnoughts are no exception.
– New Doomsdays! Sickle and Hand-of-god will be a nightmare of any Black Ops fleet stupid enough to stay in one place for too long.
– Introducing squadrons that will completely change capabilities of Carriers and Supercarriers. Not only will they be more sophisticated than “Really big drones”, they will be able to follow complex sets of instructions.
– New Super Carrier Electronic Warfare modules will be revealed soon!
Now, tweaks and mechanical changes:
– Weapon timer will disallow refitting, meaning that if you start shooting other players you got to stick with what you already have fitted.
– No Electronic Warfare immunity.
– Capital remote reps will work only if the ship using them is in Triage. This is a direct nerf (Or more honestly, getting rid off) any Slowcat doctrine.
– Speaking of which, Carriers will no longer cover the logistic/repping role in fleets. Instead, we will receive a completely new line of dedicated remote repairing Capitals that remain a mystery for now.
Endurance ice-mining frigate.
Now, lets take a look at smaller, but no less significant announcements!
– More camera options: First person perspective, detaching the camera from yourself… Or any ship!
– New shield damage animations: Weren’t You annoyed that tanking on shields and armor looked almost the same? CCP was too, so now they are working on it to please our eyes even more!
– Visualization of Directional scan on map: No longer would you have to wonder if that star gate is in your D-scan cone.
– Thanks to collaboration with scientists, CCP plans to introduce mini-games to the EVE Universe that will allow us to push REAL science further. These mini-games will supposedly reward players with SoE Loyalty Points and ISK.
– Books about EVE Empires and the Fountain War confirmed!
– People who couldn’t make it to the fanfest, will soon be able to buy EVE gadgets at Thinkgeek.
– Valkyrie enters pre-alpha and starts to gather testers! You can sign up to newsletter and possibly have access to the tests today!
This is the just a keynote for what is going to be covered during EVE Vegas, but the hype is already real! What do you think about the upcoming changes? For me, we are moving to a whole new frontier. Our game is changing and evolving, no doubt. How do you think these changes would possibly affect our game (Other than the market going completely crazy)? Please leave a comment and wait for more detailed articles as CCP reveals even more details about these upcoming features!
