Where I Stand – PvE

Covered in this section are the various PvE aspects: Missions, Incursions, Ratting, Wormholes & Exploration, Static Complexes & Cosmos

Missions

EVE needs more mission content, that is quite clear. However, it also needs something to make the missions more interesting, for example dynamic missions with randomly generated locations, rats, objectives and Sleeper/Incursion AI. Similarly, something like player-generated missions could really help with adding new content, but would need player-friendly tools, and its not clear how the content team in CCP construct missions.

Incursions

These are generally OK, but could likely use a little balancing at the moment. Things like adding more separate but shorter incursions and adding gates restricting ship types could help, as well as boosting rewards for losec/nullsec to improve the traffic there. I would also expect CCP to perform some kind of ‘balancing’ at some point which would limit the amount of time the mothership sticks around once it spawns.

Ratting

Ratting needs some work, as its pretty much only very casual PVE. Going back some years, rats used to drop mission logs, which vaguely pointed to deadspace sites, so having exploration-style ‘escalations’ drop from rats would be a good way to iterate on this, and make ratting useful for something other than raising sec status in losec and null.

Wormholes & Exploration

Exploration has had a fair bit of work recently, but like most other things could use more varied content including more difficult sites, and boosting the rewards for normal exploration sites in losec, could help improve usage there. Wormholes in general are fine barring needing more content and corp/POS mechanic issues, but improving Sleeper AI could make sites more challenging.

Static Complexes & Cosmos

Again, these could use some iteration, Cosmos especially as nothing has happened for far too long with it and the rewards are no longer worthwhile. For example, making Static Complexes act more like exploration sites (so they despawn/respawn once completed), however they should still be located in the same general area.

Where I Stand – PvP

Covered in this section are the various PvP aspects: Faction Warfare, Losec & Piracy, Nullsec, Wardecs, Scamming, Grief/Ganking.

Faction Warfare

Like wardecs below, I’m pleased to see this is getting some work. Its impossible to say what CCP plan to do with it, but adjustments to make it more friendly to ‘casual’ or ‘entry-level’ PVP would be a good move. There have been a few suggestions about reducing/removing/restricting the opposing faction loss from the structures, which may be a nice incentive.

Losec & Piracy

Piracy needs targets, and said targets need a reason to go to losec other than people wanting them to so they get blown up. Increasing the rewards overall in losec (rats, missions, Incursions) would promote traffic, and fixing the bounty/kill rights systems would help also.

Nullsec

At present nullsec does need a little work, specifically something to drive conflict and keep things moving, preventing space becoming stagnant – a few suggestions I agree with (in principal) are shifting resources, depleting moons, or sovereignty based simply on usage. Overall however, I feel the mechanics are okay and I don’t see any major problems with it other than the ongoing supercap proliferation, which is another problem altogether.

Wardecs

The wardec systems clearly need a rewrite, both eliminate the existing loopholes in them as well as encourage PvP against groups who can/will fight. I’m pleased to hear that this is something which is being worked on by CCP.

Scamming

Scamming is fine, and one of the things which makes EVE what it is. It would be nice to see mechanics which allow more interesting and involved scams, but these are always hard to ‘support’ while fixing UI problems.

Grief/Ganking

Like scamming, griefing and ganking are things which makes EVE what it is. The recent changes to insurance for suicide ganking have balanced that pretty well, so I don’t see any need to change how those mechanics work at the moment.

Crucible 1.1 January 24th

For those that have their head buried in the dirt, the next update to the Crucible expansion is arriving on January 24th!

The most notable addition with this expansion will be the beautiful new NEOCOM:

 

We have a fantastic video on how to use the new NEOCOM:

 

 

Upgrades to the NEOCOM will include:

  • New Item Grouping
  • Chat Groups
  • Skill Training Progress Bar

The changes to the NEOCOM are already available on SiSi for you to check out!

See the Patch Notes Page for full details on this release.

 

 

[Soon] E-Uni Smashes RvB

Well, Ok, we haven’t smashed them yet but coming soon the Eve University will be at war.

From Kelduum Revaan

WAR IS COMING!!!

‘EVE University’ vs ‘Red vs Blue’ (aka ‘Purple’)

From Downtime on January 26th, Until downtime on January 29th.

We’ve been speaking with RvB about some more PvP practice, as the last war was a load of fun (mostly) for both sides, with RvB being a great match for the Uni, so E-UNI will be declaring war on them for a short war, from 11:00 EVE time on Thursday 26th until 11:00 EVE time on Sunday 29th.

While there are some restrictions applied beyond the normal Wartime SOP, this is sure to be an entertaining few days.

See the forum post from Kelduum for more information!

Destroyer Free for All

Destroyer

Destroyer

 

They needed love. They got the love. Now we want to kill them. You had enough time to get used to the buffed Destroyers. Now we fill the sky with wrecks.
Every Unista is welcome, T1 destroyers with basic meta zero modules only. Last man standing is the winner. We will fleet up in a Aldrat and meet at the POS and go through any questions that you might have. We will then meet up at the arena and start shooting each other.
Date and Location When: Sunday, 15th January 2012, 20:00 EVE Time Where: Aldrat

See the forums for more details and prizes!

EVE University at War

ALDRAT, Metropolis – Reports are arriving of large battles in the Aldrat system, where EVE University makes its headquarters. A merchant capsuleer, who asked not to be identified to avoid politically compromising his corporation, said that his ship was outside Pator Tech School when an attack began:

“At 14:52 I witnessed a fleet of Reds and Blues come out of warp and destroy a Raven-class E-UNI battleship. In less than a minute an E-UNI fleet arrived and engaged, and there was heavy combat for at least the next couple of minutes, but I didn’t stick around to see how it turned out.”

Battle Over Aldrat IX

Battle outside Pator Tech School, Aldrat IX

CONCORD reports that the Ivy League alliance has declared war on The 0rphanage, BLUE Republic, and RED Federation, and has received declarations of war from Kill It With Fire, Sleeper Social Club, The Devil’s Warrior Alliance, Skunk Works., and others. This sudden increase in hostilities is believed to be a result of E-UNI’s recent suspension of its WSOP.

E-UNI CEO Kelduum Revaan has promised medals of recognition to all students who remain in the University through this time of turbulence, but it remains to be seen how the membership numbers will change even as perennial adversaries Human After All and Veldspar Defence Force have announced they are stepping up recruitment of E-UNI capsuleers who wish to turn against their alma mater.

E-UNI Suspends WSOP

ALDRAT, Metropolis – In a press conference on the morning of September 18, EVE University leadership announced the temporary suspension of its long-standing Wartime Standard Operating Procedures (WSOP), beginning what is expected to be a weeks-long period of hostility in the Metropolis region and beyond.

“It’s time to make a point and for everyone to see how bad it used to be,” declared Kelduum Revaan, CEO of EVE University.  Revaan was referring to the third quarter of YC 108, when two months of war following E-UNI’s evacuation of the Geminate region spurred university leadership to charter the Ivy League alliance and reconsider its response to declarations of war.

Thinking of that time, Revaan recalled, “There were next to no rules, certainly no SOP, and the killboard outside our corporate offices was covered with four to five pages of ship losses per day from a couple of hundred E-UNI members.” Continue reading