Hiton Kado wrote:Nevyn Auscent wrote:Why do we need 'new' content? This isn't a traditional MMO that makes some 'new' content that makes every single old piece of content obsolete. Everything stays relevant in EVE. So the amount of relevant content doesn't decrease by an expansion.
So, in your opinion the introduction of for example wormhole space and all related features was a waste of development time and should have been spent on reiterating older features?
Apocrypha was an oustanding expansion concept, but it also took a level of crunch effort that's not realistically repeatable now. And it laid up a store of problems that contributed to a lot of the grief in the following :18 months:
Realistically, we're not going to see another Apocrypha class expansion released in a single 6 month cycle.
CCP Seagull laid out her vision at fanfest last year in
the keynote speech.. That's what's going to happen. Rubicon, Odyssey, and the expansions that follow them will all be building up to that. CCP have a "to do" list that needs to be completed before we can see that vision of player built stargates and new space finally realised, and they're on it. For exapmple, one of those items is ship balancing, and that project has nearly completed its first iteration. Another was exploration, and that was addressed in the last expansion. There are other items of similar magnitude, and I'm sure that you can probably guess most or all of them if you think about what still needs doing. Meanwhile, CCP are gradually introducing the new tools that will be part of that vision, such as the deployables.
If CCP deliver what they showed us, then a lot of people engaged in everyday EVE activities are going to be very happy with the summer expansion. People expecting another "Apocrypha" will be disappointed. They're always going to be disaapointed. I think
if CCP execute it well, it'll be more like another "Retribution".
And don't forget that a significant percentage of the next expansion will be delivered in point releases; the days of giant expansion changelogs and patchnotes are over. (It's worth remembering that we haven't even had all of Rubicon yet!) There is an emphasis on making sure that the core game experiences are good, and gradually infiltrating new features rather than a sudden dramatic "OH WOW" change as we got in Apocrypha.
I know it's not as exciting to anticipate, and it sure does make the marketing guys job harder, but it's a better and more productive way to develop the game. It's a change that the players begged CCP for years to make.