I do think the new release cycle is a big mistake.

The hype, the speculation, the high quality trailers

Eve doesn't get expansions, it gets releases that cost you nothing. But you should know that, if you read the devblog, right?

Apart from that, Oceanus has plenty of new content for a 6 week iteration IMO: new cloaking effect, new wormhole effects, new wormhole nebulas, new burner missions and a new music piece. Not exactly new, but the beginning of module tiericide will be huge.

Ah yes, see what you mean about Incarna.

Not sure what you mean about stealth buff.

and don't get me wrong, I understand the need for tweaking and I do like the new visuals.

But surely tweaking should be running in the background - maybe employ a couple of janitors to press a few buttons to make stations look more shiny?

What we know is, EVE is still improving and growing. For free. That's good enough for me.

Then I suggest you look up Incarna and learn about why doing 'big' additions instead of fixing existing smaller problems is a bad idea.

Also, posting in a stealth 'buff free stuff' thread.

I love the trailers as a standalone piece of entertainment.. but I wonder how everyone is OK with these trailers not resembling anything that ends up happening in the game itself..

I can't think of any promo vid for a game that shows actual in game footage, off hand.

Who wouldn't mind paying -ú40 or so once a year for a fullscale "proper" expansion?

and when I say "proper expansion", I mean huge story lines, more playable factions, intriguing exploration content, ownership of asteroid colonies - well, world's your oyster really.

and when I say "proper expansion", I mean huge story lines, more playable factions, intriguing exploration content, ownership of asteroid colonies - well, world's your oyster really.

The problem is you are thinking theme park MMO's. Who push out a whole bunch of re-skinned content (The boars are now blue and see through, it's 'new') that invalidates all previous expansions and creates a new grind to the new level cap.

EVE doesn't invalidate content. So most MMO's their actual content is only what is in the latest expansion, everything else is a grind to get there. EVE keeps all old content relevant, so these little 'tweaks' as you put it are actually creating more content than entire theme park expansions, because they make a bunch of old content more relevant in the overall meta of the game.

More active content for people who like to immerse themselves deeper into a universe ...
... would actually be a good thing ...
... but I have no idea how to properly apply this to EVE.

Think Faction Warfare. That's a branch for these people,
but the meaninglessness is seriously wasted potential.

CCP SoundWave was a visionary regarding this.

I agree - would like to see a lot more new content, not just visual tweaks.

I remember one mission for security rating above 5.0 that was camped by some players 24/7 for the shiny modules. CCP ultimately get rid of it, but they did not remove agent. I believe every static content would ultimately meet this end. New people trying to do it, would crush on the wall of griefers, thieves and gankers, us, EVE players that is.

So no static content for ever.

Let CCP fix all the minor issues that everyone has complained about since 2003 first then lets get some new content which will inevitably break the game again.


Remember the expansion that broke the auto pilot and all freighters went through decon?

....is an expansion?

Forgive my ignorance, I am relatively new and I don't know anything about the complexities of programming. I've just read the Oceanus dev blog and apart from a few minor adjustments I can't really see anything that justifies the word "expansion". Imagine a fantasy writer releasing the next installment of a series of stories and it only being a page long. Or perhaps a popular tv show and the long-awaited new series being 1 episode, half-an-hour long - with adverts.

I understand that expansions have been broken up into six week releases and that in many ways this is a good thing. But, what can be achieved in 6 weeks if this is going to be a permanent thing?

So the question is - what is the general concensus about forthcoming "expan....cough....patches"? Will we ever get something BIG? Something that knocks you for six and gets you running around the block naked shouting "oh my god, eve is just so freakin awesome I just can't take anymore!"

Or the continuance of minor and forgettable tweaks?

As such they need to add more products or in the long run they will die.