...considering they were on loan and made the transition from sparkly vampires to spaceships extremely quickly.

because internet spaceships is srs business

We had about 4-6 weeks of actual development time to put this release together

I, too, am looking forward to this release which is filled with many fun and useful features! :D

One question though...



I thought Eve expansions came out in cycles of 6 months (roughly), so that figure seems unexpectedly low. I would expect a figure closer to 20 weeks (5 months or roughly 5x4 weeks)? What was the other time spent on?

And hoping against hope and my own common sense, any chance you can shed light on plans for the summer expansion? :P

I, too, am looking forward to this release which is filled with many fun and useful features! :D

I do have some questions...



I thought Eve expansions came out in cycles of 6 months (roughly), so that figure seems unexpectedly low. I would expect a figure closer to 20 weeks (5 months or roughly 5x4 weeks)?
* What was the other time spent on?
* If this was the result of a 'last minute' change after/around the recent layoffs will the summer expansion contain about four times as much spaceship content since you'll have the full 6 months?

And hoping against hope and my own common sense, any chance you can shed light on plans for the summer expansion? :P

Regarding time spent, we worked on two other projects which were put on hold/scrapped due to various reasons, but the chief one being the change in direction for EVE (back to FiS).

I have to ask about what the two other projects were, though I expect you can't/won't tell us :)

hopefully our changes to scanning

Oh and what do you kids mean by floppy disc? This?

Which changes?

So... no affordable NEx store... no full-fledged Incarna... no new casual content... no new solo content... no new PvE content...

Why should I keep paying to play this game?

Good to hear that progress on improving Eve will continue, especially the station system - I'd rather gnaw my own arm off than maintain a tower atm

OK, I'll bite, what the heck are you talking about

Issler

Granted the reduced setup timers and upcoming fuel blocks will help, but stations are cantankerous and anachronistic to operate, let alone set up. Friends of mine used to operate a dozen towers in the past but gave it up due to Exploding Head SyndromeGäó

blah blah blah stuff blah blah blah

SOLO content. CASUAL content. PvE content. Space Barbies content.

Any of them would suit me. But. Give. Me. More. Gameplay.

I'm pretty sure this is a troll post, but I'll bite, waiting on the patch to download.

Why are you asking for SOLO content in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER online role playing game?


Going off the patch notes, CCP has done an excellent job adding new content, fixing bugs, and adding little things that add up to big things. You explicitly state that Crucible means ZERO gameplay to you. Given the fact that almost all the enhancements were bug fixes and pertain to things outside of the ship hangar (if you don't want to undock, there's the ship spin counter), if they have no value to you, it means you have no use to the community. This may sound harsh, but if you don't do things outside of a station (aside from trading), you're simply a placeholder adding to the server load.

TL:DR If you want to play with yourself, you need to look elsewhere on the interwebz. If you want more Spaceship Barbie content, head to Amarr local and wait, s/he has yet to disappoint.

Crucible, to me, means ZERO gameplay, both in space and in stations.

I don't know how many are out there who feel like me; you reelased Incarna way too early, now it's on hold or however it is,and you're putting effort into stuff I don't care about or don't have the time to use.

I don't have time to wait for other people to have fun together.

i don't have time to waste not having fun.

And there is no bloody alternative to this game.

So, well, either I look for some new hobby (unlikely), play some new game (been there, done that, only EVE is EVE, dammit), or keep bitchin aorund this forums until some CCP vows that Summer 2012 expansion is gonna throw gameplay my way.

SOLO content. CASUAL content. PvE content. Space Barbies content.

Any of them would suit me. But. Give. Me. More. Gameplay.

wise words

The issue with this is that fundamentally, EvE is not a SOLO, CASUAL, PvE game where you dress up Space Barbies. It has never been that game. It COULD be that game in the future, which comes along with the benefit of widening the audience for EvE to include players like you, that share your interests.

However, the community has helped CCP come to the wise conclusion that expanding the game into new territory to try and attract players such as yourself can not come at the detriment of the players for whom EvE was original made for and those who continue to sustain CCP as a business. These players pay to play EvE, the MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, HARDCORE, PvP Centric, SPACESHIP game.

The reason for the uprising of the community was because the attempt to expand the game to more casual users resulted in the infamous "18 months" of next to no development for the core experience. Considering some of the very poor standards that remained in the core experience until now, this plan both infuriated the original user base and put the entire business model in jeopardy.

Almost every one of those "core" users would fully support expanding EvE in the direction you are asking for, but that shouldn't make the core spaceship experience a sacrificial lamb to be neglected in the pursuit of potential revenue sources. EvE is already a game that supports a tremendous amount of "gameplay", with a huge diversity in potential experiences. Would you not agree that it is better for all of us if the gameplay that is introduced is polished to actually be GOOD gameplay, rather than pushed out unfinished in pursuit of MORE gameplay?

Who cares if EvE has 20,000 features if none of them are worth engaging with? A large portion of the best games in the industry succeed in part because they concentrate on a small feature set and try to do a few things exceptionally well.

A nice casual dev blog, though I'll have to agree with some in that it was a little hard to follow. That said, advice on bear attacks should never be ignored even if unsolicited.

Pursuant to CCP Soundwave's righteous admission in the dev blog that "Constant ship/module balance is really the cornerstone of maintaining a healthy live game" and the fact that a reassessment of Assault Ships has been promised for a post-Crucible deployment patch, I'd like to direct both CCP and the community's attention to the following forum thread in Features & Ideas (same as the one linked in my signature).

Thread

With the help of a lot of constructive community feedback, I have proposed a series of changes to, as well as recommendations for the 4th bonus for Assault Ships - we're already into a second draft for most. It is my hope that CCP will take the opportunity before them to crystallize the role of Assault Ships as baby-HACs and bring some much-needed consistency to the lineup. My recommendations revolve around bringing up the bottom-end of DPS that these ships do while enhancing their appeal to pilots of all experience levels.

I look forward to continued community feedback as well as hopefully, a word or two from a developer of our favourite game.

Cheers!

We actually had four features that we had to put on hold due to time constraints (they were half way done when our deadline hit) one of the was assault frigates. The good news is that we have half the work done, so they should be the next balanced class to be published :)

Now you are just teasing...

"And the other three were...?"

Regarding time spent, we worked on two other projects which were put on hold/scrapped due to various reasons, but the chief one being the change in direction for EVE (back to FiS).

Can't promise you x quantity of stuff, just that we'll continue to do this stuff :)