Just as I was eying the exits in New Eden, CCP announced their latest expansion, Incursion, which is due out in November of this year, about the time when my last ISK purchased PLEX will expire.
Will there be something in this next expansion to tempt me?
There is the now usual round of technology upgrades promised with this expansion. Faster is always better, but in my little corner of space, performance generally isn’t much of an issue. I think the biggest fleet I’ve even been in had seven ships total.
There is a new Sansha Mothership in the works. I’ll be looking for screen shots of that. Sansha ship models are always interesting… and pointy.
And they will be giving us a dedicated salvaging vessel, the Noctis, which will use the same ship model as the Primae. I am far more likely to buy and fly the latter… once the price comes down… but that isn’t really a reason to stay in space… or in station, where I have been for most of the last few months.
There will apparently be an update to the character creator. I hope that will allow everybody to redo their pilot portrait for free. I rushed through the character creator in my desire to get into space and have been living with the same uninspired pilot picture since then.
No, the big deal for me is at the top of the press release, the new additions to PvE play.
Incursion will feature the escalating attacks of the deadly Sansha’s Nation which is bent on instituting its own utopia and exacting vengeance against the pilots who stand in its way. Pilots can join public fleets and co-operate to destroy the Sansha incursions and return the universe to normal, receiving wealthy bounties, earning loyalty rewards and high commendation.
Public fleets? That sounds vaguely familiar.
The public quest thing was an idea that worked pretty well in Warhammer Online, though the schizophrenic nature of the game (how many experience bars should a game be allowed?) diluted its impact. And the huge drop off in subscribers after the first couple months did not help.
And a similar idea worked well enough in Star Trek Online. There was always the problem of “the fleet that refused to communicate” in those group quest instances though. I spent a good deal of time trying to guess where my temporary fleet mates were headed in STO.
But in STO the death penalty was pretty mild to say the least. There is very little pain associated with getting yourself in trouble.
Of course, we know that the death penalty is a little bit different in EVE Online. That is something that could drive cooperation. A ship loss in EVE… if you’re insured it won’t cost you much in ISK, but the time it takes to get another ship assembled and ready to go… that is often the biggest loss. Time has value.
It would be great if this turns out to be a good way to get players to group up and cooperate and maybe even teach people how to work together in a fleet. Maybe people could even use some of those modules that generally only get equipped for PvP. The current PvE missions do not train players for PvP at all.
Of course, CCP tried to get people to band together in ad hoc fleets for PvE-ish objectives when it introduced factional warfare back in the Empyrean Age expansion. How did that turn out for you? It was something of a non-starter for me.
Still, I look forward to more information on this new tack in EVE PvE play. Maybe it will give me a reason to get back into space.
And at least I’ll get a new in-game portrait.
Is there anything in Incursion for you?
The Ancient Gaming Noob 