I had a very mixed reaction to the EVE Online director’s letter that was published yesterday indicated that CCP was looking at null sec as a focus for changes in the coming year.
I mean, on one hand, there are things that could be better out in null sec.
On the other, many of the things that could be better are leftovers from previous attempts by CCP to make null sec pilots play how CCP wants them to play as opposed to how they end up playing. From Aegis sovereignty forward the litany of CCP null sec projects can start to sound like a variation of “the floggings will continue until morale improves.”
I mean, Aegis sov, meant to make things more “fun” and encourage lots of small battles, made sovereignty warfare a nightmare slog unless you outnumber your foe significantly. Having been in six hour plus long ping-pong battles over an ihub, fun stops entering into it about two hours into things. It also did much to encourage the mega alliance because any alliance can show up to attack sovereignty, but only the owning alliance can defend, so even a small alliance with big allies can end up in a bind.
Aside from the crazy Rorqual super-mining patch, most everything since then has either been an indisputable nerf of null sec or a relaxation of a nerf because CCP realized they went way too far and people simply stopped undocking.
So when the unblinking eye of CCP Rattati can pull its gaze from EVE Vanguard for a moment to fix on null sec, I start to worry that we’re going to be the victim of another chaos era experiment or that there will be some idea to make big battles more likely that will only end up with everybody afraid to undock because CCP has once again made everything too expensive to lose. I mean, the mineral price index is still near its all time high because CCP still hasn’t sorted out the isogen shortage from their economic starvation plan… also meant to somehow drive conflict… of a couple years back.
Have I editorialized too much already? Yeah, sorry. When you are on the front lines of these changes, when you see CCP decide to screw up the economy in the middle of one of the largest null sec wars ever, arguably ending it because nobody would risk their titans after that, it is hard to tear yourself away from that mindset. See, I can’t help myself!
So what did CCP say in this letter? Well, we got a very low res image of some sort of high level roadmap that contains some fairly generic milestones.
The wee 2024 roadmap
There are eleven items in that image, and four of them are devoted to EVE Vanguard play tests, which is a waste of three images at best… or all four images in my opinion because I am unlikely to ever play that very different game no matter how hard CCP tries to pretend it is now part of EVE Online. Let the first person shooter have its own space.
Wait, it does have its own space. It has its own freaking play test roadmap image in the post. A six month roadmap, because they feel they need to get into that much detail with it. So why does it need to be in the EVE Online roadmap too?
Then we have four more images devoted to events I could have told you were going to happen before they posted this; capsuleer day, the Alliance tournament, the Crimson Harvest, and the Winter Nexus.
So that leaves THREE images for… you know… actual new stuff in the spaceship game. And one of them is Havoc updates, which was kind of a gimme.
And the other two are Summer Expansion and Winter Expansion, which again I could have guessed were part of the plan based on past company statements. Right? There was a whole “we’re going back to two expansions a year!” announcement three expansions ago.
So I have to admit, I am underwhelmed so far.
The actual text of the letter isn’t much more enlightening. I mean, as expected, they are all agog over EVE Vanguard and how great it is going to be and how it is totally going to be an EVE Online thing we will all have to play.
Then there is more about AIR programs, corporation goals, personalization, and the SKINR thing. These are not bad, but feel like continuations of current projects and not anything new and/or exciting.
Then there is the big quote about “The Future of Warfare” stuck in the middle:
In the lead-up to the summer expansion, a new era will begin to unfold in New Eden, details of which will start to be revealed in-game shortly. What we can say is exciting new technology and resources will give players the opportunity to build and customize their space in nullsec, creating new conflict drivers and objectives. Bold and lucrative opportunities will arise for established corporations and alliances, but also for small opportunists that can attack vulnerable areas to gain resources. One thing is certain, the value of owning and defending space is set to rise.
They had to inject the current null sec sovereignty map in below that paragraph, I guess so we would be sure what in the hell they were talking about.
Over all, there wasn’t a lot of “there” there to get excited about. Things are coming in 2024, but anything besides EVE Vanguard playtests aren’t worth anything more than vague mentions.
At least one can see CCP’s priorities in this. CCP Rattati gets his first person shooter and it is more important than anything else, while spaceships will get whatever free cycles are left over. That is what I am getting from this letter… that and that EVE Vanguard won’t ship in 2024, which was one of my predictions, so I guess I should go start my scoring spreadsheet.
Related:
- CCP – EVE Online Director’s Letter for 2024
- Reddit – EVE Online Director’s Letter thread
- VentureBeat – CCP Games reveals Eve Online’s 2024 roadmap
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I blame Naoki Yoshida, the producer and director of FFXIV, for this letter. Lots of companies are copying what he does since the rise of FFXIV during Shadowbringers and the massive WoW refugee wave that happened during that time.
I think the crew over at CCP missed the fact that Yoshi-P puts out actual information in his producer live letters. This was … I’m not sure.
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The irony is that in general CCP does a great job communicating and has a long history of putting out informative dev blogs.
But when they try to do something like a Producer’s Letter, it tends to be overly self-congratulatory and starved of useful information in contrast to what we’ve come to expect from CCP.
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The question I’m asking is who that paragraph is aimed at. It’s so marketing speak that I can’t imagine anyone who’s spent more than ten minutes in null not being jaded enough to reject things like “exciting new technology and resources” and “bold and lucrative opportunities”. What is a “bold opportunity“?
I mean, I can read between the lines like anyone to guess what they are getting at, and maybe I’m too jaded myself, but I always see an excess of breathless adjectives to be most likely covering for a lack of substance to back it up.
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Not just “bold,” but both “bold” AND “lucrative” for not just established alliances but also for “small opportunists!”
All that comes to mind is that maybe they’ll give us back passive moon mining operations and return the mobile siphons that used to be able to steal from those setups. That was an underrated feature.
What it will probably be is another half-assed stab and making resources move around null sec with the idea that we’re all going to just pack up giant corporations and alliances and take them on tour. I suspect nobody at CCP has ever had to organize a move op of any great size, except maybe CCP Swift, and even he was in PL which was itself never huge.
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