[UPDATE] EVE Odyssey announced

EVE Online: Odyssey Status Post is already up! make sure to check it out.

It is my favourite time of the year again. This weekend witnessed much more than one of the largest live events in EVE (and DUST 514). Yesterday at PAX East 2013 CCP has also announced the summer expansion for EVE Online, which should arrive in our EVE folders by 4th of June. It seems that the devs agree with the playerbase, that the most successful expansion to the date was Apocrypha. Yup, your guess is right: after two war-centered expansions, the theme of the upcoming, nineteenth free expansion “Odyssey” will again be exploration.

There is little information which we know for sure, apart from the big skill tree change. CCP has hinted some ships rebalancing (most likely battleships, and maybe some first tech II) and UI polishing. Some POS love has also been mentioned, so those of us who have to deal with POSes can expect an easier life in game (let’s hope so ;-)). Last but not least, the live events will continue. If you couldn’t enter Luminaire during the battle for Caldari Prime last friday, don’t worry. You will get your chance to participate soon enough. CCP has also hinted resource redistribution. Some players belive this is about nerfing all high sec refineries (to 35% or below base yield, so even with ultra perfect skills you will not get 100% minerals). It can also mean that all static asteroid belts will be moved to exploration (which CCP was mentioning in the past). Without dev-blogs explaining the hints we’re pretty much doing guesswork, so don’t take any of it for granted.

Changes to exploration mean new modules, new scanning system (yet again – this will be the third iteration), new complexes and visuals to explore. I am curious if CCP is going to overhaul the COSMOS complexes, which used to be the most beautiful locations in game pre-Trinity (it was all animated, mind you):

 

My usual expansion status post is coming soon The Status Post for Odyssey is up (feel free to check old status posts for the past expansions: Retribution 1.1, Retribution, Inferno, Crucible), once CCP starts releasing information, which should most likely start during the upcoming Fanfest 2013.

Stay tuned!

UPDATE

Here’s the original presentation of Odyssey during PAX East 2013:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vo0vbusruT0]