The waiting is over, Crucible has been deployed, one emergency reboot already took place and it seems everyone is happy. It was a very exciting time for all of us to wait for the 15th expansion, and the amount of work whoch CCP has put into it is enormous. Before the Crucible was deployed I tried to stick to the facts, rather than make opinions, but I think now is the right time for the latter.
On a side note, my blog kept on beating its daily visits count record, which now stands at 574 unique visits on November 29th. Thank you all!
New nebulae & warp tunnels
Are simply amazing. I like this feature of phenomena being closer or further away depending on where you are, since I saw it for the first time on SiSi. This adds a sense of global direction in EVE, which could never be experienced before; it is possible to tell where in New Eden you are just by looking at the sky (Gallente space – this way, Caldari space – that way). Stargates pointing at nearby stars add even more immersion in this area. The warp tunnel effect is simply awesome and can even make you dizzy if you keep staring at it for too long! It looks good even with shaders set to low. Passing through planets never looked so good. The EVE lore claims that ships in warp are outside of normal space, so they can pass through other solid objects. And now it looks that way (it always felt unfinished to me). Graphically this is EVE 3.0.
New shaders and ship models
I already mentioned the new Raven and the other Caldari ships in my blog posts. Unfortunately, Minmatar and Amarr… didn’t make it for Crucible. Very good job @ art departament for the Caldari and Gallente though, new skins are beautiful. All ships are more detailed and the light interacts with them in a more natural way. Also the Navy variants look more realistic (hey, who would paint starships in camo? Wouldn’t plain black be better than that?). And the Raven model looks even more bad-ass now. Perhaps CCP should delay the deployment until mid-December, but with more V3 ship skins? Almost forgotten: the new engine trails look neat, I was missing them a lot.
Jump on contact
One of the most useful features when travelling around high sec and low sec. I like it very much, and many others already love it, too.
Tier 3 BCs
I didn’t have much time to play with new EVE yesterday, but I managed to buy the Talos BPO (715 mill ISK?! You’re kidding me. That’s more than a Dominix BPO!) and already made 3 of them by the morning (currently they sell for about 150 mill isk apiece). So just 4 more and my initial investment will be covered.
Of course, the mineral prices have jumped, mainly due to speculation, so it was a good idea to prepare supplies before Crucible deployment.
And I’ve noticed some people already flying the new glass cannons. So far the most popular one I saw is the Oracle.
Of course the Tier-3 battlecruisers BPOs are sold by the empire Navies.
Destroyers vs Interdictors
Destroyers got a serious buff, and they will be new nemesis for Assault Frigates in Factional Warfare complexes, which have a frigate size limit.
Wait, what about the Interdictors?
No love. They only got nerfed: previously, when you have deployed the Warp Disruption Probe, you only got agression, when your web actually caught some flies. Now, you get agression timer just for deploying the probe, and cannot dock or jump for 60 seconds. Moreover, Interdictors signature radius is still 80-90m and they have less HP and Capacitor than their tech I coutnerpart. Did you deliberately overlooked this, CCP? Make love, not nerfs!
More Incarna than in Incarna
In Incarna we have received one CQ (Minmatar), in Crucible we got 3 more. And more than just that: high sec CQs look clean, low sec ones are a little bit dirty, and null-sec quarters haven’t seen a janitor for ages. But I don’t really think people are going to spend much time in them, and not because players hate them. The usability of CQ has been improved, but still the hangar view loads faster, is more useful, and players got used to it. Spinning counter is one more reason not to enter the CQ at all (spinning counter starts to be visible after 10 full spins).
War for PI
I haven’t seen any player built Customs Offices so far, but thats because Interbus ones need to be destroyed first. According to the dev-blog, it is possible to entirely shut off access to anyone but your corp and your blues. This is a potential source of conflicts in low sec and maybe in null sec as well. If Customs Offices would change ownership along with sovereignty, this mechanic would be even better.
Is this EVE 3.0?
I know there is more changes than the ones above (this post contains all of them). But this is my first impression, it’s what shows the most after launching the new game client. The Crucible brings back the freshness, new opportunities and new combat styles to EVE, not to mention the graphical overhaul. Even though there were some silent nerfs to Interdictors and EVE API (which were not mentioned until final patchnotes), from my point of view Crucible makes up for both the Monoclegate and Incarna. Good job CCP!
EDIT: Fuel blocks BPOs have been seeded today and are sold for 11 mill ISK by Thukker Mix corp in Minmatar space.
Comments about what you like or dislike about the Winter Expansion are welcome!
