I’ve recently stumbled upon an article by Poetic Stanziel about Expansions. Are They Outdated?, and as long as said article goes, I agree that trying to see the impact of one change while introducing several changes to the same module does not work too well. I do however see the direction CCP has chosen, and I think they don’t want to introduce changes step by step, when they believe entire feature (say, Faction Warfare) doesn’t work as intended (and here both devs and players usually agree).
Stanziel’s post however is not the main reason why I write mine. It’s one of the comments under said text:
Anonymous September 7, 2012 9:21 PM
There hasn’t been an “expansion” since Incarna, and there hasn’t been a “successful expansion” since Incursions.
An “expansion” means that you are *expanding* the game, with new content, and hopefully new players. Tweaking existing content and/or fixing long-standing bugs is called “maintenance”.
Crucible and Inferno are nothing more than “maintenance” releases, at best, as is the upcoming Winter release.
But, with the dumbing down of many aspects of the game, such as research agents and item naming conventions, as well as the ongoing and terrible homogenizing of the ships, you might also consider that these releases are actually contracting the game, not expanding it.
While the definitions mentioned by the Anonymous seem quite strict, they make more less sense. The question which immediately arises is
Does EVE need more new content, or does it need more maintenance?
EVE Online is a very big and rather complex game. Even though Anonymous says it is being dumbed down, I disagree it’s only bad for the game. I might not entirely like renaming of the items I’ve known for years (I still type “Siege” into search when looking for Torp Launchers), but some systems in the game were unnecesarily overcomplicated. For example, agent quality seems a sensible mechanic at first: the better the agent, the better the reward. But wait a sec, didn’t we already have agent levels? Agent quality not only added an redundant layer of complication, but it also caused overcrowded mission hubs and additional lag.
I also disagree, that ship rebalancing is a source of homogenity. To the contrary! Each ship will now have a dedicated role, making underused ships a valid choice. No, CCP is not introducing new content here. Instead, they make old content better, so you have more ships to choose from in the end. Is that a bad approach?
Based on player perception nicely captured by the Blog Banter 36: The Expansion of EVE, the game needs both new content and maintenance of existing one, but CCP should not focus on either for too long. Even though Incarna has introduced a gigabyte of new stuff, players didn’t like it, because old content seemed abandoned. At the same time, Crucible brought nearly no new stuff, and players rejoiced. The voice of the Anonymous, however, is coming from yet another “we’re tired of maintenance releases, give use new toys to play with” trend. On a sidenote, players who own a PS3 will actually get a new toy to play with pretty soon 😉
New releases should address global community needs
I am a bit disappointed that Winter 2012 expansion will bring no “Jesus features” (it was mentioned this way in the original transcript of CSM7 minutes), but Ring Mining will eventually arrive, followed by avatar-based exploration, which sounds just as good. In the meantime we will get DUST integration, which brings a whole new gameplay for those who like shooting bunnies: Orbital Strike, not to mention whole new playerbase to scam and kill play with. Miners will get a new frigate, and PVPers will get new shaders for explosions. Even though there is no huge features coming this Winter, there will still be plenty to play with.
I think if CCP times the maintenance and content releases right, playerbase should remain more less happy with the way EVE evolves.
