Eve’s latest expansion is now more than a week old, and I figured it was about time to post my thoughts. The server lag seems to be fixed, after a bit of a rocky ride for the first few days, things appear to have settled down. The thousands of probes going up after this patch’ release probably didn’t help either ;).
Wormholes
Haven’t really been checking them out, except on the test server. I have been putting some T2 ships together and do my regular mining / invention stuff. What I do like is that people seem to loose an awful lot of stuff in there. Business is booming. Ships fly off the shelf, can’t keep my hammerheads and ogres in stock and so on ! From what I read on the forums, there seems to be too many grav. sites. Not quite sure who is supposed to go out mining there. One hulk loss and you’re set back quite a bit, even though theyre not as expensive as they once were. This brings up the next topic.
Exploration
Very much improved, no longer chance based, and faster now. Though it would certainly help a lot if there was some sort of filer, or an equivalent of the multiquest probe. At the moment I am not really interested in wormholes, and it’s very annoying scanning down a site that turns out to be wormhole instead of something I could actually use. Still not too bad though, but it could have been better.
Ui
Could say a lot about it, but someone on the forums posted a summary that seems to be right on the money: Ui getting worse every patch at the eve-o forums.
Skill Queue
Greatest things since uhm well ever in Eve. This should have been in long time ago, very handy and especially nice if you have some l1/2/3 skills to learn !
T3 Ships
Expensive toys for rich people ? Although the concept itself of modules etc is nice, I dont see what the big deal is, if they’re not even marginally better than a HAC or a BC. The production tree is daunting, so don’t expect too many on the market soon !
Graphics / Sound
Some improvements on the graphics, some weird stuff as well. The belt rocks are a very nice touch, laser beams from amarr ships and the mining laser look very nice. The sound sure took a nose dive though, it’s pretty awful. Station chatter is way too loud, gun sounds and mining lasers are barely audible. This is definately an issue that needs be fixed asap. Good sound is needed for a better immersion in the game to be honest, and I really miss the nice relaxing sound of my mining lasers !
Well that’s about it for starters :). This is part I as I am sure more will come up in the coming weeks !
And whose idea was it to make the default jukebox setting to be “on” again ? I don’t need background noise when I’m trying to concentrate, and fresh out of my bunk is *not* when I want New Age lift muzak.
Fully agree on Graphics/Sound. It is horrendous at the moment. Can’t properly hear combat sounds/mining laser. Also there is a sort of static crackling that I have heard others have too.
Overall changes are nice, although also I have not seen any Exploration/Wormhole action as of yet.