CCP named the summer 2013 expansion for EVE Online Odyssey because the theme of the expansion is exploration. Admittedly, high school was over 30 years ago, but I remember Homer's The Odyssey as the story of a Greek king who had an unexpectedly long journey going home, sometimes facing great danger, after the fall of Troy. On that level, at least for me, Odyssey is succeeding.
Unlike many, I like the mechanics of the new exploration system. The changes to make the probing system appeal to Asian gamers is nice as only having to use the mouse to probe relieves some stress from my left hand. In addition to getting up there in years, I'm still suffering the effects from years of playing the EverQuest 2 crafting mini-game. I also like the new hacking mini-game. Sure, I warped out of a relic site last night trailing flame courtesy of The Marmite Collective, but that pressure just adds to the fun.
I think where CCP fell down is that the system is less exploration and more shopping. I now think of the exploration sites as data and relic stores. When I jump into a system, I automatically see the billboards for all the stores tempting me to visit. I see this a lot since I have a level 2 research agent I visit every day to run research missions for. What normally is a 10 minute journey sometimes turns into an odyssey of an hour (sometimes two!) because I just can't resist dropping probes and seeing what bargains I can find. I can usually find a store to visit in a few minutes of searching. And like Odysseus, I sometimes survive the encounter by the skin of my teeth.
I should add that probing also finds combat and gas sites. Yes, I finally found a gas site after a year of exploring. I guess they don't spawn in faction warfare systems. Like that ancient Greek king, I am seeing new things in my travels since the launch of Odyssey. But I wouldn't call it exploration. I'm just stumbling upon them in my travels, just like Odysseus stumbled across the Cyclops.
