The Return Of Expansions

Perhaps the biggest news in EVE Online last week did not emerge from the CSM Summit. Instead, CCP Seagull announced via a dev blog and a YouTube video that expansions would return to EVE.


Instead of regurgitating the words from the dev blog, I'd like to look at two graphics. The first is the state of CCP's roadmap leading to player-built stargates at the end of 2014.

The state of the roadmap, December 2014

The second comes from Thursday's dev blog and shows the state of the roadmap today.

The state of the roadmap, September 2015

From those two pictures, I'd guess that the major fixes to legacy game systems are pretty much over. As we learned, the Citadel structures aren't just a modification to existing structures, they are a full replacement for the system worthy of an expansion. Perhaps I am too optimistic, but I think the corporation and alliance mechanics will receive a full rewrite that results in the old code winding up on the scrap heap as well.

No one should view the 5 week release cycle as a failure just because CCP is moving back to having expansions. EVE Online needed a huge amount of modernization in a very short period of time, and the faster pace accomplished more than I thought possible. As a reminder, here's a listing of dev blogs and patch notes over the past 14 months:

Crius (July 2014)

• Building Better Worlds
• Industry UI
• Little Things Coming To EVE Online in Crius
• Reprocess All The Things!
• Research the Future
• Teams and the Revamp of Industry in EVE Online

Hyperion (August 2014)

• Coming In Hyperion On August 26th
• Incursion Changes In Hyperion
• IntoThe Known Unknowns: Wormhole Updates In The Hyperion Release
• Sharing Is Caring - Overview Improvements With Hyperion
• SizeMatters: Introducing Burner Missions

Oceanus (September 2014)

• Coming In Oceanus On September 30th
• A Visual Update Of Wormhole Space With Oceanus
• Clipboard To Client: Easy Fittings Import/Export In Oceanus
• Opt-In Notifications For Oceanus
• Rebalancing EVE, One Module At A Time

Phoebe (November 2014)

• Coming To EVE Online In The Phoebe Release On November 4th
• All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter - Data Sites, Expeditions And More
• Guiding Light: The Mission Objective Guidance System
• Invention Updates In Phoebe
• Longer Queues Expected: Skill Training Above And Beyond 24 Hours
• Multisell All The Things With Phoebe
• Phoebe Travel Change Update
• Sensor Overlay 2.0: Bigger, Better, Bookmarks In Spacier! 
• Sleeper Cache Exploration Sites & Polarized Weapons
• Trials And Tribulations
• U And I - Together We Continue Our Little Improvements

Rhea (December 2014)

• Coming To EVE Online In The Rhea Release On December 9th
• A New Era Of Clones
• Physically Based Rendering And Making EVE Look "Real"
• Quick, Give Me Manual Control!
• Starmap Improvements - A Map To Treasure
• TheraAnd The Shattered Wormholes

Proteus (January 2015)

• Coming To EVE Online In The Proteus Release On January 13th And A Status Update On Sovereignty
• Industry & Teams - The Removal Of Teams
• RebalancingModules In EVE Online, Round Two

Tiamat (February 2015)

• Coming To EVE In Tiamat
• Corp Little Things & Friendly Fire Control
• Opportunities Abound - The New Player Experience
• The Republic Strikes Back: The Svipul Tactical Destroyer And Projectile Changes In Tiamat

Scylla (March 2015)

• No Dev Blogs

Mosaic (April 2015)

• EVE Updates And The April 28th Mosaic Update
• Mosaic Updates From Team Five 0
• Opportunities In New Eden … Or How I Learned To Play EVE
• Ore, Mineral and Nullsec Mining Anomaly Revamp
• Two-Factor Authentication... Finally!
• X Marks The Spot - The New Star Map Is Out Of Beta

Carnyx (June 2015)

• An Update On Drifters - The Wandering Death
• Bracket Icon Madness - Feedback On The New Overview Brackets
• Politics By Other Means: Sovereignty Phase Two
• Summer2015 Nullsec And Sov Status Report

Aegis (July 7, 2015) And Aegis Sovereignty (July 14, 2015)

• Missile Guidance Modules, The Hecate And Balance Updates In Aegis
• Summerof Sov - Nullsec PvE and Upgrades
• Summerof Sov - Transition And Deployment

Galatea (August 2015)

• DesignerSkins To Please Your Eyes

Why do I think CCP needed to work as quickly as possible? Because a certain space fighter simulator is due out in 2016. No, not Star Citizen. That game probably won't emerge from beta until 2017. I'm referring to EVE: Valkyrie. I expect that once the Oculus Rift launches sometime in the first quarter of 2016, that Valkyrie will lead some people to want to experience more of New Eden and try the parent game. And as we saw after the Battle of Asakai and the Battle of B-R5RB, EVE could only keep a small fraction of the players intrigued enough about the game as paying customers. With Valkyrie potentially emerging as the killer app for both the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus for the PS4 sometime in the first half of 2016, CCP needed to upgrade EVE quickly. CCP has really improved EVE since the end of 2013. Hopefully enough to entice the curious to subscribe. After all, a game only has one chance to make a good first impression.