Winter Is Coming

So far this year I have spent a lot of time in MMORPGs not named EVE Online. In April and May I levelled to 80 in Guild Wars 2 and completed the personal storyline from the original release of the game. Recently, I've spent over 70 hours playing the crowd-funded PvP sandbox game Albion Online. After all the wandering, I'm ready to return to EVE full-time.

One of the big challenges is getting excited for the future of EVE. Leaving Fanfast this year, I was really excited about the announcement that promised "to breathe fresh life into Empire space." As CCP posted in it's review of the first day of Fanfest:

"We are going all-in with the EVE Online winter expansion. Using all new capabilities (dynamic PvE etc.), we will create amazing new content in the universe. The heart of this expansion will be all about new content: New challenges, new rewards, new aspects of EVE to learn and explore in Empire space. Stay tuned for more info."

But sometime after 6 July, CCP quietly took down the entry on the winter expansion breathing life into Empire space from the Updates page. If I remember correctly, I was told about the removal in July, but the only link I have from the Internet Wayback Machine is from 6 July.

PvE Content Removed From The Winter Expansion

I have to admit, finding out that the cool sounding PvE content and improvements to Empire space will not debut this winter was pretty disappointing. The news probably pushed me into Albion Online a lot deeper than I originally intended. But after getting my upgrading all the buildings on my island up to tier 4, raising chickens and goats, growing lots of carrots, and almost having enough money to upgrade the island to level 4 (out of 6), I'm ready to return to space full-time. I even ran a combat site in lowsec in a Cyclone, which is totally out of character for me.

So does that mean EVE holds no allure for me in the upcoming months? I said I was disappointed, not suicidal. The total redistribution of moon minerals will give me an excuse to do something I first thought about in 2012, a geographical survey of the Minmatar Republic. I did a cursory overview of Minmatar lowsec but never really expanded on the idea. The article itself needs updating, and with 2940 minable moons inside the Minmatar space, I could spend a lot of time exploring in Heimatar, Metropolis, and Molden Heath just probing down which moons are valuable in the Republic.

If I really go crazy, I can expand the effort from the 104 lowsec systems to encompass a survey of the 280 systems that comprise the Minmatar Republic. Is a Nosy Gamer's Guide To The Minmatar Republic in the future? That sounds insane, even to me. But who knows?