Today's patch introduced EVE Online's next quadrant, New Dawn. The next quadrant will concentrate on economic factors. In addition to what I wrote about last Friday, CCP will introduce changes to mining, compression, and resources as well as new exploration sites.
The details of the economic changes will come in a dev blog on Friday. CCP teased the changes as follows:
The journey to strengthen the health and foundation of EVE's ecosystem began nearly two years ago when three phases were laid out in the Ecosystem Outlook article: shortage, re-distribution, and dynamic distribution.
During this time, there have been significant updates to the distribution of resources in the universe, and equally significant changes to how ships are manufactured. Come December, New Eden will move into the next phase of this original plan, as discussed back in 2020.
New Dawn will bring increased resources throughout the universe, extensive updates to mining, a comprehensive rebalancing of EVE's mining ships, and equally significant updates to resource compression.
As much as I follow the news, I'm a little confused. Hopefully the end of phase 2, the redistribution phase, is over and the final phase on dynamic distribution is about to begin. As a review of the phases of the plan, they are:
1. Shortage Phase
The main goal of the Shortage Phase is to get the economy to the left side of the "Healthy State" on the income line. Even though it is a moving target, there is confidence that the data and tools to evaluate the situation (and then move on to the second phase) are in-hand.
2. Redistribution Phase
In this phase, the location of the Healthy Range limits will be declared, and then the necessary changes to place the income within that range will be made. As it is not a static state, there are many moving parts and attributes that establish this range and their relative contribution.
3. Dynamic Distribution Phase
With the findings of the Redistribution Phase, it will be possible to create a dynamic system that self-regulates and adjusts accordingly, based on player inputs and universe outputs.
The new exploration sites are combat sites that may require hacking skills. The four new types of sites will provide capital and supercapital construction components. They are:
The AEGIS Capital Ship Security Facility is scattered throughout Lowsec, and features a heavily-guarded security vault, ripe for ransacking. Covert Ops pilots will find much to plunder here.
Disrupt the Rogue Drones as they tend their nurseries in Triglavian-held space by pillaging them as part of the Overmind Nursery Groves sites, found throughout Pochven. Scan, salvage, and cloak your ships for this encounter.
In the AEGIS Secure Transfer Facility*, found in Lowsec and wormhole space, EDENCOM oversees the logistics of capital and supercapital production. Track down the transport ship ferrying VIPs in order to learn the location of the EDENCOM construction facility. Strategic cruisers fitted for scanning, combat, and hacking are recommended here.
The AEGIS Secure Capital Construction Forges* escalation site is revealed to players who complete the AEGIS Secure Transfer Facility site successfully, and it is fiercely defended. Bring significant firepower with your marauders and dreadnoughts to have any hope of looting this factory!
Only the AEGIS Capital Ship Security Facility and Overmind Nursery Groves sites are live on Tranquility at this time. The patch notes provided more details.
- Up for the taking, are the following items (plus additional loot): Electro-Neural Signaller, Counter-Subversion Sensor Array, Nanoscale Filter Plate, Nano Regulation Gate, Meta-Molecular Combiner, and Enhanced Electro-Neural Signaller.
- AEGIS Capital Ship Security Facilities are scattered throughout low security space, and feature a heavily-guarded security vault. Those who can manage to find their way through to ransack the vault will be rewarded with capital construction components.
- Overmind Nursery Groves can be found throughout Pochven, and are tended to by Rogue Drones. Scan, salvage, and cloak your ships for this encounter to come away with some supercapital components.
Also in New Dawn will come the Winter Nexus holiday event.
The Volatile Ice Storms will once again travel through a freshly-invigorated New Eden, providing pilots with Wightstorm combat sites, hacking sites, and ice mining sites. Gather your Ice Storm Filaments and overcome these challenges to unlock new festive ship SKINs, rare faction modules, and more!
The mysterious Yoiul Clones will also make their return, stronger than ever, and even more brilliantly brought to life with additional animations. There’ll also be bonus daily login rewards, daily challenges, and the snowball-flinging fun of the Chilling Spree!
One feature I am looking forward to involves our access to EVE lore.
A new storytelling hub, EVE Universe, launches on 11 November! Replacing the current fiction portal, EVE Universe will offer an extensive repository of the stories and lore behind the game. As for the stories themselves, you can expect richer narratives and plenty of intrigue as New Eden continues to flourish in the future. Who knows what tales await?
The article also teased "...a new EVE lore-inspired series, coming in December in partnership with some old friends." Does this mean another graphic novel series produced by Dark Horse?
Finally, we have a series of promotions announced in the article.
- 9-16 November: A special 25% offer on select ship skins recommended for exploration sites, including skins on the popular T3 cruisers.
- 11 November: A two-for-one sale on Alpha Injectors and Skill Extractors.
- 26 November: A special Black Friday sale.
- 29 November: A Cyber Monday sale.
Honestly, I was hoping for something bigger. The economic features mentioned might hold players, and even bring some players back. I know that other changes to the new player experience mentioned last week would help hold new players' attention longer. But I still think EVE needs a big, expansion-type patch to attract new players and try to grow the player base.
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