[EVE] Empyrean Age Expansion

[Mist]

Originally Posted by LexarkT11

so what does this expansion mean for me and my buddy who plan to start up on eve for the first time when the game updates later tonight?

It means prepare for lag and server downtime, shitty controls and a terrible interface.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by LexarkT11

so what does this expansion mean for me and my buddy who plan to start up on eve for the first time when the game updates later tonight?

Probably not a lot immediately. The big draw is "factional warfare" which is a sort of objective-based Empire PvP system. If you guys run a couple dozen missions, you'll be able to join up with your faction and team up with other people to do decentralized objective-based PvP in your area against people signed up with the opposing factions. It's anyone's guess how well it will catch on in the long-term, but it will definitely be popular for a while.

It might be a good way for a newer player (not a total newbie but someone who is a few weeks old) to get into the group PvP game, which is awesome.

[mutantmagnet]

For brand new players it means four things:

You can go to specific pvp dead space regions and not worry about facing off ships bigger than destroyers or frigates.

Caveat: You actually have to get past the pirates in between you and the acceleration gate to that region.

You get a taste of what it means to be in an alliance type strucutre when you join a militia. It has the potential to get you to meet pvp minded players especially newbies who in the future you may want to form a corp with.

Caveat: There's a lot of issues with the militia structure but none of the indivdual pieces I think are worth mentioning because they are to me acceptable problems (except for spies)

You can do missions that are almost guarantied to involve both pvp and pve and pve is fairly monotonous.

Caveat: Losing your ship in pvp is highly more likely than pve and you'll learn the hardway one of the biggest hurdles in Eve, logisitics. It's not fun spending over an hour trying to run back and forth among stations getting the gear and ships you need to pvp again. Also pvping becomes a bigger an expense the more sophisticated your ship is. There is an insurance system that makes frigates throwaway vessals but modules aren't covered and they can become expensive the higher their meta value.

[Faille]

I think one of the big pluses is that its going to provide more friendly faces to join up with. You can go to an area and probably join up with a fleet / gang from your faction without the long term knowing that is usually needed to join corps and compete in 0.0

Downside is that there's bound to be all sorts of dodgy scams and other things to take advantage of those people.

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by Faille

Downside is that there's bound to be all sorts of dodgy scams and other things to take advantage of those people.

The largest problem of war declarations "spilling over" to gangmates has been removed (it was really silly and harmful for the game, lofty28 notwithstanding), but I'm sure CCP has managed to introduce a dozen new ones.

[Faille]

Finally got around to logging in. Talk about TOO MUCH BROWN with the new splash screen.

[OneofOne]

Checked out the highsec titan CCP stuck in Lum. Turns out it's just an object and not a real ship, but supposidly it can die (according to a dev in chat). There were a shit ton of people buzzing around it, and a good number shooting it, but the shields never went below 99%. Then people starting bringing in smartbombing BSs Sadly I wasn't there for that.

The patch also brought us an "Align" command both as a button on the Overview and as a right click option. Very nice. Mind you it's next to the "Warp" button, but still digging it.

And contrary to the patch notes, Ship Logs are still dropping.

[Waz]

Some screen shots of some of the things that were happening in EVE

[Fog]

Huh, what on earth is that second screenshot?

[Gurgeh]

An original titan (a la Soltueur) ?

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Fog

Huh, what on earth is that second screenshot?

What's left of the Concord HQ station in Yulai.

[45th Parallel]

Originally Posted by mutantmagnet

Caveat: Losing your ship in pvp is highly more likely than pve and you'll learn the hardway one of the biggest hurdles in Eve, logisitics. It's not fun spending over an hour trying to run back and forth among stations getting the gear and ships you need to pvp again.

This is what killed Eve for me. Couple minutes of PvP fun and then hours of flying between systems rebuilding your ship. Fuck that shit.

[Wilfan]

Build several ships at once and have them on standby. It reduces the frustration, time needed and cost. But you'll still have to do the logistics, which sucks when you're a newbie and without a second account.

[Faille]

I always built 5 or even 10 ships at once that were ready to fly. Can't afford to build 5 or 10 ships? You shouldn't be pvping 8)

[Wilfan]

Regarding affordability - faction warfare is nice as it has tons of missions and complexes (hotspots for PvP) which are limited to T1 frigs and T1 destroyers (and apparently T1 industrials for trap badger pwnage). Those things cost well under 1 mil with T1 fits and not much more with T2. They're also rather easy to haul around in constructed form.