Ecliptic Rift

Yeah, I know I’ve arrived really, really late to this party. But I just finished reading The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales and I need to let you know, if you didn’t already, that it SUCKS.

You may rightly ask yourself, “why would Casiella, a known lover of EVE fiction, say such a thing?” I wanted to like this book. I wanted to read it and say to everyone who has griped previously that they just didn’t understand, that Tony Gonzales actually worked subtle magic.

But then I read the book, and I knew that in fact this novel consists of (almost) nothing but classically bad writing. Leaving aside for a moment the thematic element (Jamyl’s telepathy) that simply doesn’t belong in the cyberpunk post-humanist world of EVE, the writing itself struck me as about on the level of a university freshman creative writing class. Evidently, he never met a breathless superlative he didn’t like, nor a plot hole he cared to cover. He repeated other elements constantly, to the point where  Rettic suggested a drinking game for every time someone “banged their fist on the table in anger”. And perhaps he could have found other ways to describe volumetric displays besides endlessly referring to, erm, volumetric displays.

Many of the sex scenes (and this book has quite a few) seem thrown into the plot purely for titillation rather than to serve any atmospheric purpose, much less advance the storyline. The rape scene in particular could have held tremendous symbolism, but the ham-handed writing instead turned it into something that creates a different sort of meta-disgust in the reader. Come to think of it, you could say that about almost anything you care to note in the book.

The book did have a few bits that made it worth the few dollars I spent on it, all related to background info. We get a better view of capsuleer-related technology, for example, and the inner workings of the Caldari and Minmatar governments.

But these few bits don’t even begin to compensate for the pain this book caused me, not in wonderment at the cold, harsh universe of the game world, but the cold, harsh universe that tricked me into reading this book.

I still trust The Burning Life, the EVE novel by Hjalti “CCP Abraxas” Danielsson coming out in a few weeks, will rebuild my trust in what the CCP storyline team can accomplish.

Well, my earlier predictions haven’t faired entirely well, though the game hasn’t ended yet (so to speak). The next expansion actually has the title “Dominion“, rather than “Burning Life”. As of yet, the expansion site itself doesn’t have anything beyond links to the Butterfly Effect video and the main site, plus an existing picture of the Orca.

It offers a complete overhaul of the current sovereignty mechanics… In addition, we’ll be adding some new epic arcs for pirate factions, offering the first iteration of the integrated social networking platform known as COSMOS, setting our artists free to rebeautify planets and more.

I definitely hope they fix the astronomical data on the planets (gravity, surface temperature, etc.) when they implement the new models and textures for these, by the way. It really grates on my nerves that they generated all that data, and it has no connection whatsoever to reality. Inhabited worlds with 0.06 Gs of gravity and surface temperatures of 26 Kelvin? I don’t think so.

Then CCP Fallout pointed us to a story on IGN about what CCP had to say at PAX 09:

According to [CCP Hammerhead], they are simplifying the way in which you claim space and attack people, and they are also letting alliances upgrade their space and invest in it…

Along with that, they are rebalancing the power of ships, making adjustments so that no one type of ship will be heavily favored. It’s always been thought that the outcome of a battle was more or less settled with the presence of a Titan capital ship, the largest ship in the game, as its doomsday weapon could potentially wipe out an entire fleet. However, in the expansion this weapon is being changed from an area-effect to a single-target one. On the other end of the spectrum, they are introducing fighter-bombers, small ships much like the current fighters but which can destroy capital ships. Also in the pipeline are so-called “speedboat missions” for smaller ships, as most of the existing PvE missions tend to focus on the larger battleships.

The article also mentions some tutorial and other New Player Experience upgrades, to include PVP and exploration! I’d heard about the latter but not the former, so this will hopefully steer people away from just jumping into mission running and mining as they begin their capsuleer career.

I don’t have much to say right now about the Titan changes, as I don’t have anything resembling expertise in that area. I have some interest in the fighter-bombers, though. Hopefully, this means a new tiny ship class for pilots, not just an extra-large drone type for carriers and motherships. I’ve long wanted to jump into, say, a tiny Einherji, maybe even deployed directly from another player’s ship! Balanced properly, this sort of ship could really provide a lot of fun for small-gang warfare.

The mission changes sound good, too. Up until now, mission runners basically just train up to Battleships, and maybe eventually Marauders or Command Ships, and mindlessly grind out missions in their Caldari Navy Raven or Dominix. I hope this means more level 4 missions designed specifically for assault frigates and heavy assault cruisers, where pilots actually have to fly instead of “grab aggro, activate tank, deploy drones, and go brew some coffee.” If they just implement more and more level 1 and 2 missions, they’ll disappoint a lot of pilots.

Also, last week CCP Ytterbium started a thread about their first set of factional ship changes. Right now, they’ve only given us substantial data on empire navy ships (Amarr, Gallente, Caldari, and Minmatar).

For the faction frigates, “we plan to turn them into an hybrid of interceptors and Assault frigate classes” (sic). They also will perform a balance pass on the existing navy tier 2 battleships (Apocalypse, Raven, Megathron, and Tempest), plus add navy tier 1 battleships (Armageddon, Scorpion, Dominix, and Typhoon). Lots of players have given lots of detailed feedback, particlarly about the Fleet Tempest, and CCP has indicated their willingness to listen and tweak. Later this week, I hope to delve into the frigate changes in more depth, if time and other events permit.

Hopefully, fleet cruisers will also get a pass, and they’ve strongly hinted about pirate factions, too. Perhaps some of my remaining predictions about the winter expansion will come to pass, after all.

Image credits bpw via Flickr and Bird of Prey.

So far, we know that the EVE Online winter expansion will focus on a sovereignty revamp and COSMOS (the confusingly-named social networking site for EVE) coupled with a long-anticipated in-game browser revamp. CCP has promised more epic arcs, possibly based on pirate factions, and we expect a balance pass on faction ships and officer equipment. Additionally, CCP will release a new book in November, The Burning Life, focused on pirate factions. The expansion definitively will not include “walking in stations”.

Based on the above, I believe that CCP will name the winter expansion “The Burning Life” or some derivation, following the lead of “Empyrean Age.” That part might look obvious, but I also believe that the theme for the expansion will have to do with alternate factions (those outside of the main four nations). I think we may see a substantial portion of the following:

• Fix to the longstanding pirate faction “standing hole”, possibly using new epic arcs as at least part of the solution
• More and better faction ships for most (or all) factions
• Sovereignty revamp to include changes to unify FW occupancy and null-sec sovereignty mechanics (hopefully not plexing-based but no predictions on that)

This would fit in nicely with what we know already as well as the book itself. If this actually comes to pass, or at least most of it, then I’d expect to see a substantial readjustment over time in factional alignments on the part of mission runners, roleplayers, and militias, not to mention the effects on null-sec.

Got any predictions of your own?

Photo credit Quiplash! via Flickr