EVE General Discussion

Terrible idea, going the wrong way.

Great news. They've been moving in this direction for some time and the development process has only become better as a consequence, while content, re-balancing and fix deployments have come more rapid.

No more waiting 6 months for new stuff. Keeps you interested. I like it.

No you have it wrong.

You get the stuff, but it's broken and takes 6+ months of 'expansions' to fix.

Yes, some of us work and can't watch until we get home.

This post is for you, the unsung heroes that keep our economy (ies) grinding along.

This would mean that fixes can only happen during expansions, they could utilize a interesting idea called patches instead.

Content will now be released more hollow than before due to limited development cycles. Add to the fact that CCP has the attention span of a squirrel, doesn't help.

CCP isn't known for expansions being released smoothly, having them more frequently isn't a good selling point.

It also isn't a great marketing tool, since these "mini expansions" won't garner much hype.

The difference is that you no longer have a strict window for release; that if a larger fix is ready before its time or becomes delayed, that it can be put out immediately rather than baked into something big.

How are they more limited when they no longer have to fit into a strict 6-month pattern but rather can take as long or as little time as needed?

Sounds like agile development instead of waterfall. I kind of like that approach for Eve.

They can still do that with utilizing patches instead of just expansions. This may just be a different outlook on the terms patches and expansions, but fixes could be released at any time already with the use of patches instead of waiting till the next expansion cycle to lump it in.



By my understanding splitting them up into more expansions means generally smaller releases. Meaning larger changes will be broken up into smaller staggered releases. So releasing the shell of an idea initially would mean they would need to quickly fill it, otherwise it will be wasted feature until they do so.

They will still have a limited timeframe due to players not being able to fully utilize a feature. Whereas with a larger release majority/all of it is ready to go, even with having fixes that need to be done. The timeframe will generally be the same whether they release it 1 month at a time for 6 months or release it once during 6 month cycle. It just means releasing it every month will mean less time for polish and proper Q/A.

Granted I never liked their 6 month cycle anyways. Always felt they should break it up and not call everything an expansion. Expansion should be reserved for mostly new content or major revamps. 1 expansion a year, 1-2 balancing patches when needed, and bugfix patches when needed. Since CCP is very team oriented this system allows teams who work on new content more time for polishing, QA, and testing while still allowing balancing teams to have their own time frame.

With this new system it just seems like it will be an orgy of monthly releases, that they won't be able to keep up with. Similar to Valves failed idea of splitting up HL3 into episodes which ran into similar issues.