EVE General Discussion

It would be possible if there were only one or two unsucessful expansions. The reality is there were one or two catastrophic expansions, a whole load that added things that needed adjustments (which resulted in later expansions or components of expansions which were just fixes of content in previous expansions) which could thus be considered unsuccessful, and the odd one like Apocrypha that actually delivered.

As for treading lightly, they recently overhauled the core mechanics of industry for the first time since the game launched as far as I know (certainly the first time since 2006), I hear they're doing invention soon, and their current stated plan for the future is to go around to each of the super-nasty super-hard-to-modify core components of the game and rework them all, as well as stuff like module tiericide.

As for the six week release limiting the scope of added content, if you watch/read the relevant videos/blogs you'll find that the point is that the only releases are six-weekly; the dev work doesn't have to fit into six week windows, so they could work on a large 'jesus feature' over a longer time and fit it into one of the releases if they wanted to - they just probably won't because they and we have learned that large monolithic additions to the game don't work out well.

As for whether the release cycles are a good idea, this is a hard one to argue. They've tried pretty much everything else they can do short of not updating the game at all at one extreme, and releasing an offical EVE 2 at the other extreme. The simple fact of the matter is that it has worked out better for the game and the players every time CCP have moved further from large monolithic expansions and closer to working on the existing game systems in smaller more iterative updates. Changing the release cycle to match the more successful development philosophy really is the smart move.

From my point of view it looks as if we'll get small updates, fixes and tiny treats every 6 weeks. Then every few months they'll give us a large feature that has been worked on behind the stage.

I like the new cycle. Gives us small things in between the big things.

I would not mind them working on the foundations of things, like now, to make possible big things later, then they can add hype and it will be a great success. I hope they will make it big someday and they will deliver.

2 things one is that the vets who have been around since the last good major expansion apocrypha know that CCP botched most of them and are not quite ready to jump into another one, we want them but we want them to be done well so when they have it done and ready we'll go for it.
And the second is that the past 2 years CCP is fixing 11 year old issues if you want constant large expansions you are welcome to give CCP large amounts of money to do it, and most players don't care much about lore it's cool background but hardly effects gameplay.

While I see the reason CCP is doing it this way, I have to admit I miss the old days when an expansion was something to get excited about. The hype, the speculation, the high quality trailers, the threadnaughts over one rumor or another. Trying to read between the lines when we actually got some info so that we'd have an advantage over our fellow players on launch day.

Good stuff! With a six week cycle, we'll never see anything like that again and I think EVE has lost a little excitement because of it.

Mr Epeen

Better if they make it good than underdeveloped, so I will be happy if they will be able to give us one "big" hyped feature per year, or even less but let it be something good, worth subscribing again. This game needs it, to draw some players back, or new ones.

I love the trailers as a standalone piece of entertainment.. but I wonder how everyone is OK with these trailers not resembling anything that ends up happening in the game itself..

And new clothes, but I fear that something certain is missing.

But who needs clothes anyway........ *cough* ;)

The expansions aren't free, they're paid for by subscriptions and by PLEX purchases.

The only MMO I can immediately recall that actually offers free expansions is GW2.

I think you answered your own question. They are entertainment. Plenty of actual gameplay vids on YouTube. I can't think of any promo vid for a game that shows actual in game footage, off hand. They are eye candy and CCP did some of the best.

Having said that, I will say that my personal favorite was all in game footage. I actually built a new rig just for that one expansion.

Mr Epeen