EVE New Citizens Q&A

BoB is dead and all the other alliances you mentioned i don't even recognize.

Goons are still around though.

(Oh btw I started Nov. 2008, as a point of reference)

As for the game mechanics and stuff...

Quantum Rise:
-Most notable: Orca, industrial command ship with bonuses to mining gang links, the only high sec capable ship with a corp hanger and ship maint array, biggest ship it can hold is a BC

Aporcypha:
-Wormholes: 2500 new systems of unknown space that don't show up on the map. the WHs themselves work like temporary stargates between systems. They usually lead to W-space but can also act as short cuts between high sec and null sec for instance. In W-space there is an NPC called sleepers that hit hard, do omni dmg and are a bit smarter then normal NPCs (they change targets). The stuff found in W-space is used to build.....
-T3 cruisers: Officially "Strategic Cruiser" and each race only has one. These ships are modular and have to be fit with subsystems in order to be assembled. Each subsystem has it's own shape and bonuses and slots so depending on how you fit your ship it can have a different appearance and role. For instance Covert Reconfiguration can let ti warp while cloaked but only has a few guns while a liquid crystal magnifiers is made for laser DPS. Very scary in PVP and will run you about 500 mill including subsysyems. Each subsystem has it's own associated skill and these skills can be lost from losing the ship (yes, just the ship, not podded) The good news is that each of these skills are all rank 1 so they are easy to get to 5 again. You can however avoid the skill loss by ejecting first.
-Scanning: Scanning was totally revamped and now takes a bit more skill to do. Essentially you have to move your probes around with arrows like you would to anchor a structure and when you scan they warp to that location and do the scan. The process is now a lot like triangulation for earthquakes we have on Earth and the skill comes from being able to find and narrow down results quickly.

Dominon:
-Faction ship changes: All the blood raider ships were changed to have half the guns with a 100% dmg bonus. The existing navy faction ships were tweaked a lot. Tier 1 Faction BSes were added (Navy domi, phoon, scoprion, geddon)
-Capital ship Changes: Titan DD was changed from a giant smartbomb to a single "IMAFIRINGMALASER" one shot kill that can pretty much destroy a carrier with good skills. Titans also got some gun bonsues so that they now essentially do the DPS of a sieged dred without any of the tracking penalties of siege. Motherships were offically renamed to "Supercarriers" and were given a new fighter, the fighter bomber. Fighter bombers fire tiny citadel torps and are made to be cap/super cap killers.
-Sov: the POS mechanics for sov were replaced by TCUs, Territorial Claim Units. Along with this was added the infrastructure hub, a structure that you could sue to "upgrade space" like make anoms spawn more often or make grav sites spawn more often. To take sov requires anchoring SBUs, Sov Block Units, at stargates to make the TCU vunrable.

Tryannis:
-Planetary Interaction: put a control center on a planet and put down pins around on the planet to harvest materials. The planets have a really cool thermal style maping of the materials so you can find hotspots. The stuff made from PI is all the stuff aside from ice products that is used for POS fuel and some other stuff that's sued in T2 production. The highest teir PI products are now used to build POS mods, everything fromt he guns to the corp hangers tot he towers themselves. Overall it's a nice passive income if you get some good null sec or WH planets.
-EVE Gate: What we like to call "Spacebook". Social networking type thingy with some cool new features. Notably, a calendar that is synched with a new in-game calendar that can be used to organize ops for your corp/alliance etc and EVE Mail, actually read and SEND evemails with the website.
-Scorpion: The scorp got anew model http://cdn1.eveonline.com/community/devblog/2010/Scorpion_2010_01.jpg
Incursion:

-Learning Skills: removed, instead we now start with 12+ attributes in everything. CCP didn't like how learning skill had become a "requirement" and not a form of player customization. SP you had trained were reimbursed to be put in any skill you want.
-New faces: In preparation for the walking in stations engine we got a totally new and pretty revolutionary character creator. This new creator is also full body now.
-Incursions: Sansha Kuakei is pissed off and wants revenge. An incursion is the sansha invading an entire constellation of space. Within this constellation there is reduced dmg, reduced resistances, reduced bounties and all systems within are cyno jammed. The systems are broken into 4 groups, Scout, Vanguard, Assault, Headquarters. These are the different difficulties of sites. Sites MUST be run in a fleet and depending on fleet size you all get paid differently. Also everyone gets paid equally, even the logi. The sansha in these sites are even smarter then the sleepers in WHs and use a bunch of ewar and are heavy in DPS and resistances.
-Agent quality removal: CCP didnt like that everyone would cluster around the Q20 agents so they made all agents Q20 in terms of reward and Q -20 in terms of required standings. System sec and peronsal standing still effect payout tho so people still hang around the 0.5 systems for best rewards.
-Agent Division Consolidation: Now only 4 main types: Security, Distribution, Mining, and R&D. R&D works pretty much the same and the other three now provide 100% of their kind of mission. No more 2% courier mission for combat guys.
-"Connections" skill changes: Goes with the agent divisions changes. 7 skill with 5% bonus to LP were brought down to 3 skills with a 10% bonus. One for each division of course. SP reimbursed...

Awesome post Xercodo! GJ ^-^

Crucible: Tier 3 (please call them T3 for neverending flamewars) battle cruisers.
BC that can fit battleship guns by sacrificing an even half decent tank.