The last day of Fanfest. A sad day to be sure. We’ve had a much better time this year than we did last year and will be truly sorry to go home.
There wasn’t really anything on in the morning that I really wanted to see, so, recovering from the night before, I sauntered down to the venue at about 11:30 and hung about chatting to people for a bit. I caught Eris Discordia’s presentation on designing Ambulation (more on that later) and then went to try the thing out for myself.
Much of the rest of the day was spent waiting for the Keynote from Hilmar and various other CCP luminaries. It was worth the wait. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a decent seat so couldn’t get any decent pics. The video will be up on EVE TV pretty soon though and others have got some decent footage. Check out CrazKinux’s site for pics and videos.
Over the last year CCP have been more focussed on EVE than in previous years, this is part of a wider strategy to build their core technologies in hardware and software to a point where they can be used for other games (soon™). The next expansion, Quantum Rise, is dues on Tuesday and at first glance may seem to be a bit of a damp squib, I don’t believe this is the case.
Much of the improvements in QR are behind the scenes, in the efficiency and capabilities of the code and hardware. The recent move to Stackless IO (Something to do with hamsters on speed according to one of the CCP tech bods.) and 64 bit architecture (Hamsters with big brains) is part of the Quantum RIse expansion which was released ahead of the content proper so that it could be tested and data gathered on where the bottlenecks are in the server. As a result of these less showstopping improvements lag has been drastically reduced. Jita is no longer the traffic jam it once was, and fleet battles are smoother and less prone to killing nodes.
Quantum Rise also brings in:
- Adjustments to the UI, allowing you more freedom to configure where all the various elements appear on screen.
- Medals which a corp can create and award to its members for whatever they want.
- Certificates which act like a CV telling other players what your skills are and what you can fly (or not, you can hide the certificates from other payers if you choose).
- A new industrial capital ship; The Orca which sits somewhere between a freighter and industrial in size but can fit modules and gets bonuses to gang mining.
- And a whole slew of other tweaks and stuff which you can read about in full here <link>
The meat of the keynote was to be Torfi’s announcement of what is coming in the summer expansion, its going to be huge.
Currently known as ‘True Exploration’ The expansion will focus on new areas of space accessed through unstable wormholes. These will be previously unexplored and undiscovered areas brimming with new stuff and potentially giving access to Tech 3. There will also be ‘epic mission arcs’ Huge branching trees of missions where success in one does not ultimately end in failure, it just leads to another mission on a different branch of the tree. These missions will be used to introduce the unstable wormholes, new scanning techniques, new resources and items and will reveal more of the history of the elder races of EVE.
And then there is Tech 3. Torfi started by showing us 4 slides of concept art for four new Caldari ships, and then things went a bit nuts. He showed us another 4 ships, and another, and another. You could hear the crowd gasp and then a cheer went up as more and more ships were shown on the big screen. Thousands of ships, flicking past too fast for the eye to see.
Torfi then explained how this was possible. Tech 3 ships will be modular in design, with 5 types of modules each having 5 tiers. A total number of 3125 combinations. Each module will have its own attributes and bonuses, some will have more turret slots whilst others concentrate on tracking speed, powergrid, armour, and any other ship attribute you may care to name. The modules will also be hotswappable, meaning that you are not stuck with the one configuration once you put it together, you can change modules out depending on the role that the ship needs to play. Its going to bring a whole new tactical and strategic depth to fleet combat and I can’t wait.
The final big reveal was the announcement of the date for next year’s ’summer’ expansion: March 10th. We’ll be getting this in 4 months, not only that but it will be available in a retail box for the first time since 2003. Current players will not be charged for it, neither will those who still go down the digital distribution route (the current online distribution method will remain unchanged), but it will bring EVE to a wider audience exposing those who would not necessarily know about it to the greatness of the best Sci-Fi MMO out there.
So Tech 3, epic mission arcs, unstable wormholes, modular ship design and lots more stuff, not coming Soon™, but coming in March next year. After that, Ambulation, and then? Who knows?
Then there was the party, and what a party it was. Roxor played a blinding set and much beer was consumed. The party closed at about 2 because we drank them dry and many people went into the center of Reykjavik to continue the festivities. A good time was had by all and many new friends were made. A huge thank you and big hugs go out to Maggi, Sven, Arend, Nils, Gita, Paul, Guy and many, many more. A great week made all the greater by your hospitality, warmth and generosity. We’ll be back, don’t you worry. A complete selection of Photos of Iceland and Fanfest (some of dubious quality) can be found here on my flickr stream
