Winterblink on EVE Online's Quantum Rise expansion
Longtime players of EVE Online will be very familiar with the name 'Winterblink', or Michael Lastucka. He's the man behind years worth of contributions and commentaries linked to EVE, through the Warp Drive Active comic, the WDA podcast, and now he's a columnist at Massive Gamer Magazine as well.
His latest column, "Quantum of Polish" looks at the recent EVE expansion deployment and how it's changed the game. Lastucka points out some of the user interface changes that he finds beneficial. Visual representation of module cycles provide greater understanding of what's happening and weapon grouping allows players to switch between ammo types, and have a single 'fire' icon as well. But there's clearly more work to be done in terms of weapon/turret effects and some aspects of the UI, in order to reduce lag and improve performance.
But the real issues being discussed since Quantum Rise rolled out are not cosmetic, they're more firmly rooted in EVE's changing game mechanics. Many players lament CCP's speed nerf, but Lastucka's views runs counter to those players, in that he sees it as 'the combat boost'. He writes: "Interceptors are ridiculously fun to fly with Quantum Rise, in fact even assault frigates can probably be effective here. Ok, other classes of ships got their speeds tweaked and now have a lot in common with snails, but overall this change has some very positive effects across practically the entire spectrum of combat in EVE."
Lastucka also notes that the new models for stargates that arrived with Quantum Rise have changed gate camping tactics a bit. "The new gate designs are so monstrous that a single heavy interdictor can't bathe the entire jump-in point himself, you need interceptor cover to tackle everyone. Thus, gate camps will now require a bit more skill and coordination with friends, and commonly camped gates are easier to break through. This makes 0.0 space more accessible, and more targets equates to a good thing in my book."
Do you see Quantum Rise as Winterblink does, as CCP making some right choices? Or have the changes to game mechanics that accompanied the expansion adversely impacted your gameplay?
