Winterblink on EVE Online's Quantum Rise expansion
by James Egan 
Nov 25th 2008 at 7:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, PvP, Opinion
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?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
halfcaptain said on 10:26PM 11-25-2008
On the whole, I'm pretty happy with this expansion. What I don't understand is why it took so long to introduce visual activation timers on modules, and how I ever lived without them. Weapon grouping is a little less obvious, but hot damn. Gone are the days of ratting in a Catalyst, spasmodically clicking and un-clicking all 8 turrets bajillions of times an hour.
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W. Graves said on 12:46AM 11-26-2008
I love the weapon groups but it would be nice to be able to group any type of (active) modules, such as hardeners, salvagers and E-war equipment.
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Cragg said on 8:24AM 11-26-2008
I agree with W. graves. I sometimes use four or five salvager's at a time. At the moment they cant be grouped. Hopefully the weapon grouping system is the beginning, and we will see this expanded to work with all modules.
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halfcaptain said on 9:32PM 11-26-2008
Grouping salvagers would be pretty useful, but like Graves said, a group with an array of different modules could be really, really useful. I'm not sure if it would work all that well, but grouping turrets or launchers with different types of ammunition would be good. That way you can (carefully) pick two or three damage types in a group, to counteract shield or armor reps quickly.