Eve's rebirth (aka Retribution)

This is a new time for +EVE Online . As of late, I've been suffering from Eve apathy. This common mind set occurs quite often, even more when you play more often. However, there is a subtle difference I have found with Eve vs. other leading MMO's such as World of Warcraft (the one I'm familiar with) or Guild Wars (played but less familiar with) or Star Wars (wating for F2P, then I'll be familiar...er). These MMO's rely on content to propel their subscription base. So for WoW, it was expansion packs. The trend went something like this: [New X-pac]>SUPER Excited, play play play get gear play more. Get to the final boss, marvel in it's TOTALLY AWESOME final battle (even some storyline sweetness), get more gear. Sounds good right? After the umpteenth time, and you have to wait a week because you didn't get that last piece of gear again. And again. And again. The redundancy of expansion packs are like caffine. Works for the short term, causes worse circumstances over the long term. It's how they do it, indeed the only way they can.

CCP (makers of Eve) have somehow managed to avoid this cyclical process. To be sure: expansions matter. They ramp up resubs, they increase player turnout for day to day activity etc etc. However, I know there is an expansion coming in December, and yet...I don't care. At least, I don't care in the same way that I would if Blizzard were to announce a expansion pack to Mists of Pandaria. My point being: CCP avoids the whole rigmarole of large game changing (might I add expensive) expansions and just focuses on the game itself. I find it refreshing. More to the point: here is why I'm excited for Retribution. 

They have changed the roles of the ships. You see, Eve used to be about straight up training plans geared toward specific ship types. So you would be a capital ship pilot, logistics, mining...etc. These roles would then be fulfilled in required ships. So if you were taking out a fleet, you would choose a certain ship and stick with it (obviously the best one, so you don't get rolled). The other ships would fall to the wayside. The Omen is a good example. It's a glass cannon, and really couldn't be fitted with anything that would do significant amounts of damage, or be able to take significant amounts of damage before fireballing. A counter-example to this would be the Stabber. Even CCP said of the Stabber:

The Stabber is the quintessential Attack Cruiser with a huge speed advantage over other Cruisers. We are keeping its speed intact and adding a projectile weapon falloff bonus to extend its skirmish range.

So, obviously a fleet commander (FC) would take a cruiser roam with Stabbers, not Omen's. CCP is attempting to change this by readjusting fitting requirements and slots. Same with the horrible Coercer. Quite possibly the worst ship in the game. One mid slot allows you to fit either a scrambler or a prop mod. Le sigh...
Good news though! CCP is adding a new round of destroyers. They are also changing the original ones as well. The changes aren't game breaking (few are), but they make them just a little more appealing. Suffice to say, if I hear a fleet is on a frigate roam, I'm grabbing that brand-spanking new Dragoon or Algos (Amarr and Gallente respectively).

All in all, I'm very excited for the changes coming to Eve. I have recently come out of the lull I experienced recently and activity is ramping back up. Who knows what awesome combat will come out of the new designs. Suffice to say, I'm still glad it will always be the same Eve: from the ground up a great game.