What is to Come in 2013?

So its bye-bye 2012! I wonder what CCP are looking at for 2013? From what has been said before they should be leaving the theme of "war/destruction" behind and moving to the next part of the "MMORPG triangle" of "building" with "harvesting" in 2014 and back to "war" in 2015. A few things I'd* love to see in 2013.....

In Game and Expansions:-

Let Me OUT of That Damn Room!
Come on CCP, let me out of that damn small room! Incanra has been tainted by the summer of unrest, but the idea was sound, we wanted it. Then Incarna hit and there was rage and suddenly everyone forgot the previous two years and said they never wanted Incarna! We need Incarna. We know many people were put off Eve due to the lack of an avatar. But having the ability to see your avatar in a small room which gives pretty much no additional value is not helping. We need establishments at least on a small scale. Limit the numbers per room, make multiple instanced bars with population caps, only allow us out in low-sec stations where populations are lower. Whatever it takes to get around the problems, get around them! We know 2000 people in one bar in Jita all doing the 'funky chicken' at the same time will kill the server hamster, but there must be ways to get to the future vision of Eve! Even if you're not ready to have interaction, we know the art work for the other rooms was nearly ready. Lets go exploring!

Give Me a Home.
The POS revamp discussed at Fanfest was very encouraging. Rather than just a tower, a mini customisable station would be yours, YOUR station. Where you can dock, store ships, set up a gentlemen's club with strippers (OK I may have imagined that last one). People like a place to call their own and customise it to their tastes. Look at Skyrim they did a fairly good job with only some weak customisation. We can do so much better. Make it so.

Give us Tools.
Making "art", and I use the term very loosely with respect to my attempts, can be a pain. For those of us who don't own 3D CAD software and are able to extract the models from the game, snipping out characters and spaceships etc can be time consuming. This year CCP made it easier to do with characters by adding the green background. Can we have the same for ship and turret previews please CCP?
Another thing that would help a lot would be able to zoom in so you can walk around the CQ in FPS style. Sometimes you want to take a screenshot of a view but your characters big ugly head is in the way. Yes, you can back into a wall and do it that way to remove the head, but some views cannot be shot that way.

Appease the Bitter Vets
My god my training is dull these days. Apart from T2 Matari BS (I have Mini BS only to IV) I can fly every combat ship in game (sub-cap). I can fly Caldari, Gallente and Amarr caps. I can use pretty much every gun/launcher/combat related module in game. All my training these days are level 5's that take an age. OK with Retribution there were a couple of new skills, but nothing I need to train right now. Give us BV's something more to train, something to aim for.

Tell Me a Story
Recently there has been some light at the end of the tunnel. Live events and some New Eden storylines have been starting which have been missing for far too long. We players can provide the content to a certain level but CCP has to step up and give us the over-arching story. What's happening with Tibus Heth these days? Last we heard he'd caught something nasty! Was it from a goat? In December there was a major update to the fiction portal with lots of the backstory expanded! It's so easy to use the standard sandbox excuse that players make the stories. But there are only so many times a story about a 0.0 alliance that captures something/blows something up/is betrayed/failscades can run and is still interesting.

Keep Iterating and Improving....
We like that. But don't neglect the actual expansion side. We've had three good 'expansions' now, but people are starting to murmur. Eve has survived this long as it has been changing, evolving and keeping fresh. There are only so many bug fixing, itterating and polishing expansions that can be done before people get bored. Retribution has been good, very good. But there was nothing in there to attract new blood. Existing players liked it and I'm sure it brought some ex-players back. But we need head-line features to attract new players too.

On The Blog:-

I am thinking of a monthly series where I take on someone for a 1v1, ideally someone known in the Eve-O community. May be use a different ship each time moving from frigates up to battleships. Actually what would a carrier 1v1 be like if I can find someone willing to try it :) Actually I like this idea! Who fancies it?

January - Noob ship vs Space Noob
February - Frigate vs Rixx Javix
March - Industrials vs Seismic Stan
April - Retribution Destroyers vs Jace Errata
May - Faction Frigate vs ??????????
June - Interceptor vs ???????????
July - Assault Ship vs ????????
August - Cruiser vs ???????????????
September - HAC vs ????????????
October - Battlecruiser vs ?????????
November - Battleship vs ?????????
December - Carrier vs Kirith Kodachi

T1 and T2 mods. T1/T2/Faction ammo, T1 Rigs.

I have a few ideas for more fiction in 2013 here at SC&S. Don't worry, if its not your thing, I'll keep it to once a week and on a Friday :)

My Eve Online Movie
I have previously (even before the blog banter) thought about a movie set in the Eve Online universe. A dodgy starship captain, a damsel in distress, a beautiful assassin stalking them and space zombies! Expect to see this series very soon (TM).

The Occupation
I wrote a piece slightly tongue in cheek for the Pod and Planet fiction contest to bend the rule about Tibus Heth and a goat. The story featured two Gallente teenagers trapped in an occupied Gallente settlement on Caldari Prime. Originally I had thought that was the end of it. But a Tweet from Deacon Igunen got me thinking. By Jove! He's right! That is a good fiction setting. I don't intent to do these as a series but as a number of one-offs throughout the year charting the adventures of Petar, Krissy and the Gallente Resistance.

Inspector Avi PI
Inspector Avi from the Jita Ripper series has left the space-cops. He's set himself up as a private investigator. I hope to run these as occasionals too and not really a linked series. Think CSI, Criminal Minds, Bones, NCIS or any of the other similar shows the wife forces me to watch! My aim is you can read one on its own without having to have read the previous or future ones.


For Drackarn:-

I really should get Minmatar Battleship V trained. Then I'll have all sub-capital combat ships available. Logi V is another I really should get. Other than that, at 80m skill points and nearly all PvP its just lots and lots of level five skills for the small 2% or so boosts they give for weeks and weeks of training.

I've been hovering around the 5000-5200 rank on BattleClinic all year. I was 5011 this week but I have yet to break into the top 5000. That is a goal for this year. Even though it is a pants goal when you look at the pilots I fly with with several in the top 100!

Actually, forget that last one I wrote this blog in draft yesterday. After last night killing a Raven and scanning down a boosting T3 plus a solo faction cruiser kill....