Dominion: Disaster Imminent
As you probably know, Dominion is set to arrive in less than two weeks (December 1). However, as much as fresh content and changes excite me, I believe that the release should be delayed. Here’s why:
When the preliminary ideas for the expansion were initially shown at the FanFest and shortly thereafter, I was quite optimistic about Dominion. The push to make nullsec more accessible yet simultaneously more volatile, the new roles for supercapitals, the revamped faction ships, improved graphical eye candy, and functional in-game browser all excited me.
But as the months passed and the release date for Dominion neared, CCP still only had vague ideas of what the actual changes would entail. For example, a mere four months before Dominion, the dev blog posts on the upcoming sovereignty changes displayed great ambiguity. It was not until a month before potentially game-upheaving changes that the devs gave any indication as to what the changes would actually be like. And that dev blog post created an uproar among the Eve player base, as calculated costs would exceed several billion ISK per month per system. The prices were hastily adjusted, but suddenly Dominion seemed a bit less bright and a bit more unstable.
Then twelve days before Dominion, CCP made major changes to the behavior of all capital ships. This dramatic change was not only unexpected but also quite disturbing. Once again, those affected by the change protested (CCP somehow managed to get sworn enemies such as IT (ex-BoB) and GoonSwarm to unite on something). The dev blog not only reversed months of planning and testing, but it also displayed a complete lack of knowledge about capital ship warfare. Take these two statements from the dev blog: “Capital ship fights rarely if ever happen at short distances” and “The explosion velocity is slightly higher than that of the Citadel Cruise Missiles which means target painters will have to be utilized in many situations to achieve full damage potential.” Both are completely wrong. Capital fights do indeed occur at close ranges, and target painters do not work on supercapitals, POS modules, sieged dreads, and trianged carriers. And those are just two of the issues with the dev blog.
So what should be done? With ten days to go, implementing half-baked changes would be a terrible mistake. Dominion needs to be postponed, at least until the end of December, or there will be tremendous instability in nullsec (and thus the rest of Eve). And do not be fooled, these changes will not affect only nullsec dwellers. Wherever you are, you will be affected.
Yarrbear Tales 
./signed
Agreed, they need to scrap the current expansion and just release the graphics update or delay the whole thing until the spring.
Perhaps change to release 1 expansion a year instead of two. That way, they can focus on things in a proper manner.
You speak the sad truth my friend. I can’t help but feel the same way, and I’m sure CCP is wishing they didn’t set that date in stone so prematurely.
However, even if it does launch on time, I have faith that CCP is ready to patch the hell out of it the weeks after. It’ll be a rocky ride for a while, but by the end of December I would expect the ground to be much more stable.
You’re right on with this post. Just release the planet upgrades, and dont call it an expansion.
But it will be released on dec 1st, in a very half hearted way, and we’ll probably be left with stuff half done, as usual.
They should just release Moondoggy (The Browser) and the new sparkly and shiny planets and hold the rest of dominion.
their initial idea (Except for the Titan nerf) was good but how they’ve worked it out is a complete fail.
Another /signed here for delaying the expansion. Or split it into two and give us what is finished without the 0.0 and ship changes and think those over again.
Aye, releasing a “mini expansion” would not be unprecedented, as they did that for Apocrypha 1.5 (different rig sizes, level 4 epic arcs, factional warfare changes).