So, Eve-Online went down for the September patch. Yes, I know it’s almost December ;)

As I commented months ago when the features were announced, it’s fun to see at them from another perspective, The WoW perspective.

Even Eve-Online can be inspired and “copy” WoW. And what it is incredible is that they are doing this without making look things out of place. I mean, you would think that adapting fantasy game mechanics to spaceship game wouldn’t be trivial.

So, this is what we have:

Rigs – In Eve “rigs” are modules that change a ship’s setting in a permanent way. So they aren’t modules that you can switch on the fly, but adaptations to the structure of the ship that till now weren’t possible. In WoW these are the “socketed items” that Blizzard is going to add with the expansion. They also involve the “hardware” (in WoW: your gear), they allow to specialize it more and they are also permanent.

Contract system – In Eve this is a powerful tool that allows to set auctions but also tasks that can be seen as player created quests. Obviously in WoW this is the Auction House, made more powerful and deep.

Combat Boosters – In Eve these will be temporary bonuses that will likely be used during combat. Combat Boosters are crafted through some new mini-professions. In WoW these are the “potions”, they are crafted through the professions and have a temporary effect.

And there’s also a mix of enchanting & disenchanting (invention & salvaging in Eve) made functional to the game.

So yeah, Eve-Online is adding auction houses, socketed items and potions. For the Battlegrounds wait next year :)

It’s actually odd that even CCP didn’t use those comparison to explain better how those new toys work. Maybe they want to appear original ;)

(disclaimer: You can find all kind of ideas represented in older games, but it’s obvious that the power of influence of a blockbuster is greater, even if it didn’t invent anything.)

Moreover the Kali 1 patch is named “Revelations”, and I think that even this “Kali 1” has been subdivided into ANOTHER three branches. Revelations Part 1 of 3.

So we are like… part 1 of 9 in total? For something that was expected to be concluded for May 06, and that will probably be dragged till we ding 2008 (wanna bet?). Heh.

Nevertheless their work is good, as I underlined a while ago when I commented those features (in the first link above). And I’ll probably resubscribe to check. Even if I doubt I can notice any difference with my noob characters and considering how all the content is usually only targeted to the hardcores. At least I can play with the new character creation. Which is amazingly good (and maybe I’ll quote and comment later).

In the meantime I also noticed that Pann has returned as Community Manager (not really manager but something else, I’ll edit when the forums come back up).

She left long ago to work for Auto Assault *chuckle* I wonder why she’s back, eheh… Kieron instead (he replaced Pann when she left), was coming straight from UO and he did a SO MUCH BETTER work than her. I don’t miss Pann at all.

Luckily it looks like she will do work on the background and not on the forums or directly with the community. Good.

On the matter of good communication (CCP is stiull doing better than everyone else with those great blogs and a good forum activity) I point out that they are working on a “Dev finder” function on the forums and they are also compiling a “daily digest” of all the posts (all stuff that I can link only when the site comes back up).