Today, CCP unveiled the new trailer for EVE Online’s next quadrant, Phoenix. In goosebump inducing action, they take us through current events and give us a sneak peek at what could be coming down the pipeline very soon. You can watch the trailer above and in the following paragraphs we’ll dig into the announcement post and help you make connections between the trailer and the post.
The first thing we see in the trailer is the remnant of a stargate in space that has been recently taken over by Triglavians. According to the post, the Triglavian Collective’s invasion is now complete, meaning we will be less likely to see large content patches introduced involving Triglavians (except for new missions, ships, etc.). As we previously reported, standings are required to traverse the new region of Pochven and an exploit notification has been posted regarding a rather quick way of building these standings that was discovered by intrepid capsuleers. We will be posting a guide soon on how to quickly build these standings through other methods.
In the trailer, one of the first things we see is what appears to be a capsuleer overlooking a group of ships moving through a station. There is no question that this capsuleer is noneother than Asher Elias, the 23rd best fleet commander in the Imperium. Even hailing from the opposite side of the galaxy, I’d know that smile anywhere.
The trailer then takes us to the scene of a battle unfolding over what appears to be a Fortizar. We see fleets of ships maneuvering around the grid as well as some supercarriers on field. Beautiful explosions occur as the fighting ensues and the graphics and camera work do a fantastic job of inducing goosebumps on the arms of viewers. As ships explode, we zoom near a Wyvern supercarrier with some strange yellow lights surrounding it. I managed to get a screengrab of this (ignore the poor quality, the camera is panning rather quickly here).
These look like explosions at first but if we look at the next few seconds of the trailer and the following screenshot, we can see that these ships aren’t being blown up, they’re actually being constructed (or spawned) right in the middle of the fight.
This is clearly a nod to the newest announced updates for EVE Online’s supercarrier class ships:
EVE’s colossal Supercarriers will be getting a major update in the Phoenix Quadrant, including the introduction of the new Clone Vat Bay feature, allowing players to spawn ships directly from the Supercarriers themselves if they are taken out in battle! There will also be a significant visual update to Supercarriers in this update.
To speculate on the addition of this feature, we may see the ship maintenance bay getting an overhaul and an increase in cargo capacity to make room for potentially hundreds of ships to be stored for capsuleers to jump into in the event of their untimely demise. With the Clone Vat Bay, we could see capsuleers being able to set temporary battle clones where they respawn if their capsules are destroyed. This could completely change the battlefields of null security space moving forward.
On the one hand, capsuleers having access to clone jump directly into a ship could be a very effective way to get right back into the fight and prevent a strategic loss. On the other hand, losing a supercarrier stuffed to the brim with battleships would be insanely costly both to the owning alliance or corporation and to the battle itself. I expect that we are not likely to see this strategy being implemented in the current null security warzone unless the value it provides greatly outweighs the risk (which would be dependent on changes to other mechanics like jump fatigue and Titan bridges).
The remainder of the Quadrant 4 announcement posts assures us that the Abyssal Proving Grounds will continue into the Phoenix Quadrant, with rotating “gametypes” being the norm and allowing capsuleers to fight eachother in the Abyssal Deadspace arenas. It seems this feature is here to stay! Phoenix will also bring with it the various events, celebrations, and login campaigns that we’ve become accustomed to including the Crimson Harvest as well as the Yoiul Festival. There are also two new packs available for new and experience players, the Ascendant Phoenix and Blazing Phoenix packs. These packs are available until December 1st.
We’ll absolutely keep you updated on these changes as they progress and are announced. I, personally, am very excited about what’s to come as big changes are the kinds of changes EVE Online needs.
