Payback in the Sadists’ Sandbox – EVE Online: Retribution

EVE Online is to MMOs what Mos Eisley is to spaceports – there really is no greater hive of scum and villainy. What’s more, many residents of the star cluster of New Eden are proud of that fact. However, the rules are changing.

Facing the challenges that come with keeping a ten-year-old game current, for the past 18 months developers CCP have been working hard to add polish and update out-dated legacy game mechanics and user interface elements. Already, much of the revitalisation of the core gameplay has taken place in the previous Crucible and Inferno updates, but in Retribution, they’re really shaking things up. Here’s a brief run-down of features:

Rise of the Bounty Hunter

The previous, flawed bounty system was rarely used, but the new mechanic has the potential to create all manner of new dynamic and emergent behaviour, with re-sellable kill rights, a less exploitable bounty placement system and streamlined PvP flagging.

Given the devious nature of many EVE players, there will undoubtedly be unforeseen ramifications, but whatever the outcome, something will blow up in someone’s face. This will likely be considered working as intended.

Reinvented Spaceships

As EVE evolved and new ships were frequently introduced, many older ones fell by the wayside. Over the past few months a wholesale rebalancing of of EVE’s 200+ ships has been underway, with a further 40 re-worked in Retribution. Additionally, the introduction of four new Destroyer-class ships, a new mining frigate and new skins for existing ships should keep things fresh.

Dynamic Soundscapes

New ambient effects, re-authored weapons fire, and a creative approach to the soundtrack:

“We‘ve created new, highly atmospheric musical soundscapes for zerosec, that‘s partially procedurally done, with 20 base tracks that have around 500 permutations to them. Those new tracks will change and become even darker and more moody in systems that have seen a number of players ships destroyed.” – Torfi Frans Olafsson, Creative Director

Improved User Interface

More intuitive and visually appealing UI elements include restyled target reticules and a damage notification system, an incoming DPS indicator and a new, cinematic target-tracking camera function.

EVE Online: Retribution will be released on 4 December 2012.