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Apparently someone at CCP (Hilmar? Is that you?) read my blog post asking for info on Incursion's release date and decided to get a dev blog posted to answer my question:

We discussed a few of the options we have with the CSM, and I think we‘re very unified that the best course of action is:

1. Release a first-step patch with a collection of player requested improvements November 30^th.
2. Release a second-step patch before Christmas (Only Santa knows what will be in this patch!)
3. Release key features of this expansion such as the Incarna Character Creator and Sansha Incursions in January 2011

Excellent. This is a best case scenario in my opinion, giving the developers a few more sprints to complete the Character Creator and Sansha Incursions features, two more sprints for the Christmas stuff, and a load of little things for November. Like what, you ask?

November release (Precursor?)
We have a few options for contained changes we can put out in a beefy mini-expansion in November that may include (but are not limited to):

• 80 new story line courier missions
• Rocket balancing
• Tech 2 ammo balancing
• Adding faction ships to the market
• Fighter bomber missile visual effects changes
• Anti-aliasing support
• Window resizing, camera offset
• Meta-item indicator icons
• UI optimization to contract delivery filtering
• Cargo can now be dragged to hangar by dropping on Neocom
• Toggling probes in overview
• POS gunners now receive notifications about control towers under attack
• Sorting deliveries according to distance in jumps or regional locations
• Unique icons for Microwarpdrives and Afterburners

Not all of these may make it into the November update. Some may require additional testing or design, and will be included in future patches. But we’re confident the update on November 30th will have a lot of very exciting, highly requested changes.

A hell of a lot of quality of life fixes. Nothing world shattering but definitely improvements to the game.

I think this is a good move, CPP. Kudos to you.