CCP Countinues the Counteroffensive

First there was this image "leaked" on twitter and facebook:

Tornado Warning

That, folks, is the winning entry from CCP's "Design a Spaceship" contest last year, you can find the excellent submission here. Go, read, I'll wait. Back? Ok, now the story was that the winning submission would be added to the game but there has been nothing since then. (Remember when some deluded people thought that the Christmas gift would be this ship? Heh.) Now, as part of the counter offensive to win back Eve players' love, its finally coming to light, hopefully as part of a suite of four new ships, one for each faction.

But wait! There's more!

I posted briefly about the Player Owned Custom Offices dev blog yesterday which everyone agrees came out of the blue and has been generally well received as an exciting and potentially game changing expansion. Yes, EXPANSION. A huge step forward for planetary interaction gameplay itself, and game dynamics in general. (Plus it removes that immersion breaking detail of CONCORD custom offices on every planet in all of wormhole space.)

Whether or not you think that overall this change is going to be good, at least it is change and iteration on existing content. More of this please.

I doubt there are very many more surprises waiting for us, but that's okay because its time for CCP to start detailing the other items in their winter expansion list such as how they plan to address hybrid weapons, assault ships, faction warfare, etc. The shock part of the campaign should be over; now its time for the awe.

But most interesting to note here is the change that CCP's counteroffensive has managed to accomplish. Although, as Mittens pointed out during his CSM campaign, bloggers and podcasters make up a very small fraction of the eve playerbase, they are representative of the mood and opinions of that group. A month ago all the talk was about how Eve was languishing and CCP was in trouble; now the focus has shifted back to the game and its development and the mood of the bloggers/podcasters has noticeably improved. A striking example was the last two Fly Reckless episodes, the first recorded at the beginning of Sept and so depressing that I was cutting myself half way through, and the second recorded after the Hilmar mea culpa and full of much more enthusiasm and interest.

The real question now is if CCP can continue to keep it up and deliver this winter AND next spring/summer. We're watching, Hilmar.

With Electronic Eyes...