EVE Online's Phoebe update makes big changes to long-distance travel

EVE Online's next update, the curiously titled Phoebe, is coming November 4th, and while it's lacking in headline features, it seems like quite an important update when it comes to the business of playing the thing. New features include the ability to sell multiple things at once, while there are big changes to long distance travel, skill queues, notifications and invention, as passionately explained in the above video by CCP folk. I love seeing people excited about minutiae like this, even if I lack the intimate knowledge of EVE to know what, for instance, "cynos and covert cynos" are.

You'll find all of CCP's posts about Phoebe here, with this second one offering an overview of the update's changes and new features. The bits I understood included brighter nebulas, easier selling, a new unlimited skill queue, and new/rebalanced exploration rewards, along with changes to the sensor overlay and invention systems. The biggest change, however, appears to relate to long-distance travel, with a new 'jump fatigue' system being introduced to "significantly" increase travel time throughout New Eden. Why would CCP do this? Well, they think that "Nullsec is stagnant and needs a change", so they're making vast changes that should "have positive implications for people not involved in sovereignty warfare", i.e. those giant battles that appear in the news sometimes. Expect smaller, more localised battles to happen more frequently in future, should these changes stick.

Lots more details at the above links, and in the above video.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.