Posted - 2009.03.11 04:19:00 - [1]

 

Edited by: Tripoli on 11/03/2009 04:53:47

Well, overall I'd have to say I'm pleased. Still kind of giggling to myself in excitement, amazement, surprise, and even disbelief.

New Character Training
So.....does this mean us veterans can train 1.6 million SP at double speed, too? No? Why not? I mean I started with something like 25,000 SP or something tiny like that. Oh, and we didn't have the advanced learning skills back then (please, don't go off on that tangent). Oh well. I guess I'll live with my wimpy 97 million SP for now. No biggie, really. Just about anything that supports getting new players immersed is okay with me.

Skill Queue
While I never really supported a skill queue, I like the way they implemented and restricted it, namely by only allowing you to queue up skills which will start within 24 hours. I'm rather enjoying training my group of 20 new Subsystem skills at 6 minutes 8 seconds a piece with it tonight. System seems a bit sluggish, but maybe that's just because it's dealing with my ridiculous list of 382 skills trained.

Renamed Skills
- Astrometric Triangulation is now Astrometric Acquisition
- Signal Acquisition is now Astrometric Triangulation

Yes, they renamed a skill to a name that already existed, and then renamed the existing one to something new, similar to the old one they renamed in the first place. Just CCP's way of playing games with our minds.

New Skills
So far I'm aware of 30 of them (not to mention the addition of a new skill category: Subsystems), putting the total number obtainable up to 390. Nothing really blowing my metaphorical skirt up, mind you, though I was interested to see that Reverse Engineering finally made its way onto the market. Here's the list:

Defensive Subsystem Technology
Electronic Subsystem Technology
Engineering Subsystem Technology
Offensive Subsystem Technology
Propulsion Subsystem Technology
Reverse Engineering
Amarr Strategic Cruiser
Caldari Strategic Cruiser
Gallente Strategic Cruiser
Minmatar Strategic Cruiser
Amarr Defensive Systems
Amarr Electronic Systems
Amarr Engineering Systems
Amarr Offensive Systems
Amarr Propulsion Systems
Caldari Defensive Systems
Caldari Electronic Systems
Caldari Engineering Systems
Caldari Offensive Systems
Caldari Propulsion Systems
Gallente Defensive Systems
Gallente Electronic Systems
Gallente Engineering Systems
Gallente Offensive Systems
Gallente Propulsion Systems
Minmatar Defensive Systems
Minmatar Electronic Systems
Minmatar Engineering Systems
Minmatar Offensive Systems
Minmatar Propulsion Systems

Attribute Remapping
This is the one that really takes the cake. Without even really putting much thought into it, I went ahead and maxed out Intelligence and Perception, leaving Charisma, Memory, and Willpower as low as possible. This is certainly not what I'd recommend for most people, but when your goals are measured in years, like mine, it's probably best for the coming 12 months. This haphazard reassignment of attribute points knocked a clean 286 days off the time it will take me to max out every skill in the game (now 15 years, 119 days, and change).

I just can't believe they're really letting us do this once every 12 months now. Like most players, I didn't really know what I was doing when I picked my base attributes of 11-4-6-7-11 back on a sunny day in May of 2003. I certainly know what I'm doing now, and right now (and for the past 6 years) Intelligence and Perception are the heavy-hitting attributes in the game.

So, for those wondering, yours truly now has the following attributes:

Base: 12-12-5-5-5

With maxed out Learning skills and a full set of +5 implants, this gives me:
Intelligence: 29.70
Perception: 29.70
Charisma: 22.00
Willpower: 22.00
Memory: 22.00

Boring? Yes. Effective? Absolutely.