The Foundations Quadrant is drawing to a close. The Caldari Union Day is the last of the central Empires of EVE to commemorate its creation. What started as a opportunity for lore-themed content has missed the mark. CCP has re-rolled the same events as they did for Gallente and Amarr, but this time substituting a blue cover for the Caldari. For added laziness, the Caldari daily login gifts actually come in Amarr boxes.
CCP really showed what could be possible with the Minmatar Liberation Event. An amazing video and engaging content linked to a cool story line with meaningful outputs – this was the central event of all four foundation days. However, what followed has truly lacked effort. Amarr, and now Caldari, have simple repeated the events from Gallente. Even the release blog shows the low level of effort, as they announced the video delivered by Akimara Saraki, the newly-elected leader of the Caldari State, won’t be dropped for a few weeks.
Pilots will see new monuments, mining blitz events, a warp speed bonus, and some parades to shoot fireworks at. Also look for 25k SP bonuses in daily logins, plus some new trousers. Proving Grounds with Caldari ships? Yep, correct. New SKINs? Tick. And finally, a quiz plus another propaganda contest? Trifecta! It appears that CCP have a check list for each of these events and have just done Ctrl + F “Amarr” and replaced it with Caldari.
These events, in isolation, aren’t bad content. However, with the Minmatar event setting such a high bar – and delivered at a critical time when CCP/player relations where fractious – the players expected the same level of care and attention to be delivered for the remaining Empires. This has decidedly not been the case.
It has been an interesting summer for CCP. They have definitely weathered the storm of player criticism, especially after the Alliance Tournament announcement. There are clear efforts on their part to show the player base that they do listen. Devblogs now highlight player feedback. CCP devs are more vocal in public areas. The Scope has returned and the release of the post-scarcity roadmap (albeit lacking detail) is creating a feeling of optimism for quadrants three and four.
Yet, the delivery of the Caldari Union Day is definitely a disappointment. It appears lazy. When the Caldari gifts are dropped in Amarr boxes, and dropping another propaganda contest whilst the “corp recruitment” competition is also on-going, indicates that dev team lacks ideas and coordination. With the war ending, thousands of players have returned to normal EVE life. This could have been a great opportunity to offer the chance of engagement in other areas of EVE. Caldari-themed combat anomalies through space? Guristas assaults map-wide? Maybe the State fancied taking over some wormhole systems (to give our J-space friends something new). Overall, it is a sleepy release that ends the whole quadrant poorly.
