CCP announced today the beginning of EVE Online’s third Quadrant of the year, the Gateway Quadrant. Gateway brings at the beginning enhanced experiences for new players which were first announced on August 24 and have been in testing on Singularity. These include an enhanced, story-driven new player experience, and a revamped skill-queuing feature that allows for the management and importing of skill plans.
The Beginning of the End of Scarcity
Perhaps most significantly for current players, CCP has announced with Gateway the beginning of the end of the Scarcity phase with today’s release bringing enhanced availability of ice and Mercoxit. According to the announcement, ice distribution has been doubled across New Eden, and additional Mercoxit spawns are available as well. However, according to the patch notes Mercoxit quantities inside Asteroid Belts have been increased 200% and Mercoxit anomaly spawn probabilites have been increased 200%, while Ice belt respawn times have been reduced to 6 hours, with one guaranteed site per solar system. Therefore it seems like it is in fact Mercoxit availability that has been doubled. An additional note is that Mercoxit anomalies no longer have any Arkonor or Bistot.
CCP has made clear that these changes are just the beginning of the end of Scarcity. Some aspects of scarcity will continue throughout the third Quadrant, with further rollbacks to scarcity planned–according to CCP– for the fourth Quadrant, which is scheduled to begin in November.
Skill Enhancements
With today’s release, CCP has released the Skill Plan feature that was introduced on August 24.
The initial feature releases of the Gateway Quadrant will not significantly effect the day-to-day experience for most players, but as always, it is expected that CCP will continue to release features and updates throughout the Quadrant. As New Eden continues to rebuild from its largest war, it will be interesting to see what CCP is planning for Gateway.
