Out of the Shadows: New Faction Modules and Updated Complexes

Aces High

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Hey. You. Yeah, you, at the computer. You like shooting pirates, right? Blood Raiders, Serpentis, Guristas, the rest, they all blow up real good. But you’re way out in nullsec, and you’ve already popped your share of belt rats? You wanna try something new? It’s cool. I got these things called “DED sites.” You’re gonna love ’em.

See, the pirate factions set up these bases in deadspace pockets. The DED (CONCORD’s pet enforcement agency) gathers intel on all these pirate sites, and when you find one, your ship’s computer pops up this intel on your screen. Now don’t get alarmed — all those words are just telling you who the bad men are (hint: it’s everyone). You fly in, blow up some bad guys, and when you pop the big baddie you get a prize. Sometimes the prize is faction modules, sometimes it’s a BPC, stuff like that. I’m talking pirate faction-themed battleship meta-level stuff, you follow?

And these sites I got? Angels, Blood Raiders, even got a Sansha or two in there. And they show up in three different ways. Exploration? You can find them that way, yep. Escalating path? Check. Or maybe you were just attracted by the “Entrapment Array” you saw in the Sovereignty mechanics? You got it – there too. These new sites, though, make no mistake — they’re the big boys of the DED sites. Just 6 of 10 and up. They’re tough, so you’ll want to bring some friends.

So whaddya say, man? You want—?

Crap, someone’s coming. I was never here.

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Wildest Dreams

Morning, capsuleers. We've got some new content coming soon from Team Commie Pinkos. But we're not the Commie Pinkos you remember from before. We're leaner and meaner. A small strike team of grizzled professionals. A gang of teenage ninjas fighting injustice. A band of rebels striking from our hidden base. We're so agile that CCP Bettik created a time vortex tomorrow to finish a site yesterday.

Hot off the heels of Incursion, the big boss came up to us and said, "Hey, we want to do another release in two months. Also, we want to focus on fixing old stuff. Also we want it to be awesome. And we need you to jump a flaming V-twin soft-tail off of Stone Mountain while the souls of the damned play Orff's Carmina Burana with the ghost of Maximilien Robespierre on electric bass." We looked at each other, grabbed a nearby gas can (surprisingly common in Content departments), and said, "Done."

So what we've got for you, dear players, is a new batch of exploration content. But it's not just any batch of exploration. We're taking the fixing-old-content mandate to heart. You want old stuff? We're talking dinosaur content. But not foggy, wrinkly old dinosaurs. There's no brontosauruses here, and not just because your fourth grade teacher told you lies about the Apatosaurus. We're talking velociraptors with jump jets and laser helmets. We're talking the goddamn DED Complexes.

Remember Tomorrow

Maybe you don't know what DED complexes are. It's cool. See, way back when, a bunch of the pirate factions had static sites that dropped faction modules, BPCs, and other loot. The name came from a little in-setting blurb that popped up from the DED when you warped to the sites. They came in ten levels, "1 of 10" being easy and "10 of 10" meaning murder lives here.

Eventually most of these sites moved out of static content over to our exploration and escalation systems. Sometimes you can scan down a DED site directly. Sometimes it will escalate randomly from a completely different exploration site, like a surprise party but with exploding spaceships instead of grocery store sheet cake. Then, last year, the "6 of 10" and higher sites were used in our sovereignty system as part of upgrading that section of space for which you murdered your virtual fellow man. Conquer some space, build an Entrapment Array and BOOM! You've got a DED site in your backyard.

The Evil That Men Do

But there's a hiccup in the history of DED. The original production run of DED sites, built so many long eons ago, never went as far as intended. There are gaps in the ranges. We had five pirate factions, but only three "9 of 10" sites. Only two "8 of 10s". And so on. And of all the factions, only the Angel Cartel had a complete set. There was no joy in Mudville.

Be Quick or Be Dead

But now we're back. Back like travellers from a distant future, here to save the soul of humanity with machine guns. We've got the holes mapped out and we're filling them with the cyber-opera space-punk ESRB-rated violence you know and love. We've got new setting info, too, finally answering years-long mysteries like, "What animal serves as a staple foodstuff in Deteis cuisine?"

And if explosions and sarcastic AIs talking about space snacks aren't enough, these new DED complexes will be the exclusive source of several pirate modules previously unavailable in EVE Online. Our predecessors may not have finished their great temples to space piracy, but in their wisdom they fashioned all of the space-magic faction modules the project would require. With each new site, we are introducing into the game this faction-themed loot that the gods always intended to be present, but for the failings of man. That's right, this thing just went biblical.

So where's this stuff going to show up? First, the new sites in the 6-10 range are being slammed into the sovereignty upgrade system. (Pirates always make good downtime crunch between nullsec sorties.) All new sites are then being seeded into both the exploration and escalation systems like their elder brethren. Difficulties 6 through 10 go to null sec, 4 through 6 go to low sec, and 3 and lower in feel-good high sec.

Afraid to Shoot Strangers

Confession time: We will not be filling all difficulty levels of DED complexes in this first go. Vortexes aside, time is the one bad Mother Hubbard. We punch and kick with our mighty fists (our feet are also fists), but we just can't kill the beast. So we're starting from the top-down, filling as we go. But for now, the 6-10 range? We've got that covered for every pirate faction.

That's three great flavors for one low price. New NPCs, new world building, new loot, all coming at you in our next release.

And if the dark scrolls - pulled from the In-Between by the gnarled doppelganger of CCP Gilsev with its dying breaths - are to be trusted, the story of DED is far from over.

CCP Big Dumb Object, away!

INFO DUMP:

DED complexes...

• are a particular subset of exploration content that has existed in EVE for a number of years;
• are also used as content by the Dominion sovereignty system;
• are combat-centered sites that pit players against one of the five core pirate factions;
• have 10 levels of difficulty;
• contain final boss NPCs that have a chance of dropping awesome pirate-faction modules; and
• are designed for groups, but are not as severe or directed as Incursion content.