EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

There's a lot of talk about the upgrades that are supposed to make 0.0 more densely populated and profitable - worth holding for something more than bragging rights. Unfortunately, as Hammerhead let slip the other day in an interview, the upgrades for nullsec aren't intended to provide more income than running level four missions in risk-free empire. "The income however isn't being increased much over what players can get from level 4 missions in the initial point release so we don't expect a massive exodus of people out of empire space or a massive change in the influx of money or resources." Talk about a damp squib; the initial propaganda about Dominion was that it was going to create just such a gold-rush.

Lower Your Expectations
When this patch was first marketed to the playerbase, the level of excitement was extreme. It wasn't merely going to remove existing negatives (Doomsdays, POS war) but add a bunch of new positives (Supercapital carnage, riches in nullsec, an influx of new players and warfare in deep space). As patch day approached, more and more new features have been yanked. The treaty system didn't make it in. Supercap changes have gotten distorted beyond all belief, and motherships didn't make it in. When asked what was most exciting about Dominion, the first thing Hammerhead mentioned was... new planet graphics. What? Are you serious? Oh, also the in-game browser is better, saving us from the horrors of opening our own!

There's some good stuff in this patch in terms of tweaks. The "Fleet Finder" mechanic will really help the ability of players to log into the game and get into some action, which has always been a problem with EVE. There are some anti-espionage tweaks that make it harder for hostiles to join your fleet, and in general it'll be harder to sabotage or ruin an alliance with spies after Dominion - broadly popular ideas, even if I myself dislike them.  But on the whole, Dominion is about removing and fixing areas of EVE which are manifestly terrible, rather than adding in new positives.

Nullsec wars/politics
As of this moment, the post-patch action will be in Fountain, where IT Alliance (essentially just a Band of Brothers respawn) is invading Pandemic Legion's territory. In the North, Triumvirate and Red Overlord will be fighting the Northern Coalition, and in the east we can expect the usual endless dueling between Atlas and Legion of xDeath. With the removal of the "Sov 4" invulnerability mechanic, expect to see a lot of CSAA's attacked and kited, since vulnerable industrial structures will make for much easier kills than seizing an outpost.