It is time for another Friday bullet points blog post, this time to pull together some bits of EVE Online news that have popped up in the last week or so.
- The Red Dot Option
The Red Dot has been a hot topic for some since its introduction. I wouldn’t mind it so much if it just worked consistently. But it doesn’t. I can be in my ship, in space, sitting still, and the damn red dot will pop up on my inventory icon over and over, even when I have done nothing. And I am one of those people who cannot leave an alert like that alone. I must make it go away, and when it keeps coming back for no reason I want to scream.
This week there was a small patch update that had this item.
Added a toggle to general settings in-game allowing UI Inventory Badging (Red Dot) to be enabled or disabled.
You can now turn off the Red Dot! Just go to the general settings tab and look for the Inventory Badging option.
Banish the Red Dot here
I can already see Brisc Rubal running for another CSM term on the slogan “We Banished the Red Dot for you!”
- EVE in a Browser
CCP has started beta testing EVE Anywhere, the option to run EVE Online in a web browser.
EVE Anywhere except in my Firefox browser
One of the goals of any online game is to reduce the effort required to get players into the game. Free to play takes away the credit card barrier, allowing players to start without a financial commitment. But the dream has always been to avoid the client altogether and to let players jump right into playing without a long download and install. Several MMORPGs have worked on this in the past… Runes of Magic tried this for a while… but it hasn’t really become an option. Now CCP is giving it a run.
The beta is open to Omega accounts in the US. I tried it for a bit and it mostly seems to work, though the security settings in Firefox seemed to prevent their site from even giving me to option to try it.
Going to Microsoft Edge the big yellow “Play in a Browser” button was displayed and I was able to get into the game. The resolution is limited to 1080p and has to run full screen. Also, every setting saved locally by the regular client is missing from the browser, which quickly becomes annoying. But if you needed to log in to update your skill queue or do some market updates, it would be viable.
- Federation Grand Prix
If you haven’t started collecting login rewards for the Federation Grand Prix event, it is too late to grab them all now, as the event ends early next week. But, there is easily time left to actually run the event and collect a bunch of special SKINs as rewards.
Federation Grand Prix 2021
You just have to fly to the Luminaire system and warp to the start line to get your first detestation. Be wary though, especially during prime time hours. You have to fly through low sec, and even some NPC null sec, space and the route is known, so smart bombing ships and gate camps will be out trying to zap you. An interdiction nullified interceptor will get you past most gate camps, but you should avoid warping directly to gates if you want to bypass smart bombers.
- Skill Rentals Now with Ships and PLEX
CCP has already launched a new round of Expert Systems, the rent a skill program introduced earlier this month.
The new Mindstorm Experience packs include an exploration package that comes with a fully fit T1 exploration ship and a mining package that comes with 50 PLEX that the player can sell to help them buy their first mining barge. Expert Systems persist through death, but ships do not, so I wonder how new players who buy the pack will feel when things inevitably go awry.
There is a deeper look at these new packs over at The Nosy Gamer.
- Coming Quality of Life Improvements
CCP announced a series of quality of life improvements coming to EVE Online next week, which include changes to clones, ECM burst modules, and wormhole mass limits.
The clone change is huge, allowing players to store multiple clones in the same citadel. As somebody who has several clones with specific implant sets stashed in 1DQ1-A, this is kind of a big deal even for me. I’m a little sad about the ECM burst changes, as I enjoy doing that and, given the number of ships I have lost doing it, it is clearly a counterable play style. But players in general hate ECM and CCP has a history of nerfing it into uselessness.
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