Kronos and Low Sec

It's patch day and I decided to write a low sec focused post.

It was to both a sigh and a resigned bit of amusement that I saw someone complain that Kronos does not have anything for high sec in it. I also realized that I may not have taken the time that I should to focus on what is coming to low sec with Kronos. Kirith has done a fantastic job but I'm going to piggy back and make sure I list them to. Part of that is just self preservation for when people ask me, as they inevitably will, what has happened for low sec recently.

Complete Kronos Patchnotes.

I'm pulling out the low sec specific content and listing it below. It is not the sum total of the patch. Much of the patch will touch every part of space such as the scatter can changes.

Mordu's Legion will now spawn in low sec belts. They will drop Mordu's Legion Blue Print Copies (BPC).
New exploration site that will drop:

• New low-grade pirate implants

• Eight different ship skins

• New module blue print copies

Wormholes to known space will now spawn with greater frequency in low sec.

Deep Space Transports are rebalanced and become a possibility for low sec transport with some scouting and forethought.

Faction warfare received some changes.

• New large outposts with no restrictions.

• NPC changes inside of the complexes.

• Cloaking restrictions inside of complexes.

Ore anoms with better, more tastier ore. 

If it isn't clear, I love this direction for low sec. Kirith notes:

"...low sec will be the "wild west" frontier where the individual finds his way through lucky panhandling strikes while avoiding the mafias and cartels and gang wars happening around them. Random sites and drops means large scale farming will not succeed in harvesting the wealth thus organized and militarized control will not be cost effective for the most part."

I was pleased when I read that. I quote him not because I've suddenly lost the ability to speak for myself but because someone else is seeing what I see. I started wondering how to define low sec a while ago. Some said that we don't need to define it. I disagreed. By not defining it we were allowing anything to happen because saying, "No that isn't low sec" wouldn't work when we couldn't say what low sec was.

To protect it we had to create it. For everyone that said they like low sec as it is they still needed to give some tangible substance to what that was. It has been one of the harder parts of this entire adventure. I feel with Kronos we have solidly set a standard for low sec. One where the environment that the residents like is preserved yet improved upon. I think we're coming into that. It's been the direction that I've been slogging through. I realize now, having made it to the CSM that I am also dragging as much of low sec with me as I can. Hopefully, other's like this direction too.

It doesn't mean we are done. I'm still very, very focused on low level content and more entry level friendliness for low sec. We still have to have these discussions about force projection and the current state of supers. We have to continue to say what we do what and what we do not want. And we have to keep up the momentum.

Faction Warfare still has needs. Non-Faction Warfare still has issues. This is not the end of things, do not worry about that. I am eager for the next release. I expect it will be a busy six weeks and I've already attempt to get a jump on that.

And then there is everything else. Yes, NPC nullsec. And high sec and wormholes and well, everything. It will be a good six weeks while we perfect Industry. And then? Well, the future is what the future holds. We're going to take it a piece at a time. Hopefully you all keep walking with me. I'm happy to drag everyone along.