The new missile effects are amazing, and the new launcher graphics make the Tengu look like the beast it really is. I honestly can’t express just how good missile look now, and videos don’t really do the improvement justice. Seeming different types of missiles flying all around is pretty jaw-dropping. It’s these kinds of visual improvements that keep EVE looking like a game released today, and the lack of such work which makes ‘old’ MMOs look dated. Simply no reason others can’t do this and keep their MMO relevant and growing instead of out to pasture and awaiting death/F2P.
The new inventory UI is good overall, but needs some work. The amount of time it takes to load anything in our POS is unacceptable (10-25sec!), and how the new UI functions when looting wrecks is (currently) a major step back. That said I don’t doubt that CCP will smooth out the rough edges, and after a few fixes the overall outcome will be positive. The core is good, but it’s currently spoiled by a few things that just annoy you to no end.
Edit: CCP doing work.
Hardcore Casual 
I expect to see a few patches around the inventory stuff. I managed to break it last night with the “stack all” command. I got the whole screen flashing and had to quit and log back in.
The detail of the missile launch and reload sequence on the Tengu is mighty fine as well.
When i logged in and went to a particular station… all of my stuff in that station was missing. It was back today ;-)
Please don’t gush about the new missile graphics because it makes me want to resub and take my Navy Raven out for a spin.
Sucks having a sucky graphics card. The good one burnt out, so no new missile effects for me :-(. Is anyone else having issues with items “locking” when you drag them to a container? Even though the container is configured so items are supposed to be “unlocked”.
I’ve had an issue, once or twice, with switching ships in a POS. I’ll get a window popping up saying I can’t view the inventory of the ship I just left, which normally just clicks away. Except for when it doesn’t, and I have to Alt+Shift+Q my way out of the game…
Other than that, no real complaints (Especially once they fix the Unified Inventory in a POS setup…)
The main thing about the inventory that people need to kind of understand is what probably had to happen for it to work. In order for a tree-view to really work, all the items have to be in the same pool. Going back to all the database work done, it makes sense that they’d let bugs go through to TQ. When you are working on a test version of a database and you find bugs, you have to weigh whether or not these bugs will happen on a much larger database. There are quite a few bugs that appear just because it is smaller.
I’d expect the devs to actually work quickly on this one instead of usual dev operating procedures of months between fixes. This system feels more like a stepping off point, less like a finished product. Also, for the people having lag issues opening, have you instead of closing the window tried minimizing it instead?
Just to make a counter-point — you’re all insane :P
That is not to say that you’re wrong.
But me personally? Graphics are soooo down in the list of things that matter in a game for me, I can’t help and be surprised every time Syncaine mentions them as make-it-or-break-it point for a game (I do remember some posts on some, in my opinion, not-so-bad games which went like this — didn’t like graphics, so didn’t play it; or graphics are outdated — game can’t be good).
I mean as long as graphics are not actively *detracting* from the gameplay, I wouldn’t care (much). For example, I wouldn’t mind playing Diablo2-quality graphics *now* provided the gameplay is good. Or WoW-quality. Or Fallout1/2 quality. I think you can see the trend :)
Is there any point to my post? Probably not, but maybe something along the lines “not everybody cares about graphics, so ‘updating your game to keep with the times’ is not necessarily ‘must have’ for a good game/MMORPG”.