October is over

There was a promotion about trying out a Beta Launcher a month ago, either in the news or via email, but I wasn’t paying attention. Nosy Gamers recent post tweaked my interest and I decided to have a closer look.

The download was 180Mb which seemed a bit on the heavy side and I had to add all my accounts again, however Aura walks you through it. The interface is a little more intuitive when compared to the old one which required your account details up front and hid the ‘Create Account’ in a tiny little line at the bottom. The account creation change is no doubt aimed at New Players and getting them in game.

The first thing that stands out is the accessibility of information. CCP have reduced the news to the left hand side of the launcher and stacked it allowing more account information to be displayed. The top bar information remains the same allowing access to essential information outside the launcher and they have moved the server information to the top right giving it greater visibility. The character sheet now provides simplified Corporation information as well as Security Status, how much plex that account has in its wallet, the account status (Alpha / Omega) and a settings tab that allows you to choose the load profile for each character.

The old launcher gave you the option to select an account which then opened an intermediate page populated by that account’s characters.

The new launcher allows you to choose the character you want to log into straight from the launcher. It still transitions to the old character choice page, but only briefly and shows the character you have chosen before launching directly into the game – you can’t change your mind and chose another character from the same account. It also remembers the character choice for the next log in.

Using the old launcher I could start all three of my Alpha accounts from the launcher which would then send me to a character choice screen. The character choice screen also contained the Daily log in challenges I could cycle through my accounts and pick up the Daily’s without ever entering the game.

With the new launcher at least one character (for Alpha) in a multiple account launch session will enter the game and arrive ‘in station’. Omega probably launches all selected characters. This stops people like me from scooping Daily rewards without ever actually entering the game. Numbers anyone? I doubt it is too soon to see any influence in peak user numbers, but it might be worth looking at when the launcher is no longer Beta.

That’s it for October, I haven’t done anything other than fool around with the launcher and collect Daily goodies where possible.

Fly Safe as Always,
Yad

EDIT: as of today they are now actively promoting the new launcher and have announced the hard change taking place 7 December.