Daaaaaaaaaamn.

Bimjo on the EO forums has nicely compiled the major points of a patch coming in summer 2009 that was revealed during Fanfest today.

New Exploration
==============
unstable wormholes
new scanner and map
new skills and modules
all used to explore and find stuff to make T3 components

UI modified

Epic missions,do storyline then go to next stage(involving the unstable wormholes

lots of new T3 ships
===================
very customisable
components to build your own version of ship

NPC AI

I think I can speak for everyone when I say that pretty much everything in this is a welcome thing.  I’m pretty curious how they’re planning out customization, and hopefully it’s more than just cosmetic.

More details are no doubt forthcoming by CCP, but this is some pretty big news.

Update 1: A recording of the Live Dev Blog can be found here.  Thanks to whoever uploaded it!

Update 2: Someone recorded a video of ship customization.  Check it out here.  Whoa…

Source: condensed version of summer 2009 expansion

The patch notes for Quantum Rise are finally online, and folks can now see all the details of the upcoming expansion.

There’s a godawful lot of changes coming in this patch, and may of them have huge effects on a lot of players, so I encourage everyone to check them out to see how their experience is going to change. Most notable of these modifications to the game are the changes which rebalance ship speeds, and the addition of the industrial-focused capital ship, the Orca.

Quantum Rise is due to go Live on 11 November 2008.

Source: Build 69018 Patch Notes