Kismeteer, a fellow alliance director in Goonswarm, created this graph showing details of every patch since the launch of Eve Online.  Click on this link or on the image to see the full version:

So much information.

Standout figures for me are the tailing-off of growth post-Dominion then the actual fall in average sessions with the last patch.  There is also a clear division into two halves: the skills and ships and modules come overwhelminingly in the first half of Eve’s life, whereas recent patches, for all that the patch notes were lengthier, contain vastly less flying-in-space meat.

This may, partly, reflect better documentation.  But it also reflects a lot of lines of “the final spawn in this mission will no longer disappear when you roll five on 1D6” and less “this new module will let you kill this new ship and requires this new skill.”

Still, there is a tiny but noticeable rise in some datasets with this patch: new skills; new ships; new modules.  And, after the emptiness of the preceding two releases, a real rise in the patch notes required to documents them  Hope!

Eve Online Releases