CCP Unveils New EVE Expansion

CCP, the people who created and support EVE Online, have announced some features regarding the biggest yet expansion for the MMO, which is supposed to be launched on March 10, 2009. Some of them will be very appealing to those interested in the vast space based MMO.

The highlights are the introduction of new modular ship designs based on Tech 3, missions which can be stringed together in big epic arcs that will provide a lot of back-story to the universe and wormholes, which can be used to instantly travel between different sections of game space.

Tech 3 will be the first update to the in game technology tree since Tech 2, which was introduced way back in 2004. The new level of tech will allow factions to design their own ships, which means that players will likely have 25 basic ship types and if we take into account minor variations, the people playing EVE will basically be getting a lot more new ships to play around with. Expect warfare to get a lot more interesting, as the mix of possible strategies will increase exponentially.

The exploration element of the game will be enhanced in order to encourage them to focus less on the interstellar combat. Going through wormholes will get a player into new solar systems where unique phenomena will be researched and artifacts will be found. The new space will probably be instanced, offering various players different gameplay experiences.

CCP is currently working on Quantum Rise, an update to the game centered on the economic elements of the title, after the last update, called Empyrean Age, focused on the combat between the big powers in the MMO universe. The developers are also talking about offering a graphical update to the game but it appears that it will not be integrated in the March 2009 update.