EVE Online Is Forever, CCP Is Aiming for More Immersion

EVE Online is one of the most complex MMOs on the market at the moment, but the development team at CCP, the Finish company which handles development, says that the new Incarna expansion will be specifically designed to allow new players to engage with the game in more familiar ways, at least at first.

Arnar Gylfason, who is a senior producer working on the Incarna expansion for EVE Online, has told MMO centric website Massively that, “One of the big things with Incarna is about allowing players to identify more with their avatars – their personae,” he said – as opposed to their spacecraft. The one thing we noticed was that in any other game you start out as an avatar in a very safe, secure environment. That’s just something people are used to and it’s something they expect when they go to a new game.”

He added, “In some aspects, is definitely targeted at easing the transition for new players into what is essentially very new to everyone who tries out EVE. This is not like something they’ve played before, so giving them a hint of home in that is an important thing.”

The developer says that EVE Online will not become suddenly easier for those who are coming into the fresh game, but that it will create an epic characters arc for them, giving them the time needed to adjust to the mechanics of the space-based MMO.

With the development team adding new things to EVE, like planets, space stations and avatars, a lot of long-term fans of the game are afraid that the experience might be too complex for its own good.

But Gylfason says that his team sees EVE Online as going on forever, continuing to focus on core elements while also enhancing the immersion with its new additions, hoping to draw in a number of new gamers.