EVE Online growing, Revs II and III, and beyond

Even as Revelations I spools up for its debut towards the end of this month, CCP Games looks forward to an ever-growing EVE Online with Revelations II and III. As MMORPG.com noted during the EVE Online Fanfest, “CCP counted 145,095 subscribers and 20,068 trial accounts.”

Small by WoW standards, perhaps, but “what excited CCP and industry observers though is that EVE Online is the only game in the history of this genre that has a consistently upward momentum in subscriber numbers.”

Now on to the succeeding Revelations. Senior Producer Nathan Richardson revealed that Revelations II is currently planned for release next summer. Rev. II will implement optimizations and warfare upgrades. One thing they’re looking at are skirmishes – battles that aren’t the all-or-nothing ventures that current space combat is (in other words, you can bleed the other guy dry over a number of engagements).

CCP’s looking at end-of-2007 for Rev. III, “but is not clearly defined. The logic is to use Chapter III to react to I and II.” As Spock would say, that is logical. One thing they’ve got firmed up are factions – NPC-led organizations which players can join to conduct missions and pursue goals. This seems to be different and separate from current corporate allegiances.

And beyond Revelations? Every big idea for the grand future is still “subject to change,” as Richardson says to cover his posterior (kidding), but one big idea running around CCP is “walking on stations,” the hope that character avatars can exist “outside their ships.” This may mean more character interactions in stations – and this may also mean “battle stations” in those same space stations, like manning gun turrets in space battles.

Even as Revelations I spools up for its debut towards the end of this month, CCP Games looks forward to an ever-growing EVE Online with Revelations II and III. As MMORPG.com noted during the EVE Online Fanfest, “CCP counted 145,095 subscribers and 20,068 trial accounts.”

Small by WoW standards, perhaps, but “what excited CCP and industry observers though is that EVE Online is the only game in the history of this genre that has a consistently upward momentum in subscriber numbers.”

Now on to the succeeding Revelations. Senior Producer Nathan Richardson revealed that Revelations II is currently planned for release next summer. Rev. II will implement optimizations and warfare upgrades. One thing they’re looking at are skirmishes – battles that aren’t the all-or-nothing ventures that current space combat is (in other words, you can bleed the other guy dry over a number of engagements).

CCP’s looking at end-of-2007 for Rev. III, “but is not clearly defined. The logic is to use Chapter III to react to I and II.” As Spock would say, that is logical. One thing they’ve got firmed up are factions – NPC-led organizations which players can join to conduct missions and pursue goals. This seems to be different and separate from current corporate allegiances.

And beyond Revelations? Every big idea for the grand future is still “subject to change,” as Richardson says to cover his posterior (kidding), but one big idea running around CCP is “walking on stations,” the hope that character avatars can exist “outside their ships.” This may mean more character interactions in stations – and this may also mean “battle stations” in those same space stations, like manning gun turrets in space battles.