EVE Evolved
Glorious Capsuleers,
Today EVE Online takes another step towards EVE Forever with EVE Evolved. EVE Evolved is CCP Games’ commitment to keep EVE Online at the forefront of visceral supremacy with features designed to enhance the sensory experience of New Eden like never before. Today, you can expect breathtaking visuals in every system with remastered nebulas and an incredible overhaul of dozens of career agent sites.
The updates you’ll experience in this release are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the foundational updates that are always taking place. EVE Evolved commits to an investment in EVE’s underlying tech to ensure New Eden stays at the cutting edge of technology while also continually improving performance. Just one example of this commitment is last year's launch of Quasar. These foundational upgrades to EVE's tech pave the way for a more beautiful, efficient EVE.
You can expect more to come with continual investment into the foundational tech, the graphical fidelity, and the gameplay of EVE.
DirectX 12 and Photon UI – Continuous Foundational Improvements
DirectX 12 will bring a slew of improvements in stability and performance to all citizens of New Eden. Helping modernize the game engine for the third decade, it shortens the opportunity gap for implementing the new level of visual fidelity and allows the building of an exciting narrative for players.
DirectX 12 also opens the door to even more graphical upgrades in the future such as DirectX Raytracing while no longer being hindered by DirectX 9!
Speaking of graphical upgrades, Photon UI continues to see iteration and improvement. Compact mode comes today as a direct result of player feedback. You can enable this with the “More” button adjacent to “Close” in the upper right-hand corner of the active window. From here, select the Compact Mode option from the drop-down menu that appears.
Currently, compact mode is available for windows where information density is important, such as the overview, D-Scan, Chat and Fleet windows, People & Places. Keep an eye on EVE news for details on the continued evolution of this fantastic user interface.
Texture and Sound Updates – The Ultimate Sensory Experience
Building a sensory experience that you can get lost in needs more than just graphical improvement. EVE Evolved represents a threefold strategy to improve and upgrade the EVE Online experience.
Massive strides have been made in texture compression, meaning that the textures you now see in-game will be of higher quality than ever before. This also applies to new high-definition nebulas across New Eden. Additionally, packed textures were removed resulting in fewer graphical artefacts and cleaner visuals for every asset in EVE with minimal impact on client performance.
EVE’s audio experience is also seeing updates with EVE Evolved and it’s better than ever. Engine sounds are now handled better, particularly with the mixing of other ships in each scene. Take a listen the next time you take a warp with your fleet!
Finally, the career agents have had their mission sites completely overhauled with new cloud effects, new asteroid designs, and updates to mission assets and structures. Sound effects have been improved here, too, with features such as bringing back cloud cover in sites and hanging the way that they sound.
All of this comes following the recent massive update to real-time reflections in EVE and last year’s Bring Out EVE’s Colors update. It also allows the team to look forwards to remastering and redesigning older content such as EVE’s Highsec missions.
Setting Players on the Path to Glory
While EVE marches on its own journey, so too does every new Capsuleer entering New Eden. Many of those fresh Capsuleers begin their EVE life with career agents as a first step to finding their place in the universe. With this new update, that journey has evolved with a plethora of improvements to the career agent experience and the brand-new AIR Career Program.
New players getting their teeth into career agents now will be in for a treat. Career agent missions feature remastered environments designed to entice and to create an immersive experience like no other. The Enforcer career agent is seeing further improvements that shape what is to come: a modernized conversation window (when using Photon UI) and highlights to help guide new players.
The AIR Career Program (ACP) works with and follows on from each career agent, taking players down four career paths of recommended EVE content. Players are rewarded handsomely as they complete goals with support from recommended Skill Plans. The ACP culminates in a graduation moment, sending players out as capable Capsuleers ready to tackle the challenges of New Eden!
This Path to Glory aims to improve the experience and retention of new players by giving them a guiding hand that helps them find their role in this incredible sandbox.
ACCELERATE YOUR CAREER WITH REVAMPED PACKS
To help accelerate your career further in New Eden, revamped career packs are coming back to the EVE Store. Whether you’re on a path to being a tough Soldier of Fortune or a budding Enforcer or an Explorer, you can expect great value and expertise to support your journey.
Starting today you can snag the Enforcer Career Pack, Soldier Career Pack, and Explorer Career Pack which contain Omega, PLEX, Skill Points, Boosters, Expert systems, unique attire and several unique ship skins in each- all geared towards your unique career path.
The Industrial Career Pack will also be available in the future to super charge Industry focused capsuleers.
Further Updates – Just on the Horizon
Following the discussions and presentations at Fanfest, a ton of thrilling updates are on the horizon. Veterans and new players alike have a lot to look forward to!
Big updates to Factional Warfare are in the works with the new Frontlines system currently being designed. Interbus Credits are on the way, soon to offer the awesome perks of Heraldry including Alliance logos on ships!
The first narrative arc has already begun so keep your eyes peeled for clues as they appear across New Eden and see if you can piece together what the future holds.
The team looks forward to discussing more throughout the summer in a series of streams and blogs so stay tuned.
You can also look forward to an exciting expansion with these planned updates and more coming later this year with more details this September.
EVE Evolved: Always Iterating – Always Improving
By now it should be clear that CCP is invested in the future of EVE Online. The goal is and will always be EVE Forever. The foundational improvements of the past few years and those arriving today form part of an ongoing story. One that you are a part of as a player of EVE Online.
The future of EVE is bright so look ahead and get ready for so much more later this year with heraldry and EVE’s first arc!
