The Rediscovered Scrolls
UPDATE: The first CORPS report has gone live. After some internal deliberation, we decided that Intergalactic Summit was the best place to post them, as they are presented entirely in-context and thus have more of a rolepayer's ambience than something which belongs in EVE Fiction. Again, we maintain that these are intended to be completely non-biased, with reports covering what CONCORD thinks is happening out there. The intended audience is anyone who wants a high-level summary-or approximation-of nullsec player activity. We'll be delivering these every two weeks...enjoy!
There is much more than meets the eye in EVE. Since 2003, we've been using storytelling to add depth to our beautiful game universe. By harnessing the power of immersion, we bring to life that which the game is unable to portray just yet.
Building upon the vision of the game's original founders, the Storyline Team now has the tools to do more "showing" rather than telling by working closely with other departments to integrate different storytelling components with the content of the playable game. Our goal is to combine every tool-chronicles, short stories, novels, videos, mission content, and epic storyline arcs-in such a way that the full scope of any one major story thread is covered in part by each of these mediums. Being exposed to any of them should be fulfilling, but to get the full enrichment of "finding out where the story goes next", you'll be encouraged to explore more parts. For example, some information that you read about in a chronicle just might prove handy during a mission encounter. Clues about the history and technology of Sleepers might be unveiled in an epic arc.
Although full integration is some time away, we're producing more storyline content than at any point in our history. But unfortunately, we haven't been perfect in the execution of this effort. A balance had to be maintained between keeping the storyline fresh and dynamic while also holding fast to the core attributes of foundation material. That led to mistakes, contradictions, and general inconsistencies in the canon. We took that personally, and decided to do something about it.
Canon Cleanup
Beginning on Monday, May 11th, we're going to be implementing a series of changes to the published canon that will, in its first iteration, eliminate or reconcile a huge portion of the more blatant inconsistencies we're aware of. This will be an ongoing effort, as there will no doubt be future errors given the expanding scope of storytelling avenues that we serve. This first "big purge" will mostly consist of direct changes to published chronicles and its mirror on EVElopedia. But fear not: these dreaded "retcons" will be accompanied with a detailed changelist on the EVE Fiction channel of the forums, just like a game patch, which outlines what we're changing, where we're changing it, and why.
Complete NPC Storyline Added to EVElopedia
It's also my pleasure to announce that EVELopedia just picked up an enormous amount of new content that chronicles every NPC storyline effort undertaken since 2003. It includes old Aurora events, Mercury arcs, content from news articles, events from Empyrean Age, and just about everything you can think of. Because of this effort, the memory of those old arcs and the effort that went into producing them will never be lost. It's all part of our official history now, and is accessible to anyone who wants to immerse themselves in it.
This infusion of content is part of our own efforts to help give EVElopedia "critical mass", which essentially means empowering you-the community-to tend to its well-being. Although it's still a work in progress, we encourage you to use this powerful tool to establish the legacy of your own alliance or corporation, and help us to keep the canon accurate as the story of EVE continues.
CORPS Bi-monthly Reports
Speaking of alliance happenings, beginning in June we're going to start publishing a briefing every two weeks that we call CORPS: CONCORD Outer Region Political Summary. In-context, these are declassified reports created by the DED that are circulated to CONCORD and the Empires to keep everyone informed of what those crazy capsuleers are doing outside their borders. Out-of-context, this is part of our effort to raise the visibility of alliance gameplay. We make it our business to stay on top of the situation out there, and will give this presentation as though delivering a national security briefing to a head of state-which some of you are. ;)
We acknowledge up front that we will, at times, make mistakes in the reporting of this material. Please note that CORPS is intended to be a purely impartial briefing on the movement of groups, not individuals. The goal is not to make anyone famous--you definitely don't need our help for that. Our goal is just to let you know who's shooting at whom. We're trying to keep these reports as broad but informative as possible, and provide an avenue for newer players and old vets to get the story behind the territorial maps rather than sorting through dozens of threads on COAD.
We hope you enjoy it. We've got some other surprises lined up, but we'll save those for later.
Safe travels,
CCP t0nyG
