For greater than a decade, the operating joke about Eve On-line is that it’s an MMORPG that’s additionally a spreadsheet. That’s a bit unfair – there’s loads of exploring and area fight in New Eden. However high-level gamers are all the time eager on optimising their playtime, and now developer CCP Video games is making it official: later this yr, Eve On-line will add Microsoft Excel integration, making information monitoring within the free-to-play recreation an entire lot simpler.
The partnership with Microsoft implies that within the close to future, Eve gamers will be capable of add a Javascript API to an Excel workbook that seamlessly pulls information from the sport. Whereas CCP isn’t prepared to enter element on the performance simply but, the probabilities are compelling: gamers might use the function to trace revenue margins throughout a big company, or have a look at fleet harm values over the course of a battle to work out the place their strengths and weaknesses are.
Enjoying Eve on a literal spreadsheet isn’t the one information out of this yr’s Fanfest, operating this weekend in Reykjavik. The corporate additionally revealed plans for a brand new set of narrative arcs, with the primary set to wrap up in a finale on the finish of this yr. CCP says these new story arcs, targeted on gamers’ chosen residence empires, will assist new gamers join with Eve’s world and provides them “extra energy to form New Eden’s dwelling universe” by means of dynamic, player-driven in-world occasions.
“With arcs, we’re setting EVE up for the subsequent chapter with a gentle stream of narrative-driven content material that emphasises participant actions and selections,” says Bergur Finnbogason, artistic director of Eve On-line. “The upcoming tales and occasions aren’t restricted to veterans, although – with extra actions coming quickly to the brand new participant expertise, all Capsuleers can take pleasure in EVE’s arcs, no matter their talent stage.”
CCP additionally revealed the brand new AIR Profession Program, one other initiative aimed toward smoothing out Eve’s notoriously thorny new participant expertise. The AIR Profession Program is supposed to supply profession steering as new gamers work out their subsequent steps of their chosen job archetype.
CCP additionally touched on coming enhancements to Eve’s graphics and UI, which it says are supposed to set Eve up for its third decade. In the course of the keynote, Eve’s dev crew mentioned it was engaged on releasing a DirectX 12 model, and that they’re rising the decision for visuals for nebulas and rising the variety of polygons in ship fashions.
Talking of ships, Eve On-line can be including alliance logos and dynamic holograms that you could add to your ships to mirror your company membership and in-game achievements. Heraldry can be dealt with by means of its personal non-tradeable forex, which is generated at each participant and company ranges by means of gameplay.
Eve On-line Fanfest 2022 runs Could 6-7, and we’ll have extra details about the occasion and new details about Eve within the coming week.
