EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

The upcoming Tyrannis expansion for EVE Online introduces a bushel of new features. Colonizing planets with our own factories? Got that. An EVE-centric social network that will let players manage some of their EVE affairs from a web browser at work? Yeah. New organizational tools to help corporations coordinate their members? Yep. Basically, this is a pinata of new content that will enrich the experience of EVE Online players, going forward.

This article is a survey of the new features and changes that will be included in the Tyrannis expansion.

Planetary Interaction

Big changes are coming in Tyrannis.

The most important new feature from the perspective of long-time EVE Online players is Planetary Interaction. The ability to run factories on planets, blast the products into orbit, there to be picked up for use or sale, is a primo feature for any industrialist. It's about time CCP added some new major areas of industry, and this is it. Materials that until now have been available only from NPC sell orders, will be manufacturable by players. It is unknown whether there will be a grace period in which the materials will still be purchasable during a grace period, but I'm betting not. The planets themselves are beautiful.

The neat part is that, unless you're in null-sec space, the the use of a planet is non-exclusive. Anybody can use any resource on a planet, though the more people using a given resource, the faster it will run out. Nor do you need to be on-site to manage your affairs. Once everything is set up, you can run things from afar, so long as you are logged into EVE. It's something to do while waiting at gate camps or traveling, so it enriches your general EVE experience rather than distracting you from it.

The exact materials that will be produceable are uncertain, though it seems likely that they will include the basic building block materials and the NPC goods used to fuel POS. Which is great for null-sec dwellers who would like to fuel their POS with materials produced on-site, or perhaps even build new stations with them. Another neat thing about this is that much of the planet-side processes are nearly passive income sources, meaning that you get richer without expending too much effort. Excellent.

Best of all, there is every indication that the way that planets will eventually be fought over will be via the upcoming Dust 514 first-person shooter, in the first interwoven MMO/FPS within a shared single world in video game history. The FPS won't be out for a while, yet, but Tyrannis will include the planet-side prize that the DUST marines fight over. I can't wait.

EVE Gate

Speaking of MMO history, the Tyrannis patch will include another first: the first integrated social network for their MMO that will allow you to manage EVE affairs from a web browser, at their office desks, in much the same way that many swivel-chair jockeys presently browse Facebook on the sly, when nobody is looking over their shoulder. I'm pretty damn sure this is a first for MMO history.

Included in EVE Gate will be:

• Checking on what skills you are training (though not, alas, changing skills).
  
• Any production or laboratory jobs that you have going on will be viewable, which is great for pilots with multiple accounts that
• don't want to log in just to see when their shuttles (or whatever) will be finished.
  
• The ability to check EVE mail.
  
• The ability to manage your friends and enemies.
  
• Access to a shared chat channel for your corporation.
  
• Access to a shared corporate calendar.

That last feature is probably the most important, because getting corporation members to all be on the same patch is like herding cats. All of them are important because they put the tools of the big corporations in the hands of the little guys. No longer do you need a huge corporation with absurd resources making custom-written applications to alert fellow corporation members to your fleet operation tonight. Nor do you need to rely on the perfidiousness of members checking for corporation mails. Trust me, this one is going to change the face of EVE.