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

Reuben Waters: I’ve got a question from Rubico: Is it possible that in the future, moon minerals will be seeded in wormhole space?

Arend Stührmann: That would depend to a great deal on the way that the moon minerals market for known space evolves in the next couple of months. We’ll be relying to a great degree on the advice of our economist before we make that decision, but it’s going to be looked at very seriously.

Ben De La Durantaye: Flaming Phoenix asks: do you get anything else from the wormholes, or just T3 stuff? And will there be faction spawns on the sleepers?

Arend Stührmann: Right now the sleepers spawns are already a lot more powerful than any faction spawn out there, with the possible exception of the one battle station. So they’ll probably be enough of a challenge on their own.

Other stuff you’ll find? Well, obviously there’s other players out there, so you could just blow them up and salvage their wrecks and their equipment. That strikes me as a very easy, or useful way to get spare ammunition, so there will be that out there. The sleepers will initially only drop the Tech 3 components, and some other loot that you can probably sell then, into the NPC factions in known space as well.

Reuben Waters: Are there any more details about environmental effects in wormhole space? Like anything specific that maybe hasn’t been talked about yet?

Arend Stührmann: The tactical environmental effects are… well, they’re kind of meant to be a surprise. So as you jump around wormhole space if you get the message that something is affecting you, start looking around you and start making some educated guesses. As you explore and gain experience you’ll start to figure a hint as to what could be affecting your ship at any given point in time. More than that, I’m not going to say, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

Ben De La Durantaye: What about the special effects? Is anything, any new effects being left out?

Arend Stührmann: We’ve completely revamped all the graphical effects for Apocrypha, so every weapon, every module that has a visible effect has a new graphical effect in there, from the NOS to the sensor booster, armor reps – everything will have a brand new effect, just like we’ve also finished renovating all the graphical content in EVE. So everything’s now going to have a new model, or a new effect attached to it.

And we’ve also completely revamped the sound. We’ve got a brand new sound engine, and it’s… for those people who’ve been flying without sound for far too long, now’s the time to turn your sound back on and crank up your speakers, because it actually sounds beautiful.

Reuben Waters: It looks like there’s a couple of people asking about the Jovians. They’re asking: will the Jovians factor into the new space at all?

Arend Stührmann: The Jovians have been around for a very, very long time and they know how to guard their privacy extremely well. I wouldn’t expect to run into any of them out there just yet.

Ben De La Durantaye: Metal’s asking about the new boxed version of EVE. It’s saying that players get a new Tech 3 ship – do you have any more info on that ship?

Arend Stührmann: It’s not actually a Tech 3 ship, it’s a special edition Interbus shuttle with a slightly larger cargo hold so you can move a little bit more cargo in it. And I believe it’s yellow! (laughter) And that’s pretty much all I can say about that right now! I know, everyone’s probably going, “Ooh, yellow!”

Jeff Woleslagle: As opposed to the Star Wars orange I guess. (laughter)