During our time at Fanfest, we sat down with CCP's Nathan Richardsson to talk about the present and future of EVE Online.

ZAM: Can you talk about these player run establishments a bit?

Richardsson: Everything’s going to be player run. A pretty standard example of a player run establishment is a bar that is operated by an actual individual. It plays into the economics of EVE along with everything else in the game world.

ZAM: Are stations going to be the only areas that players are going to be walking around in?

Richardsson: Not at all. There are going to be lots of places in the EVE universe where we’ll give you a chance to walk around, eventually.

ZAM: Is there a big focus with the whole Incarna/Walking in Stations experience to draw in new players?

Richardsson: Absolutely. As our fans saw, the quarters are supplementing and sometimes replacing some of that initial tutorial experience.

ZAM: It’s certainly a different idea. Instead of a docked ship being the first thing you see, it might be nice to see that character you just created.

Richardsson: And there are lots of other things that can come out of that environment. I would love to see people gambling their ships away.

ZAM: Poker for pink slips.

Richardsson: Exactly. Playing mini-games is one thing, but to suddenly have your battleship on the line is pretty intense.

ZAM: To me, it’s really interesting to think about the figureheads of major alliances coming together in-game using their avatars. Five warring factions coming together to have peace talks in the conference room is just phenomenal.

Richardsson: Or having a Titan as the meeting place for your alliance. You suddenly have an environment that becomes that much more engrossing. There are a lot of social game mechanics that we’re looking at there.

It’s been a big effort getting this platform into place, but we think it’s a vital part of progressing CCP as a company and pushing EVE to new levels.

ZAM: And once it’s done?

Richardsson: You’ll really see us… I don’t want to say roots, but you’ll really see us putting a lot of emphasis on improving the things that are already in the game because it has been a long time since some of these systems have been overhauled and they need it.

Hopefully we can make those systems bring more depth, variety, and impact to the game. Having 120+ people working on a game can lead to some great things being achieved.

ZAM: It certainly seems like the players want it. During the 0.0 space (the competitive PvP space territory region for non-EVEers) round table, there was a lot of discussion among the players about increasing the rewards for players taking the risk of going out into that space, especially in terms of the industrial side of things.

Richardsson: I think that’s probably true. We have large amounts of space that we want to make more meaningful by creating a more varied landscape over the EVE universe.

Planets have brought some of that to the game, since they provide us with another way to infuse the game with more variety. It’s really evolving those individual systems into something else entirely.

There’s also the low security space (mildly dangerous) that we want to revitalize as well. We want to make that a much larger part of the game, because right now it’s almost like a cliff where you’re in “safe” space and suddenly you jump into 0.0. There isn’t a lot of unique and meaningful gameplay in that specific area, so we want to bolster that.

ZAM: Any final thoughts on EVE?

Richardsson: We’ve been building and growing the universe for so long, that I think we’re really at a crossroads in that it’s time to make sure we do continue to act as the caretakers for this world. This next cycle will be all about getting more polish and quality in the game. We want to expand and improve on the systems that we have, and we may even remove some systems if that’s required to make the game even better. And then we could put something different in its place.

We have so much left to do, but I think people will be surprised at how much the face of EVE will continue to change for the better.

Cody "Micajah" Bye, Director of Content