Eve Online: what's ahead (in the words of CCP Hammerhead)

I've organised the information from Strategy Informer LIVE's interview with Eve Online's Lead Game Designer, Noah "Hammerhead" Ward into a timeline.

Coming in Tyrannis

Planetary interaction.
-It is abstract, capsuleers will be going down and exploiting all of the planets. It's not currently about ruling over NPCs on planets.
- trial players will be able to manage planets.
- easy to get into with a lot of room to grow.
- lowest level command centre will be cheap.
- video tutorials will be on Youtube and there will be a crash course you can take.
- PI will be in all space including high sec and wormholes. Rewards will be much higher in 0.0.
- basically passive income, once it's set up you have the choice of only checking it once every 4 days to keep the income flowing. You can put more in to get more out, you can play at your own speed.
- possibly trade routes will develop with people harvesting in low sec and shipping it to builders in high sec.
- not intended to be a primary income but you will profit.

No lag fixes in the Tyrannis patch (they're coming in the summer).

Coming in the summer

- lag fixes (major improvements).

- another Strategy Informer LIVE live chat with Noah (hopefully).


Coming in the Winter content patch

- Incarna in its full form won't be ready by the Winter patch.
- They are working hard to release something of value that is Incarna related in that release.
- treaties is short listed. It's a way of giving veteran alliances the incentive to invite noobs into their space and create a win-win situation for both.
- PI will be tweaked.
- EVE gate will be improved.
- new and better effects.
- NPC and mission improvements. More badass boss NPCs.
- lots of small balance fixes.
- T3 frigates.

Coming as soon as possible

PI stuff
- corp and alliance owned colonies.
- linking your colony to others (equal top priority).
- planetary trade mechanism (equal top priority).
- upgradeable planets tied to the Dominion sov infrastructure system.
- orbital bombardment will very likely be in at some point. "Seeing those little nukes on the planets is just too cool not to do".

- Incarna. Incarna is a social experience with more intrigue and political machinations that DUST. It will feature a new character creation system. Possibly with "really nice ass" on female characters. Existing characters won't auto-transform - players will have to create their look by hand.

- DUST 514 sounds moderately well developed although Hammerhead couldn't be drawn on a release date. They aim to create a world class console FPS/RTS/MMO hybrid.  It's a run and gun shooter. It will be console only for the immediate future. A PC version is not ruled out but certainly won't be coming soon.

- small pvp gang improvements.



Coming at some point in the future

- terraforming planets (it's a pipe dream).

- links between PI and DUST514.

- CCP want to create the ultimate sci fi simulator where you can experience every sci fi dream you've ever had. Every movie, book, tv show whatever... we want you to be able to immerse yourself in our world and experience these things first hand.