Eve to get more spaceships, less Incarna

The focus of Eve Online has turned from avatars back to spaceships, re-focused developer CCP has told Eurogamer.

CEO Hilmar Pétursson said "the community has spoken loud and clear", and that developing an expansion experience like Apocrypha is now "very much what we're aiming for".

"We're releasing the racial variants of the Captain's Quarters this year and that's mainly because we had that work completed," Pétursson said. "It also includes some optimisations and other fixes.

"I think the community has spoken loud and clear that they want more classical Eve features to come out, and that's the priority for us.

"Incarna is there, and we might pick it up at some point later down the line, but the voice of the community is quite clear. People want more spaceships, and more flying in space features. That's very much what we are responding to.

Apocrypha, released March 2009, introduced Tech 3 ships, Tech 3 production, Wormholes, better exploration, epic mission arcs and more. Incarna is focused on bringing character-level gameplay via avatars to the Eve Online Universe.

"[Apocrypha] is very much what we're aiming for," said Pétursson, "a really focused, awesome expansion like that.

"But right now we're doing the winter expansion, along the lines of our focus on flying-in-space. It's very much my hope that we achieve a fantastic expansion like Apocrypha, which was a great example of what we as a company can achieve if we really focus on a singular mission like that."

Hilmar Pétursson spoke to Eurogamer last night following the revelation of a big shake-up at CCP. This will leave 20 per cent of the global CCP workforce without a job. The team making Vampire MMO World of Darkness will be hit hardest, as the game is put on the back burner and all attention turned on Eve Online and PS3 shooter counterpart Dust 514.

The full and candid Hilmar Pétursson interview has been published, and touches upon the problems Eve faced, his role in them, his thoughts of resignation and much more.