This evening marked the kick off of CCP Games’ bi-annual official fan gathering in Las Vegas Nevada. At EVE VEGAS 2017 CCP announced a number of new changes coming to EVE Online with the release of the Lifeblood Expansion in two weeks, as well as some teases in regards to content coming further down the line.  

Changes to existing Upwell Structures, the addition of 15 million Skill Points to Alpha Clones (free to play players), new Player Vs, Environment shipyards and “resource wars” are just a couple of the highlights. If you don’t have the time to watch the nearly 3-hour archived stream from earlier today – here is everything announced during the Eve VEGAS 2017 Keynote:  

EVE VEGAS 2017 Charity Initiatives:

• CCP Partners with Able Gamers to raise funds for the victims affected by last Sunday’s attack. 
• Tickets to this year’s EVE Vegas sold out before last year’s event even ended. 
• Folks from Saudi Arabia, Spain, Singapore, Australia and Europe made their way to VEGAS. 
• EVE VEGAS exclusive Incursis, Thorax and Megathron. 
• Blade Runner 2049 Charity Screening 
• Stream Charity Shirts Available 
• Two Charity Raffles @ EVE Vegas Event: 

• • Blue: Every skin available except alliance tourney.
    • One of every piece of apparel in New Eden 
    • 15 Years of Omega Time – 90,000 PLEX
• Red: Fan Fest Experience 2018 
  • Return Flight 
  • Hotel 
  • VIP Studio Tour 
  • All Access Pass 

Fan Fest Goes On The Road 

• 2019 will have several Fan Fest events around the world instead of one big one in Iceland: 
• West Coast NA – EVE VEGAS 
• Smaller Eve Fan Fest in Iceland 
• East Coast NA Event TBA 
• Eve Down Under  
• Fan Fest Tickets 2018 Available Now 

Resource Wars 

• Empire mining sites hidden from view have been discovered by the pirates. 
• Short session co-op PVE gameplay. 
• Multiple Players Roles / Strategies

High-Security Sites 

• As Capsuleers we aren’t sure what the Blood Raiders are up too but they will be placing Foreword Operating Bases in High Sec with the release of Lifeblood. 
• Guerista’s Pirates are also setting up Sotiyo Class structures in High Sec as well. 

Alpha Cone Adjustments 

• The promise of Free Eve brought new players to the game. Concurrent player counts spiked at launch and new players are trying the game at higher rates. 
• CCP wants the free experience to be valuable enough and deep enough that there is no requirement to subscribe to be rewarding. 
• Want returning players to come back as alphas and feel powerful and useful to corporations. 
• More skills coming for Alpha Clones. In December a significant amount of Skills will be added. 
  • Tech II – Small and Medium Weapons 
  • Can now fly Battlecruisers  
  • Can now fly Battleships 
  • All Faction Ships Allowed Now (no longer locked in) 
  • 20 million total skill points available to Alphas.
  • Characters in Alpha stop training at 5 Million. Any skills trained in the Alpha set after 5 million are available if subscribed and used regardless of account state. 

Moon Mining & Mining Changes 

• Moon go is the needed resource for Tech 2 ships and modules. 
• Carve the moon, pull the chunk with a tractor beam and then destroy it to create a new asteroid field. 
• Each moon has one beacon and only one Refinery can be placed at a beacon. 
• The extraction process can take anywhere from 1 to 8 weeks. Corporation has exact control over how this happens. 
• High-grade ore can be found in Moon Ore – double the yield of regular ore but their spawn are random. 
• A ledger containing everyone who mined from the explosion and only available to the owners of the refinery. 
• Every character has their own mining ledger. 
• Reactions now have a similar interface to other industrial processes. 

Future of Upwell Structures 

• Updates that will occur after Lifeblood Expansion  – Upwell Structures 2.0 in 2018. 
• The biggest reworking of Upwell Structures to those structures already deployed early next year. 
• Four major pillars:  
  • Active / Inactive state – Active when only when at least module is online. Inactive has no armor reinforcement cycle.  
  • Complete rework of the existing “reinforcement system”. CCP has to balance Attackers Vs. Defenders. Shield vulnerability is 24/7, 2 days later is the next fight chosen by the defender. The final fight will be on both a date and time chosen by the defender. 
  • Combat Overhaul: Adding burst projectors to Upwell Structures –Void bomb is being removed from structures. 
  • Moon Mining in Wormholes and High-sec. 
• CCP wants player feedback on how they can continue to enhance existing structures.