EVE fanfest pushed back due to work on Incarna

The EVE Online fanfest is the biggest annual gathering for EVE players from around the world. Each year EVE fans pour into Iceland and take over the seaside town of Reykjavik, home of the game's developers CCP Games. In addition to enjoying the usual Reykjavik night life, attendees can watch a whole host of events and talks from CCP's development teams and notable players. The fanfest often gives players a sneak peak at what's to come in EVE, with expansion announcements and trailers often screened for the first time. For many players, it's also a chance to meet the members of their corporation or alliance in a neutral setting and make new friends that play EVE. CCP have even organised bands, orchestras and other entertainment in previous years. If there's one thing the developers over at CCP know how to do, it's throw a party.

The fanfest normally occurs late in the year, around September. This has presented CCP with problems in the past and limits the number of players that can spare the time to attend. Last Thursday, CCP announced that this year's fanfest is to be pushed back to March 2011, which seems set to become the new month for the annual event. In addition to being easier on CCP, the cost of flights and hotels should be lower around this time. CCP will also have more information on what they're currently working on to share and more sneak peaks at future expansions to release. Most importantly, pushing the fanfest back this year gives them some added time to work on Incarna, the absolutely goliath expansion that will introduce full body avatars and in-station environments. This hints that Incarna could be slated for a Summer 2011 release.

Reader Comments (14)

"This hints that Incarna could be slated for a Summer 2011 release."

If it were down for a Summer 2011 release, then pushing the Fanfest back to March 2011 would have absolutely no benefit as it would still be before Incarna.

What it does hint is that Incarna is slated to be out by March 2011 at the absolute latest,.

If it were released in March 2011, that would be the summer expansion slot. CCP only releases two expansions per year, one vaguely in the summer and the other vaguely in the winter. At this point, I think Incarna can really only fall into the winter 2010, summer 2011 or winter 2011 slot. Since they've said they're pushing the fanfest back to March to get more work done on Incarna, that means they've identified a need to work harder on Incarna during the normal September fanfest slot.

That hints that they could be aiming for a winter 2010 release and there were hints at the last fanfest that this was the plan. However, at GDC2010, Oveur and Torfi didn't nail Incarna down to Winter 2010. Torfi also said that EVE expansions alternate between introducing new gameplay and revamping existing gameplay. This hints that CCP aren't planning to release two expansions with new gameplay in a row and since Tyrannis is new gameplay, I think winter 2010 is unlikely to be Incarna.

What I think they're hinting at with this announcement is that they want to push the fanfest back to March because at that point they'll have more to show people of Incarna. Since march is the start of their usual summer expansion slot (Apocrypha came in March but it was noted that it was an early expansion) which ends in July, I think they're aiming for a Summer 2011 release some time after the fanfest. The fanfest is likely to contain a lot of Incarna-related material as a build-up to release.

But we'll see what happens, I could be wrong. I'm just very much looking forward to Incarna!

Well if I ever go there again it means I will not have to compete with anybody at work for the vacation slot.

Wonder if the volcanic ash will have cleared by then?

When Incarna hits I will finally give EVE a serious attempt.

lol, Incarna is CCP Vaporware(tm) at its best. (Though Planetary Flight is even better)

So who cares to guess what the 2010 Winter expansion will be?
...
...
Gallente sallad tossing?

My view is if the next expansion isn't Incarna, it will consist of comet mining, t3 frigates, release of D514 and a revamp to something, maybe exploration sites and all the stuff in apocrypha in order to add the t3 frigates. There could be a lot more content than that planned but that's my view.

I am ok with having to wait for Incarna if it means a better Eve experience for all of us.

Hmm... If Incarna were Summer 2011, I do wonder what the Winter 2010 expansion will be...

"Need for Speed, The Expansion" perhaps? I heard Dominion caused a lot of lag in fleet battles...

Hey Brendan,

Can you tell us why you believe this indicates a Summer 2011 release for Incarna?

Personally, I think it indicates a winter 2010 release. Anyone who has watched previous Fanfests on YouTube can tell that the preparations for the event require the attention and input from all levels of CCP staff (including the people working on expansions). With Incarna being the biggest EVE expansion ever, it makes sense that you want to have all of CCP focused on it. If Fanfest was held at the usual time, the planning and execution of it would disrupt the development of the winter 2010 expansion. Similarly, holding Fanfest in March will take some of CCP’s focus away from the summer 2011 expansion. Thus, if Incarna is the summer 2011 expansion, why reschedule Fanfest to Incarna’s development crunch time and then state ”Above all, this will let us focus on Incarna - EVE's largest expansion project to date.” ?

I've covered the majority of my reasoning in reply to the first comment there. You may be right that they're making a final push on Incarna for Winter 2010 but I can't see them passing up the opportunity to dazzle fanfest attendees with Incarna material.

Sorry Brendan, I didn't realize that was your post.

You do make some good points. Since the Summer 2010 expansion hits a bit early (mid May) that gives CCP time to do another early release for the Winter 2010 "revamp" expansion (probably in the fall). Then they can work on Incarna, wow everyone at Fanfest in March, and then release it in June or July.

Or- Incarna comes out this winter and the release of Dust 514 is announced at Fanfest. I don't want to side track the topic but I still think CCP should release Dust 514 on the PC market before the console market.

... What? They told me at GDC it was because the Spring was just a much nicer time of year in Iceland. :-P

Which sounded reasonable to me!

EVE fanfest pushed back due to work on Incarna

Reader Comments (14)

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 11:28AM Rodj Blake said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 11:54AM Brendan Drain said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 11:44AM Psychotic Storm said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 12:03PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 12:10PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 12:51PM SgtBaker said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 4:30PM Dirame said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 2:47PM Lateris said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 3:29PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 3:33PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 3:36PM Brendan Drain said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 4:26PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 20th 2010 6:07PM Lateris said

Posted: Apr 21st 2010 2:18PM Arrakiv said

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