The Battle for Caldari Prime is the next step for EVE Online and DUST 514 integration

CCP is no stranger to massive and often chaotic live events. To keep with tradition and finally illustrate just how DUST 514 console players and EVE Online pilots will interconnect, CCP will host a live event this Friday afternoon (UTC) called the Battle for Caldari Prime.

Sound cryptic? We agree! So we joined a roundtable with CCP Senior Producer Arnar Hrafn Gylfason to get the skinny on just how explosive this event will be for the greater EVE Online universe.

It turns out that something big is happening, and it will hopefully demonstrate just what an impact DUST 514 will make on the IP. We imagine a lot of explosions and plenty of drama, so read on for a little of both.

Fans of the two games know that CCP is already been running the Uprising story, a lore-friendly way for DUST 514 mercs to be written into EVE Online. During DUST's beta, that storyline has consisted primarily of small, self-contained events that highlight the crossover mechanics. So far, thousands of DUST 514 players have participated alongside hundreds of EVE Online players. Now, CCP says, it's time to broaden the reach of the program beyond those core players and allow more casual players to experience the systems through events like the one coming on Friday.

The devs hope the Battle for Caldari Prime will lead to players actually helping to write the lore of the game, even though it's possible that things will not go quite as CCP plans. This is EVE we're talking about here. What does a developer do when 10,000 players show up in the hopes of destroying the event outright? The studio aims to simply earmark the timeline of the event and adjust accordingly. This creates a lot of freedom for players who want to actually shape the lore (and a lot of work for the folks at CCP who must keep up).

So what can you expect at the live event on Friday?

"It will be a significant event where the best mercs finally erupt as a force that can actually sway empires and help turn the tide of battle as they take over an entire planet."

The Battle for Caldari Prime will be a significant event during which the best mercs finally erupt as a force that can actually sway empires and help turn the tide of battle as they take over an entire planet. Meanwhile, EVE Online players will try to maintain control outside of that planet's atmosphere. CCP aims to engender gameplay that offers the chance to fire one bullet in one game and find its target the other. How this event goes down will actually have a major impact on EVE Online history not only in collective player lore but as part of the official EVE Online lore. If all goes as planned, Gylfason told me, the event will serve as the perfection demonstration of the games' interconnectivity in a more impressive way than mere dev blogs and patch notes. Expect the whole shebang to be less about individual player mechanics and more about introducing players to a new, larger universe on multiple fronts, including joined chat channels and economies.

Going forward, CCP hopes to ensure that such events are as synchronized as possible so that players can actually feel the impact of events in real time. CCP will also be livestreaming this Friday's event, complete with camera ships and commentators to explain the systems for those who are not familiar with either game (and for those of us who are simply too wimpy to duel with possible lag).

While CCP is taking precautions to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible, the studio is still warning everyone that it will be a very large event, large enough that pilots will want to show up to claim the bragging rights of having been there!