As anyone who follows EVE Online should know, Incursion, the 14th expansion to the game, will introduce new avatars. For many MMO players, the graphics-quality -- especially the quality of the player character -- is an enormous draw or repellent. CCP recognizes this, so it has offered something not many companies do. The developers would like former players to come back for five days to try out Incursion on the test server Singularity before the expansion is officially launched. Specifically, they would like you to try the character creator and the social media tools in EVE Gate.

This morning many former EVE players received an email asking them to come back. If you had an active account between March 13th, 2009 and November 3rd, 2010, you may want to check the inbox attached to your EVE account, as you probably have an invite in there. Unfortunately, active and expired trial accounts don't count, but Steam is offering a the full downloadable game plus a 30-day subscription.

To read more about the character creator, be sure to check out the developer blog, and while you're there, read up on EVE Gate and its mix of social media and gaming. With Incarna releasing next summer, Incursion is a the perfect opportunity to try out the precursor to walk-on stations -- today.