[2022] EVE Evolved

Glorious Capsuleers,

Today EVE Online takes another step towards EVE Forever with EVE Evolved. EVE Evolved is CCP Games’ commitment to keep EVE Online at the forefront of visceral supremacy with features designed to enhance the sensory experience of New Eden like never before. Today, you can expect breathtaking visuals in every system with remastered nebulas and an incredible overhaul of dozens of career agent sites.

The updates you’ll experience in this release are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the foundational updates that are always taking place. EVE Evolved commits to an investment in EVE’s underlying tech to ensure New Eden stays at the cutting edge of technology while also continually improving performance. Just one example of this commitment is last year's launch of Quasar. These foundational upgrades to EVE's tech pave the way for a more beautiful, efficient EVE.

You can expect more to come with continual investment into the foundational tech, the graphical fidelity, and the gameplay of EVE.

DirectX 12 and Photon UI – Continuous Foundational Improvements

DirectX 12 will bring a slew of improvements in stability and performance to all citizens of New Eden. Helping modernize the game engine for the third decade, it shortens the opportunity gap for implementing the new level of visual fidelity and allows the building of an exciting narrative for players.

DirectX 12 also opens the door to even more graphical upgrades in the future such as DirectX Raytracing while no longer being hindered by DirectX 9!

Speaking of graphical upgrades, Photon UI continues to see iteration and improvement. Compact mode comes today as a direct result of player feedback. You can enable this with the “More” button adjacent to “Close” in the upper right-hand corner of the active window. From here, select the Compact Mode option from the drop-down menu that appears.

Currently, compact mode is available for windows where information density is important, such as the overview, D-Scan, Chat and Fleet windows, People & Places. Keep an eye on EVE news for details on the continued evolution of this fantastic user interface.

Texture and Sound Updates – The Ultimate Sensory Experience

Building a sensory experience that you can get lost in needs more than just graphical improvement. EVE Evolved represents a threefold strategy to improve and upgrade the EVE Online experience.

Massive strides have been made in texture compression, meaning that the textures you now see in-game will be of higher quality than ever before. This also applies to new high-definition nebulas across New Eden. Additionally, packed textures were removed resulting in fewer graphical artefacts and cleaner visuals for every asset in EVE with minimal impact on client performance.

EVE’s audio experience is also seeing updates with EVE Evolved and it’s better than ever. Engine sounds are now handled better, particularly with the mixing of other ships in each scene. Take a listen the next time you take a warp with your fleet!

Finally, the career agents have had their mission sites completely overhauled with new cloud effects, new asteroid designs, and updates to mission assets and structures. Sound effects have been improved here, too, with features such as bringing back cloud cover in sites and hanging the way that they sound.

All of this comes following the recent massive update to real-time reflections in EVE and last year’s Bring Out EVE’s Colors update. It also allows the team to look forwards to remastering and redesigning older content such as EVE’s Highsec missions.

Setting Players on the Path to Glory

While EVE marches on its own journey, so too does every new Capsuleer entering New Eden. Many of those fresh Capsuleers begin their EVE life with career agents as a first step to finding their place in the universe. With this new update, that journey has evolved with a plethora of improvements to the career agent experience and the brand-new AIR Career Program.

New players getting their teeth into career agents now will be in for a treat. Career agent missions feature remastered environments designed to entice and to create an immersive experience like no other. The Enforcer career agent is seeing further improvements that shape what is to come: a modernized conversation window (when using Photon UI) and highlights to help guide new players.

The AIR Career Program (ACP) works with and follows on from each career agent, taking players down four career paths of recommended EVE content. Players are rewarded handsomely as they complete goals with support from recommended Skill Plans. The ACP culminates in a graduation moment, sending players out as capable Capsuleers ready to tackle the challenges of New Eden!

This Path to Glory aims to improve the experience and retention of new players by giving them a guiding hand that helps them find their role in this incredible sandbox.

ACCELERATE YOUR CAREER WITH REVAMPED PACKS

To help accelerate your career further in New Eden, revamped career packs are coming back to the EVE Store. Whether you’re on a path to being a tough Soldier of Fortune or a budding Enforcer or an Explorer, you can expect great value and expertise to support your journey.

Starting today you can snag the Enforcer Career Pack, Soldier Career Pack, and Explorer Career Pack which contain Omega, PLEX, Skill Points, Boosters, Expert systems, unique attire and several unique ship skins in each- all geared towards your unique career path.

The Industrial Career Pack will also be available in the future to super charge Industry focused capsuleers.

Further Updates – Just on the Horizon

Following the discussions and presentations at Fanfest, a ton of thrilling updates are on the horizon. Veterans and new players alike have a lot to look forward to!

Big updates to Factional Warfare are in the works with the new Frontlines system currently being designed. Interbus Credits are on the way, soon to offer the awesome perks of Heraldry including Alliance logos on ships!

The first narrative arc has already begun so keep your eyes peeled for clues as they appear across New Eden and see if you can piece together what the future holds.

The team looks forward to discussing more throughout the summer in a series of streams and blogs so stay tuned.

You can also look forward to an exciting expansion with these planned updates and more coming later this year with more details this September.

EVE Evolved: Always Iterating – Always Improving

By now it should be clear that CCP is invested in the future of EVE Online. The goal is and will always be EVE Forever. The foundational improvements of the past few years and those arriving today form part of an ongoing story. One that you are a part of as a player of EVE Online.

The future of EVE is bright so look ahead and get ready for so much more later this year with heraldry and EVE’s first arc!

Tenacious Capsuleers,

As EVE edges ever closer to the Uprising expansion’s full release, various teams around CCP are working on continual investment into the underlying tech of New Eden. This commitment, known as EVE Evolved, ensures that EVE Online remains at the forefront of visual and sensory fidelity for now and into the future.

Furthering that story, another EVE Evolved release is now available on the Singularity test server. This time, there is a focus on audio and tech improvements, alongside even more upgrades to Photon UI.

Hearing is Believing

The headline feature in this EVE Evolved release are the improvements to sound prioritization on grid in EVE, marking the beginning of several coming audio updates. This means that sounds happening closer to you will be given priority over distant sounds.

This sound priority system will improve your gameplay twofold. For one, you can expect a more immersive, convincing soundscape as the thud of weapon fire pounds your enemies’ hull (or perhaps even your own!). This system will also serve to reduce CPU usage by about 75% during busy scenes, such as large battles, helping improve your overall performance during fights. That means it's time to turn the sound on, turn the volume up, and enjoy battles that are more immersive and dramatic, without sacrificing performance.

On the subject of performance increases, this EVE Evolved release will also introduce controller refactoring; a behind the scenes adjustment that significantly reduces memory usage for heavy, busy scenes, while providing improved load/unload times.

There is a mass test scheduled on Singularity on 27 September, so be sure to attend if you want to experience the magic for yourself! Until then, have a read of the latest dev blog that talks in a little more detail about how this all works.

Next-Gen Visual Performance

On the visual side of the upgraded sensory experience, AMD FreesyncTM is coming to EVE for those with a monitor, supported configurations and GPU that supports the technology. You can expect this to bring an end to screen tearing while delivering buttery smooth gameplay. Look out for a dev blog coming soon with the juicy details on just how this helps you!

UI Improvements Powered by You

The evolution of EVE’s user interface will also continue with the next EVE Evolved release. This iteration of Photon UI will upgrade the Neocom to the Photon style, while introducing a number of improvements, such as an enhanced compact window which gives you more control over how you see your inventories. Each of these UI elements will become much more readable, following the drone window updates that debuted earlier this month that already saw adjustments to controls and prior visibility issues. Everything underway with the Photon UI has been carefully planned to help modernize the EVE Online experience, guided by you.

Additionally, in October this version of Photon UI will become opt-out for the first time. This will ensure that players of a wide variety of playstyles, areas, and experiences are exposed to the UI. We will also be closely monitoring how you use Photon UI, capturing data that lets us understand and refine how the system works for you and your fellow players. But we need more than data alone. The more players that can give feedback, the better for the entire EVE community, so be sure to have your say on the EVE forums. Previously around 13% of pilots have opted into Photon UI. With the move to opt-out, we ‘re excited to get even more feedback as this new feature evolves with your input. And you can still opt-out of using Photon for the meantime, but please share detailed feedback on your reasoning. It will all help make sure Photon UI is the best it can be.

EVE Evolved – Forever Evolving

That’s not all for EVE Evolved this year. Later, with the Uprising expansion, you’ll be seeing a plethora of updates that help immerse you in the ultimate space sandbox MMO that is EVE Online:

• Turret audio updates – experience an incredibly immersive soundscape!
• New dungeon music – new backing tracks for your space badassery.
• AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution – further boost your framerate in EVE while improving performance.
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion – improves the appearance of hangars.
• And more....

So, there’s a lot to look forward to in a short space of time! The future of EVE is a bright one and with the EVE Evolved you can be sure that EVE Forever becomes reality.

Once you’ve had a go with these features, be sure to give your feedback on the EVE forums to help direct efforts to where you, the players, want to see improvements.

Upstanding capsuleers,

The sweeping changes detailed previously in EVE Evolved – Performance is Primary are now live on Tranquility! We announced some of these features during this year's Fanfest, and are excited for you to get your hands on them in this update.

This all comes as part of our EVE Evolved initiative where we strive to bring cutting-edge visual and technical capabilities to New Eden. Log into EVE today to experience smoother performance both for your eyes and your ears, supported by the clean and modern Photon UI!

A NEW ERA FOR SOUND

With immediate effect, the new sound prioritization system has been enabled in EVE, bringing the soundscape of New Eden’s battles to life with new levels of detail and clarity. The client will no longer try to play all sounds at once; instead, only the most important or relevant sound effects will grace your ears. While it might seem like a minor change, everyone should experience significant CPU usage improvement in busy scenes better showcasing EVE’s beautiful sounds of destruction.

Beyond the performance lift, the sound prioritization system doesn’t just take immersion to new levels; you’ll also be able to hear and understand the battlefield soundscape more clearly, giving you a better sense of the conflict evolving around you. Read all about it in the recent Sound Prioritization Dev Blog!

SUPREME SMOOTHNESS WITHOUT SACRIFICE

Those of you with AMD FreeSync™ or NVIDIA® G-SYNC® monitors and GPUs are in for a treat, too, as the technology has now been enabled in EVE Online. By leveraging a Variable Refresh Rate, EVE will now be able to offer supreme smoothness at a level previously not possible when vertical synchronisation alone was enabled. Best of all, this comes without any performance impact at all. If you’re interested in the tech then check out the AMD FreeSync™ Dev Blog.

A UI EVOLUTION

To complete this beautiful trifecta of improvements, Photon UI has been further modernized, now introduced as an opt-out Beta! The Neocom has now undergone a makeover, matching the modernity of Photon and improving legibility overall. This comes alongside an update to the notifications, replacing red dots with a more subtle highlight, and an enhanced compact mode giving you more control over how you view your inventory.

Photon UI is now an opt-out feature for all users, meaning that it will be exposed to more players than ever before. This vital step will help us collect data on what works and what doesn’t even faster, meaning that Photon UI can be further improved. You can still opt out for now, but please do share your reasoning for doing so on the EVE forums to help everyone!

COMING SOON TO A SOLAR SYSTEM NEAR YOU!

In our Uprising expansion this November, we’ll be delivering more EVE Evolved features which will allow you to experience new heights of audio and visual fidelity, along with improved performance.

• Better Turret Audio

  • Experience battlefield clarity with refined audio and less sonic pollution

• New Faction Warfare Music

  • Lose yourself to the new soundtracks as you go deeper into the FW sites

• AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 1.0

  • This upscaling technology helps boost your framerate in EVE by balancing image quality and render speed for a smoother experience

• Ambient Occlusion

  • Improved shading and rendering techniques will power visual upgrades to all Upwell Hangars

• Object Instancing

  • This technology empowers our artists to incorporate more detail in a scene than ever before with minimal impact on performance. It will first become available with Upwell Hangars in the Uprising expansion!

And that’s not all for EVE Evolved! We’ll have more to share in the months to come, such as:

• Doppler Shift

  • The Doppler effect enhances the audible sense of movement between objects, giving you a more immersive space flight

• Multithreaded Rendering

  • Increased performance by allocating the rendering workload across multiple CPU cores

• Improved Shadows

  • Adding realism and beauty, improved shadows will increase the visceral experience of your New Eden journey

LEAD UP TO UPRISING

In the weeks to come, you can also expect to see additional quality of life improvements making their way to New Eden including a series of updates live today that will help you move your forces across space much easier and more smoothly than before!

The significant Ship Maintenance Array Update eases restrictions on what items can be added to your Capital Ship Maintenance Bay, allowing you to move ships with refits without restriction.

There is also a reduction in volume of all Battleships bringing high volume ships down to 470,000 m3 allowing better space management for capitals. The Uprising expansion is just around the corner and we can’t wait to see what you’ll get up to following this exciting narrative driven expansion!

Every one of these improvements – and EVE Evolved more broadly – are part of ‘EVE Forever’; a mantra and mindset that guides the journey to continually push and evolve EVE far into the future.