The following interview was conducted by SovereignRPG with CCP Rax and CCP Alpha about the upcoming mobile version of EVE Online known as EVE Echoes. It took place prior to news that the Echoes release date has been set for mid-August and that Omega clones will have different tiers. Echoes is currently under development by CCP and a Chinese company known as NetEase. Since the open beta in December, news on its development has been sparse due to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that has not stopped the anticipation to see EVE available on a new medium and in a new universe.
Q: Do we have a number of pre-registrations since the end of beta?
A: We aren’t ready to share total numbers just yet, but pre-registrations continue to pour in and we estimate it will be well over one million users.
Q: Do we have any idea what the peak online player count was or average daily logins for the beta?
A: We cannot share peak online player count and daily logins. Sorry about that.
Q: I believe one thing that will truly set Echoes apart from the crowd is to take a leaf out of EVE Online’s book with regards to in-game events. Will we have events like Tournaments and Dev events to look forward too in the future?
A: Yes, we have already started planning some future events and we are happy to take suggestions from our community. If there are specific events that you would like to see in EVE Echoes please feel free to share these ideas with us through our official Discord channel.
Q: In the last Q&A we had a question about no high sec PvP. This seems to be highly exploitable. With players being able to flee to high sec and be completely safe, do we have any countermeasures in mind? War Decs as an example?
A: At the current stage of the game, we want to make high sec a completely safe training ground for new players. There are a lot of new players that have no experience playing EVE Online or EVE Echoes and we want them to have a chance to experience the game without the risk of being attacked as soon as they undock.
The resources in HighSec space aren’t as lucrative as those found in low or null sec, so they won’t fulfill the needs of experienced players. This fact along with other features will encourage players to venture further out into less secure systems to experience encounters with other players.
We have heard player concerns about being able to jump back and forth between high sec and lower security systems and are looking into how they could be addressed. We encourage our players to share suggestions and feedback on this topic as well.
Q: With regards to Alpha and Omega subs, will Omega be obtainable in-game with ISK?
A: Yes, we are following EVE Online’s free-to-play model where Alpha state clones will be able to buy PLEX with ISK earned in-game to upgrade their accounts to Omega state.
Q: If so will NetEase and CCP seed PLEX in-game to help set the same value so it doesn’t over-inflate and make it harder to access by the mid-range and average players?
A: There is currently no such plan, seeding PLEX in-game is like manufacturing gold for the bank. It’s a risky intervention for the economy. With that being said, we are mindful that there needs to be a PLEX sink as well so there isn’t too much inflation.
Q: I’m sure you won’t be able to answer this one, but it’s worth a shot. Will the monthly sub for Omega be less or equal to that of Eve Online?
A: To be determined. We are still working on market research to find the best solution.
Q: The fleet sizes in Echoes were set to 10. Will these be expanded, especially considering the number of players that have signed up for pre-registry?
A: We are considering a joint fleet with more players in a group. The purpose of the small fleet is to increase communication in large fleet battles to make it more challenging for large fleets.
Q: Will there be any mechanic to minimize structure spam, such as requiring resources to be maintained, for example? For instance, EVE Online has fuel. But adding other resources for upkeep would be a good deterrent to structure spam.
A: We will have fuel to run some structure modules. Structures are pretty expensive, and the anchor points for structures like outposts and stations will be limited.
Q: Will there be ships introduced to Echoes in the future that will not be in EVE Online? Echoes exclusives?
A: As you might have seen by now there is some very interesting news around the corner that might shed more light on this.
Q: What are CCP’s thoughts on multi-boxing emulators in EVE Echoes? I did this during the beta. In EVE Online if you only have Alpha accounts you can only log in one at a time or if you have one Omega and four Alpha accounts you can still only log in the Omega. Would this be possible for Echoes?
A: We prefer that players experience the game through mobile devices which would mean they would struggle to multi-box. It is however hard to prevent players from playing through emulators altogether and we won’t be offering any technical support for them.
Q: In your opinion will the mobile platform be able to handle the complexities of a game like EVE Echoes on the low end? Or will Echoes require more modern phones to function properly?
A: Our game actually requires your phone have both good network and CPU, but it doesn’t mean low-end phones are excluded. We are actively optimizing the game to make it easier to access.
Q: Do you have any information on whether we can customize our avatars? Or the ability to upload our own avatars?
A: Due to the limited developing time, we put customizable characters as an extremely low priority, and we will adjust this priority based on feedback. If our players feel strongly about having customizable characters, we encourage them to get in touch and let us know.
Q: On the Trello it mentions “Personal Fortizars;” there has been some speculation that this will be some kind of Personal Station like a player town in Black Desert Mobile and many other games. Can you comment on this?
A: It’s an unofficial name for a Capsuleer Outposts which would be player owned, not by a corporation.
Q: We know how it worked in EVE Online during launch with regards to null sec and it being colonized. How will this work in EVE Echoes? We have been told that ITCs will be player built. Will there still be NPC space in Nullsec? NPC stations?
A: We will have similar mechanics as EVE Online to enable players to capture systems through their corporations and build their own space cities. In addition, we will also provide a war mechanic so that you can fight against other groups. We will still have NPC space and stations in null sec to allow players to find shelter.
Q: There are a lot of people curious about if there will be an Echoes version of the CSM? I think this would be an absolute must in order to make sure dev and player get both of their voices heard.
A: For the time being we are gathering all the feedback we can through our community, mostly on Discord. Creating a separate CSM is being evaluated but probably wouldn’t happen until after Global Release. We intend to gradually increase our efforts in communicating with our community over time and creating some sort of player elected council is a very viable idea down the line.
