Space Exploration is top of the agenda, with EVE Online's 19th expansion due to arrive on June 4th.

To some, space is an unforgiving void full of danger. But to intrepid explorers, it’s a source of unlimited mystery and wonder. With Odyssey, EVE Online’s 19th expansion, due to land on June 4th, CCP is aiming to satisfy that desire to venture into the unknown.

With the spacefaring MMO heading into its second decade of operation, it’s fair to say that EVE is riding the crest of a wave of success. The previous expansion, Retribution, was met with thunderous applause at EVE FanFest back in April, earning executive producer Jon Lander a standing ovation from fans and becoming the most successful expansion to date.

As Lander heads on to focus on CCP’s mobile efforts, the baton has been handed to lead game designer Kristoffer Touborg and senior producer Andie Nordgren. But there’s no sign of a change in direction – the focus remains on building out the sandbox in a way that provides new features while encouraging the style of gameplay that EVE Online has become famous for.

Managing a universe of some 7900 solar systems is a challenging task, particularly when you’re looking for new ways to encourage players to undock and head out into space. I was fortunate enough to get some time with Nordgren during EVE FanFest last month, and she explained why exploration – a PvE focused activity – provides wider benefits.

“When you’re undocked and flying about with some purpose of your own, you’re bound to run into somebody else out there with a purpose of their own. And even if you’re in high-sec and they can’t blow you up, you’ll meet people. Maybe they‘re after the same resources that you are, or maybe you just end up talking to each other. But this is where I think all of the EVE stories begin. The stuff that we put out there should be fun and engaging to do, but its job is not so much to give you fun experience with our computer systems, it’s to put you out there.”

Part of that focus on exploration is based on player feedback - according to Touborg, newcomers would join EVE Online to explore the universe of New Eden, then leave disappointed. With Odyssey, players will have new anomalies to discover and examine. An exploration site could be a derelict old colony ship, with a hacking mini-game added to unlock the hull. Once breached, the loot is sucked into space ready for harvesting.

In order to find these sites and other anomalies, the whole sensor overlay and probe system needed to be overhauled. Alongside a graphical revamp, the system now makes it much easier to discover information that might encourage a closer look, as Nordgren explains.

“How would you know about signatures and anomalies, how would you know about these things if you didn’t know you were supposed to try all the buttons on your ship UI, and then get some scan window with some lists and stuff. How are you supposed to know? And that’s a super basic discovery and information problem that we’re trying to solve where, if you haven’t read all of our dev blogs over the last five years, we just don’t tell you anywhere, and it’s a bit silly really [laughs].”

Living dangerously also becomes more rewarding in Odyssey, with ores and minerals being rebalanced across the universe. The more common ores in Empire space are becoming less valuable, while the rarer ones in player-controlled areas are likely to be much more highly sought after. Ice belts are also being pushed out to anomalies, and can be mined to exhaustion. Touborg mentioned that he has a plan for Ice to become the “oil of EVE”, but added that he’s not reached that point yet.

In terms of turning those resources into ships, space station balance has also been changed. The safest stations in High Security will now be worse than those in Nullsec, rewarding the corporations that sink vast amounts of ISK into upgrading their facilities. Player-owned starbases can now have personal storage in them, separate from what might be shared with a group or corporation.

Several ships are getting a new look in Odyssey, with the capital ships and Amarr Apocalypse redone with new visuals. Jumpgates and station hangers also have new animations as part of Tuoborg’s “war on loading bars”, declaring that these “don’t belong in a game in 2013”. With the new Jumpgate animation receiving whoops and cheers from the audience back at EVE FanFest, it’s a move that players definitely appreciate.

Ship balancing is also still high on the agenda, with the aim of shaking up combat with every single expansion. 4 new Navy battlecruisers have been added, while about 40 existing ships have been tweaked in order to keep the game fresh. When I asked Nordgren if CCP will always spend development time iterating on old implementations, she strongly agreed.

“A number of these efforts, like rebalancing ships and modules and just looking at the health of the game, and then also anything that just blocks you from having a decent experience. And I’ve also called out these roles that people take on, of enablers and instigators, that engage with systems not a lot of people use. The stuff that they do in those systems, like corporation management and so on, makes everything turn for so many other people, and I think that’s a huge area of the game where we have a lot to do, and by calling it out we now have a way to focus on it.”

Beyond Odyssey, the future of EVE Online looks incredibly tantalizing. As the bridge between it and DUST 514 (CCP’s planet-based shooter) grows wider, the possibilities continue to grow. Space station sabotage, capital ship boarding parties and more feel like they could happen. We’ve already seen captures of entire solar systems co-ordinated between DUST mercenaries on the ground and EVE capsuleers in orbit, so there’s definite potential as the two games evolve.

As EVE Online enters its second decade and DUST 514 begins its first, one thing is certain: the universe of New Eden will never stop changing.

Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer, Senior Contributing Editor