MMORPG.com's Jon Wood writes this look at how CCP is expanding their game and its marketing to highlight the social aspects of their sandbox, including the introduction of a new social tool known as New Eden.

EVE Online has an image as a hardcore, dog eat dog, sandbox, PvP MMORPG. While that is certainly a part of what EVE Online is, it's not everything and at this year's EVE Fan Fest, CCP seemed determined to show the world that social activity and friends are actually at the heart of the game.

The developers really started trying to show the new face of EVE back at the end of July when they publicly launched a new game trailer titled, "The Butterfly Effect." Instead of highlighting the hardcore nature of the game (though the video certainly makes reference to it), the video talks about the choices that players will make within the game and how that all plays in to the friends that can and will be made by players as the fly through EVE's universe.

Read EVE As A Social Game - New Eden