NetEase and CCP have announced a collaboration with MMOS (Massively Multiplayer Online Science) to bring award-winning Project Discovery, a “citizen science” project into EVE Echoes as a playable minigame. This will let EVE Echoes players opt into contributing to process scientific data to the benefit of research, something EVE Online players have been able to participate in for a while now.
Project Discovery will be presented as a mini game and Eve Echoes available as soon as a player reaches Tech level 7, where they can then dock at a station and find Project Discovery in the events menu. In order to participate, the minigame involves matching data points and if players do this, they'll get science credits that can be exchanged for prizes like skins or ships.There are also additional rewards for those who can complete the scientific tasks faster and thoroughly, with medals for all-time participation achievements.
For EVE Echoes, the collaboration making this possible comes via work with Martens Lab, part of Ghent University, and work will apply to their research. Martens Lab’s work Specializes in machine learning and data analysis, so Project Discovery will use players’ work in MMOs to help process this data faster and organize it for the research scientists to continue their work.
Previously, other games have used Project Discovery and other citizen science and gaming partnerships to help researchers. Some of this involved EVE Online players helping with COVID-19 research. When players play through minigames intended to help research, the researchers will analyze and confirm the data before contributing to their project, but so far there have been several successful partnerships of this nature.
According to a release announcing the project, the research done as part of EVE Echoes may aid in biological or health research.
Read the official announcement on EVE Echoes and Project Discovery.
