Fanfest Keynote Hinted to Feature Big News

The 2015 Fanfest, centered squarely around EVE, Valkyrie and DUST 514, is underway. We're here to post some of the highlights from the keynote address that is set to begin in about ten minutes at 10:00 Pacific / 1:00 pm Eastern. Refresh the page often to check out the updates during what has been promised to be an important and exciting keynote.

Want to watch for yourself? Tune into the CCP Fanfest Twtich.tv channel.

The Keynote begins with a review of the past year's achievements, including eight updates, with the ninth on the way next Tuesday.

Three finalist videos for "This Is Eve" contest being shown, the winner being shown in full.

Council of Stellar Management #10 - A record number of applicants and final candidates. Lots of campaign activity and a higher voter turnout than last year. New council announced, including re-elected members from CSM #9.

The shift from two expansions to ten releases has worked really well for us. The team will continue to do bigger code deployments every five weeks or so. Big updates will still be named and continue to be described as before in blogs, images, etc.

EVE Updates, a new website that shows the updates and when they will be coming to players. Updates will have release dates, but content could be released in between major dates.

To improve the player experience includes a Technical Support site with videos, ticketing, and self help topics to make solving issues more quickly.

The first phase of two factor authentication is being implemented beginning April 28th and players will be able to choose to use it or not. In phase one, log ins to EVE sites and account management will be protected.

Download on Demand will begin on March 24th. Files will be downloaded as they are encountered beyond the game. The experience is very smooth. The launcher can pre-fetch all the assets in the game on demand. This allows for hi-rez textures, something players have been asking for for a long time. There was no feasible way to deliver those before. Now it will be a setting that can be chosen via on demand.

102 out of 130 new ship faction skins will be coming to the game on April 29th that can be purchased and become permanent. The next set of skins will not be faction-specific.