Empyrean Age brings an explosive end to the fragile peace that has existed for one hundred years between the four central races of New Eden and entices players to pledge fealty to their faction of choice to gain fame, wealth and power.

The features page at www.eveonline.com/empyreanage/ highlights the expansion's contents: the introduction of a faction ranking system, new militias being mustered, fresh agents pertaining to the massive conflicts, a dynamic new structure of system occupancy, details on hidden deadspace complexes and a whole new region in space, "Black Rise."

EVE Online: Empyrean Age incorporates elements of fiction that will be introduced in a novel by the same name, slated for a June 19th release, by Tony Gonzales. The author of many popular web-novellas and short stories, Gonzales' novel takes the reader through time and space, bridging the passage of time between the somewhat harmonious setting of New Eden as it exists for players now to a world of broken alliances on the brink of war.

After celebrating the fifth anniversary of EVE Online's initial release on May 6, CCP recently announced the formation of the Council of Stellar Management, a democratically-elected group of player representatives who will collaborate with the developers of EVE Online to address issues important to the community and provide input for keeping EVE going strong for years to come.

Features

• Governments on every side of the war are eager to recruit pod pilots, and have set up factional militias as a means of bolstering their standing navies. Each faction has a corporation open to all pilots with the appropriate factional standing minimums. CEOs and directors are also encouraged to bring their entire corporations under the aegis of the militias, to better fund and coordinate the war effort. Regardless of corporation membership, all militia members will share a chat channel and read-only mailing list.
• Each of the factions relies heavily upon the support of their militias, granting the privateers great political clout. Talented pilots dedicated to the cause can rise through the newly-created ranks, 10 for each faction, by increasing their standing with their chosen militia's corporation.
• In order to handle the influx of mercenary pilots, each of the four militia corporations have hired new agents-over 320 in all. These new agents are specifically tasked with coordinating the activities of freelance pod pilots and assigning them missions inside territory held by enemy militias.
• Due to the emphasis placed on the role of militias in the conflict, many stations now boast new Militia Offices. Pilots can track their own warfare victories and kill statistics, as well as those of their corporation and faction. Each pilot's map has also been upgraded to better accommodate the increased flow of logistics data. The galactic map can now be configured to show occupancy status of a system, as well as detecting the presence of hostile navy forces.
• In light of the formal declaration of war, CONCORD is now recognizing a new level of system control beyond sovereignty: occupancy. Factions gain occupancy of a system by winning conflicts in contested complexes. When a militia accumulates a certain number of victories for its faction, it is authorized to assault the star's System Control Bunker within 24 hours. Should the bunker fall to the attacking militia, a cease-fire is called in the system's Factional Warfare Complexes, and that faction gains occupancy of the solar system.
• As the fighting has spread throughout the inhabited regions of space, many of them have been deemed Combat Zones. Most of these contested regions are located in low-security space, but not all. Regardless of their security level, each of the systems within a Combat Zone contains a System Control Bunker near their stars. These bunkers coordinate all activity within their system's Factional Warfare Complexes.
• As war rages across the stars of New Eden, a myriad of hidden deadspace complexes have taken on great strategic importance. Militia pilots that successfully scan for a complex and hold it uncontested for a set amount of time will claim it for their faction, and be rewarded with corporate standing-as well as more tangible benefits. But capturing these points of interest will not be easy, as they're guarded by rival naval forces. Speed and cunning are required to keep these important sites out of enemy hands, which is why microwarpdrives have been cleared for use in the complexes.
• The confines of settled space cannot contain a war of this scale, causing the fighting to spill over into a new region. Named "Black Rise," this new region contains 49 new star systems and nearly 40 stations, many of which are already sworn to one faction or another.

EVE Online: Empyrean Age will be offered as a free download to subscribers and is scheduled for a June 10 release.