Fanfest 2014 - World of Darkness Cancellation, Crius, Release-Cadence Shift

Fanfest 2014 - World of Darkness Cancellation, Crius, Release-Cadence Shift

Fanfest 2014 ran 30 April - 2 May 2014 at Harpa in Reykjavik, drawing over 1,000 players plus several hundred CCP staff for 70+ presentations, roundtables, and shows. The event sat just sixteen days after CCP's biggest organisational pivot of the decade.

The shadow over the keynote. On 14 April 2014 - barely two weeks before Fanfest opened - CCP had cancelled the World of Darkness MMO project after nine years of development and laid off 56 staff at the Atlanta studio. Hilmar Veigar Pétursson opened Fanfest with explicit reference to the cancellation as the hardest decision he had ever made. The framing of the entire 2014 keynote was "back to focus on EVE."

Crius and the new release cadence. CCP Seagull announced that EVE would move from two named expansions per year to one release approximately every six weeks, ten releases a year. The first under that model, Kronos, was scheduled for 3 June 2014. The second, Crius, was unveiled at Fanfest as the industry overhaul - sweeping rewrites of manufacturing, research, invention, and reprocessing, plus the team / facility / cost system that shipped on 22 July 2014. The new cadence held until 2017.

Other Fanfest 2014 reveals. Project Legion - the PC successor / sibling to DUST 514, ultimately cancelled. EVE: Valkyrie confirmed on Unreal Engine 4 with Katee Sackhoff voicing a character. A French localisation for EVE Online. The Second Decade Collector's Edition purchasable in-game for 12 PLEX. Fanfest 2015 was pre-announced for 19-21 March 2015, deliberately scheduled around a total solar eclipse over Iceland.

Worlds Within a World - the player monument at Jita 4-4. On the eve of Fanfest, CCP unveiled a real-world granite obelisk outside the company's Reykjavik headquarters etched with the character name of every player who had ever subscribed to EVE Online, with speeches from Hilmar Petursson, sculptor Sigurdur Gudmundsson, and Reykjavik mayor Jon Gnarr. An in-game counterpart launched alongside it: the Worlds Within a World monument architecture built into the Jita 4-4 Caldari Navy Assembly Plant - the most-trafficked dock in New Eden - whose unique station model carries the same engraved character names. A returning player docking at Jita 4-4 can find their own name on the monument.

Fanfest 2014 was, taken as a single weekend, the most consequence-dense Fanfest CCP had run since the inaugural 2004 event: a strategic refocus, a new release model, an industry overhaul, and a VR side-bet announced inside 72 hours.