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Fanfest 2016 - Bring On The Wrecking Machine
Image: CCP Games · (c) CCP Games (used under CCP fan-content policy)
EVE Fanfest 2016 (21-23 April, Harpa) ran six days before the Citadel expansion went live and used the keynote to show industrial "Engineering Complex" structures and resource-gathering drilling platforms as the next two waves of the Upwell line.
Fanfest 2016 - Bring On The Wrecking Machine
Fanfest 2016 ran 21-23 April 2016 at Harpa. The marketing line - Bring On The Wrecking Machine - referenced both the in-game structure-grinding mechanic that Citadels had introduced and CCP's willingness to take a wrecking ball to legacy systems.
The keynote landed six days before Citadels went live (April 27) and treated the imminent expansion as a starting point rather than a finish line. CCP showed two follow-on waves in detail:
- Engineering Complexes - industrial Upwell structures (Raitaru, Azbel, Sotiyo) intended to replace POSes for manufacturing, research and invention. These shipped later in 2016.
- Resource-gathering drilling platforms - what the player base would later know as Athanors and Tatara (the moon-mining platforms that became the spine of the Lifeblood expansion in October 2017).
Beyond the structure reveals, Fanfest 2016 was where the player base got its first detailed look at how Upwell's tethering mechanic would restructure roams, evictions, and timer warfare. The casino-funded campaign that would become World War Bee was already simmering off-stage - most of the headline alliance leaders attending Fanfest 2016 were already weeks deep in the staging that exploded into the Casino War the same month.