The developers of Eve Online have confirmed that things are about to get a little chaotic for players over the summer. At the end of June, sudden attacks on nonplayer structures and ships began as an NPC army called the Drifters destroyed all the player creations it could. They disrupted the game and forced even the largest of teams to retreat from combat to return home to defend the territory from the Drifters. 

The assault seemed to have stopped at the start, but that was only the beginning.

While chaos is not the goal, the developer wants to shake things up over the coming weeks and months as an experiment. The in-game currency ISK won't be spared. Eve Online ISK is being generated more than it's being removed, which is a bad thing as it caused the value of ISK to fall, and all prices skyrocketed upwards.

At the end of July, the development team posted an update to the blog stating that a massive tax hike was coming. Taxes are primarily on NPC-controlled stations to drive traffic away from them and towards the player-owned and operated markets. It should remove some of the ISK from the market and combat the current inflation that has plagued Eve Online ISK recently.

There is also talk of removing the "asset safety" system. Currently, that guarantees that if a player-owned space station is destroyed, the items from inside will be sent to a nearby space station for a player to collect. 

It isn't a free process, and it does take some time to recover, but now this might be going. Players would then be forced to fight and defend their space stations even more as there would lose everything. The current aim is to return some risk to the game, so removing the asset safety system makes sense for the developers; however, time will tell if players agree with this.

For those who missed it, the Blackout event began in July, which caused a comms blackout across the game. When a player's spaceship enters a star system, they are also placed into the "Local" chat channel shared with others in the system. 

The blackout removed the ability to see what players were in the star system, how many were there, and if they were a friend of the enemy. The only way to know a player is if they speak in chat, which has enormous implications for the game since there is no way to see if someone has called for allies to help them if they are under attack or want to attack someone. 

It is also only possible to know if an army or player pirates are moving through once you, unfortunately, run into them. Since the Blackout was introduced, there was a slight decline in players logging into the game at first, but the developers note that the player count was the highest peak they've seen in five years for July.

The chaos era is here for Eve Online players and it seems as though there is no slowing down right now. Not all players will enjoy the sudden changes that have come to Eve Online already,, and it's hard to tell what the team is looking to do next. To keep up to date with the changes, keep a close eye on the official website and channels for Eve Online so that you're not caught out by a new change.