The expansion, dubbed 'Incarna', is currently planned for release in summer 2011. CCP is "working hard on all of the back-end technology required to make it work alongside designs for what actually happens within the stations," according to creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson.

Enhanced character creation options, which will let players create much more detailed avatars, will actually launch with 'Incursion' in preparation for the space-station interactions of 'Incarna'.

"This will not be a full-blown new game inside EVE with 10,000 hours of content," said Olafsson. "Incarna is not really an expansion, it's an addition to the game which is a stepping-stone in us realising our long-term goal of making EVE the ultimate science fiction simulator."

CCP is also hard at work on DUST 514, a console-shooter that will connect to the EVE Online world. "Production is in full swing," said Olafsson. "You can play the game internally and shoot stuff, and designers and engineers are working collaboratively both on the DUST side and the EVE side on designing and roughing-out the first implementations of the two games together."

The EVE connection means the battle has a purpose and a meaning, and you are participating in something greater than a five-minute bout of shooting people in the face. We are designing it so that there's a symbiotic relationship between an EVE player and a DUST player: both will be essentially happy that the other one is there.

Despite this, it seems that for the near future, the interaction will be limited to "contracts and exchange of goods in return for services rendered" and not involve EVE players using their ships to blast ground forces in DUST, though the team at CCP is certainly thinking about such ideas.