Introducing Exordium

Hospitable capsuleers,

We are always looking for ways to improve the early game experience, because although New Eden is a vast and deep world, full of beauty, freedom, and intrigue, it can also be intimidating for new players.

To help rookies learn the ropes, make friends, and prepare for their full EVE experience, the upcoming expansion will introduce a dedicated starter region named Exordium.

A Journey of a Thousand Lightyears…

You may remember what it was like to be a wide-eyed newbie seeing the world of New Eden for the first time. Every bit of improvement we can make to support new capsuleers means more players will make it past those initial intimidating steps to eventually experience everything that EVE has to offer.

As most veterans know, getting more new players benefits New Eden as a whole. It means more recruits for your corporations and alliances, more customers for your market orders, more good fights in the warzones, and more new friends to meet at the Fanfest pub crawl.

We have had many discussions and brainstorming sessions over the years about improving the new player experience, both internally and externally, with many of you. An idea that has cropped up regularly is adding a “starter zone” to New Eden, where rookies can begin their journey together in a space designed specifically for them.

This idea will become reality with the introduction of Exordium.

Hit New Eden at Warp Speed

Currently, new players are distributed across multiple systems when first starting out, spread across highsec, determined by their choices at character creation. This has major downsides.

For instance, when two friends decide to try EVE Online together, different choices of empire or school can leave them starting the game dozens of jumps apart, making it much more difficult to find each other and play together.

This current distribution of starter systems also reduces new players' exposure to one another, and we believe they would benefit from being able to more easily encounter and connect with others at a similar stage in their EVE journey.

Starting this summer, all new players will begin the game in Exordium, which contains new starter and career agent systems within a single 53 system region. The region is managed by CONCORD with assistance from AIR, and connected to special empire embassy constellations.

Placing all new players in the same region will give them opportunities to meet other rookies, and create a great environment for corporation recruitment and mentorship by existing players. It will also mean that players can more easily reach their friends.

Putting Exordium on the Map

“But wait,” I hear you exclaim. “If rookies will be spread out over 53 systems, how is that going to bring them closer together?”

Well, the primary hub system of Exordium, known as Manifest, is centrally located and within easy reach of all the other systems in the region. It includes a new AIR Trade Center station, which will serve as an excellent meeting and trade location, as well as the stargate to Yulai that will serve as the primary entry and exit point for Exordium.

The central CONCORD constellations contain the 12 new starter systems, into which new players will be dynamically placed as they finish the AIR NPE. These starter systems are no longer split by empire. Instead, rookies will be placed based on the load of each system, so the new region can dynamically adjust to accommodate periods of high newbie influx.

A Safe Space to Learn

PvP is a core element of the