The future is coming, fellow citizens, and a lot sooner than we might have thought. After the announcement of the new ERIC update to the world-famous Eve Online, CCP personally invited a handful of individuals to test the new system on their secret Quadrality test server. For the uninformed, ERIC is a state-of-the-art, intelligent AI system that will revolutionize the game, and possibly our lives. I tested the new system as much as the test server would allow, and my first thoughts are detailed below.

I was initially skeptical of the program as it began its three-hour long boot phase, but I feel in the long-term that it was worth the wait. The very first thing ERIC informed me was that I was not part of NCDot, and if I would like assistance in applying. I promptly reported this strange bug to CCP, and began a reboot process. However it repeated that same line, over and over, no matter how many times I restarted. After having a CCP developer write in some code to trick ERIC into thinking I was in NCDot, and subsequently making a POS tower self destruct, I was able to proceed as normal.

ERIC kindly informed me what version of the game I was playing on, and updated me with all the changes that have occurred. Recalling that ships now dynamically change based on data from player activity, I was excited to see what my favorite ships now looked like. My favorite Caldari Shuttle, which I look at while taking care of business in stations, is now an over-glorified Ferris Wheel. No fittings, no attributes, not even able to undock, but a dazzling array of lights and colors that formed patterns while being spun. My Thanatos now had the PANIC module from Rorquals, six fighter tubes, and the agility of an interceptor. My Heron has a 1000% bonus to scan and virus strength. I saw someone piloting a neon-pink Avatar that quite literally took up an entire grids worth of space.

I tested several ERIC plugins during my stay on the server. A few of my favorites were the “Auto Ship Spinner”, “Local Chat Filter”, “Skill Injector+”, “Safely Remove Implants”, “Auto Salvage” and the most popular plugin of the test server, “Auto Trader”. Never before has a more complex and convenient suite of tools and utilities been built into a game before, and I doubt it will be attempted in the future, given the imminent success of such a project.

One of the features that was not fully implemented was the loyalty/dedication meter, one that is supposed to grow as you interact with ERIC. The developers on hand stated it was placed at maximum for testing purposes, which is all fine and dandy. I couldn’t help noticing though, at the very bottom corner of a few of the UI elements there was a greyed-out button labeled “confess undying attraction to”. Unsure of the purpose of such a button, and unwillingly to learn the truth, I let it slide. The only other complaint that was made during the test was there should be an ERICA AI for equality purposes. CCP quickly stated that the hundreds of upcoming customization options will allow you to fine-tune your AI companion to be anything you want it to be, which quickly laid to rest any such concerns.

My conclusion is that this new ERIC system will revolutionize EVE, nay, our entire existence as a species. No more shall we wallow in ignorance, playing games sub-optimally. For now is the age of enlightenment, the Artificial Golden Age has begun. All hail ERIC!