Today the Kyonoke Inquest event begins as part of FanFest 2017. CCP has invested in this, hiring a third party (The Company P) to design and staff the event. With the long and troubled history of roleplaying in Eve Online, this is a gamble. The big question is: can Eve players get over their public disdain for roleplaying and get into this event, or will it more be used to troll those who try to earnestly play the Kyonoke Inquest game?

CCP Seagull has a background in LARPing, and this surely is a part of why this event exists. There is a hierarchy of gamer uncoolness though, just as video gamers go from mass market FPS to niche games like Eve, in the role playing spectrum goes from video game RPGs, to tabletop RPGs, to LARPs. The live action roleplay niche is laughed at even by the geekiest of the geeks- though one might suspect it is not as unfamiliar as people may act. While we’ve had well known Eve players break out their D&D chops on stream, and we have famous Eve cosplayers (such as Max Singularity), will the Eve community be open to bringing more flavors of nerdom into the fold?

The Kyonoke Inquest will be a test of this. The game rules, as published in the FanFest handout, provide a hand sign for people to wave off engagement by the RP actors. It’s a clear sign CCP is thinking of this, but how many of those too cool to roleplay types are even going to read that handout?

If the Kyonoke Inquest event succeeds it will mark a new era of roleplaying in Eve, not just sanctioned but encouraged by CCP and the community. If it crashes hard then it will push roleplaying (and to some extent lore) even harder into a niche amongst the player community, and signal to CCP that it is not worth their limited time and financial budget. Over the next three days, we will learn the answer.