The plan is to have the bulk of the features for our summer expansion, Empyrean Age, up and running on Singularity this week, and the playtesting will be focusing on all the mechanisms involved in Factional Warfare, which is the main feature of the expansion.

We're hoping to get a good number of people online so that we can give everything a good thrashing and see how it all fits together in practice. To that end, we're on the lookout for people interested in the following areas:

• PVP - pursuing PvP objectives in small, mobile groups.
• Missions - running combat-oriented missions solo or in small groups.
• Piracy - just flying around killing anything that moves.

There are a couple of additional incentives that we hope will dispel any lingering doubts you may be having over whether or not to make an appearance. Firstly, we're planning on having a good number of developers on hand, both to ensure that things go smoothly and to guide, interact, and solicit feedback - if you want the opportunity to talk to some of us, offer suggestions and comments on any element of the upcoming expansion or just blow us to smithereens, this is your chance!

Secondly, as a measure to encourage people to push the envelope, we'll be keeping track of various statistics and so on over the course of the evening, totaling up scores and coming up with some winners in various categories. These will probably include most kills, biggest contribution to the war effort, best bug report filed, most bizarre bug found, most missions completed and so on. If you think you've got what it takes to have a shot at one of these titles, I fully encourage you to show up - we might just make it worth your while if you win.

If you want to participate in this play test you will need to do the following on the day of the play test:

• Visit this page to obtain the latest TQ- Sisi patch. Remember that you should apply this patch to a new copy of the EVE client, do NOT patch your main TQ client.
• Join the in-game channel "Faction Testing" and watch for instructions from CCP staff running the play test.
• Have fun!

To listen in all you have to do is join the in-game channel 'Live Dev Blog' at 20.00 GMT this Thursday, 15 May, and join audio. If you really want to listen to the blog, but can't make it that time, a recording will be made available at a later date.

As usual, with the Live Dev Blogs, you have the opportunity to post your questions on our forums. Those questions, and others, will then be answered during the Live Dev Blog. Please use this thread to post your questions.