Each region in eve is defined by juxtaposition to several nebula effects. This is one of the best, most amazing advances the game ever made. A relatively small investment of the art department could throw all this wide open, and that is by creating suggestive nebula, and place them around or above the “pancake” of regions. Good SF defines itself by creating vistas shere people can gaze longingly and hungrily. By placing, say, a nebula indicative of undiscovered regions northwest of say, Cloud Ring, the game hints at future expansions into that region. This is one of the more enticing things for eve I can envision.
Subsidiary ideas
1 - What if one day construction starts on a dozen or so new types of NPC gates that lead away from known systems. Say, month 1 gate construction starts. Month 6 the gate opens up to just a single new system. Say, this new gate is located on the fringes of DeKlein, and it leads away to an unknown system that also just happens to be labeled for a new region. Such a system doesn’t even have to be particularly profitable, and there might not be any special enemies, ore, loot or phenomenon there. But a tantalizing promise is sometimes best right?
2 - the systems of new eden are all placed in a relatively flat, several hundred light year region in space, largely for “cartographic” game design reasons. But what if such a new region lay ‘above’ or ‘below’ the main pancake? After all space is a 3D envionment.
3 - I can not emphasize enough that I would love flying into a system dominated by a large black hole accretion disk. Rolling storm clouds orbiting a central point mass, ship effects differentiated relative to where you are in that system, asteroid belts with exotic minerals springing up unpredictable on the outskirts of the accretion disk, several major uniquely designed radiation hardened science stations orbiting inside and outside the accretion disk that actually move in orbit relative to one another … maybe several brown dwarf stars orbiting the central black hole?.. and then in the eye of the maelstrom that horrendous several kilometer black nexus, surrounded by a hellish abyss of searing light. How can a self-respecting game designer not hunger and salivate to make such a space? I can already see several of CCP’s more visionary and intellectually vibrant artists take this post to upper management and start pestering them this should be realized as soon as possible. Maybe in one of aforementioned systems?