CSM Minutes Could Be Out By 2015

Several people breathed a collective sigh of relief earlier today when it was announced by Eve Community Manager CCP Dolan that the minutes would 'defiantly almost probably maybe' be out by 2015.

The minutes were originally expected to be released around a month after the actual summit, which took place in early August 2013. In a statement posted in a dev blog today CCP Dolan said this:

"I'd like to start off by apologising on behalf of the CSM and CCP for the delay in your months... I mean minutes. There are several people we can blame this on.

First off, I'm going to blame the CSM for not doing their minutes earlier. Ali Aras, that fucker Ripard and some other dude did something like 70% of the preparation for the minutes. Christ knows what the rest of them were doing in that time, probably furiously masturbating or something.

Secondly it's your fault, you with your Somergate. I understand Somer Blink are pricks and I understand why you were so angry, but I had to mop up your tears on the forum instead of working on the minutes. 

Thirdly it's CCP's fault. If they didn't sign me up to that paintballing for charity thing I wouldn't be in terrible pain now and the minutes would have been done before Christmas. CCP literally signed me up for that, I said I'd be down for helping charity but I didn't know it was going to hurt that much. 

So anyway, I'm going on strike now till the end of next year so we're looking at a date of around 2nd January 2015. Even if we don't meet that, there's a 78% chance they'll be out sometime in that year."

Some people are speculating that CCP are stalling for time so that things that would have been censored under the NDA would no longer need to be censored under the NDA so they wouldn't have to do any work. Others no longer give a flying fuck, while more senile people have already forgotten what minutes are. A couple of people who actually care about the minutes are angry, but their calls to 'sink Iceland' have gone unheeded by the majority of other players. In other news many people still hate CCP Dolan.

New Eve-Dust Tie-In Game 'Wheelspin 249' Announced

Following their realisation that Dust 514 was a complete flop, CCP have announced they will be announcing another game which may actually be developed within the next decade.

In the game you take the role of a mortal pilot whose ship has crashed into the planet below. To survive you must drive some form of jet-powered buggy to the finish line. It's a race against time; which is where the integration with Eve and Dust comes in. The Dust players, who will start off about 500 metres away from you, will constantly try to shoot you and kill you. They can utilise a variety of vehicles, including the new 'extremely fast plane', which can keep up with the racers of Wheelspin 249 with ease.

That's not all the Wheelspin players will have to compete with though, they'll also have to dodge orbital strikes from Eve players above the planet. The opportunity to slaughter defenceless people is something that's hyped most Eve players, but not all of them. Helpless miner Huricane Maulerant told us how he feels about the mass genocide of unarmed people:

"It's just plain wrong, that's what it is! I'll tell you right now if CCP go ahead with this game they're going to have a human rights travesty on their hands. The United Nations won't like it if I tell them what they're doing, so I'm going to tell them.

 Huricane has not been heard from since. We sat down with CCP to discuss their new game:

Eve Onion: So what was going through your head when you announced this game?

Well, we were brainstorming ideas to save Dust when Hilmar burst into the room and said "hey guys, look at this! You can drive on the moon on GT6!" before leaving again. Then someone said "let's make a racing game!"

EO: What will be unique about Wheelspin?

Like Eve and Dust we have a progressive system where you can learn skillpoints while you're offline. What's unique about it is the fact that as your pilot is mortal, him dying once in a game will yield the same result as an Eve character being biomassed - all skillpoints, money, and personal information such as mails will be completely wiped.

EO: Do you have any plans to actually release the game?

We're not sure at the moment, we'll review the situation in a couple of days and decide whether it will be worth it. 

EO: What genre of people are you trying to attract with Wheelspin?

Anyone really, right the way through from teenage girls to old age pensioners. We think the name 'wheelspin' leads to a variety of interpretations from our customers.  Anyway, I've got to get a coffee now so bye.

Environmental hazards are also expected to feature in the game, as players have to dodge 'lava which tracks them' on volcanic planets, dinosaurs on temperate planets and ultraviolet radiation on barren planets thanks to a business deal with skincare company Nivea. More information will be released in a press conference on the 32^nd December.

State of the Onion

'Six months ago to this day Tubrug the First did look on to the horizon of Eve news sites and he did see chaos. On there one hand there was themittani.com, which provided reliability and accuracy - but it was too serious. Then Tubrug did cast his eye towards EN24, and he did see a shambles - an N3 propaganda site writing in some unknown language. The people called for a hybrid, and Tubrug did found the Eve Onion.'

The extract from the fictional book 'The History of the Eve Onion' does not lie. On the 27th of June we published our first article: "Exclusive: Why the CFC Invaded Fountain". In retrospect it was shit, but it was a start - a new age of satire space stories had begun. Since then we have come far. Fewer and fewer people now say we're crap and should kill ourselves, and having increased the site's activity to news levels in December the Eve Onion is on track to become Eve's number two news site.

In case you didn't see the new page links following our site redesign in November I shall inform you of what they say here. The first one, Do You Want to Write for Us?, contains information on what you need to do to become a satire spacejournalist. We barely require any activity at all - you can write one article a month or ten a month. If you only come up with one good idea a year you can send it to the said email address below and we will publish it as a submission under your name and you won't have the hassle of becoming a staff member.

Should you wish to do either of those things send your application in to onioneve@gmail.com (NOT eveonion@gmail.com, that was taken and christ knows why) and I will answer within a day or two informing you of your success or faliure.

Then we have something for the rich people among us. I'm a poor fucker who relies on TMC payments for a living so I can't spare any of my hard-earned cash paying other people. With that in mind we'd highly appreciate it if you gave us your money, which will allow us to pay our honest and hardworking staff. As an incentive to do so and a thank you for you kindness we'll display your portrait on the sidebar of the site for a calendar month. We'll also count any donations for the rest of December as January donations, because we're nice guys. Send your donation to Tubrug1 with the reason 'Eve Onion' and your name will be on the site within 24 hours.

And now I'll outline the future of the Eve Onion. We promise to deliver even more accurate and reliable news (compared to our main competitors in the field of badly spun/fake news, EN24) than we have done these past six months, with even more articles and content. I'm considering starting an Eve Onion podcast so we can reach into your ears as well as your eyes, expect that to be coming sometime in the next month.

Lastly I'd like to thank you, reader of the Eve Onion, for your reading ability. Without you my humble site would be read by no one.

Structure Shoots Causing EMP Members to Become Insane

After deploying to Vale of the Silent to hit GENTS jump bridges and POSes, Insidious Empire have reported that their members are developing some kind of allergic reaction to shooting structures, with the lack of attacking players mentally harming some.

The first report of insanity happened on a jump bridge-bashing fleet yesterday, when one member tried to kill the FC of the op.

"So last night, after we reinforced 3 structures without a break, I heard the jump bridge talking to me. It was whispering at me, like it wanted me to help it. It said "please help me, I am being shot and it is causing me great pain". I asked it what I could do and it told me to kill the FC. I shot the FC but he got repped quickly, then my fleet turned on me. I asked the jump bridge what I should do but it just ignored me. I'd like to apologise to all members of EMP who I have offended."

There were several more instances of this today. One member was reportedly threatened with death by a Moon Harvesting Array and consequently self-destructed his stealth bomber. Another allegedly shouted "WHY ARE THERE NO NEUTS" several times in IPAY-2 and began to drop hundreds of cargo containers that were arranged to spell 'HELP'.

With nearly no GENTS members remaining in Vale following their deployment to Curse, it seems EMP's madness will continue for the foreseeable future. Test have not yet reported any signs of the structure-shooting disease in their membership, although it is hard to distinguish this from normal Test behaviour.

Phreeze, leader of EMP, is desperately trying to work on a solution to the problem before his alliance descends into anarchy. He plans to organise thunderdomes for his members before everyone turns on each other in a perpetual thunderdome. Lychton Kondur of the Brave Collective reported Phreeze tried to hire his alliance to provide entertainment and kills for his members. "He was pretty desperate, he kept sending me contact notifications with me set to excellent, then he said he'd let us rent space at a 10% discount."

It appears the CFC's latest ally is Starbase & Sovereignty Structures. With these new friends helping to resist the Testicle Empire it seems Vale will be able to hold out for several months, removing the need for the CFC to return to the north. N3 leadership are now considering sending more semi-irrelevant alliances to attack different parts of the CFC empire.

Top Alliance Leaders Actually Played by One Guy

Bristol, WI - In a shocking twist that no one saw coming, one man has stepped forward and presented compelling evidence that he has in fact been controlling every single major alliance for the last three years.

“Teh Br0kur”, whom he wishes to be known to protect his own identity, spilled his guts over a flagon of mead during the Bristol Renaissance Faire this past summer: 
[Writer's Note: The details of this conversation would have been made public sooner, if I had of remembered my password which I set while drunk off cheap beer and high off even cheaper grass… Ahhh, Wisconsin]
Taking his name as a play on the EVE Lore character mentioned in several chronicles and the EVE universe novels, Teh Br0kur has managed to gain control of nearly every big-name alliance in New Eden.

 “At first it was a small alliance; I infiltrated Imperial Legi0n, some no-name scrub alliance at the time; I said I was a 19-year-old college girl with an interest in industry. So of course a white knight try-hard named Sigaran jumped at the opportunity to give me full director access to the vast amounts of minerals and blueprints they had stockpiled. But, when I realized it wouldn’t really be that fun to fuck them over, I decided… Well, why not keep going? I ended up gaining the trust of everyone, and while using other characters and personas I created for myself, managed to gain access to every single corporation in the alliance, up to and including the executor corp.Eventually, by leveraging a large amount of ISK, a considerable amount of trash-talk, and the promise of a secret set of nude images of Mintchip that of course did not exist [Editor’s Note: They do, but you’re better off not seeing them], I became the new CEO of IMP-L. I played directors and CEOs against each other, waging a shadow war of bribery, tough-talk and more than a little blackmail involving a few high-ranking penis photos within the alliance. None of the other members were aware I was playing people against eachother. It was… fucking beautiful.”

Empowered by his newfound wealth and influence, he began waging a diplomatic metagaming blitzkrieg to gain control of every major alliance in the game, while training alts to be able to pilot supers and lead corporations and alliances. He gained access to AAA, assuming the identity of Makalu, the pilot famous for being literally the worst alliance FC to ever enter Delve. He created Wheniaminspace, but sold the character after a while, “Because I felt like I needed to take a shower every time I logged in and dunked on another TEST idiot outside 6VDT’s station”. He owned Kil2 for some time but sold the character to the man currently known as CCP Rise because he was tired of the fanboys obsessing over his Twitch stream.

Recently, he has gained access to the upper echelons of Goonswarm Federation, becoming not only The Mittani’s right-hand man, but also his left-hand man and middle-hand woman. 

 “It’s so funny, knowing that at any time I can start a massive war by playing all of my alliances against one another; I can destabilize the entire EVE economy; I can unleash screaming hordes of butthurt neckbeards in one Jabber ping; Hell, I am the most powerful person in the game!What’s even more funny is that I know The Mittani in real life! We go to renaissance faires all the time! But the man has no idea that I am always aware of everything he does in the game. Want to know a secret? He doesn’t actually do anything in GSF; He just sends Jabbers every now and then and makes stupid speeches during the SOTG addresses. The people with all the real power are… Heh, me.”

 When this writer met Teh Br0kur at the Bristol Renfaire in Wisconsin, The Mittani was just leaving after having been slammed in the taint with a Nerf foam bardiche wielded by a 14-year-old kid with Down’s Syndrome. What followed was two hours of drinking and rabble-rousing with someone who might as well be a real-life EVE lore character.

 “I am EVE Online. I am living proof the Butterfly Effect trailer is a real thing that happens in this game. I Was There, and I Will Continue To Be There as long as nobody finds out the real extent of my reach in this game.”

 Right before parting ways, Teh Br0kur left us with one last hint as to what his original identity is: 

 “I tried out for the CSM, once, thinking maybe, just maybe, I could extend my huge amount of influence into the actual political sphere and maybe land a cush spot in the top tier. I really wanted to shift focus to nullsec space and customisable spaceship paintjobs! Dicks in space! But, thanks to some assholes in TEST Alliance, I was outed as a potential pedophile because of some dubious postings I made on some shady message boards. I just wish I hadn’t of used the same name!”

CCP Declare Dabigredboat's Magical Hat is an Exploit and Ban Him

Much beloved CFC FC Dabigredboat was banned today for using a magic hat to deliberately crash the server. A post from Eve GM Nova appeared on the Eve Online forums this week:

‘It has come to our attention today that some players are using mystical artifacts to influence CCP server performance. To be clear; the use of magical hats, jewellery, pets or any other mystical devices to influence in game events or CCP infrastructure are explicitly prohibited and will result in an immediate and permanent ban’

This statement can be traced back to the node crash during a battle in DY-P7Q. Node crashes in Eve are remarkably rare, especially during major timer battles. CCP launched an immediate investigation into the event. Although the logs showed nothing, CCP assumed that it the crash was due to a memory leak from their in-house Minecraft server.

However; when part time CSM ProGodLegend made CCP aware of the detailed analysis published on Eve News 24 CCP took another look. The EN24 team had uncovered a secret plot in which Boat was mysteriously able to crash the DY-P7Q on demand. They reported that during a twitch stream Boat was heard to say ‘crash the node’ and moments later his hat began to emit an eerie green light and he quietly chanted ‘Mitten’s silly beard’ - then the node crashed.

This isn't the first time mysterious happens have been witnessed around the famed Goon FC, one source told Eve Onion:

"Boat told us he had a Titan tackled, we rushed to the system only to find the Titan has turned into a TCU. When we asked Boat how this happened he blamed it on a bug. CCP later told us the logs showed nothing"

CCP have since banned all of Boat’s game accounts, citing witchcraft and magical shenanigans.
Part time CSM ProGodLegend supported CCP:

"CCP are justified in taking this action, it is clear the only way the CFC are able to defeat me is by the use of their magical hats."

It is not known how many magical hats are in the Goon stockpile, but, it would appear that DBRB was the first Goon to successfully deploy his hat. Previous attempts have resulted in failure. Famously in 2012 Goon Grand Wizard, the Mittani, tried to use his magical hat to make his Fanfest Alliance Panel presentation funny. This backfired when his CSM Chairmanship vanished.

Large Gathering of Dust Players Announced

CCP, Iceland’s leading nerd farmer, today announce possibly the most ambitious player event in the history of gaming. DUST community manager CCP boom!headshot! told the Eve Onion:

“Here at CCP we pride ourselves on our player events. 
At Fanfest our players get drunk and have fun.
At Eve Vegas our fans gamble and fun.
At Eve Downunder they get poisoned and robbed.

These are amazing achievements, but we’re not sitting back on our laurels. We’re going to take it to the next level with DUST Ultimate. Our objective is simple, get every DUST player in the World together at an exciting unique venue to celebrate the game they love.

We’ve already sent out the tickets to all the current player base using statistics from the PlayStation Network. The ticket includes flights to the location and accommodation – you just have to bring yourself and some spending Monday.”

The meet up is planned April the 13^th and will be hosted at CCP boom!headshot!'s one bedroom apartment in  Reykjavik. “I except there to be plenty of space, unless of course all the players choose to attend – but we’re expecting a few to drop out because they are buying a Playstation 4/Battlefield bundle”
Headshot told us the planned events would include the CPM throwing eggs and toilet paper at the CCP office and a visit to the whale museum. A pub crawl was cancelled because half of the players are under 14 and Icelanders shout “DUST is shit!” every time they see a CCP employee.

CCP Introduces Balancing on the Fly

A recent influx of complaints involving the usage of drone assist doctrines in large-scale nullsec wars has spurred CCP to introduce a brand new feature allowing them to actively balance modules and ships on a live server.

Using advanced real-time analysis of the game logs, which are known for their accuracy and completeness, a developer can now manipulate active vessels and modules while they're in use. This was most recently demonstrated in system XD-JW7 as massed N3 "slowcats" were swatted out of the sky by nerf-bat-wielding developers.

 CSM members were quick to praise CCP for their decisive action. "CCP Rise gave me a cookie and it was pretty good" said one member, while another was quoted as saying, "I'm glad that CCP was so quick to nerf what could have been a dangerously unbeatable fleet doctrine. Nobody ever in the history of Eve has been able to defeat sentry-wielding carriers through any means whatsoever, but now the menace has been brought back in line".

 I managed to catch a N3 member as he was dropped off by the pod express in Jita 4-4, fresh from the heat of battle.

"It was awesome out there before the CCP nerfed us. We were blapping dreads, other carriers, hell, even a titan at one point out of the sky. Then, all of a sudden, our DPS withered to a mere trickle of damage, like when you're peeing but then you finish and there's just a few drops left." 

With such brilliant insight into the N3 side of the battle, I sought out a member of the GSF to learn how the battle appeared to the victors.

 "We had, like, 500 dreads waiting to cyno in when the battle escalated to a certain point, but that's irrelevant. I must've sent in something like 50 petitions during the course of the battle and CCP nerfed everything I complained about! It was awesome!" 

 The Mittani tweeted to the effect that the GSF's new "Petitionfleet" doctrine was his new strategy of choice. There was no word from CCP as to when this new doctrine would be nerfed. N3 members have given a collective sigh of 'grrr goons', and are expected to continue mumbling irrationally for several weeks.

N3 Members 'Literally Seething with Incapacitating Anger'

Heads were turned today in The Mittani's latest CEO update, in which he promised to obliterate blobs of Archons with the iron fist of the Naglfar. The announcement, which came just hours before a crucial timer in DY-P7Q, caused N3's fighting ability to be impaired.

Many members reacted with great rage to the post, and began insulting the Clusterfuck Coalition as well as The Mittani himself. "The Mittani is a massive faggot" claimed one line member. "It's like everything he does is designed to try to stop us. I despise him, his corporation, his alliance and his coalition. Also, he's a dick"

This is believed to be the reason N3 did not show up for the DY-P7Q timer earlier today. Despite alarm-clocking and pinging members twelve times in eight hours about the fight, N3 leadership instructed their members to take to the comments section on the themittani.com post and Kugu to remind the CFC they hate them. An N3 director, who wished to remain anonymous, informed the Eve Onion of the situation:

"We were really hyped for the fight. Hundreds of people had pulled an all-nighter just to shoot the CFC and Rus .Then we read the GSF CEO update. And we shook. Shook with rage. How dare these impotent fools try to take on the mighty forces of the 300. We whined about it internally for a while, then we realised no one could hear us so we took to the public stage. We were so busy delivering justice through words that we forgot to form-up for DY-P7Q, but it's okay because we didn't really care about that system anyway."

Eve News 24 also joined the anti-CFC bandwagon, but it appears it was done by accident. "I thought I was writing in the 'tinfoil' Skype chat (AKA EN24's main room) but then I checked the main site and someone had posted what I'd written! Then I realised it was me who posted it" admits writer Free. "I think it was pretty good, riverini shouted at me for not mentioning suicidegate but our un-brainwashed readers seem to agree with me."

It seems N3 are slowly recovering from this shock and are mustering their slowcat fleet to tauntingly dance around before the CFC arm themselves with Omegafleet. After seeing the reaction it stirred, The Mittani hinted he would consider releasing CEO Updates at the rate of one a day to permanently paralyse N3 with rage.

Lowsec Residents Invent New God, Sacrifice Phoenixes on Gate to Him

Lowsec residents followed a tradition set by wormhole dwellers and have declared the existence of a God called 'Steve'. Ground breaking research conducted by several pirate organisations found that Steve grants goodfights after having Phoenixes sacrificed on gates.

Prophets are still working out the details of this new religion, but it seems there will be many parallels between Steve and Bob, the God of Wormholes. The main difference between the two is that while Bob prefers to have Rifters sacrificed at the sun of a wormhole system, Steve prefers a Pheonix that's in the process of making a valiant attempt to jump through a stargate into highsec. We spoke to notorious pirate Tim Bastold about this new cult:

"So far the evidence we've been able to gather on Steve suggests he is some kind of relation to Bob, possibly a brother or cousin, and that he finds retards losing Phoenixes on gates fucking hilarious. He practically shits himself laughing every time he sees an ALOD on TMC involving a Phoenix, and he grants good fights and good luck to those who kill it."

Speculators are already buying up Phoenix blueprints to account for the increase in demand, which is expected to soar from three a month to over twenty. One manufacturer claimed he made a 'fuck tonne' of money selling to those 'retards who believe in god and keep sacrificing Rifters'.

Not everyone agrees with this religion though, Steveophobia has already developed among a couple of lowsec carebears. Sarratov was one of this pair.

"I don't see why everyone needs to make such a big deal about me losing a Phoenix on a highsec gate I was trying to jump through. I mean, how was I supposed to know capitals couldn't jump through gates? It's not like people can be expected to research ships before they buy them, if anyone suggests that they should have a fist lodged in their rectum for being such a tryhard."

Time will tell whether Steveism catches on as much as Bobism has, in the mean time other groups of players are trying to invent new gods, including the Brothers of Tangra's Brian Anti-Prototype Cloaking Device. They report having little success so far.

Number of Pointless Streams 'Dangerously High'

On the eve of Twitch integration into Eve, a third party has ruled that the number of stupid and irrelevant streams is already hazardous, and the threat of hundreds of new streams of mining could tip the danger over the edge.

The report noted that streaming brain-numbingly boring things such as mining could in fact numb the brain. One poor Eve player was linked to a stream of a triple-box mining operation as a prank by his friends, but the joke turned sour when the player hit his head against the wall and suffered mild concussion. Upon his recovery the man spoke of his outrage that Twitch could allow such a stream:

"I was just enjoying life like your average Joe when my 'friends' sent a link to a stream for me to watch. What's the worse that could happen? I thought. But then I saw three Retrievers mining. The screen was so stationary it stunned me, I was confused, disorientated and ran headfirst into a wall. I'm not sure how Twitch can allow this, I reported it to them but they told me 'clients can stream what they want'. Quite frankly I'm disgusted about the lack of concern they show their customers so I will be taking legal action."

Medical experts are currently investigating the potential for pointless streams to be used for treatment. An Icelandic GP said he is using mission running streams to treat insomniacs, and was happy to speak to the Eve Onion about the treatment:

"I first got the idea for this when treating an Eve player who was electrocuted when he punched a hole in his monitor while watching a mining stream. Obviously we can't use mining streams themselves as they do much more harm than good, instead we use mission running or incursion streams. We simply ask the patient to sit down with the stream and they're happily asleep within minutes. It doesn't have the side-effects of the more boring streams which could potentially cause haemorrhaging, severe injuries to the rectum and in some cases death." 

 Mad Ani is also unimpressed by the rise of the pointless streams, and took time off from being a cunt to give his response to the Eve Onion:

"For a start I haven't forgiven you for telling me to stop begging three months ago. I have a job now, and I have to work on getting another job at CCP while running my stream and playing my unlicensed music, which means I don't have time to talk to irrelevant shitlords such as yourself. Anyway, these streamers can suck my dick." 

Speculators are worried Twitch could find itself going bankrupt under the weight of hundreds of lawsuits after its integration with Eve goes live on Tranquillity. Readers are advised to use twitch.tv with caution for the sake of their own health.

CCP Announces SoE Kitchenware Products

CCP Games, Iceland’s largest nerd farmer, has announced its entry into the lucrative novelty kitchenware market. CCP Martha, head of its Home Goods group, spoke exclusively to the Eve Onion about this bold new extension of the brand:

“Our brand is important to us, so we’re very careful which products and services CCP attach it to” he told us whilst offering coffee muffins from the pocket of his Gurista branded apron. “The new Sisters of Eve hull designs present us with the exciting opportunity to develop not only amazing new ships but also unique and functional kitchen utensils."

"The first in this new product line is the SoE Blender, which will be launched to coincide with Rubicon 1.1 and is based on the new SoE Battleship. They share the same design philosophy and we know our players will enjoy flying the ship as well as using it to prepare meals for their family and friends. With full CREST API integration coming later this decade you’ll also be able to check your skill queues and market orders without leaving the kitchen.”

CCP were keen to point out that the SoE Blender doesn't just look nice, it’s robust as well. To prove it they prepared a traditional Icelandic soup of rancid shark and fresh cod bollocks using only a pan and the SoE Blender. It made short work of the putrid flesh and tiny fish testicles, CCP Martha served it in a wooden bowl topped with a dollop of crème fresh.

It is obvious that CCP views brand extension into novelty goods as a major revenue stream and it doesn't stop in the kitchen. Leaked internal documents passed to the Eve Onion describe early plans to create a line of Gallente themed sex toys to be launched with an unnamed expansion that will introduce something CCP are calling ‘Ooo-Space’.

Door Opening Mini-Game Revealed

The fallout of the Incarna release brought many stories, some happy and some tragic, but now after years of arguing whether or not to open the door, a new feature might stir up old feelings. CCP Bayesian, credited to have invented the intriguing hack-and-vomit mini-game for explorers, has hinted about a new mini-game:

"Now, we know smost people don't use their captains quarters. Our initial idea of simply forcing them there did not work out so well and we thought about adding more incentive to enter them. We are currently prototyping a minigame that, once beaten, will allow you to enter the captain's quarters of another pilot so you can bash the hell out of them." He refused to give more information but ideas are spreading on the forums, together with skepticism.

 The first ones to reply were lore-adhering fanatics denying the possibility of such a move, quoting high security measures for pod pilots and station interiors. But others used 'The Burning Life' novel to refute these claims, with one person saying "if you don't shut up I'll hit you over the head with that Eve book that has a Raven on the front - ingame of course!"

We were able, through direct communication, to question the state of the prototyping from CCP Bayesian: "Conflict is our central theme in New Eden, so we have a bunch of volunteer developers in office which come in early in the mornings. They will take over the computer of another colleague not yet here and mess with their last days work. The key here is to stay undetected as much as possible and measure the butterfly-effect through reported anomalies from the playerbase after such tampered work was released."

We believe we have experienced at least one such experiment with the recent sound changes, namely the incorrectly leveled microwarp-drives. A CCP developer from the sound team was spotted on the forums to have written "We have no idea how this happened", indicating such an occurrence had taken place.

 Also unclear and still in the realm of rumors are the things one could do once in another's quarters. Some keen on NEX-store items expressed their joy of rummaging through the expensive clothes of others. Comments regarding cross-dressers were quickly removed by ISD members.

 The actual mechanics of the minigame are also not yet clear, but some believe that one piece, for example a jacket, will be shown and the player has to line up matching shoes and trousers. It was also not settled whether the clothes available for selection would be needed in the cargo of the intruder, or simply drawn from the current NEX selection.

 All members from the CSM we contacted have so far withheld any information about this new feature, citing NDA terms. However, Ripard Teg did reveal that early prototypes of the mini-game aroused him. Many players believe this is just the start of a new mini-game age for Eve Online, and are hoping gameplay features such as activating modules will get the same treatment as exploration and door opening in the next expansion.

Number of Blobs Increasing

A recent survey carried out by Chribba found that the number of blobbings - where one combatant perceives one side is more powerful than the other - is rising at an alarming rate, with 79.1% of the Eve population reporting the harrowing experience of being out-muscled.

The most common type of blobbing was 1v1 or 2v2. A highsec miner commented on Chribba's forum thread, claiming he had been blobbed by a solo player in no less than nine occasions in November. When one pilot queried whether a 1v1 fight constituted as 'blobbing' he was met with a wall of hatred, being accused of never having PVPed before and called a 'fucking noob' repeatedly.

The survey also revealed that blobs happen most frequently in nullsec, with highsec coming a close second and lowsec significantly behind in last place, as it sadly died a few years ago. Amazingly it's not even necessary to be visible to blob someone in nullsec; the majority of incidents in renter space and Providence are caused by AFK cloakers. One nullbear was happy to explain to us how this could be described as blobbing:

"A cloak is a force multiplier isn't it? So if you've got one AFK cloaker and 15 honest, hardworking men who just want to make money, the covert ops cloak multiplies the cloaker's force by ten times. Then the cyno he probably has multiplies it by another ten times, so when you think about it every AFK cloaker has the effectiveness of 100 people. Therefore my alliance routinely gets blobbed 100-15." 

The findings have concerned many, but few can be bothered to do anything about it. Fortunately The Mittani, who is truly a beacon of shining light in the sea of darkness that is Eve, has unveiled the 'Good Fights Initiative', which aims to accelerate the use of blobbing and other dirty tactics.

Until today I was content with my coalition's role in Eve, but then all that changed when I read Chribba's damming evidence of how the number of good fights in Eve has slightly dropped. It highlighted that only 20.9% of the Eve population has experienced blobbing: this is unacceptable. From now on, we shall only engage the enemy if we outnumber them 5-1. If they have more than this ratio, we shall not fight them but we shall taunt them. Do not worry my subjects, you will still experience good fights in our staging system of G-0 thanks to the daily thunderdomes in all timezones, but our enemy will never experience fun again.

N3 FC progodlegend has replied to this statement by saying "we weren't having fun anyway you prick!" The few people who are against blobbing have suggested that stargates should behave like wormholes so they can more closely mimic wormhole space - the last bastion of good fights in New Eden. These people have now been culled by wormholers, who told us "shut up, Chribba forgot to survey us - no one can know what really goes on in W-space." Therefore we have not published what really goes on in W-space.

CCP Announces PLEX for CSM Minutes Campaign

The CSM process is a vital one in the fabric of Eve, nowhere more so than the Eve Online podcasting and blogging community. Without the CSM's tireless contributions of self-promotion and inane content many podcasts would simply cease to exist. The symbiotic relationship between blogs, podcasts and media hungry CSMs drives the Eve Online community output.

However, a crisis is now looming; the bi-annual minutes of the secretive CSM and CCP Summer Summit have not been published, causing a content drought for bloggers and podcasts. In previous years this content hole was filled by The Mittani but he is now hording his content for his own social media outlets.

CCP has reacted swiftly and today announced the ‘PLEX for minutes’ campaign. The leader of the Eve Community team CCP NeverLogsOn said this in a recent dev blog:

“Many have asked why CCP have not yet reviewed and released the CSM Minutes. I would like to ensure the Community that we at CCP have endeavored to review these Minutes, but, they have presented a significant challenge in that they are incredibly tedious. In fact they are so mind numbingly dull that the last two CCP employees who attempted to review them are now on sickness leave.  

Our Human Resources team have now banned all CCP employees from reading any content. Indeed, the forty minute monologue from CSM delegate Ripard Teg has been deemed so insipid we have secured it offshore along with all of CCP Dolan’s alliance tournament commentaries. We do recognize the urgency of the situation which is why today we launch the PLEX for Minutes campaign. 

We are asking the community 1000 PLEXs which will allow us to recruit an external consultant to review the minutes for us and publish them quickly." 

 We have already identified a candidate from the Eve community who has an extensive background in furry erotic fiction. He has offered his services and will be known as CCP RoughTiger, commenting:

"Donate now and get those Minutes!!"

This further extends the range of services CCP are willing to allow players to use PLEX to purchase. It is rumored that a PLEX for POS code campaign may start in the New Year - something CCP have denied by saying they cannot be bothered to undertake such a difficult course of development.

Manufacture of Phoenixes Banned

CCP made a shocking announcement today when they outlawed the production of Phoenixes - the Caldari dreadnought which is renowned for its inability to damage any moving object. They claimed they were left with little choice once they realised how bad the ship is.

Fozzie broke the news when he stated on Twitter that CCP felt is was 'unfair' to allow players to use such an awful ship, following up with this forum post:

"For a long time you've had to put up with only having three dreadnoughts. If we're honest, there is no Caldari dreadnought, the Phoenix is just a piece of shit masquerading as a dreadnought. I mean it is literally crap, it even looks like the very matter I expelled from my bowels this morning. No more we say! Until we get round to rebalancing capital ships, we'll make sure that players aren't subjected to the horror that is the Phoenix. As of tomorrow starting a manufacturing job on a Pheonix blueprint will result in a permanent ban. At the moment we're not going to persecute people for actually flying the ship because the GMs won't let us, but do yourselves a favour and self-destruct it."

The move was generally welcomed by players - even Phoenix pilots supported CCPs efforts to try to prise them from their beloved shits. "I've got an unhealthy obsession with my Phoenix, I can't leave it. Every time some faggot FC tells me I can't bring it on a stratop, I cry. Hopefully CCP will take this further and delete all Phoenixes so I can finally leave it behind."

Not everyone's happy though, a few months ago BNI pilots were ordered to start training for a new Phoenix doctrine. "I've had a hidden agenda since I started BNI all those months ago" admits Matais Otero, founder and former leader of the corporation. "I've always wanted a fleet of Phoenixes. I sunk some PLEX into buying blueprints and I've spent the better part of a year researching them, then just as we're about ready to start our production CCP come in with this stealth bravenewbie-nerf, no doubt this is the work of the nullsec entities on the CSM. Still, we will work on finding another counter to Talwar fleets."

The morality of building Phoenixes has been called into question before. Although this has not stopped them from being manufactured previously, it's expected the threat of a permanent ban will stop these rouge arms dealers in their tracks. Many hope the change in policy will finally stop these abominations getting into the hands of innocent newbies and cause a 40% reduction in biomasses.

Group of Seven Pilots Announce Intention to Invade Providence then Rent it Back to CVA

Seven mildly competent capsuleers have publicly stated they have gone to war with Proviblock after failing to settle a sovereignty dispute over the Providence region. They say they were left with little choice after CVA's diplomatic team failed to recognise them as serflords of the region.

The first battle of the war took place in K1Y-5H, a fairly quiet active system owned by Yulai Federation. Five of the 'Supreme Seven' were present, including Moros pilot Steve Ijonen. They were able to put the I-hub into shield reinforcement despite the heavy enemy presence in the system - unconfirmed reports state the locals were unaware the pilots were there, despite the fact they besieged the system for over six hours.

CVA have denied any assault has taken place on their region overnight, we were able to secure an interview with Equinox Daedalus, the leader of the alliance.

Tubrug1: Hello Equinox!
Equinox Daedalus: I prefer Sir Lord Admiral Equinox Daedalus of the Amarr Empire.
T1: Can I just call you m8?
ED: No.
T1: Excellent, so tell me m8, how are you taking the joint Deep Core Mining - Federal Navy Academy invasion of Providence?
ED: We haven't received any official report of attacks by the seven individuals who tried to rent our own space to us without invading it, however we did discover an I-hub had been reinforced several hours ago. We're not quite sure who did this, but when we find out our retribution will be swift.
T1: The Seven reinforced it.
ED: That's impossible, they're neutral to us. In fact, once of them paid YF 10 million isk to dock a Moros in the K1Y-5H station yesterday.
T1: Yes... Could you tell us more about CVA's new Prophecy doctrine which you intend to use to fight these invaders?
ED: Well it's nicknamed the stab because it's got so many Warp Core Stabilisers. It allows us to quickly run away if the battle isn't going in our favour.
T1: What if the enemy uses bubbles?
ED: That's why we've got improved cloaks!

Tensions continue to mount in Providence, with morale particularly low on the Proviblock side. "How are we supposed to fight them if we can't see them?" pondered one Care Factor pilot. "I bet they'll just fucking blob us" speculated another. The Seven said they had planned to rent the entire region back to them for 50 million isk/month - which is not a trivial sum of money for a modest alliance like CVA. With fireselling on the minds of many Providence residents, it's a question of who will be the first to crack under the pressure of a sov war.

Mad Ani Promises to Stamp Out Protests With an Iron First

Mad Ani delivered a defiant speech in a post in General Discussion today, announcing he would not tolerate protests against his bid to become a CCP employee. He also attempted to buy an advertisement encouraging people to subscribe to his stream in this opening paragraph, but has failed to do so.

It is believed he took this action after it emerged some people in the official forum thread did not like him and were not prepared to give him real money. Sources close to Mad Ani say he was 'outraged' and 'disgusted' by the sudden realisation. This prompted him to write a brief post about what would happen to the people who dared to violate his rules.

"Mad Ani 24/7 Live Stream

Hello. I'm a neutral Eve news correspondent who streams fights. It emerged earlier today that there are some people who disagree with my stream. Let me make this perfectly clear:

You cannot disagree with my stream. 

If I receive intelligence that you have said something negative about my stream, you will be blocked. This means you will not be able to use the twitch chat on my stream or talk to me ingame. I only want to have to repeat this once: you will not be able to use the twitch chat on my stream or talk to me ingame.

You have one chance.

Please subscribe to my stream for only $4.99! This money helps to keep the stream running and allows me to be unemployed!"

Within minutes the forum thread was full of people well-wishing Mad Ani. The first two pages contained completely positive comments, including 'every1 except u is a faggot mad ani!' and 'you are the most friendly player in Eve! CCP Mad Ani!'.

Unfortunately the peace did not last long. As soon as word got out, hundreds of non-fanboys descended on the thread, causing scenes of devestation. Goons, carebears, griefers, carebears, miners and renters united in their hatred of Mad Ani. After replying 'blocked' to every negative commenter for the first few minutes, he suddenly fell silent. Reports indicate he retreated to the webcam on his live stream, where he remained in an irate mood for several hours.

After disabling the stream's chat, he could be seen talking to himself while naked, and began stroking a fedora with sunglasses on. Eventually he dispensed with the Eve stream altogether, instead displaying his webcam fullscreen. This has left at least seven people dead, with up to fourteen more severely injured. Many remain confused and worried.

Carebears Demand Right to be Euthanised

There was a rare display of unity across highsec yesterday as thousands of carebears agreed they should be given the right to end their own lives. They gathered in spirit across New Eden and began spamming local with a variety of non-existant words, even putting forth a CSM member for the first time in recent years.

The protests kicked off at 16:31 on Tuesday 29^th October, when a miner named Jennifer en Marland commented in local "mining is so boring why cant I just kill my character". This was echoed by several other Hulks in the 0.6 security system with calls such as "yeah, why cant we just kill ourselves" and "CCP should add a feature that lets you kill your character, maybe call it 'biomassing' or something". The Anti-Ganking channel acted as a catalyst for the carebears, who began chanting in local "BIOMASS BIOMASS BIOMASS".

People who told the carebears such a feature already existed were violently struck down and told they should biomass themselves when they won the right to euthanasia. CCP has already taken notice of their sudden change of stance; Icelandic players reported seeing CCP staff who had collapsed from laughter being taken to hospital on the local news. At 20:44 alexhunter seyah emerged as highsec's latest CSM candidate, saying in Amarr local "I will run to CSM". Around an hour later a forum post from him appeared in the Price Checks subforum before being moved helpfully moved to Jita Park Speaker's Corner. The post is reproduced for the convenience below:

"my name is alexhunter seyah and I want the right to kill myself. To long have us highsec miners, mision runners and incursion joggers suffered boring and mundane lives. with some kind of mechanic to let us die we can safely quit eve without anyone searching our characters and thinking 'wow, that guy was a faliure'. wel'l also be safe in the knowledge no goon will ever hack our accounts and steal our mining barges because there will be no more mining barges. Future carebears will forever admire the people who ensured they could run away from a game they were bad at. as an sign of goodwill I will hug the Mittani at fanfest if someone tells me where it is. Please note that as soon as we win suicide I will suicide and not be CSM anymore." 

 James 315 said he was most most perplexed by the change in the attitude of carebears, but in a 16794 word TMC article he concluded it would be good for the game. "The cancer of Eve will be cured" he noted. "Long gone will be the days of people autopiloting their Exhumers through nullsec then whining when they get killed. No longer will every Eve player be subject to their complete stupidity and ignorance that is more physiologically damaging than your brain mangled with a coat hanger. We shall be free." The Saviour of Highsec also gently encouraged biomassing miners to donate their funds to the New Order so they would be remembered as slightly less of a failure - which has allegedly had limited success already.

Miniluv was said to be in chaos after the carebear riots. "It doesn't make any sense... THE WORLD'S GONE WRONG HELP GOD" said one ganker before going offline for several hours. It does pose a danger to the success of future ice interdictions - as they fundamentally can't work if there's no ice to interdict. Many nullsec alliances turned to shooting nullbears and renters, who upon hearing the call of their brethren began to migrate to highsec. One bewildered player almost accidentally self-destructed his freighter when he saw the constant stream of Tengus passing him. "It was fucking terrifying, they were everywhere."

With alexhunter seyah's support, carebears across Eve could finally get the right to put their characters down after suffering years of agony. In the meantime society in Eve has completely broken down; combined with other recent events such as Goonswarm complaining about a griefing mechanic, some now believe the real Eve has been stolen by the CIA and replaced with a fake version. Many players remain confused and worried.

CFC Joins Gallente Factional Warfare

Following Test's surprise move to the Caldari militia after their Curse deployment turned sour, the CFC have also announced they will be joining faction war - but on the other side. While Goons remain adamant they moved because of the reasons outlined in the State of the Goonion, spectators have suggested that due to the timing and circumstances of the move, the CFC have done this to deliver the death blow to Test.

The Mittani announced the State of the Goonion just one hour before it began. He outlined the reasons for the move in a short speech:

Welcome to our fellow Goons, our CFC coalition partners, our renters, our temporary allies of convenience, our renters and even to Test - thank you for coming today. I’ll keep it brief. 

My people, Rubicon will come - and it will leave us destitute. 

For the past few weeks our coalition has become accustomed to a lifestyle that is the envy of EVE. Due to renters and sound fiscal management, we have been able to fund a peacetime reimbursement system, carrier giveaways, and galaxy-changing events like Burn Jita and the Ice Interdictions. But now that has all changed. 

Rubicon will strip the value of our renters. Why? They have left for Osmon. No longer is the Vale of the Silent desirable for a pubbie, converting LP to SoE ships promises to deliver a far greater income. Our finance team - the best in the game - tells me that in order for us to uphold our social programs, we must find a way to make obscene amounts of money with little effort.

We attempted to solve this problem diplomatically by demanding Test pay us one trillion isk a week in Curse, but we were rebuffed - in some diplomatic shenanigans best glossed over.

Wars in EVE - and in the real world - begin with a declaration of grievance, followed by a quest for justice. Tonight we join the Gallente militia. Purely because it is a great way for the individual to make profit, and by asking you for a 10% contribution of your earnings it's a great way for us to make money too.

TEST has abruptly found itself in an untenable position as a homeless alliance - in its current space, at least. I'd like to stress we aren't attacking TEST because they are our enemies; they are our friends. However it is not sheer coincidence they joined the side that would become our enemies; the GIA received intelligence that they knew of our move before we announced it and joined the Caldari to stop us. Therefore they must be destroyed. Once they disband, we will leave the militia. 

Who is right and who is wrong doesn’t really matter: if we do not kill TEST, someone else will - and they will enjoy the kind of smug that we once had, while we wallow in wrenching meekness. We are now about to send our fleets to the invasion zone. Before we do, some important details:

This is a CFC invasion, which means that we will be judging participation as a basis for spoils and pride will be distributed accordingly; TEST will be killed with the final blow of GSF, but everyone in the CFC is welcome to brag about killing Test.

Move as many Rifters as you want. This will be an easy war, so we only require you to have three or four frigates at the staging.

We will not be using Alphafleet, Baltecfleet, AHAC fleet or Caracal fleet in this campaign. Do not bring anything bigger than a frigate to the invasion zone. We are adding an armor Ibis doctrine to our roster. If you want to be ahead of the curve, begin training for T2 Ibises now. This means that the primary CFC doctrines will be IbisFleet and RifterFleet.

One final note: do not overestimate the defenders. This will be a short war, and they are now completely awful.
Thank you for coming tonight. Good luck to all of us, and I will see you in fleet.

While CFC line members were said to be delighted at the news, TEST have not take it so well. This was a ping sent to members of TEST by recently appointed CEO SkierX

CFC IS DEPLOYING TO FW, DO NOT UNDOCK UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THE NEXT WEEK AND PREPARE TO DROP CORP TO REFORM IN BNI IF NECESSARY.  

#### SENT BY SkierX to Homeless @ 2013-10-11 17:44:56 EVE Time ####

 It seems TEST morale has dropped to an all-time low. According to rumours they have tried to firesale their characters as well as all their assets. Some members have reportedly tried to sell their wallets as well. Despite the initial panic his announcement caused, SkierX gave us a statement in which he urged members not to panic: "we're docking up purely as a precautionary measure, there are currently a plethora of options available to us. I mean there are literally multiple things we could do. It might take us some time to figure out what path we should take, so we'll get back to our members once we decide what to do."

CCP to give Khanid Navy Armageddons to Eve's Richest 87 People

Following the recent controversy of giving Ishukone Scorpions to various organisations such as the SCL and Somer Blink, CCP have attempted to repair relations between themselves and their customers by giving new Khanid Navy Armageddons to the richest 87 people in Eve.

The move has been well received by the majority of Eve players. Having decided to not award these prizes in secret - which angered many people in the case of the Ishukone Scorpions, CCP instead paraded the ‘rewards for creating content’ on the General Discussion subforum. The post from T20 is reproduced below:

“I'm happy to announce we have awarded a new class of ship – the Khanid Navy Armageddon – to some of the richest people in Eve. We believe they are thoroughly deserving of the prize, by being rich they have created content for hundreds, if not thousands of players. Nearly all of them got their isk by station trading, which is one of the most content creating professions in the game. By constantly updating hundreds of buy and sell orders, they've ensured that capsuleers are always getting good prices – even if they’re only saving them 0.01isk. There’s even one chap who updates his orders 23 hours a day, if that’s not dedication I don’t know what is.”

 Not everyone was happy though. Gevlon Goblin, who missed out on the prize by being a suspicious 0.01 isk away from the qualifying amount, admitted he was somewhat disappointed about missing out on the chance to own such a rare ship. “I am tiny bit sad at not getting Armageddon, but it not like they are rare ships. I am to see hundreds of them on the market every day, they only worth 100mil.”

“I'm a fucking muppet.” Our interview with Ripard Teg, who previously defended CCP giving prizes to people they choose, starts with him getting the facts in the open. “Sometimes, when I was bored at the CSM summit, I licked the floor of CCP headquarters. The others called me a ‘fucking retard’, but I know it’s important to show respect to CCP. I'm not going to criticise them, if I do I might impact their income which means they would have less money! And if they don’t have enough money, they won’t be able to develop World of Darkness! I can’t tell you how much I'm looking forward to that game; I really am a teenage girl at heart.”

CCP also advanced their efforts to promote Eve Vegas, an event running later this month. Again, it was announced through a forum thread, as copy and pasted below:

“We’re happy to announce we have gained the support of another pillarstone of the community in advertising Eve Vegas. For weeks Jia Denso has tirelessly worked to double people’s isk in Jita, and we want to capitalise on that sheer advertising potential. Even those fucking comedians who send a full message of blank lines to ‘stop the scummy spammers lol’ didn’t stop him, he ploughed on and did his job. As a symbol of our relationship, we’re giving him a special edition version of the Stratios cruiser, which will be delivered to him by reliable 3^rd part The Mittani.”

Finally we were able to secure a brief interview with CCP T20, who said he would be on the lookout for more opportunities to give prizes to deserving people. If you feel you are owed an iScorp, shoot an email to CCP and they will endeavour to make sure you get the special edition ship you deserve.

Eve Online: Blink Announced as Winter Expansion

CCP announced the eagerly awaited Winter 2013 expansion for Eve Online today, revealing it to be called 'Blink'. Although the feature page is somewhat incomplete at present, it and its accompanying Dev Blog do give some indication as to what we can expect to see.

Every special edition ship - from Gold and Silver Magnates to Etanas and Cambonians - will be resurrected, with fifty of each hull being provided to the controversial lottery website SOMER Blink. A variety of monocles will also be raffled on the site, along with various other rare items. A button will also be added to the wallet window that will allow players to directly deposit isk into SOMER Blink's account, cutting out the need to search for the corporation through the People and Places window - which previously deterred many people from blinking.

Understandably this has caused a lot of anger in the Eve community; some believe it is wrong that previously dead ships such as the Golden Magnate are being revived, some believe CCP are showing favouritism towards SOMER (which some members of the community were banned for implying earlier this year) and some people just hate SOMER Blink. While some of them voiced their discontent in a forum thread, others chimed in their support for the expansion. Turelus, one of the advocates of the expansion, told us of his excitement: "I just can't wait for this expansion, it's going to be so good! I've already lost over 4 billion isk on Blink, but now I get the chance to waste even more on something I've got nearly no chance of winning! I know that sounds sarcastic, but if I sink all my isk into blinking I'll have a 1 in 20,000 chance of winning a monocle! Those are the sorts of odds I live for!"

CCP Navigator replied to the mob, though it's not known if this was a serious post as it contains several false statements, such as "SOMER Blink have been one of the most philanthropic groups in Eve." It appears Navigator has confused the meaning of 'philanthropist' with the meaning of 'thief', as SOMER has been known for making a lot more players bankrupt than it has solvent. Even those who don't support the move itself can see the positives of it though. Eve-bet have already started a bet on the number of industrials carrying the CCP-gifted prizes that will be killed in Jita. 100 billion isk has already been bet, "more than 8" is the most popular option with 1.2 odds.

Other features included giving away five PLEX to everyone who goes to Eve Vegas, along with a free ticket to stroke CCP Hellmar's facial hair for up to half a minute. This has been the most well received feature of the expansion, with hundreds of 'beard tickets' being claimed.  Warp speeds of all ships will also be increased, to allow prize carrying SOMER Blink freighters to get to their destinations faster. Although many players find some aspects of the expansion undesirable, most of them believe the beard stroking ticket promises to be an exciting feature that can be built upon in the future. Time will tell whether the expansion will be able to beat the legendary Incarna. 

Freighter Rebalancing Annouced

CCP Fozzie has posted his latest round of rebalancing work on the Features and Ideas subforum. These changes affect freighters, which will be gaining a lot more EHP in a similar way to mining barges and tier one industrials did when they were balanced. The alterations have been criticised by the majority of Eve players, with freighter owners saying the changes don't go far enough and gankers the opposite.

Freighters will receive an increase in hitpoints - taking their average EHP up to around 300k. In addition, each race will receive a special fitting attribute that will come in the form of a module or drone bay. The Caldari freighter, the Charon, will have a turret slot along with 100 PG and 40 CPU, which is designed to be used for a Heavy Assault Missile launcher. The Amarrian Providence will acquire the fittings for a Cap Recharger II, while the Fenrir will gain two module slots - a high and a low. However it will get just 10 CPU and 2PG, along with a CPU bonus to salvaging modules; it seems this new Fenrir is designed as a spacious ninja-salvager. Finally, the Gallente's Obelisk will receive no modules but will gain a 10m³ dronebay along with 5mbit/sec of bandwidth.

The reasoning behind the move was stated as being 'to bring the EHP of freighters in-line with other capital ships', but some are speculating it was done to nerf freighter ganking. With the number of freighter ganks on the rise, particularly in Burn Jita, ice interdictions and other emergent gameplay events, CCP has sought to end the departure of many freighter pilots affected by suicide ganking. Their plan seems to have worked, with many people considering resubscribing. One former freighter pilot posted "I stopped playing because Burn Jita made me paranoid about flying freighters - I lost three Nomads over two days. With these new changes hopefully I'll be able to fly safely in highsec without being attacked by Darius JOHNSON's SOLODRAKBANSOLODRAKBANSO's or whatever they call themselves these days."

It's also been hailed as the 'death of nullsec emergent gameplay' by some. One inarticulate highsec carebear named Gevlon Goblin commented on the changes. "lol now those gewny faggots won't be able to killed me. i already UBER-TROLLED them in my proccruer, imagine how much fun im going to had with these new freiughters. I might just load up my fenrir with officer modules and take it through VFK!!"

James 315, Saviour of Highsec, has urged his subjects not to panic. He said he will point out why this will make no difference to freighter ganking when he finishes his 15,000 word TMC article on the topic. The CFC have announced they will try to award bounties for freighters killed in a similar way to how they are offered for exhumers killed at the moment. This has gone down well with line members, one of whom pointed out that "renter pubbies are funding the deaths of non-renter pubbies. It's the circle of life."

While EFT warriors will be relentlessly crafting new fits for these beasts, it remains to be seen whether this will stop freighter ganking or just cause more expensive but infrequent losses. With rumours of asteroid doomsdaying Orca on the horizon, carebears around the world can sleep soundly tonight.

Eve News 24 Grammatical Errors on the Rise

An independent and impartial research organisation has found that the number of grammar and spelling errors on the popular reporting site Eve News 24 has increased by 39% this week. The report, which compared all articles written between June 2-9 2013 to those published between August 25-31 2013, found that Eve News 24 standards are 'gradually decreasing.'

The evidence was put to the General Discussion subforum on the official Eve Online forum by Goonswarm's Minister of Propaganda, receiving a mixed reaction from the Eve community. Riverini of Eve News 24 told me "we're committed to delivering quality news to eastern nullsec and empire space players 24/7. This drop in standards appears to be due to an operational fault with our editing system, which has existed for around three years now and seems to be getting worse. We're looking for ways to improve our publishing process, and I'm sure we'll remain the best news reporting site in Eve forever."

 Many of the anti-EN24 commenters in the forum thread said they were 'displeased' by EN24's decreasing lack of quality over the past few years. One disillusioned former EN24 reader told me "I don't know why riverini still employs Gevlon. I literally don't understand him at all. They could at least try to correct his poor grammar in the editing stage, but somehow it just slips through the net. It's like they don't actually care about their standards at all." Gevlon Goblin, a veteran Eve News writer, commented in the thread "I was trying to improving me standards of write, with helping from riverini I am to confidence I will achieved success in English EN24."

A recent Eve News 24 post, entitled 'Corporations/guilds only have their restrictions to offer' drew criticism from readers, who vented their anger in the comments section of the article. They argued that the post had many flaws, namely that it was written by Gevlon Goblin and the article was 'completely incoherent'. The top comment informed Gevlon that he 'sucks dick' 78 times. The article contained no less than 37 grammatical mistakes, as well as a large number of factual errors. However the article was praised for its hilarity, with one commenter saying "I'm starting to like the comedy value of these posts."

Readers have also suggested that news coverage seems to be consistently anti-CFC and anti-Mittani. One fan noted he hadn't seen a single report where they admitted the CFC actually won a battle, or that The Mittani was actually a nice guy. "It's slightly suspicious to be honest, I'm not sure I even trust EN24 anymore." Despite the apparant decrease in standards, many people remain loyal to riverini's website. "Anything's better than what that goon cunt sperges. He's killing off Eve bloggers with his sperge, which is just a massive goon propaganda machine. The reason I read EN24 is because I love their completely sperge-free, high-quality articles."

There is hope on the horizon for Eve News; they are trialling a new strategy to avoid errors in their writing. They plan on copy and pasting the main source of text, with a small commentary at the start of the article. This has already worked well on one article reporting on Test's deployment to Curse, with a mere two punctuation mistakes over 17 words - an error rate of just 8.5 words per fault. There's real promise that Eve News 24 will be regarded as more than a joke one day in the distant future.

Proviblock Speaks on the Civil War

Recently, the roleplaying alliance of CVA and their lowly pets were divided. The cause of this tragic split in the relationship of pet and master is believed to be an incident during a NRDS raid on WoW, which has since caused no end of inconvenience for the ratting hordes of Provibros.

CVA declared that one of their smaller cats was to be evicted (rehomed) immediatly. Many other cats, dogs, and even individual ants answered CVA's call in an attempt to gain prime arse licking position, and proceeded to try to put Of Sound Mind in an animal rescue centre. I spoke to Equinox Daedalus, Executor of CVA and crippled pets, who told me about why they travelled down this dark parth. He was kind enough to give me an interview:
Tubrug1: Hello sir!
Equinox Daedalus: Hail! I am Equinox Daedalus, prophet of the mighty Amarr empire in the kingdom of Providence and Azeroth.
Tubrug1: So tell me E-dog, why would you get rid of Sound over such a trivial matter?
Equinox Daedalus: The mighty and glorious kingdom of Amarr was concerned about the behaviour of an Of Sound Mind player while performing a 10-man Heroic Dragon Soul raid. He alpahed the trigger, getting himself killed and delaying the whole party by the ten seconds it took to rez him. This was a devastating blow to our efficiency, leaving us with no choice other than to expel his alliance from Providence.
Tubrug1: I see... So anyway, the war doesn't seem to be going in Proviblocks's favour doesn't it? Thanks to external influence Sound's two systems seem to be unsinkable.
Equinox Daedalus: We've petitioned the gods to try to stop these interlopers from interfering. It's not fair that these completely random moon rich dicks come along to Providence and think they can get away with killing members of the mighty Amarr empire. They should at least get -5 standings to Amarr, that way they'd think twice about being complete dicks. And those Brave Newbie fuckers, don't get me started on them. They used hacks to get bombers, they used hacks to drop bombs perfectly and they used hacks to stop them from taking damage.
Tubrug1: Those are some quite perplexing reactions. I'd like to ask you a few questions from our readers, the most popular of which was 'are you mad?'
-Equinox Daedalus leaves convo-
-You are not allowed to contact Equinox Daedalus-

I asked a member of the Yulai Federation, another pet alliance based in north-east Providence, about his participation in the war. He replied "wat war!" followed by "i dont now who u r but I think i should report u 2 of sound mind, their the best pvps in provi, they can completely ASSault any1. id be scared of them if they declared warr on us, it would be rlly scary." After I bought Nimrodion up to speed with the recent change in politics, he informed be that I was a "'fcking cent' and should "fuck off back to licking G00N ass u little pussy cum 2 provi and fight me!!!11!"

Of Sound Mind seem to be very optimistic about the future, telling me they received a massive morale boost thanks to Brave Collective. A Fleet Commander told me "The battle over the station timer wasn't going too well, but then we saw 20 Brave Collective bombers decloak and throw bombs at their fleet. It was like that scene in the Lord of the Rings were the eagles were coming, and I said the Eagles are coming. It would've been better if they were actually using Eagles but they weren't. It also feels pretty good not having to do what those role playing c***s tell me to do, they were annoying twats and we never liked them anyway."

Rumour has it that CVA's arse is losing its nourishing and protective flavour and more alliances are on the verge of leaving the orgy that is the ProviBlock. Time will decide both the fate of the region and of the many alliances living in CVA's cosy rectum.

SOMER Blink Disbands, Somerset Mahm Collapses Eve Economy

SOMER Blink, Eve's most popular lottery, has folded after almost three years of trading on the dawn of their one quadrillion isk celebration. Somerset Mahm, the public figurehead behind the scam, was revealed to be the alt of a senior Goonswarm Federation director. The 300 trillion isk of profit the organisation has made has been taken and used to cripple the economy.

Nearly every single item of note was bought in highsec by a series of similarly named characters. This was quickly noted by traders and customers. The Jita market was the first tradehub to be affected, and within half an hour every non-officer and non-scam priced item in the Forge region had disappeared from the market. People attempted to relist their personal stockpile of items, but nearly all of them were purchased within minutes. Before the news could spread, the Domain, Sinq Laison and Heimatar regions were emptied as well.

Hours later, after nearly every item in empire space and many in nullsec had been stockpiled by these mysterious figures, the SOMER Blink website displayed the message "The Mittani Sends his Regards", every account was shown to be empty of isk and there were no blinks on the board. Blinkers initially believed that the website had been hacked, but after there was no response from Blink staff, they began to assume the worst.

Four hours after the economic apocalypse struck, social armageddon began to loom. Unable to acquire new ships, people began to panic. As droves of people flocked to social media such as Reddit and Twitter to find out what was going on, a new article appeared on themittani.com, titled "The Economic Changes and You", authored by The Mittani.

The post began "As many of you may have noticed, earlier today nearly every product on Eve's markets ceased to be listed. Some of you may have also noticed that SOMER Blink ceased trading minutes later. This is not coincidental. Let me take you back to January 2009, at the height of the Great War. It was at this time the idea of a 'lottery scam' was first proposed to enable economic warfare to influence BoB's markets, however the war abruptly ended weeks later. The idea was forgotten until we came up with a shortlist of ideas that could fuck the economy. The Gallente Ice Interdiction and Burn Jita(s) were conceived, but they looked as weak as Test when compared to our ultimate plan - SOMER Blink.

We weren't too sure we would be able to become large enough with our ludicrously large profit margins, but to our relief the site began to pick up steam and before we knew it we had nearly given away one quadrillion isk, while making nearly 300 trillion isk in profit. The amount we spent today was a mere drop in the ocean, it only cost us 5 trillion isk to buy every item on the market. Thanks to stupid pubbie fucks, if we relist every product at 10x the price we'll be able to do this indefinitely."

This is likely the greatest triumph any alliance has ever achieved in the history of Eve. The only markets left untouched were the CFC's home regions, causing a breakdown of the economy everywhere else. The more organised alliances will be able to trade ships and minerals using contracts for now, but weaker alliances will probably collapse. Highsec is under even greater strain, with the vast majority of pilots having no access to ships, or anything else on the market.

Attempts have been made to rally the entire forces of Eve against the CFC in a last ditch attempt to prevent the alliance from gaining the strength it needs to take over the entirety of nullsec. Unfortunately the majority of highsec residents are still not aware that Eve is a multiplayer game, and still don't understand why Blink isn't working, the Providence block have decided to settle their civil war on WoW, and PL are too busy mining enough ice to be able to move their grounded supercap fleet.

I spoke to one of the most prominent Blinkers, Replacement 234, about the revelation. He said "I'm slightly pissed off that Somerset Mahm betrayed everyone like that. I never actually made a profit from my blinking, I just kept playing blink because I had nothing else to do with the billions of isk I made from station trading. I didn't have a clue I was funding Goonswarm's evil plan for universal domination, and I'd like to apologise unreservedly to all Eve players who's experience I've ruined."

Riverini has not taken the news well. In an EN24 post, he said "I tried to told everyone that GOON RUINS EVE. But instead I got told to fuck off, and everyone said that EN24 was shit because I kept telling everyone that GOON is bad. now look who's fucking laughing, Gevlon had been trying to tell me this would happen for months. If I were on CSM, I could persuade CCP to make a new server for non GOONS, but instead you had to fucking not vote for me you fucking dicks. Now noone will be able to play on tranquillity for years because you gave all the fucking GOONS money, even though I fucking told you not to. You don't deserve to have a market you dicks.

The amount of isk Goonswarm currently possesses is roughly equal to what everyone else in Eve possesses, meaning it is likely to take years for them to run out of money, and will take even longer if they relist the products. Test were mostly unaffected by the change, since they had been relying on their Ibis doctrine since the fall of Fountain. One noobship pilot proudly told me "I didn't even use the market to get this ship, and it had a free Tritanium in it!" In this new version of Eve, Test remains the CFC's greatest foe.

Internal Revenue Service Now Offering Tax Deductions on Eve Losses

In a shocking move that had stocks rocketing to a new record precipice, the United States Internal Revenue Service announced today that the federal government will now accept tax deductions on losses incurred while running corporations inside the virtual universe of Eve Online.

Cheers would have been heard throughout all of nullsec at the announcement, but alas, in space no one can hear you scream, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that people were very happy.

“When I heard the leader of the TEST alliance was black, I just had to help”, proclaimed United States president Barack Obama at a press conference in the White House rose garden, “being the first and only brother to run America, I felt bad for Boodabooda’s troubles as CEO.  Being the only powerful black man in an entire galaxy can be very challenging, and I can definitely relate.”

The bean counters in the economic division have been crunching the numbers, and have concluded that they don’t have nearly enough beans to calculate how much money alliances such as TEST and CFC will receive in refunds next April for the fiscal year of 2013, so they just made up some numbers instead:

·         According to our calculations TEST has lost, (and can write-off up to) nearly eleven trillion dollars in financial losses for the year, and will receive two hundreds solar systems of real space as compensation. Goonswarm have complained to the CSM concerning the sovereignty mechanics these systems will use, but CCP say it is out of their control.

·         Pandemic Legion will be reimbursed for their Revenant loss by receiving the decommissioned Soviet military nuclear supercarrier Ulyanovsk, complete with fighter jets and a full complement of three thousand meth-addicted Russian Eve players.

·         Black Legion is the only alliance that will still have to pay taxes this year, being that they have lost literally nothing, and have taken everyone else’s shit.

·         CFC, who have posted the most significant loss of the year so far, eleventy-quadrillion dollars, will be owed so much money that The Mittani will be elected Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank and given his own printing press to devalue everyone’s currency, and fun, around him.

And these losses just don’t cover giant alliances – even you can get a piece of the action. 

Starting October 24^th, American taxpayers can download or request form EVE544-B, and itemize losses incurred while playing Eve Online during the year of 2013.  Depending on the going rate for PLEX, taxpayers will calculate their returns by dividing their losses by the cost of a single PLEX. 

For example, if your Amarr Providence freighter was suicide ganked in hi-sec, you would take the value of the ship, approximately 1.4 billion isk, and divide it by the average price of a 30-Day Pilot’s License Extension (520 million), and then convert the result to a dollar amount.  Your return would look something like this:

1,400,000,000.00 (Providence)/520,000,000.00 (average PLEX cost)

 = 2.69 (PLEX) * $17.00 (cost) = 34 + 11.73 =

$45.73 that you can deduct on next year’s tax return! 

So the next time you are besieged in a station in low sec, don’t be afraid or hesitant to take that shiny new T3 Tengu out for a ride on the town.  Even if you get blown up, you’ll be saving yourself, and your country money!  In fact, you’ll be a downright red-blooded, eagle hugging American taxpaying patriot.

 BoB bless the U.S.!

6VDT-H Battle Report

6VDT-H recently hosted the largest battle in Eve's 10 year history, with the CFC and N3ST forces fighting over the station that was home to Test for two years. The CFC dealt what appears to be the death blow to Fountain, expanding their vast empire and their revenue as they gain control of one of the richest regions in the game.

The battle was centred around the station, which came out of shield reinforcement at 19:44, the CFC armies were in system around an hour before this time. Their flotilla was composed of seven Baltec fleets, one AHAC fleet, one Fuckyou fleet and two bomber wings, with around 2000 people surrounding the station. Test only bridged into the system minutes before the timer expired. A Test line member told me "the FCs thought the station would come out at 20:44, it was only when they watched the CFC forces on Madani's twitch channel that they realised they were wrong. An All Hands on Dick ping was sent out to bridging titans, and they managed to log on in time to send the fleet in."

Many of the CFC ships were equipped with warp scramblers to prevent the station from escaping. One goon newbro told me "after the station came out of reinforce, we were told there was a very real danger that they station could warp away. We'd been ordered by some guy with a loud dog to stop the station from retreating."

Over the next few minutes, Test fleets slowly trickled onto the station grid. The Admiral Squad, Test's squad/SiG for people who like making money, took the opportunity to run some Serpentis sites. One member proudly told me he made 5mil isk in half an hour, then proceeded to criticise CCP for the TiDi that had prevented him from making 100mil isk an hour. Finally the Admiral Squad's Nagas trundled onto the field.

The CFC's bombers were under the command on Kcolor and Dabigredboat. Dabigredboat was streaming the fight on themittani.com's twitch stream, and appeared to be extremely enthusiastic about his slightly miscoordinated bombing runs. He encouraged fleet members to 'throw bombs over there' and 'throw a bomb at that bunch of pods'. During the battle, I asked him how many R64 moons he had been promised for leading the fleet, he replied "5, 5 I think". There was also some feeling among members of the CFC bombing wing that Test had paid for their fleet using RMT. A bomber who boasted 15 Prophecy kills told me "Test are completely broke, so they can't have paid for this fleet by themselves. They're even too poor to afford Rokhs now, so they have to use battlecruisers instead. I fucking hate poor alliances."

During the middle of the battle a small group of BNI salvagers attempted to enter the system and steal modules from wrecks as well as salvage them. Unfortunately, they were killed before they could enter the system. As the battle continued to grind on, the CFC brought 200 Dreadnoughts into the system, and although they came late they still had a huge impact on the battle. Test FCs ordered their pilots to stay on field, the they disregarded the order and fled the station grid. BoodaBooda managed to rally the troops around by threatening to kick any members that left the system, and led 200 more ships to their death, killing a CFC Naglfar. They claimed it was an op success and were podkilled home.

Many CFC participants still had their ships and were bridged home, but this was interrupted when a jumping Titan was pushed out of an insecure POS and killed by NC. supercapitals. The titan pilot, who belonged to Li3, claimed that his alliance was competing with FCON for the prize of losing the most titans.

After the smoke had cleared, Test have decided they didn't want that system anyway and are now preparing to defend Delve. The CFC have tauntingly said that the money from R64s in Delve will be used to give a PLEX a day to the newbro who asks the cutest question. BoodaBooda replied with another poor quality Lord of the Rings quote.

Most non-CFC members of the Eve galaxy have not taken the news of the expanding Goonswarm empire well. One perhaps slightly misinformed Highsec miner told me "now GEWN will try to conquer highsec, but GEWN cannot conquer highsec because it is already own! CCCP should add new mecahnic to ban GEWN from highsec because they do not belong and they only make other player sad!" One philosophical lowsec pilot named Gorski Car suggested that SOLAR were all CFC alts, and that they invaded the east to deliberately distract N3 from the war.

"The only thing known for certain is that the unstoppable Goon warmachine is now in motion and it cannot be stopped! Unless every single alliance and player in Eve unites against The Mittani everyone is doomed to WoW!" - Riverini, EN24 article on the battle