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.