EVE Online

A real-life American politician has been banned from Eve Online for alleged corruption.

EVE Online developer CCP Games has announced that work on its EVE-themed multiplayer shooter Project Nova will cease in its current form. Instead, CCP will now "take a step back and return to the drawing board".

Remember Project Nova? It's the new first-person shooter set within the Eve Online universe from CCP Games and UK developer Sumo Digital. Things had been quiet on the Project Nova front, but CCP has just lifted the lid on the game, releasing a flashy teaser trailer, letting outlets run gameplay footage and signalling a closed playtest for later this year.

Here's the teaser trailer:

"Project Nova is the upcoming dark and thrilling first-person co-op shooter set in the dystopian sci-fi universe of EVE Online," reads the official blurb.

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Charismatic Icelandic developer CCP, maker of Eve Online, has been acquired by the South Korean maker of Black Desert Online, Pearl Abyss, in a deal reportedly worth $425m.

CCP, the developer of Eve Online, is making a new action MMO.

In a modernist hotel lobby on the outskirts of Barcelona I sit face to face with the President. He's pretty casual as far as presidents go, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, wearing sunglasses even though we're inside. He's got a tattoo up the underside of his forearm which reads 'Neverdie'. It's his alias, but more of a name to him now than Jon Jacobs ever will be. He is President of Virtual Reality. It has nothing to do with Oculus Rift or VR goggles, and it's not some silly title in a game. President of Virtual Reality means president of all virtual realities - World of Warcraft, Eve Online, Destiny, the lot.

The communities behind space games Eve Online and Star Citizen have gone to war over a new "copycat" spaceship.

The next Eve Online expansion is Into the Abyss, CCP Games has announced.

The expansion, which comes out in May, is free to all players. The hook this time is exploration and survival gameplay in the form of Abyssal Deadspace, a brand new hostile environment. Expect hazardous environmental effects and a new enemy, the Triglavian Collective.

Here's the official blurb, from CCP:

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Capping off an afternoon of introductions at last week's Eve Vegas fan event in Las Vegas, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson revealed Project Aurora - a new mobile strategy game set in the Eve universe.

Among a flurry of updates at this weekend's Eve Vegas event comes confirmation that Project Nova, CCP's latest stab at an Eve Online-inspired multiplayer shooter, is still very much a going concern.

The development of Nova, announced in 2016, has taken place in relative secrecy, with the game absent from this year's Eve Fanfest. At Eve Vegas on Friday, however, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson confirmed the studio is "heads-down working on this game."

Project Nova is a successor of sorts to the defunct PlayStation 3 free-to-play shooter Dust 514, which also took place in the Eve universe. Little is known about Nova itself at the moment, although Pétursson suggested fans should expect more information in the coming weeks.

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Intimidating space extravaganza Eve Online is coming to iOS and Android mobile devices, developer CCP has announced.

Eve Online developer CCP Games is a multitalented bunch. They've got economists on their books. They've got wrestlers. And they've even got an in-house band - called Permaband.

This is clever: scientists will leverage the hundreds-of-thousands-strong Eve Online community to collectively analyse actual astronomical data, helping in the search for exoplanets - planets outside our solar system. You read about NASA's exoplanet discovery right?

The Eve Online community is rallying around the family left by the passing of player Jeff "BigCountry" Waltman two days ago. He was only 37 years old.

Have you ever wanted to try Eve Online but stopped yourself because there's a subscription fee and actually it looks a bit complicated anyway?

CCP, the maker of space MMO Eve Online, is the latest developer to crack down on video game gambling websites.

Internet spaceship MMO Eve Online will be free to play from this November via a new offering similar to World of Warcraft's free offering.

Eve Online is free this weekend on Steam.

Something unexpectedly thrilling happened on Friday, during CCP's annual Eve Fanfest event in Reykjavik. Following last year's death of an in-game leader of the Amarr Empire faction (think very angry, very ruthless space monks with a fetish for lasers), players were tasked with representing the various fictional sub-factions hoping to fill the resultant power vacuum. The outcome of a series of matches between these representatives would determine the in-game heir to an empire.

The launch of next week's Citadel expansion took centre stage at the Eve Online keynote at this year's Fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Space MMO Eve Online is playing host to gaming's largest conflict ever, according to developer CCP Games.

EVE Online has added a new mini-game that crowdsources players to assist in real world science.

PlayStation 3 EVE spin-off Dust 514 will shut down on 30th May.

There's a scene in the US TV show The West Wing where Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, under pressure and about to lose a key Senate vote, is calmly reassured in the Oval Office by his boss, the President of the United States. "You know what the difference is between you and me?" President Bartlet asks. "I want to be the guy. You want to be the guy the guy counts on."

Deep into Season 4, Josh is a political fixer slowly coming to terms with the fact he can't solve every mounting problem the Bartlet Administration faces. The lasting appeal of The West Wing is its focus on the characters that form the machinery inside the White House - the stuff you usually don't get to see. It allows you to watch these unsung heroes toiling to achieve remarkable things.

As an Eve Online player, the experience of being a small cog in a bigger machine feels familiar. The ageing sandbox spaceship MMO has seen great player-run empires rise and fall as rivalries unspool over many years. When you read about the epic space battles of B-R5RB, 6VDT-H or Asakai, consider for a moment that everything must be player-built, that wars are not scripted plots but are groups of pilots in their thousands emerging into conflict. The sheer scale of the logistics involved boggles the mind and - if you are someone so inclined, like me - the appeal of Eve Online is being able to play a role in enabling these epic arcs to occur.

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There are many novels written about video games (I own a few) but few like The Fountain War project that's raising money on Kickstarter right now. Whereas other books are stories imagined by game companies, this book will be about actual player events in Eve Online - sci-fi non-fiction.

UPDATE 10:41 4/6/2015: CCP has confirmed that the latest PLEX for Good initiative has raised $103,650.

The money will be used by the Icelandic Red Cross to support ongoing relief efforts in Nepal, and represents the second-largest fundraising amount since the community programme was established following the south-east Asian tsunami in 2005. In total, nearly half a million dollars has been raised for good causes through PLEX for Good.

"This is an astonishing feat for a community the size of ours," wrote CCP Falcon, Eve's community manager. "...While Eve players may explore the in-game limits of morality while they play, our amazing community has once again demonstrated its immense collective strength and capability as a force for good."

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From the archive: With this year's Eve Fanfest just around the corner, it seemed like a good moment to revisit this piece from April 2015 about last year's event. With CCP adopting a more workmanlike commitment to Eve Online's future - rather than the wide-eyed ambitions of old - its annual jamboree in Reykjavik had never felt more like videogaming's TED conference.

CCP's Eve Online keynote has just concluded with announcements of a series of quality of life improvements to the 12 year-old game.

Nearly a year ago I stood on a roof terrace in an unbelievable location, surrounded by icy blue seas and snowy mountains, breathing crisp Arctic air - and I was getting an absolute roasting. At that moment in time I didn't want to be in Iceland anymore. I didn't want to be at the Harpa building for Eve FanFest 2014 anymore. And I sure as hell didn't want to be talking to Alexander bloody Gianturco anymore.

In Eve Online all the big stuff we read about goes down in nullsec, unpoliced space. Players own it, players fight over it. More specifically, the big powers fight over sovereignty of systems, which is where they get their resources and how they fund their wars.

This is all about to change. The nullsec populace has been sitting on its hands for months waiting to see what game developer CCP has planned for sovereignty, and now CCP has finally obliged them.

In a big fat post on the Eve Online community site, CCP Fozzie goes into detail. He outlines the thinking, some of the new mechanics and talks through a likely scenario to try and explain all the new bits.

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The era of mega-battles in Eve Online - the B-R5RBs - may be over. They were great press but they were also ultimately bad for the game.

That's according to developer CCP, whose upcoming game-release Phoebe, due 4th November, will make the likelihood of them reoccurring almost non-existent.

Phoebe is being hailed by CCP as the bringer of a new era for nullsec (no security - no police) space - the place the most interesting Eve Online gameplay happens. (You can read about the full Phoebe changes here.)

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There are soon to be unexpected and high profile exits at Eve Online maker CCP.

Eve Online developer CCP today laid off nearly 50 staff members in a "gigantic cut" for its Reykjavik headquarters.

By CCP's photographer Brynjar Snaer.

UPDATE 11.04am 08/05/2014: CCP has found those who defaced the Eve monument at Iceland's Reykjavik harbour and banned them from the game for life.

It was billed as Eve of Destruction, and it was the talk of Eve FanFest on Friday leading up to the event. How could these amateurs - these game developers - stand up to one of the best MMA fighters around, Gunnar "Gunni" Nelson? How uncomfortable would it be to watch?

Photos courtesy of photographer Brynjar Snaer and CCP.

Didn't they do well?

UPDATE 1.30PM BST 04/06: Kronos has been released. A full run-down of content in the expansion can be found on the Eve Online website.

The next update, Crius, will now be released 22nd July and not 19th August as originally announced. Crius will also include the significant changes to Eve's industry that were supposed to be in Kronos.

UPDATE 8PM GMT 02/05: CCP gave each of the 10 expansions a name and also dated them.

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Fans of internet spaceships, take note! Today is the opening day of Fanfest 2014, Icelandic developer CCP's annual celebration of its Eve universe.

UPDATE 27/05 8.30AM BST: Author Andrew Groen was obviously onto something: his Eve Online history book smashed its $12,500 Kickstarter target, raising a grand total of $95,729 in around 30 days.

Those crazy developers at Icelandic studio CCP are at it again: they're going to fight an actual mixed martial arts star during this year's Eve Online get together.

CCP has announced the Recall Program for Eve Online - its latest attempt to get more people playing the famously complex space MMO.

The Recall Program lets current subscribers grant seven days of free game time to previous subscribers who have been unsubscribed for six months or more.

"This will allow you to reach out to those players that you used to play with or against, and give them a way back into the game," CCP wrote in a blog post on the Eve Online website.

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Erotica 1 is the most notorious and talked about character in Eve Online since The Mittani.

UPDATE 30/1 12PM: Eve Online maker CCP is going to build an in-game monument to remember the record-breaking battle of B-R5RB, which happened earlier this week.

UPDATE: The EVE Online community has raised a whopping $190,890 (£116,431) of donations for Philippines typhoon relief.

Eve Online is a daunting MMO to launch into. It's old, it's big, it's complicated and it's slow - you're not in Azeroth any more. And that puts some people off.

Dust 514 is currently exclusive to PlayStation 3 but there's nothing - no signed piece of paper - apparently stopping developer CCP putting the game on another platform, even a rival one.

CCP has announced Eve Online: Rubicon, the 10-year-old MMO's 20th free expansion.

It's due out on 19th November.

It follows the last expansion, Odyssey, adding new exploration content and a new line of faction ships that CCP said were perfect for navigating and infiltrating the 8000 solar systems that make up the Eve universe.

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Over the spring EVE Online developer CCP constructed a tech demo called EVR that imagined what the space MMO would look like if it were a dogfighting game that used the Oculus Rift. Those who played it were impressed, so the developer decided to flesh out this proof of concept into a full game entitled EVE: Valkyrie.

Coming to PC next year, Valkyrie will feature multiplayer space combat. CCP isn't discussing whether or not it will have a single-player campaign at this time, or if it will be playable without the VR headset, but the new gizmo is its raison d'être.

EG-contributor Richard Cobbett was so taken with it this April that he suggested one stand in an excruciatingly long line to play it, lest they regret it forever. "If you're at FanFest and thinking you'll skip the queue for some reason, go stand in it right now. Really. Impossibly long or not, you will bitterly regret if it you don't," he said in his preview of the EVE: Valkyrie tech demo.

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More than 4000 people took to sci-fi MMO Eve Online last night for the game's largest ever virtual space battle.

Update #2: Eve Online players have been compensated with 50,000 free, unallocated skill points to do what they will with. That gift is only for people with fully active Eve accounts. Trial users will get an extra seven days free play time.

Ten years after its launch, Eve Online is in a strange place. It's a game with just 500,000 players, nothing by most MMO standards, yet one whose stories, heists and controversies regularly spark interest in a wider audience that would never actually dream of playing it. On Twitter, I asked my followers what would make them give it a shot at this point. "Nothing," was the standard answer. "A complete reset," answered a couple more. Perhaps most notably, "Any change that would make me want to play would stop it from being Eve."

To understand Eve Online, you need to visit Reykjavik. It won't help with mundane details like which battlecruiser to aspire to, but the ride from Keflavik airport to both CCP and FanFest's home town is an eye-opening experience. Simply knowing that Iceland has a hostile interior is nothing compared to actually seeing it - not merely how small its patches of civilisation are amongst seemingly infinite emptiness with no trees and often nothing to see but the remnants of volcanic activity covered in moss, but the kind of community it takes to handle it.

Eve Online's world of internet spaceships may soon invade your telly. Developer CCP has teamed up with a top Icelandic filmmaker to turn real player experiences into thrilling TV drama.

The sci-fi MMO will be brought to the small screen by Baltasar Kormákur, who achieved mainstream success in 2012 directing the Mark Wahlberg-fronted film Contraband.

Eve's online world sees numerous space-bound clans trapped beyond a wormhole in a dystopian sci-fi future. The TV show's storylines will be shaped by the actions of players, as recorded on Eve Online's True Stories website.

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What do you get if you combine Eve Online with the Oculus Rift? A loud enough whoop to knock the roof off this year's FanFest in Reykjavik, followed by the kind of queues God himself has never seen to have a go. I'm actually writing this in advance of the announcement, but I'm quietly confident. One of the most beautiful space games ever. Virtual reality. 1500 people who travelled to Iceland to celebrate Eve Online. There will be whooping.

Eve Online's 19th free expansion, Odyssey, will be released on 4th June.

Broadly, it's all about exploration. Scanning has been rethought allowing you to uncover the secrets of the Eve Online universe - if you're brave and patient enough to go find them.

User-interfaces have been improved, as have graphics.

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What does free-to-play online PS3 shooter Dust 514 do about PlayStation 4? The game lives on the PlayStation Network and connects to the nearly 10-year-old universe of Eve Online. Dust 514 isn't even out yet: it's in open beta. It can't have been built to simply end when PS4 takes over, can it?

Spaceship MMO Eve Online is more popular than ever; for the first time in its nearly 10-year existence, the game has boosted past 500,000 paying subscribers. Yes Eve Online continues to be a law unto itself.

"Ooh we've got multiplayer battles for 64 people versus 64." Shut up. In Eve Online, one does it by the thousands.

CCP has just flicked a very important switch. Today - shortly before this article was published - the Icelandic company's PlayStation 3 shooter Dust 514 entered open beta testing, which for a free-to-play game like this is as good as a soft launch. It's the moment the game's digital doors are thrown open to the public. Although CCP is 15 years old, this is only its second game launch. It's a big day.

Eve Online and Dust 514 players will be joined on the same server from tomorrow, developer CCP Games has announced.

Iceland, the final frontier, and the location for another Eve Fanfest romp fuelled by beer and soaked in controversy let's hope.

Free Eve Online expansion Retribution sets CCP up to make its famously impenetrable MMO accessible, the game's executive producer has said.

Retribution, which launched yesterday, improves existing systems such as Crimewatch and the user interface to make them easier to understand, John Lander told Eurogamer. But he insisted Eve Online will not be dumbed down now or in the future.

“It's important to look at some of these features with a certain context,” he said. “Eve has always been thought of as a notoriously tough game to get into. There's a great graphic about the learning curve of Eve.

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Video games struggle to be taken as seriously as films or paintings or books or other pieces of culturally accepted works of art. Yeah, thanks Duke Nukem. But there are signs of change; today, New York's prestigious Museum of Modern Art announced the beginnings of a considerable video game exhibition.

Eve Online's seventh player-elected Council of Stellar Management has formally responded to the death of player and US official Sean "Vile Rat" Smith, who was killed during an attack on the US consulate in Libya days ago.

UPDATED: Ned Coker of CCP has emailed Eurogamer with the following tribute to Sean "Vile Rat" Smith, the leading Eve Online player killed in Libya.

PlayStation 3 sci-fi shooter Dust 514 is finally ready to merge with its parent game, hardcore spaceship MMO Eve Online.

Dust 514, currently in closed beta, is about to be moved from a standalone test server to developer CCP's live Eve Online matrix.

The move, due 21st August, will coincide with the release of Dust 514's new "Precursor" build. Players of both games will then be able to chat in real time and exchange in-game mail.

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Be contentious, attempt to destroy Eve Online's economy, milk an exploit for unprecedented amounts of ISK currency - developer CCP isn't scared of notorious player Alex "The Mittani" Gianturco or the antics of his bad-boy alliance, Goonswarm.

PC spaceship MMO Eve Online has "what may be the most crafty players in the world", developer CCP has told Eurogamer.

Dust 514, the free PS3 online shooter, will share the same universe (server cluster) as spaceship MMO Eve Online. And the two games will interact. That's been the big selling point of Dust 514 since it was announced.

The update for the Eve Online Inferno expansion launches on Tuesday 19th June, CCP Games has announced.

The headline new feature is the improvement to the models of almost a quarter of all ships in the science-fiction MMO.

Major additions include:

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UPDATE: CCP has been in touch with a correction to our report, below.

PS3 shooter MMO Dust 514 has unprecedented freedom on PSN to be updated by developer CCP. This is crucial for an MMO.

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CCP Games will send out the first batch of Dust 514 closed beta keys tomorrow, Friday, 17th May.

They will only be sent to Eve Online players who registered for the closed beta. CCP promised a special event this weekend for players of the F2P PlayStation Network FPS.

Last month CCP told Eurogamer those who attended the Eve Online FanFest event in Reykjavik, Iceland in March would be the first invited to participate in the Dust 514 beta.

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MMO sends its users' names into the atmosphere.

Update: CCP has released the first HD image of the Skyward Sphere in space.

Original story: At 1pm UK time today, CCP will launch the identity of every Eve Online character into space as part of its Skyward Sphere project.

The launch was scheduled to take place during this year's Fanfest event in Reyjkavik, but was postponed indefinitely due to unsuitable weather conditions.

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Today, gritty science fiction MMO Eve Online is famous for many things: its player-driven, emergent gameplay, its complex virtual economy, and, perhaps most of all, its daytime telly quality drama. But nine years ago today, Eve Online was famous for nothing. It was a fledgling persistent world made by a little known Icelandic developer with big ideas but no guarantees. Since then, every year, it has grown. And now, Eve is on the cusp of becoming something even greater: a PC MMO that interacts with a console first-person shooter spin-off.

CCP Games gave its blessing to the player-driven attempt to destroy sci-fi MMO Eve Online's economy - and now that the dust has settled on the event, it's analysed what happened.

On Sunday 6th May, space MMO Eve Online turns nine, and to celebrate developer CCP Games will give players a free gift.

Those who attended the Eve Online FanFest event in Reykjavik, Iceland in March will be the first invited to participate in the Dust 514 beta, CCP Games has confirmed.

There had been confusion over the status of the closed beta, which is currently running, with some Eve Online fans complaining about apparent preferential treatment to PlayStation Network users.

But CCP told Eurogamer those playing the downloadable first-person shooter right now are Sony's elite team of testers - not members of the general public.

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CCP Games has given its blessing to a player-driven attempt to destroy the Eve Online economy.

A child has just keeled over from exhaustion on my factory floor. I could have stopped it; when they get to that state you can give them a glass of water and they get straight back to the production line. But I've found it's cheaper to give them training instead of water. If a kid's looking peaky I can spend a little cash to have him trained up. He'll get over his exhaustion and he'll work faster. It's a win/win situation. If I let them work to the cusp of collapse before training them I maximise the amount of time they can work. I don't have to hire new workers and I don't need to waste money on a water fountain.

Following the expulsion of the newly re-elected chairman from Eve's Council of Stellar Management, developer CCP is investigating how content is presented at future Fanfest events.

A statement was issued late yesterday evening and is reproduced below.

"Following internal discussions after everyone has returned to their offices from Fanfest, it is clear that we, CCP, need to revise the scope of the Alliance Panel for Fanfest 2013 because, frankly, Eve Online has grown to a maturation point where such behavior and such a forum are not appropriate. A 'frat house' type presentation style may have been well-matched for a younger Eve Online, when there was a smaller community roaming the stars.

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Eve Online developer CCP has delivered its verdict following an internal investigation into the behaviour of the player Council chairman at a recent Eve Fanfest Alliance Panel.

Check it OUT! God DAMN! We're SLAMMING Eurogamer Podcast 106 out right now! BAAAAAM!

The newly re-elected chairman of the Eve Online Council of Stellar Management Alexander Gianturco - AKA The Mittani - has apologised for his behaviour during a session at this year's Eve Fanfest in Reykjavik, and announced his intention to resign.

CCP has launched an investigation after an Eve Online panel at its FanFest convention was accused of mocking a suicidal player.

Eve Online player Kestrel wrote to CCP and Eurogamer today to complain about Thursday's Alliance Panel presentation.

The presentation, delivered by one of the CSM council members and moderated by a CCP employee, featured an in-game communication between two Eve Online players where, according to Kestrel, one of the players clearly indicated suicidal thoughts and showed "obvious" signs of severe depression.

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CCP has used its CCP Presents session at this year's Fanfest in Reykjavik to outline the future of both Dust 514 and Eve Online.

Marking a change from the traditional launch of Eve expansions, Inferno will be released with a precursor patch on April 24th. While few details were given on what this build-up patch would contain, players were assured that it would deliver meaningful content, in advance of the main expansion release on 22nd May.

In line with CCP's new focus on refining existing features, Inferno will be supported by further content patches in August and September. The winter expansion will arrive in November.

In a keynote address that focused on the core gameplay of Eve Online, the troubles of last year's Incarna expansion were discussed in depth, before further assurance was given that the core gameplay of Eve Online will be the developer's focus for the next 12 months.

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You'll be able to pay for Eve Online in pounds rather than euros from May, CCP has announced.

At CCP's Fanfest last year, CEO Hilmar Pétursson unveiled the developer's Future Vision trailer outlining their long-term ambitions for the future of Eve and its integration with Dust 514.

CCP is talking to Gaikai and OnLive - among others - about bringing their titles to the shiney-vision-of-the-future world of cloud-gaming.

World of Darkness, the MMO from the makers of Eve Online and the upcoming Dust 514, is still in development.

Sony didn't relax PSN policies so free-to-play MMO Dust 514 would work on PS3 - Sony "removed" them, developer CCP has told Eurogamer.

Governments around the world have moved on the hacker group LulzSec - making arrests based on information gathered in part by its leader.

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Eurogamer's news editor Wes once said that if Hunter S. Thompson were alive today - and writing about video games rather than the counter-culture of the sixties and the politics of America at a crossroads - then he would surely be covering the extraordinary sight of the digital gladiators descending upon Las Vegas to celebrate their shared obsession and do heavyweight battle with each other at the Mecca of fighting games, the Evo Championship Series. Impenetrable to the outsider, all-encompassing to those on the inside: a place where worlds collide.

Eve Online developer and publisher CCP has published the minutes from its most recent meeting with the player-elected Council of Stellar Management.

The great space MMO, eight years on.

The Eve Online winter expansion, Crucible, will be released tomorrow - Tuesday, 29th November.

The full download client is 5GB for Windows. On Mac, that file is 5.8GB.

Updating Eve Online from Incarna version 1.1.3 to Crucible requires a 1.2GB download if using Windows, and a 1.6GB download if using Mac.

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The free Eve Online winter expansion, Crucible, will be released on Tuesday, 29th November during "extended downtime", developer CCP has announced.

The expansion brings new ships, nebulae, engine trails and warp tunnel effects, plus "hundreds" of balance changes and fixes.

Full patch notes will be published in "the coming weeks".

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The focus of Eve Online has turned from avatars back to spaceships, re-focused developer CCP has told Eurogamer.

Earlier this week, CCP announced an estimated 20% reduction in its global workforce in the wake of continued controversy surrounding its development ambitions. The company has offered little official comment since the controversy began earlier this year, and so what follows is a lengthy interview with Hilmar Pétursson, CEO of CCP, conducted yesterday evening.

Eve Online developer CCP has admitted making "mistakes" due to biting off more than it can chew. Eve Online subscriber numbers have fallen since their peak this summer.

CCP has offered lapsed EVE Online users a money-off incentive to sign back up following a series of controversies over the summer surrounding the game.

The CEO of CCP has published an open letter to EVE Online players claiming full responsibility for the myriad controversies surround the MMO in recent months.

Arnar Hrafn Gylfason, senior producer of Eve Online, has responded to the ongoing dissatisfaction of subscribers in a blog post published yesterday evening.

Eve Online developer CCP has begun building technology for the next generation of consoles, it has confirmed.

Earlier this week we reported on a statement from Alexander Gianturco - leader of Eve Online's Goonswarm Alliance, and Chairman of the player-elected Council of Stellar Management - that was intended as an Alliance update. It outlined the Council's concerns surrounding the current state of the Eve universe, perceived shortcomings of the recent Incarna expansion, and the Council's plans to increase awareness of the issues they consider to be damaging the game. We've since spoken with Gianturco for further insight into the CSM's position.

The outspoken chairman of Eve Online's player-elected Council of Stellar Management, Alexander Gianturco - aka 'The Mittani' - has broken the temporary peace established at June's emergency Summit meeting, in order to address what he views as the abandonment of the core gameplay of Eve Online.

It was Oblivion's horse armour that set the alarm bells off for me. There was a mixture of amusement and incredulity, which quickly descended into horror as the numbers started rolling in. It was the beginning of a fragmentation from the boxed product you'd scurried away from the shops to greedily indulge yourself in, towards one where a breadcrumb trail of further expenditure lay between you and completion of an adventure.

There will be far more expensive Eve Online virtual goods to buy than a $70 monocle, game maker CCP has revealed to Eurogamer.

The multiplayer phase of massive Eve Online expansion Incarna will be added "this year", senior producer Arnar Gylfason has confirmed.

Despite reassurances made after the emergency Eve Online summit, the question of whether the space MMO will ever sell non-vanity items (those that affect gameplay) for real-world money still lingers.

The extraordinary meeting of Eve Online's Council of Stellar Management (CSM), called in the wake of recent player unrest, has concluded with statements being issued by both developer CCP and the council.

The user backlash to leaked documents outlining EVE Online's future microtransaction plans could cost developer CCP more than $1 million, according to a Develop report.

It should have been a triumphant week for CCP.

In its latest developer update, Eve Online publisher CCP has announced that an extraordinary meeting of the company's Council of Stellar Management will be held on 30th June to 1st July.

After a day of player discontent, CCP has responded to player concerns surrounding the launch of the Incarna expansion, the high price of vanity items and the future of micro-transactions in EVE Online.

An alleged internal CCP newsletter has surfaced on the internet.

Jón Hörðdal, chief operating officer at CCP, has responded to last night's service outage with a statement on the developer's website.

EVE Online was released eight years ago today - and developer CCP has said that it knew even then that the online space game would be "huge".

Although EVE Online is considered by many outsiders to be populated by the more Machiavellian, sociopathic elements of humanity, there's a surprising amount of camaraderie uniting the players who have travelled to the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik for this year's Fanfest convention.

CCP's global CEO, Hilmar Pétursson, has used the CCP Presents session of the company's Fanfest convention in Reykjavik, Iceland, to showcase an audacious video outlining the developer's vision for the future of EVE Online.

More details have been revealed this afternoon regarding the first component of EVE Online's Incarna expansion, the long-awaited feature that will allow players to walk a humanoid avatar through the game's space stations.

CCP's annual EVE Fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland has moved into full swing this afternoon with a keynote speech focused on improvements to both the new player experience and some long-standing player bugbears.

"We're simplifying a lot of things, starting with the default overview," said Kristoffer Touborg (better known to the community as CCP Soundwave). "You can still tailor them, but it's better for the new player, rather than just saying, 'Welcome to EVE, here's a Rubik's Cube. Now go f**k yourself.'"

It's all part of the renewed focus taken by CCP since the player revolt last year over the company's preference for grandiose future feature development rather than committing to addressing existing complaints and refining previous expansions.

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Thousands of character names used to buy illegal EVE Online money and goods from major seller Isbank have been revealed online.

A substantial update has just gone live for sci-fi MMO EVE Online: Incursion, developer CCP has announced.

The new patch adds enhancements for clones and jump clones, market improvements, the return of character capturing and plenty more besides. See below for the full, colourful list of tweaks, as published on the game's official forum.

Elsewhere on the site, senior producer CCP Zulu promised that there was more to come too.

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Tomorrow, around 1040 people will discover that space game EVE Online no longer works for them.

CCP has posted the patch notes for EVE Online's winter expansion, Incursion.

It's relatively modest as EVE updates go, focusing on a slew of player-requested changes and and fixes rather than a bumper release of new content and features.

There's a new salvaging ship, the Noctis; there are changes to weapons and ammunition and the market; quite a lot of work has been done to improve the game's network performance; and there are graphical and UI tweaks too.

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We told you yesterday that the noob edition of EVE Online was coming to Europe. Today, Namco Bandai has given the Commissioned Officer Edition a firm date: 3rd December.

The noob-friendly shop-shelf edition of online spaceship game EVE Online is coming to Europe.

A special edition of popular MMORPG EVE Online has been announced, aimed at making the game more accessible for new players.

A massive coordinated suicide attack has cost one EVE Online player a staggering 30 billion ISK – that's $1200 in real money.

Torfi Frans Olafsson, the creative director of EVE Online, doesn't answer to a board of a dozen faceless suits. He answers to 330,000 paying subscribers and their elected representatives, the Council of Stellar Management.

EVE Online's oft-talked-about but never-nailed-down Incarna expansion (née Walking in Stations) will be released in summer 2011, Eurogamer can reveal.

CCP has announced a 14th expansion for EVE Online called Incursion. It's due out in November.

The expansion highlights the reason EVE stands apart from other MMOs; most of the expansion's content is a result of discussions between the Council of Stellar Management - the elected community representatives - and developer CCP.

Therefore, Incursion brings about things that matter to you, such as improvements to server hardware so that fleet battles can finally live up to their name and allow hundreds of players to zap it out in space. Plus, character creation will be beefed up, NPCs made cleverer, the game's graphics tweaked and a "more dynamic and simplified" Planetary Interaction system implemented.

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CCP has given a "specialised" EVE Online dev-squad "carte blanche" to tackle in-game lag issues that have the community up in arms.

It's Eve Fanfest time! To celebrate, we've dusted off John Bedford's story about Lollipops for Rancors, the Eurogamer readers' corporation in Eve Online. This is the tale of how a relatively safe, "carebear" Corp came to embrace espionage, theft, treachery and revenge in the world's most merciless online sandbox. It was originally published in July 2010.

CCP has released the Tyrannis expansion for space MMO EVE Online and moved the web-based social portal EVE Gate into open beta.

CCP has pushed back the launch of the Tyrannis free expansion to EVE Online by one week, to 26th May.

You'll have to wait longer still to access the expansion's marquee feature - the development of planet surfaces. The market seeding of Planetary Command Centres won't start until 8th June.

"This will allow the development team to finalise polish on the features and players to have a period of time to study the new gameplay, scan planets for resources, train skills needed for structures and make plans for which planets they want to develop," said the Icelandic developer.

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Icelandic developer CCP is not buried under ash, and has told Eurogamer that the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano hasn't disturbed day-to-day operations or EVE game servers at all.

CCP has revealed that it will release its next free expansion for sci-fi MMO EVE Online, Tyrannis, on 18th May. The date appears at the end of a YouTube teaser video.

As announced at last year's Fanfest convention, Tyrannis will allow EVE pilots to build on, exploit and control planets for the first time in the game's history.

There's more info on how the system will work in a recent(ish) dev blog on the official website. There will be no planet-side combat at this stage, only exploration, industry and management options, but this side of the game will be developed in future expansions and culminate in the release of console spin-off shooter DUST 514.

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EVE Online developer CCP has told GamesIndustry.biz that it has opened a new studio in Newcastle in the UK.

CCP is launching the Dominion free expansion to EVE Online today. Dominion changes the way territory is conquered in the space MMO, increases players' control over space they own, makes changes to capital ships, upgrades planetary and starfield graphics and more.

You can read more about the features at the official Dominion site. Elsewhere on the site, you'll find exhaustive full patch notes (although at time of writing this part of the EVE website is down for maintenance).

The aim behind the changes to the system of territorial control - known as Sovereignty - is to make the struggle between player Alliances for sections of space more tactical and less "grindy", and to require active defence of captured space.

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Someone asks Atli Mar Sveinsson if DUST 514, the console shooter that will share a universe with sci-fi MMO EVE Online, will have character classes. You know, like engineer, medic, or assault. "That stuff is for computer games," the game's creative director says, dismissively. "This is not a computer game. This is a world. If you want to be a medic, take some stuff with you."

EVE Online developer CCP has just announced the release date for the space MMO's next free expansion, Dominion, at the game's Fanfest convention: December 1st.

CCP has revealed ambitious plans for its EVE Online web portal and social network, which will open in the first quarter of 2010, at the EVE Fanfest.

EVE Online's senior producer Torfi Frans Olafsson told press today that CCP expects to release the Walking In Stations expansion to its space MMO EVE Online before the console shooter spin-off, Dust 514.

The latest development in EVE Online's saga of political intrigue involves the game's experiment in democracy - the player-elected Council of Stelllar Management. A CSM member has resigned after being found guilty of insider trading on the game's commodities market, based on advance notice he received of a design change in the works.

CCP has announced the title and theme for its next major update to EVE Online: Dominion, a "free expansion" due in winter 2009.

Although details were sparse on last week's announcement of the EVE Online console FPS spin-off, Dust 514, there's been a trickle of information since that does a little to clarify how CCP's two MMOs will interact.

The best summaries are to be found in a video interview with CCP head Hilmar Petursson by German site Gamona, and Massively's article on what we know and speculation on what it might mean.

Petursson explained that Dust 514 will be an online shooter, for consoles only, with elements of real-time strategy - deployment of installations by commanders throughout Dust 514's battlefields will change the flow of the fight - and persistent MMO character advancement. Player characters in Dust 514 will be able to own things, including customisable vehicles and weapons.

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Massively reports that EVE Online developer CCP has filed a trademark for "Dust 514" relating to "entertainment services" and an "online computer game".

Hilmar Petursson, boss of EVE Online developer CCP, is to give a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference Europe in August where he will make "an announcement on its latest project".

No further details are given, but CCP is known to have two major initiatives in development: the Walking in Stations extension to EVE, and World of Darkness, a mature horror MMO based on the White Wolf table-top RPG. Of course, Petursson might have something else altogether in mind.

"'Niche' is not a dirty word," reads the official keynote preview. "CCP grew from relative obscurity in the middle of the Atlantic to a major MMO company. CEO Hilmar Petursson will show what brought them here and share exclusive views into the future, including an announcement on its latest project, suggesting that the opportunity for the game industry to reinvent itself is now."

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CCP has revealed that EVE Online has surpassed 300,000 active subscribers, a figure up 22 per cent since the beginning of the year (and that doesn't include trial accounts).

CCP has announced the dates for the sixth annual EVE Online Fanfest convention.

In a revealing profile of the gold-selling industry - the second in our four-part feature series on the trade in in-game currencies and services - the number of gold farmers in China is estimated at one million.

EVE Online's Apocrypha expansion launched this week and implemented sweeping changes across the whole arc of the space MMO, from unexplored space and new technology to epic mission arcs, much of it detailed in Monday's interview with senior designer Noah Ward. Along with the expansion is a determined effort to open up the famously complex game to a new audience, with a new boxed copy in the shops and a revamped introduction.

In an interview published today, EVE Online senior designer Noah Ward has revealed that a rethink of the way players claim sovereign space is next on the agenda after the release of tomorrow's Apocrypha expansion.

Apocrypha is almost upon us: the EVE Online expansion which actually expands the game's galaxy via wormholes goes live tomorrow, March 10th. Exploration will no longer simply be about spawning missions across the existing star systems; instead it will be a plunge into the unknown, and a battle against previously unseen enemies. In conjunction with this new frontier, Apocrypha is laden with improvements and enhancements designed to make things smoother for the veterans, and more exciting for the newbies who will inevitably arrive via the new retail box version of the game.

More double-agent spy drama from the world of EVE Online this week - and this latest coup makes Monday's tournament assassination look like a storm in a teacup.

Atari has confirmed to Eurogamer that the box copy of EVE Online that it's releasing next month will come with a few exclusive perks.

The bonuses - usable by both new players and existing subscribers - include 60 days of game time, a special edition ship, a head-start in faction standings and an insider's guide to careers in the space MMO's persistent online universe.

The details first appeared on UK retailer Game's website earlier this week (click on the 'product details' tab). Atari has told Eurogamer that they are genuine.

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Massively reports that an EVE Online player-versus-player tournament match this weekend was upset by an assassination attempt, in which an infiltrator destroyed his own team leader's ship.

More details of EVE Online's imminent Apocrypha expansion have emerged from a developer blog - this time of a new, much tougher breed of NPC opponent to be found in the new unexplored space.

CCP has shed some light on how unexplored space is going to be opened up in the next free EVE Online expansion, Apocrypha, due on March 10th.

Stupidly complicated sci-fi MMO EVE Online is experiencing its very own financial crisis this week after a player ran of with ISK 80 billion.

Icelandic space-MMO iconoclasts CCP have announced that they'll be dropping support for the Classic version of EVE Online, which has simpler graphics than the Premium version and enables the game to be run on very low-spec machines.

The battle report is an age-old rite of EVE Online. Because of the open structure of the game world, player-versus-player battles happen in all kinds of contexts and situations, and the sheer number of variables means they can make for a great story. Explaining who did what, and how, and where, makes EVE a constant source of one of the best things about gaming: stories you can tell your mates.

CCP has revealed the title for the next free EVE Online expansion, to be launched alongside the return of the space MMO to shop shelves courtesy of Atari. It's to be called Apocrypha.

CCP also confirmed the March 10th release date that it originally announced at its Fanfest event in November last year.

Our coverage of the announcement has full details of what's coming in the huge expansions: epic branching missions, wormholes to unexplored space, Tech 3, modular ships and a completely reworked new player experience.

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EVE Online developer CCP has announced that its space MMO EVE Online has just broken its peak concurrent user record. The number of players online at once now stands at 45,186.

EVE Online is a serious business. You can tell this by the fact that developer CCP has an internal affairs division. Also by the way the uncovering of an exploit leads to calls for "transparency", concerns for the economy, and a summit between developers and elected player leaders, rather than just whining on forums.

The developers at CCP aren't like other boys. Neither are the fans of its space MMO EVE Online, which we would probably describe as "cult" if a quarter of a million subscribers worldwide didn't make it a bit bigger than that.

Action stations.

EVE Online developer CCP has hinted that an FPS based on the EVE universe is in development.

On the last day of the EVE Online Fanfest, developer CCP has unveiled the biggest-ever expansion for the space MMO, which will be released on March 10 next year (not in the summer, as was originally stated).

The unnamed expansion will introduce "Tech 3" modular ship designs, branching epic mission arcs, further improvements to the new player experience, and exploration of uncharted space through unstable wormholes.

In a drive to find new players, the expansion will also ship in a boxed copy of EVE, with all previous expansion content. The box will be published by Atari, whose chief David Gardner appeared in a video message hailing the deal.

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There aren't many MMO expansions that change a game wholesale when it's over five years old. There aren't many that introduce entire new methods of interaction, environment types, mini-games and meta-games, graphics and more. There certainly aren't many that offer all that as a free update to subscribers. That's what Walking In Stations, the update that will bring interiors and avatars to EVE Online for the first time, proposes to do.

CCP has revealed the kind of content players can expect from Walking in Stations, the expansion that will bring 3D player avatars and interiors to space MMO EVE Online. And it's not quite what you might expect.

More sick tech from the fearless nerds at Icelandic developer CCP: following server upgrades, EVE Online is now capable of "entirely playable" 1000-player fleet battles.

According to developer CCP, the Premium graphics version of its space MMO EVE Online is only half complete. The Premium version was introduced with the Trinity expansion late last year.

Hilmar Pétursson, boss of EVE Online's Icelandic developer CCP, has reassured fans that the company isn't threatened by Iceland's current financial crisis.

CCP's put a name and some more features to the next free expansion to its space-faring MMO, EVE Online.

The update will be called Quantum Rise, and, as previously reported, will give a boost to the industrial side of the game, after the recent focus on warfare in Empyrean Age.

It will also coincide with a major phase of infrastructure work at CCP, as the Icelandic company upgrades its server and network technology to reduce the lag in EVE's single virtual universe.

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For those strange people who are interested in crafting, trading, and other non-violent MMO activities, there is no finer or more complex game than EVE Online. Part of EVE's principles of human interaction is that it's the players who have to produce most of the traded goods in the game world. Rather than relying on NPC spawns and loot drops for the majority of its weapons, ships, and ammunition, everything in the game world has to be manufactured by players. There are still some rare item drops, of course, but the day-to-day ship construction and the general shopping done by the masses has to be provided for by the, er, masses.

EVE Online developers CCP have opened the running for the second six-month term of its experiment in virtual-world democracy - the Council of Stellar Management.

If it's the job of soldiers to fight wars, then it's the job of politicians to start them. EVE Online has no shortage of leaders and demagogues in its ranks, particularly among the ranks of the player-driven alliances. One of CCP's biggest achievements in designing EVE Online was to give the players free reign in running their own affairs. Corporations recruit as they see fit, and set allies and enemies as they see fit. Everything is decided by the leaders of the player corporations - who to trust, who to declare an enemy, who make peace with, and what part of the galaxy to call home. They even get to set their own tax rates.

In a video interview with MMORPG.com, producer Arend Stuhrmann revealed that EVE Online's next free expansion, due this December, will be "all about industry".

"Our game design team is looking at all aspects of science, industry and research, making sure we can optimise wherever we can, making sure we make the management of industry and production easier and more comprehensible," he said.

After last expansion The Empyrean Age concentrated on factional player-versus-player warfare, it seems that developer CCP is intent on giving the game's more peaceful players something to get their teeth into with this next update, codenamed MIDAS.

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Silicon Knights chief and Too Human mastermind Denis Dyack has told videogaming247 he thinks EVE Online is better than World of Warcraft.

This is the second of a series of articles about the arcane world of player-versus-player combat in EVE Online. The first covered the basics; this month, we look at the large-scale battles that break out between player Alliances.

EVE Online developer CCP has started selling tickets for its 2008 Fanfest convention.

This is the first in a series of articles about combat in EVE Online. In this instalment we're going to look at the basic principles of killing people, which are rather unlike those of most other MMOs. Then we'll look at more advanced combat, faction warfare, and the philosophy and politics of conflict in EVE; and, finally, we'll examine the ambitions and tactics of EVE's huge military alliances. While the economic and industrial side of EVE is huge, player-versus-player war is the absolute core reason to play EVE, and understanding it will decide whether this game is for you.

A professional moderator hired to preside over the first summit of EVE Online's democratically-elected player council has praised the professionalism and responsibility of the delegates.

EVE Online developer CCP has announced the first showing of its Ambulation update - which will allow EVE players to create avatars who can walk around and interact with each other for the first time. It will be demonstrated at EVE's 2008 Fanfest, held in CCP's home town of Reykjavik, Iceland.

The latest update to the EVE universe has arrived in a blaze of in-game fiction and an ensuing bout of carnage that put the player-versus-player realms of other games to shame. The big change for this expansion is the faction warfare, which creates zones of conflicts between the four main non-player races, and allows players to fight across the border regions via new "militia" missions.

CCP has set the Empyrean Age expansion live for EVE Online.

CCP has said its annual EVE Fantest will take place from 6th to 8th November in Reykjavik.

EVE Online developer CCP has announced the results of its recent elections for player representatives on the Council of Stellar Management, the first ever democratically elected body in a virtual world.

We've just entered a two-week voting period in EVE Online, in which every subscriber is being given an opportunity to vote for their choice of representatives from the player-base. This democratic process allows players to decide which of the 31 candidates gets to represent them in the regular Reykjavik summits between developers CCP and the inaugural Council of Stellar Management (CSM). Nine councillors must be chosen.

Details of the next EVE expansion, The Empyrean Age, have emerged via an interview with designer Matthew Woodwards at MMORPG.com.

After providing a graphical upgrade, some new ships and a smoother introduction in the last update, Trinity, developer CCP is now concentrating on fleshing out the narrative side of the EVE universe. Empyrean Age's centrepiece will be a great war between four rival empires.

"Empyrean Age is the first expansion that we've really been building the story into things," said Woodward. "It's about four big empires who exist in a kind of uneasy peace for some time. It all comes to a head and it all starts. The whole cluster is extreme and everything is kicking off."

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CCP, the studio behind space-based MMO EVE Online, has set about reassuring the Internet that the leak of the game's source code won't jeopardise subscribers' security.

An EVE Online fan website has launched, announcing the full list of candidates for the game's forthcoming Council of Stellar Management elections.

The call for candidacy has now ended, and the thirty players seeking office have begun campaigning for the nine Council seats and five reserve seats available.

Candidates include BorisHotch ("I'll try my best to help improve the game for everyone"), Bane Glorious ("working to preserve EVE Online as a living ecosystem"), Dymetrie ("caring for bears since 2004") , Max Torps ("an average player, vigorous and fair"), and the hawkish Jade Constantine ("dynamism in space combat, watch outposts explode!").

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The Trinity upgrade for EVE came at exactly the right moment - a moment at which thousands of gamers had started to realise that the seemingly perpetually beautiful space game was looking a bit more like something made out of cardboard. Now, on the other side of a massive visual overhaul, it is once again the most beautiful vision of bleak interstellar warfare that the world has ever seen. Sure, it doesn't quite run so smoothly on all our clunky old PCs, but you can always flick it back to the "classic" visual theme if you're having problems.

There are plenty of reasons not to get involved in EVEOnline. The ludicrous length of time required to make the most of the game, combined with the general trickiness and hostility of the universe don't really help out. Of all the games likely to trip you over and then steal your shopping, it's EVE Online. And yet there's something in this game that can be found nowhere else. It is, as a number of people have claimed, essentially incomparable with other MMOs. It might seem incredibly daunting as you start out, but I want you to keep your eye on the big picture, and to tell you what it's possible to achieve in the EVE universe.

EVE Online developer CCP has announced that the game is to become the first virtual world to be run by a democratically-elected governing body of players.

We said it would happen, and now it has. EVE Online, the life-ending Icelandic space MMO, is now available for download on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. It's the first game of its kind to be featured there.

CCP's Reynir Hadarson has told videogaming247 that he doesn't see why the Icelandic company's space-trading MMO, Eve Online, shouldn't run for half a century.

EVE Online will be the first MMOG available from Steam.

CCP has pushed a faulty update on its EVE Online community, one which tampers with a crucial Windows file and breaks computer hearts.

Developer CCP has beamed us a signal to say that EVE Online will be playable on Linux and Mac later this year.

EVE Online fans will now be able to keep up with current events by tuning into to EVE TV.

CCP is currently in the process of deploying Revelations II, the second part of its second major game update for EVE Online, its space-based MMO.

The game's live server, Tranquility, is now back online after being down all morning, and access to the patch is expected to begin soon.

UPDATE: Looks as though you're going to have to wait until tomorrow to get your hands on the patch. According to CCP's site, "This deployment is scheduled to last approximately 24 hours, with an estimated return to service at 0200 GMT on Wednesday 20 June."

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In December 1964, Che Guevara delivered a classic speech to the UN General Assembly in New York. The South American revolutionary effortlessly did what revolutionaries do best, inspiring, threatening and posturing, rising to his historic occasion with vehemence and dignity. It was his time and he took it neatly. During a withering diatribe focused almost exclusively on US foreign policy, Guevara said, "Cuba, distinguished delegates, a free and sovereign state with no chains binding it to anyone, with no foreign investments on its territory, with no proconsuls directing its policy, can speak with its head held high in this Assembly and can demonstrate the justice of the phrase by which it has been baptised: 'Free Territory of the Americas'."

Functionality allowing players to walk around space stations in MMO EVE Online is being added for "flavour and fun", CCP marketing boss Magnus Bergsson told us at the company's offices in Reykjavik, Iceland, last week, and will also open the game up to more female players.

Icelandic developer and publisher CCP is to release an EVE Online art book this summer, priced USD 50, to be made available from its online store.

EVE Online boss Hilmar Veigar Petursson has questioned developers that create World of Warcraft clones, and reckons there's plenty of other genres to exploit - including his own company's specialist area of sci-fi, GamesIndustry.biz is reporting.

CCP has revealed the first details for the fourth annual EVE Online party, which will take place between the 1st and 3rd of November in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Eve Online players will soon be able to chat to each other during the game developer CCP has announced.

An Eve Online developer known simply as "t20" has turned out his pockets and confessed to unlawfully obtaining in-game items, leaving himself with guilty-pie all over his face.

Iceland is aptly named. But I wasn't there simply to freeze to death in the November storms, I was there to drink pricey booze and, incidentally, attend the 2006 Eve Fanfest. This third annual celebration of getting over-involved in the all-encompassing space-MMO was held in the capital city of Reykjavik and hosted five hundred gamers and at least half a dozen bored-looking girlfriends in a splendid Eve-draped convention centre. The three-day event revealed who were the best PvP players in Iceland that weekend, as well as what the future will be for CCP, the Icelandic company that set the virtual stars in motion.

CCP, Eve Online's Icelandic developer, has stated its ongoing commitment to the space-race MMO, assuring the game's 300,000 global players that there's no end in sight for content updates and development of the title.

Eve Online recently hit 130,000 subscribers, which is about 1 percent of the total MMO market. Even as a regular space-pilot I find it a bit difficult to reconcile the obscure and anti-populist game model with its ever-increasing success. People really do seem to want something beautiful but unforgiving. Eve originally evinced such groans of disgust and disbelief from my gaming peers that I expected it to fail utterly... It didn't. It has simply become more popular and more versatile. Eve grows bigger, stronger, more terrifying, and routinely pales even the mightiest of MMOs with its creative achievements. It is a game that does not seem to have made any concessions to tradition, and somehow that tenacity has paid off.

CCP's sci-fi MMORPG EVE Online is set to receive an overhaul over the next 12 months, codenamed "Kali", that will see a complete refinement of the graphics engine, implementation of a new content system, and ultimately the addition of factional warfare.

CCP has completed a semi-overhaul of EVE Online, which it calls Red Moon Rising. RMR optimises performance, makes some changes to combat (including defences and configuration overhauls), makes some UI improvements, includes a full Unicode client, and of course adds an absolute ton of new content.

As if by way of illustrating what a cruel game Eve can be, I just lost a fight in my most expensive, well-to-do battleship only minutes before opening up this page to write these words. The ship is dust and I'm royally pissed off. Way more pissed off than I would be at dying in almost any other game. While other MMOs might have coddled me with just a bit of money lost, or a few XP as punishment for my pitiful death, Eve has created several hours of concerted work. It's a bitch.

Iceland-based Eve Online developer CCP has grabbed back the publishing rights for its MMORPG and is now offering the full game for download on its website (460MB), with a subscription offer of $19.99 for those without an account, giving you 30 days playing time at a reduced price.

Icelandic developer Crowd Control Productions has dragged their EVE