Behind all the memes, myths, and misinformation surrounding the “free vacation to Iceland” enjoyed by players elected to the CSM, there is a hidden truth—kept under lock and key by ironclad Non-disclosure agreements in addition to multiple layers of operational security and cover stories. Breaking the silence and piercing the veil is a former member of CSM 11 who has agreed to share this information with us under the condition of anonymity:

NOTE: The individual who risked serious legal repercussions for violating their NDA will henceforth be referred to in the article as “Banks”. 

Banks provided us with several documents detailing flight plans, itineraries, and expenditures related to his participation in the CSM 11 summits. We cannot release the documents in full without exposing the identity of Banks so we have carefully selected portions of the summit that more than three members of CSM 11 participated in to discuss in this article. One document details four members of CSM 11 going on a retreat to Deplar Farm in Skagafjörður; the document outlines the costs of lodging, heli-skiing, travel, food and something called “special hospitality”. Most noteworthy is that the “special hospitality” costs almost twice the cost of lodging per person for a staggering €4,608, that would mean that whatever this additional expense is for, the same amount of money could be used to pay for two nights at the farm. When asked what this service was, Banks told us only that he is a wealthy man and made use of the service several times in addition to what CCP had already allotted payment for and paid for these additional sessions out of pocket.

Another document details first class airfare for all members and an included “Saga Gold” membership for all summit attendees. When the council members arrive at the Keflavik airport they are greeted by a representative of a concierge service. The CSM is then driven by limousine from the airport to the lodgings of their choosing. Banks emphasizes that if a member of the CSM were to choose lodging that was not within 2 hours travel distance of the CCP offices, a virtualization suite would be used to telecommute to the summit. He goes on to explain that “every single place we stayed at had Sparc, Eve Valkyrie and an assortment of VR equipment to use for either connecting to the summit sessions or playing CCPs latest cash grab.”

Banks goes on to explain that the majority of the CSMs time in Iceland is spent attending tours, tastings, spas and other luxurious outings that in his words “Have nothing to do with EVE Online or the CSM.” He explains that the reason behind meeting minutes taking so long to reach the player base and being so parsimonious when they do, is because they are largely a fabrication. “Meeting minutes is just another cover. It’s bullsh*t really; sure,some of it is true. But 99% of it is made up to fill time gaps after all of us are already back home”. He references a specific document in the summit care package that indicates CCP has had a partnership with Extreme Iceland since as early as CSM 3 and many of the tours offered to members of CSM like Golden Circle are part of this tourism company. Banks explains that for every CSM that chooses to attend a tour sold through Extreme Iceland the coordinator of that tour is giving 200 million skill points for an EVE character of their choosing.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation in the documents provided by our source is a series of summit videos taken by CSM coordinators and members of the community team at Blue Lagoon. One video taken at the second summit depicts a member of CSM 11 in a verbal altercation with Banks. In this argument, the unnamed individual is almost completely naked except for half empty cartons of skyr affixed to his head. He berrates Banks for being “Greedy and dishonest”, before sauntering off calmly as though no conflict had occurred. “We were at the black pearl and **** just starts ripping his clothes off complaining about the heat and yelling at everybody. They won’t let us stay there anymore.”

First class flights, secret retreats, and an elaborate series of cutouts to fool the voting public; it’s doubtful that CSM 15 will be any different. Perhaps now that people know the truth there will be reforms and changes to the systemic corruption within CCP and the CSM.

On 15 June, Hard Knocks’ favorite pet SYNDE was lured by General Mobabi of the group “Ugandan Death Squad” with the promise of cat-ear SKINs for their Ikitursas, attacked the home of Weebfleet, J120308, New Eden’s premier wormhole anime corp.  Charging headfirst into Weebfleet’s headquarters—in typical SYNDE fashion—they were smothered by body pillows while the Weebfleet tribe yelled their war cry of “Oneiros-Chan best girl!”.

EVE Onion reporters approached SYNDE for comment, inquiring on the motivations behind the attack. While fervently denying any implication of enjoying anime, they did admit that “anime cat-ears are a top-quality accessory.” Unconfirmed reports by General Mobabi of Ugandan Death Squad claimed the presence of such accessories in the home of Weebfleet.

Weebfleet was also approached to comment on the incident and stated: ”While we indeed possess cat-ear SKINs for the Ikitursa, the failure of SYNDE to show appropriate reverence to ‘best girl Oneiros-Chan’ was an inexcusable transgression and was met with the most stubborn of resistance.”

After losing the first battle, SYNDE ran back to its owner Hard Knocks and communicated via a series of barks and yelps the traumatic experience. Forever the attentive owner, Hard Knocks visited the home of Weebfleet to see if an agreement could be reached. Unfortunately, Hard Knocks failed to praise “best girl Oneiros-Chan” and Weebfleet again used their arsenal of body pillows and cat ears against Hard Knocks. However, years of C6 krabbing had strengthened the pincers of the eternal red crabs, enabling them to slice through the densest of low-class skulls; they were then able to fend off the attacks of the anime fetishists with ease. Unable to reach a dialogue, Hard Knocks scolded their pet, and left SYNDE to its own devices.

When asked to comment, Hard Knocks issued a prepared statement: “We are not responsible for the actions of our pets. We will,  however, act swiftly in accordance to the principles of Noobman and Braxus,  to ensure that our property is unharmed.”

SYNDE, forever the low-skill pilots, had not learned their lesson, and attempted another assault on Weebfleet. Acting on inaccurate reports, they failed to notice the gathering of Weebfleet and Wrong Hole pilots. While details of the battle are scarce due to the chaos of the fight, there were distinct reports of the leader of the joint Weebfleet/Wrong Hole fleet, Malachird, screaming about ”low skilled pilots” and “autism.”

With many of the hostile fleet members scattered or incapacitated, SYNDE was finally able to loot a cache of cat-ear Ikitursa SKINs. SYNDE reported the success of their mission to their master, and Hard Knocks took a picture to share with their best friends Lazerhawks, the premier WH furry roleplay corp. EVE Onion tried to reach Lazerhawks for comment however all that could be heard over the phone were faint cries of “no weebs allowed”.

Greetings Capsuleers!

Following the wildly successful Abandoned Fortress update, we are bringing back an older—but much loved—mechanic back into play. We know many are eager to bring a purposeful loss mechanic during combat as well as the ship and implant losses.

• General Feedback
• Known Issues
• General Feedback and Known Issues (Mac)

PATCH NOTES FOR 2020-06-05

Audio:

• Fixed an issue where a 3rd party audio hardware conflict would incoherently cause a screaming noise when used with VOIP software during large fleets, e.g. Mumble, Discord, etc.

Gameplay:

Clone states are back! As your skill points grow, you will have to purposefully buy medical clones of certain SP grades in order to avoid skill point loss upon death. A failure to use the appropriate clone will result in a loss of the SP difference between your character and the SP grade of the medical clone. SP losses will be randomly pulled from skills until the lost amount is achieved similar to T3 Cruiser losses but applicable to all skills.

Characters who are in an Alpha clone state are limited to the default Alpha medical clone regardless of their current SP accumulated and will lose a random alpha state skill in full upon each death if the character has more than 10m SP.

• Alpha Medical Clone (default, no fee) (covers deaths of pilots with 10m SP or less
• Omega Tier 1 Clone (25 million ISK)(covers SP retention of up to 15 million SP)
• Omega Tier 2 Clone (100 million ISK)(covers SP reandtention of up to 25 million SP)
• Omega Tier 3 Clone (250 million ISK)(covers SP retention of up to 50m SP)
• Omega Tier 4 Clone (1 Billion ISK)(covers SP retention of up to 100m SP)
• Omega Tier 5 Clone (3 Billion ISK)(covers SP retention of up to 120m SP)
• Omega Tier 6 Clone (5 Billion ISK)(cover SP retention of up to 140m SP)

Players with characters that exceed 140m SP who have an Omega Tier 6 Medical Clone will always lose a fixed 5m SP upon death.

User Interface:

• Removed thumbs up/thumbs down from the Escape menu; it was purely a placebo item and didn’t serve any other purpose or collect data of any kind.
  

Any hardened Eve Online player is all too familiar with the odd server hiccup and the occasional extra 10 minutes of existential dread with brief visions of all the lost life they have poured into a simulation where the only respite is a couple of increasing numbers on a screen and at best a vague notoriety within a small social group which outside of the game is as meaningless as a leaf blowing in the wind before the happy colours on the screen say the server is back up and the nightmare ends as the login screen progresses.

Lately, we have seen a slightly higher amount of server and game unreliability which, of course, players seeing any possible opportunity for free goodies as their lives have irrevocably been impacted by that lost fraction of a cent paid subscription time. CCP usually offer a number of free skill points for the inconvenience, but in a brief Twatter exchange it would seem that times have changed and the company has decided that new approaches to player demands are in order:

The tongue in cheek response did not go down well on the popular social platforms where at least five individuals say they will be unsubscribing as a result of this brazen lack of respect to long-term customers taking their business to Runescape or Ultima Online. CCP responded in a few cases with sadness and they will be at a loss where to get a few tens of dollars of extra income to make up for their lost business.

CCP Mirage later issued a more formal response:

“Seriously guys, it was just 10 minutes of additional downtime and a few chat channel problems. If you really want we can break down the exact dollar per minute cost of that time lost and issue you a coupon for next time you pay for more game time. You guys aren’t going anywhere, we know you have invested too much in this game to walk away, go back to your mining belts or anomalies and be happy we let this click similar even continue! You guys are lucky we don’t ‘accidentally’ delete all the databases and reset the server from scratch. We know you won’t leave.”

Last week, following a significant increase of Minmatar ship destruction across New Eden, CCP implemented an auto-clean mechanic each time a Minmatar ship docks or undocks. CCP Pointy Bits, in a public message announced the change, highlighting a growing concern that EVE Online was becoming a Xenophobic Anti-Minmatar platform:

“Sadly, we have seen a spike in anti-Minmatar sentiment among the players of EVE Online. We have been forced to make this auto-clean function a permanent addition to the game. The whole visual style of Minmatar rust buckets has led to a growing opinion that Minmatar ships are unclean and viral agent spreaders. Even though EVE Online is just a game and players are just trying to shield themselves from an ingame fictional disease that doesn’t exist, it is causing significant disruption for players who just wish to have a good time in their Thrashers.” CCP Pointy Bits announced via vague swaying and rustlings of its appendages and thorns.

CCP Pointy Bits addresses hostile reporter in earlier press conference

Even frozen corpses of Minmatar Capsuleers are not safe from growing resentment as corpse dealers are refusing their purchase and sale outright. Many Stargates are now littered with untold numbers of Minmatar corpses which passers-by refuse to scoop.

Rens, the heart of Minmatar commerce, has seen a drastic reduction in sales and imports following the epidemic in the real world. Officials and role-players alike have stockpiled Vaccines and reduced taxes in an effort to overcome the slowdown; numbers of active pilots continue to plummet day to day.

CODE, a popular and loved ingame group has taken on the mantle of vigilante justice to the praise of many. Numerous blockades along public routes have been reported where no single “filthy rust bucket” has passed through alive. Many in the past have come to loathe the organisation, but in this time of peril public sentiment has turned and many are praising the valiant effort the organisation is putting into the safety of all.

It is not just Minmatar ships which are falling foul to conspiracy theories, however. Starbase Control towers are also coming under increasing attack by vigilante groups who believe they are viral proliferators, especially the Minmatar variants.

Today, CCP pushed back the deadline for CSM registration by three days citing concerns that having less than 50 candidates in the running may result in a decrease in both voter apathy and overall confusion during the election. 

The new deadline of May 13th is intended to give more time to low effort candidates, so that they have a fair chance at crowding the field and exhausting the average voter’s attention span. The election cycle of CSM 13 featured a total of 47 candidates with less than half that number actually having a platform or knowing what the acronym “CSM” stood for. Thankfully, voter turnout was low and voters who were not affiliated with a null-sec power bloc were easily confused by both the concept of STV and the massive amount of superfluous candidates. 
The final result of that election was a CSM dominated by no less than 5 members of The Imperium in addition to 2 people who would join The Imperium in the following years.

This year, CCP and the null blocs share concern over both the inability for joke candidates to garner meaningful support and the threatening success of many non-bloc affiliated candidates in securing endorsements. If a dozen joke candidates are unable to split up the vote then the arithmetic of the election might tilt in favor of viable candidates who are not part of null-sec. CCP is planning to extend the deadline even more and offer a free 7-day Rookie ship skin to any first-time candidate who signs up for CSM this year.

These valiant efforts by CCP may simply not be enough; many of the longtime incumbents have chosen not to run this year at all. Making matters even worse, a DDoS attack and subsequent mitigation efforts blocked several last-minute candidates from using the signup platform. It’s an uncertain time in the world of New Eden where once upon a time, the outcome of elections could be easily factored, predicted, and planned. CSM 15 is still a total unknown.

For what has for some time now been an unsaid rule across New Eden has finally been confirmed by the scientific method. In a press interview, Chief Public Relations Officer Dr. Uskcid Suggib from the CAS announced the findings and released all research for better scrutiny by the public eye and the wider scientific community.

Dr Suggib highlighted particular trends such as the overwhelming preference of the Revelation and Moros over the other two faction variants, with the Revelation being the top favorite overall. The doctor went onto describe how they reached such conclusions. Of particular note: the Moros was a surprising second favorite due to its bulbous nature; “Ribbed for Pleasure” is highlighted numerous times in the released research.

“I have to admit it was difficult to obtain clean datasets when it came to Dreadnoughts. The sample sizes were small from the focus groups, and even then, we had to filter out personal biases to clean the data further. But I can say with confidence, of the eleven female Capsuleers in New Eden, we were able to get eight to participate in the study.” Dr Suggib went onto pull out a few graphs, spreadsheets and standard deviation datasets, but the press showed no interest; a surprising development as usually spreadsheets are a particular favorite at press conferences, so the Q&A was brought forward.

Many of the assembled press were doubtful that there were even eleven female Capsuleers to begin with in New Eden and demanded to know how the doctor verified their legitimate standings. The Doctor was stunned by this particular demand and sputtered that he hadn’t considered this a relevant verification point necessary. The press—now fairly disgruntled—continued to demand the research be redone so that the results can be confirmed with true legitimacy.

Alton Haveri from the Scope was by far the most agitated of the assembled press and was the de facto authority at the time on all things Dreadnought. “Dr Suggib, you do realise that this research needs to be absolutely concrete? We can’t have everyone and their Fedo swapping doctrines based on erroneous data. This research is of prime importance to the pride of all Capsuleers, excluding the supposed eleven in the study of course, all across New Eden. It is the pinnacle of flexing for attention in the basest of animalistic terms.”

Leaks from all majority Null Sec alliances confirms the disarray these findings are having on fleet doctrines and deployments. Many leaders have instructed their manufacturing arms to prepare for full Revelation and Moros production switches. Even the infamous Mittani made a shock appearance after many years of absence from New Eden with a speech to his underlings.

“Let it be known that I am prepared for this new information. When the findings have been confirmed, and the focus group participants verified we are going for a full doctrine switch, any pilot caught in a Phoenix or Naglfar will be immediately AWOX’ed. We cant afford for our epeens to be sullied by their presence! And don’t bring that V E R T I C A L   S U P R E M A C Y crap up! Get real, the women prefer girth, people!”

The effects have even been felt in the unknown regions of Wormhole space where many large and small groups alike have painfully retired their trusty Naglfar PvE boats in favor of the less optimal but more socially appealing Revelation just in case one of the eleven so happens across their hole.

It seems that when it comes to preference for Dreadnoughts, even Darwin flexes his grip on humanity and Capsuleers alike.

Pain knows no bounds when it comes to the fortunes and desires of Capsuleers across New Eden. Following disruption by a mysterious and highly contagious pathogen spreading throughout New Eden, a low-level leak from the inner circle of the Amarr holy government outlines the halting of Stargate Construction projects, including a highly anticipated Low-security gate to Stain. The memo notes the closure of numerous Amarr mega-infrastucture development corporations—primarily responsible for the highly complex process of constructing Stargates—during the current pandemic being the culprit.

A spokesperson from the Amarr Interstellar Infrastructure Development responding to the ensuing outrage by seven Capsuleers on social media, reported that all plans for future Stargate expansion and deployment projects have been placed on indefinite hold until the pandemic can be brought under control.

The fabled “Silk Road to Stain” has been on the radar of many highly connected Capsuleers—who have been stretching their influence in the Amarr Government for some time—as a means of bypassing the currently over policed chokepoints into the region.

Humanitarian organizations noted that the billions of lives currently lost to the pandemic seem to barely slow down the cut-throat and blood thirsty Capsuleer campaigns for whatever sand castles need to be knocked down at the moment. In a strange turn of events, CODE was praised for their valiant policing of high trafficked routes between major commerce points. The beleaguered faction police forces have struggled to actively police and scan all ships passing through these systems and CODE had to step in for the benefit of mankind. 

Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during the now daily press briefing on COVID-19 virus status made a surprising change in international policy and guidelines in the combat against the world-affecting COVID-19 virus. 

After much study and observation of the MMORPG EVE Online player base—where players from all around the globe engage in everything from piracy to mining basic elements for starship construction—concluded player engagement and the resulting social effects were the ideal hope for humanity during this time of crisis.

“Let it be known that we have never before seen such an engaged and determined player base who distance themselves to such extreme degrees from their fellows!” The Director-General proclaimed after pulling up a spreadsheet on player participation and activity profiles from within the game. Of particular note was how the game retained players even when faced with the most mundane and boring of gameplay elements such as clicking a button once every minute to cycle a mining laser. A reporter was escorted by armed guards out during the Q&A when the Director General was asked about a column showing numbers of Cholera victims in Ethiopia on one of the spreadsheets, the director stared vacantly towards the assembled press for many seconds before moving the discussion on saying it had just been talked about and brought the discussion back to Eve Online.

Speaking later that day via video conference with CCP Games head, Hilmar Pétursson, Director-General Tedros was reported to be in awe of live ingame demonstrations of a player mining with seventeen characters at once, a large asteroid without apparent knowledge of its complete lack of measurable entertainment value. Hilmar commented that if the individual were to work for a single hour in a Somali coal mine it would produce a greater ingame currency value as a result. Later in the interview, further demonstrations of the extreme self-isolation the player base subjects itself to without apparent knowledge of the societal collapse occurring in the real world (IRL) was shown to the awe-struck members of the press. Many mildly disgusted but hopeful that this was the solution to maintaining absolute social distancing was the consensus afterwards. A war-correspondent was later found dead by apparent suicide that evening with a note sadly proclaiming the end of humanity.

To demonstrate the lengths players would go to avoid engaging with the outside world, Hilmar ejected 150 random logged in players and enacted a 15 minute long tedious and mind-numbing captcha system which all players immediately completed within the next 18 minutes and continued to play. CCP has since made all player credentials available to international organisations for the benefit of humanity.

Over the following days a joint CIA-MI6 task force made contact with several players who showed unusually high hours of activity per day; one such individual know ingame as “TheLastSparton” exclaimed complete ignorance at the unfolding Corona virus impact to wider society as he had not left his residence for the past 49 days due to ongoing inter-faction disputes occurring ingame which required his complete attention. Interview minutes released highlighted a particular quote: “Corona does not matter in the grand scheme of things as my killboard has to be as green as possible, it’s all that I can leave in this world when I get podded IRL”. Many other contacted players dismissed all questions saying they don’t drink Corona Beer and refused all contact requests.

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has since started distributing vouchers to free ingame time and currency to residents in the wider Baltimore Area to better understand how normal citizens would be affected by the now labelled “Spod-Brain Distancing Effect” Eve Online has on its player base. Day on day crime and outside interpersonal activity has since plummeted in the area as well as new Corona cases. A later demonstration on how younger players could be enticed to player Eve longer was a deposit of “NEET Bucks” into their parent’s bank accounts which could be slowly released into their “Good Boy Accounts” as the player continued to play. This currency is now accepted in exchange for various fast food items in all retailers.

Unfortunately, Eve Online play does have some undesirable side effects; which are manageable according to experts. Many players develop an allergic reaction to fruits and vegetables as a result of their prolonged lack of sunlight exposure coupled with a long-term diet of Mountain Dew and Cheetos. Lesser negative effects include random emotional tantrums when engaged in social-platform player voice-conferencing during and out of gameplay, a severe lack of basic personal hygiene measures, sexual aversion to other people which is slowly replaced by the development of sexual attraction to tabulated data usually in the form of Excel or Google Cloud spreadsheets, masochistic tendencies such as “camping” (sitting invisible) in ingame solar systems for hours at a time even when no other player is present, and a few other minor psychiatric conditions.

As WHO continues to roll out universal access to Eve Online as the main policy in social-distancing efforts, many other organisations across the globe have already passed legislation and mandatory quotas for ingame participation by their citizens.

The policy effects of Eve Online access have not been without repercussions; advocacy groups across the globe have formed and similarly demand the immediate closure of Eve Online citing the personal killing effects of Eve Online on their loved ones who never leave their computers save to eat, sleep, or use hygiene facilities. A recent bombing of a WHO outpost in Norway was credited to the Mothers Without Eve Online who have advocated for increasingly violent actions against CCP Games. Kidnappings and torturing of game time card distributors has lead to many officials providing armed escorts; CCP games has had to maintain game time card access as it was discovered free access would result in a small minority of players creating endless numbers of additional characters which CCP servers would be unable to accommodate at a time of increasing new players from around the world. Many would agree that drastic measures must be taken to save society from COVID-19, but many are now asking if Eve Online and the cost to humanity it incurs is worse than the virus itself.