New Eden—some wormhole or another

Today, several large Wormhole corporations announced the creation of a splinter organization: The Frighole Coalition.

This is the greatest thing ever! They literally can’t stop us!”, said FelixJarl of Ember Sands, a key alliance in the new coalition. Mr. Felix was, of course, referring to the possibilities opened up by the newly infinite nature of wormhole connections between wormhole space and nullsec.

The war room was upbeat. Almost as upbeat as the tempo of the drums. “Casus belli,” he repeated slowly. “Make sure you get that down.”

Admittedly, I didn’t quite have his full attention. He was busy refitting Entosis Link modules onto the Talwars that were available in the corporate hangars. I knew that I was watching Eve history in the making. A new kind of force, one that would use the full potential of the frighole to move massive fleets of Jackdaws and Kikimoras anywhere. Across known-space and wormhole-space, alike.

“Now, to be fair, we’d prefer to go after SYNDE, next, as they were a key player in the eviction of Solaris. But we have to go where Bob wills us—where the frigholes lead.”

I asked if he really thought that it would make much of a difference. “We’ve got half of wormhole space on our side, but we also have the full backing of the Imperium. We’re all really just primarily interested in making sure that people know that there is always a bigger fish. You can’t pull stunts like those people did, and expect to get away with it. The Mittani has spoken extensively of his desire to see wormhole space remain a place for small and medium sized corporations.”

The Mittani was away on business in Wisconsin, and could not be reached for comment. The office of The Mittani declined to comment, as well.

Pressing further, I asked if Felix thought that Fraternity. intended this to signal the beginning of an alliance with the infamous WHCFC. He reminded me that, “The WHCFC has always been aligned with PandaFam, going all the way back to 2013. Gobbins even personally apologized for the confusion created when the Horde fleet started shooting at the Inner Hell fleet.” This long standing working relationship among these unlikely allies has been corroborated by others, namely Andres M Afanador, a master strategist, with ties to both Inner Hell and Northern Coalition. (Mister Afanador is most famous for recently making the final payment on a $75,000 bounty for the successful eviction of Hard Knocks Inc.)

Cyentw of Exit-Strategy suggested that, “Whatever comes of this foray into Fraternity. space, there will be more repercussions to follow. We would very much like to see the liberation of C6 space, which has been dominated by the WHCFC, for far too long.”

Following the success of several reward campaigns like the Skilling Spree, CCP Games has announced a new tiered Omega Account system for premium users. To qualify, users must pay for regular Omega Account time, but also complete a series of weekly tasks in—and sometimes out—of game.

In an orange sorbet stained press release prepared by CCP Spider, it was revealed that CCP Games plans to add tasks of greater challenge and complexity to unlock premium content. “This will be totally awesome!” said CCP Spider regarding the changes. “We’ve really looked at the numbers with this one. There’s a core group of players that really get into the nuances of the game. They like to do a bit of everything, and this will help them take that energy to the next level.”

These new tasks will not be available to everyone though. Some Omega accounts will not even be able to access the content, not at first anyway. “To qualify a player will need an account to have maintained at least six consecutive months of active Omega status first,” clarified Spider. At the start of month seven, if the account is still Omega (and will continue to be omega for at least another 28 days) the player will see a new tab in The Agency window suddenly become available. “We really struggled on where to introduce the premium content, but then I remembered,” Spider said, pausing to lick the sorbet from the papers in his hand before continuing, “The Agency! It’s been such a huge hit since we launched it, and this would keep from cluttering up the in-space UI.”

When it comes to the specific tasks, the initial list is quite extensive. Players would be given one task to complete each time they login, chosen randomly from the list below. Spider was quick to point out that this was just a rough draft for testing, and there was potential for many more tasks to be added before launch:

• Kill a Titan
• (Invent\research\complete) 100 blueprints
• Harvest 10,000,000m3 of (randomly chosen) ore
• Jump through a wormhole
• Visit Jita, Do Dixie, Rend, Amarr, Hek, in a single session
• Be killed by a Titan
• Die in Tama x times (sequential task, starting at 1 and increasing n+1 each completion)
• Kill an ally
• Be killed by an ally
• Transfer 100 billion isk from your corporate wallet to your personal wallet
• Receive 10 billion isk from mission, bounty, or CONCORD payouts
• Jump 150 gates
• Use 100 Abyssal Filaments
• Win an Abyssal PVP tournament in a Cerberus
• Pilot a Super-Carrier class ship for at least 11 consecutive hours
• Spend a total of 400 minutes with a Covert Ops cloak turned on
• Watch 100 gate jumps while cloaked
• Report 25 unique player names for botting
• Link a Reddit post about yourself in local x times (chosen randomly)
• Anchor a citadel
• Kill a freighter with a catalyst
• Lose a catalyst to CONCORD

“We really wanted to narrow this down and target a specific audience” said Spider. “You’ve got all these little micro-identities in Eve Online that tend to shoehorn people into one play style or another, but this update is for people that like to do it all. The renaissance pilot, so to speak.” He explained that the intent is to promote those who like to involve themselves in all aspects of Eve Online, including incentives for some “offline” activities that serve the community.

The new system will deliver special rewards for task completion, based upon a tiered involvement scheme. Gold Level Omega accounts for instance would receive 10 free plex, a rare tech 2 ship skin, 25,000 free skill points, and 50 free HyperCores at the end of each week. Silver Level Omega accounts would receive seven free plex, a ship random ship skin for a tech 1 battlecruiser or battleship, 17,500 free skill points, and 30 free HyperCores. Bronze Level Omega accounts would receive one free plex, one ship skin for either their capsule, corvette, or tech 1 frigate, 5,000 free skill points and 10 free HyperCores. All rewards would be paid out at downtime each Monday, for tasks completed the previous Monday. To calculate which tier a pilot qualifies for, CCP Spider provided the below helpful reference guide:

Bronze Level
Average three login/s per day for the previous seven days

Complete at least 12 tasks in the previous seven days

Have a non-neutral security status

Silver Level
Average of four logins per day for the previous seven days

Complete at least 18 tasks for the previous seven days

Have a security status greater than 1 or less than -1

Of course, these tiers are dependent upon a pilots previous six months of active Omega status and a commitment to remain in Omega status for at least 28 days from the date of payout. If a pilot completes the tasks, login events, and has the proper sec status for a reward tier, but their account is scheduled to go Alpha in less than 28 days, then that pilot would be given notice of their rewards being placed on hold and 24 hours to update their Omega status. If they are unable bring their account within compliance before the 24 hour timer expires, then the premium rewards counter ticks back to the beginning and they have to wait six months. “It’s harsh, but we think it will be effective in growing our long-term player base.” Spider said.

When other members of CCP Games were questioned about the press release they appeared shocked that CCP Spider would have spearheaded such an obviously innovative system to support the burgeoning population of Eve Online players. “He just walked in one day and was like ‘I have this plan!’ and was so excited,” said CCP Karkur. “I felt so bad for him at first because, well, this is obviously way outside his area of responsibility.”

CCP Dopamine added “Yeah, we were all sure he was going to get fired. But then it leaked to the CSM and they unanimously backed him up and Hilmar just let Spider go for it.”

“I think this is really bringing Spider out of his exoskeleton.” finished Karkur. Dopamine nodded in agreement.

The new system is scheduled to hit the test server in April for roughly three months of player testing before rolling out to the Tranquility server in August for the 3rd Quadrant of 2020.

Late today, Icelandic Transport Authority denied entry to all Eve Online nerds for the year of 2020, claiming that an outbreak of the beer contagion known as “Corona Virus” has destroyed the country’s supply. The ban is causing sweeping cancelations of planned events, and has forced many bars and hotels to reduce staffing needs for the season. In a public address, a sobered CCP Hilmar said the following:

“Our preparations in the Reykjavik, Iceland area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have cancelled Fanfest. My decision to host at this time and place was based on the best information available. You nerds, traveling by land and sea, did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

When questioned about the decision, high ranking officials within the Icelandic government were concise in justifying the travel ban, stating plainly that the country “did not have enough beer this year”. It was suggested that those who wish to travel to Iceland in the future pre-purchase their meal and drink so that local establishments could ensure a proper supply prior to their arrival. “We cannot allow Eve Fanfest to occur. It would get very bloody” said Iceland’s Minister of Tourism, Þórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörð Gylfadóttir, “The Corona Virus has afflicted our stock of libations heavily. We have run out of beer a lot in the last few years and it always comes down to rival Eve Online alliances attempting to out drink each other.” She continued, “This year would be so much worse! If we let hundreds of Eve Nerds into the country for the weekend, we wouldn’t have enough beer to drink for the dozens of other tourists visiting at the same time! There would be PvP in the streets.”

Local politician and beloved mayor of Reykjavik, Dagur Bergþóruson Eggertsson, viewed this as a very positive step for the country. “We are moving in the right direction” he said, when hearing the news. “Our city is more walkable, quieter, and all around enjoyable now. How could we let a bunch of online nerds come here and wander our fine city in a drunken sleepless haze looking for more beer that doesn’t exist? Real tourists adjust to jet lag! These punks just don’t sleep for four days and puke everywhere. It’s disgusting.”

Local establishments that are commonly visited by Eve Nerds are feeling the pinch in budget that this will cause, and plan to protest next Saturday. The list of establishments so far includes Valdis Ice Cream, The Russian Orthodox Church, Flatey Pizza, that little red Fish And Chips trolley, and the Phallological Museum. These locations have reported between 42% and 69% of their annual earnings during Fanfest, and strongly encourage the Transport Authority to rethink their ban. “We can just serve them vodka, when we run out of beer” said the owner of Flatey’s. “Well I mean…not us but like, other places, you know?”

In CCP’s continuing effort to throw away resources, the latest investor relations call with Pearl Abyss revealed Project Nova is officially shelved. Along with that announcement is the promise of a new and improved, more immersive Project Dust 514 Project Nova FPS of some sort. In the call, CCP said “Project Nova’s gameplay experience as presented at EVE Vegas ’18 would not have achieved our ambitious goals for this concept.” PC Gamer was a bit more blunt, calling it “boring and unambitious” long before CCP realized this feature. It was ambitiously confirmed that the new game may or may not interact with EVE Online. Even though CCP continues to ambitiously ignore the many, much better titles out there, and has gotten it wrong twice, they countered with no less ambition: “We’re continuing to develop our sci-fi multiplayer shooter game concept, actively evolving it beyond the original scope for what was formerly codenamed Project Nova. Development efforts on this concept are now the full focus of CCP’s London studio.”

In case those on the call didn’t hear the nails being firmly seated into the coffin, we were told “Project Nova team members based in Iceland have been moved onto other projects at our Reykjavík studio.” What wasn’t clear was whether any of the “other projects” were EVE Online. We asked for clarification after the phone call and, although the details are not clear, the direction was crystal. Please note that we were given a CSM-like NDA, which means we can ignore it. CCP Smokescreen then filled us in, “We are always accused of not caring about EVE Online; however, this is not the case. Let me explain:

“Consider the titles we have released or almost released to date such as DUST, Valkyrie, Nova, EVE Echoes, as well as all the ones unrelated to EVE. These all represent a two-pronged Low Bar Strategy approach to managing expectations with EVE Online.

First, by announcing resources are being diverted from EVE Online, we can keep the bar low on expectations for the only thing we have actually released: EVE Online itself. We want to appear very busy without actually doing anything material. Quite frankly, we’ve run out of ideas with what to do with EVE and I think it shows. So we need to keep expectations really low.

Secondly, we are distracting you by hyping up other efforts and hoping you’ll project that enthusiasm to EVE until it suffers its own heat death. We’ll even throw out some demos, screenshots, videos, and so on to make it seem real. You’ll be all wired up, but you can’t actually play it so you’ll go fire up EVE now that you’ve been reminded of it!

When we first introduced this strategy we weren’t sure how it would work out, but I think you’ll agree it has been extremely successful. It was what closed the deal with Pearl Abyss. The media claims this is yet another failure, but here at CCP we consider this another resounding success!”

Unfortunately, it looks like CCP is going to be closed-lipped about future “successes”. EVE Onion wondered if CCP seems to have realized just how embarrassing this is since they announced during the call, “We are moving away from publicly announcing our internal project codenames and will wait until we’re ready for a full reveal. We want to show you rather than tell you how we have evolved this concept and we’re looking forward to doing so when the time comes to present this concept as a fully-fledged game.” 

CCP Smokescreen confirmed during our covert call that this is actually simply the next phase of the Low Bar Strategy. “Now that you are all conditioned to expect very little, there is no need to waste resources on campaigns to hype up the next thing that won’t be released. We will be going full Blackout and let the Chaos reign for a while.”

CCP’s most recent update to Eve Online has confused and surprised the population of New Eden. “Wormhole’s still exist? I guess I didn’t know” one Capsuleer told reporters after being informed of the update patch notes and articles published last week by CCP Dopamine. 

“Yeah, I used to run around in wormholes.” A pilot in Deklein said, “Or was that Jove space? Which one used the Sister’s probey things again?” 

The majority of those interviewed either didn’t know that wormhole space was still a playable area of the game or didn’t care. A pod of porpoise pilots in a Highsec ore belt said:

“WHBTW is soooo last decade.” 

“It’s a mehm!” 

“You mean meh-meh…” 

“SERIOUSLY people? It’s pronounced meem”

“Of course it is, dear, it’s just not a thing we do anymore. There wasn’t anything good about it, so everyone left.”

Many citizens of New Eden echoed these comments, with some of the more popular responses being, “I didn’t know people still did that” and “why would CCP waste time developing for an area of the game that’s super niche and caters to only .01% of the population, when we have real game breaking issues to deal with, like hyperinflation from the overabundance of combat anomalies and the unlimited availability of mineable resources in nullsec?”

One unique perspective came from a pilot we found multi-boxing super-carrier class Nyx’s in Esoteria. “Man, I love J-Space!” he said as his heavy fighters bombed a wave of Sansha pirates at a rock haven. “It’s some of the best travel options around. There’s that nerdy pacifist group that keeps all the maps up to date and scans out the different connections for you, too! Plus, we’ve figured out that if your fleet is too big for the hole, you can time it so that everyone jumps on the same server tick. You get more ships through than you normally would, like a cheat or something! It’s a great way to travel around New Eden undetected, and surprise your enemies.”

This wormhole loving Nyx pilot was outnumbered though by his wormhole apathetic alliance friends who just shrugged their shoulders and walked away. 

The  update (released Tuesday) comes with an apparent treasure trove of goodies for the die-hard wormhole dwellers of New Eden, if any still exist: With infinite loot drops from drifters, null-sec pirate anomaly spawns across all wormhole classes, extensions to all structure timers caused by corporations that have violated wormhole bushido, a 3x increase in the spawn rates of connections out of wormhole space, and the long-awaited addition of asset safety. At last count there were still 12 active accounts on a discord channel dedicated to the praise of “bob”. Six of them claimed to be active wormhole pilots while the other six pilots just reacted with emotes to the others. 

At time of publication CCP Games has declined to comment, citing ethics and privacy policies restricting them from disclosing any information about exactly who they intended this update for.

CCP Games—in a widely criticized move—elected to try a new process for CSM voting this year. The sudden change shocked many capsuleers causing outrage across New Eden, with the current CSM remaining silent on the issue thus far. Without preamble, CCP Dopamine made the announcement on the EVE forums early this morning: “New, Improved Voting Method Implemented Effective Immediately.”

Starting this morning we are happy to announce the first CSM voting Caucuses in EVE Online history. Rather than an online ballot, pilots will now navigate in-game to specific systems in game to cast their vote for their chosen CSM members.

The process is rather simple. Pilots will need to fly to a designated caucusing system in New Eden where nodes representing their preferred CSM candidate will spawn. Each node is out of D-scan range from the others. The node grid will be restricted to Battleships only, excluding Blops. This is to make counting them easier and ensure all players have an even chance of attending the caucuses. Once warped to the node, a player’s ship is warp scrambled and they must loot a large cargo container containing exactly one Scientist commodity per player and slow boat it 75km to a drop off point where the scientist will be counted by volunteer staff—with help from a new app commissioned to aid staff—as a vote for the representing node’s candidate. 

This process may seem limiting to some, but it ensures that only dedicated, real players vote for candidates they are sure are right for the CSM. There is no restriction on the number of alts a pilot may caucus vote with, but they must be in a non-Blops battleship to caucus vote. 

The extended donwntime today may have surprised players, but we are confident they will understand as the first nodes spawned. The first location is in Delve. We have chosen Delve for the first to vote region after careful consideration, but all regions will have a chance at being caucusing locations should the trial of this system prove effective this year. 

Best of luck, capsuleers, and be sure you all choose the candidate right for you before warping to a node. The first are awaiting caucus-eers now in Y-OMTZ.

The thread has already garnered hundreds of angry responses from users, with many crying foul on the unprecedented change. Most complaints are leveled at the difficulty of caucusing and choice of location. Many users claim this is a clear sign of bias toward the Imperium or Nullsec dominated CSM. Zkill is showing a steady feed of t1 battleships dying to gatecamps at entry systems to Delve, while many more have vowed not to vote in protest. Despite the largely negative backlash, some users are praising this as an anti-botting move or one “taking votes from the hands of rich players” accused of stacking votes with “multitudes of alts”, since only players in-game can vote in this new process. Only time will tell how the new Capsuleer Caucuses will affect voting.

Image: Reddit thread showing Jonathan Sarge photo of C-64 and unattributed image of a TRS-80 running EVE Online

“Do I smell ageism,” an angry player asked, “or is that just Mentholatum in my nose?” 

CCP is under fire for alleged ageism after sources reveal they have terminated plans to support several classic gaming platforms. As part of the “Fight or Flight” Quadrant, CCP is aborting attempts to support the following platforms, despite their apparent popularity within the EVE Online community: Compaq Portable, Commodore 64, Apple II, TRS-80, TI-99/4A, Magnavox Odyssey, and Atari 7800.

“I’ve spent countless hours keeping my Compaq Portable in good shape for EVE Online,” one enthusiast explained. “I quit playing when they ruined the game with T2 ships in the Castor release, but someone told me official support for the Compaq Portable was coming Soon^tm, and probably in the same update as the Low-Sec gate to Stain. That kept me engaged with the community all this time. I don’t know what game I’ll choose now. I heard rumors that Metro Exodus and Hunt The Wumpus might be coming to my preferred platform. Either way, I guess CCP doesn’t want my money.”

Heartbroken players are sharing pictures of their favorite platforms running EVE Online one last time before the patch goes live in a grassroots effort to persuade CCP to rethink their plan. There has thus far been no response from CCP, despite broad support within the EVE Online community, as evidenced by several “F for respect” and “7o” salutes, and at least one planned cyno vigil.

“It’s not about ageism or platform bias,” an insider clarified. “Last week, EVE Online experienced a major DDOS event as a result of an effort by a technician in the hosting center to connect to EVE Online from their Commodore 64. The C-64 obviously doesn’t have excellent support for the new transparent CCP Logo displayed when initiating the launcher, so the technician wrote a BASIC program to initiate the connection using an undocumented API. Unfortunately, a misplaced GOTO command resulted in an infinite loop. This event triggered a serious conversation about platform support, and whether it is fair to the broader user base to include undocumented features for the benefit of officially unsupported platforms.”
“I’m not buying their argument,” an Apple II aficionado grumbled, “is EVE Online really so much more complex than Elite, which runs just fine on my machine? CCP managed to delete boot.ini on supported platforms, but somehow they want to shift the blame for the DDOS to those of us who identify as retro platform gamers? Let’s face it, CCP’s new overlords don’t care about our community; Pearl Abyss only wants young gamers dumb enough to buy all the latest hardware. I’m going to go check out Dual Universe; Högni Gylfason went there from CCP, and he is over 40 – maybe he will be more interested in equal rights for older gamers.”

Bolstered by the recent successful eviction of Mouth Trumpet Cavalry, a press statement issued today by the leadership of known wormhole landlords Inner Hell announced another successful eviction, this time of the EVE Online “Tranquility” server, known colloquially as “TQ”. The press briefing, which was delivered to the offices of EVE Onion News tied to a brick and launched, presumably from a 720mm Artillery Cannon, describes the “…heroic actions of our brave pilots against the threat of the EVE servers Блять.”

A representative of Inner Hell, clad only in jogging pants and a red headband, and sweating profusely, appeared before the media today in a televised briefing. After taking seventeen entire minutes to compose himself and finish six beers, the spokesman―whose name could not be understood—ranted at length about how the assembled press could “kiss my dummy thick ass.” He then went on to call the Tranquility server a “bitch”, loudly and repeatedly, for an additional fourteen straight minutes while occasionally interjecting insults directed at the server’s mother, grandmother, and country of origin. 

The remainder of the press conference consisted of the representative firing a live automatic rifle into the sky and laughing wildly. While leaving the stage, the representative notably stumbled, dropped a CCP-branded bag spilling over with €500 notes, threw a handful at the front row of reporters, punched a member of event security, jumped into an Ikitursa and flew away.

When asked for comment about the incident, CCP released the following statement:

The Tranquility server could not be reached for comment, but sources close to the server indicate that it has moved into a C2 pulsar in order to reorganize and take stock of its remaining assets.