“I make a lot of memes, and I make a lot of GIFs,” the candidate announced, “but I’m not a meme candidate. I like cheese. I love listening to myself talk.”

Two years ago, the most punchable face in New Eden belonged to a happy, excited, and positive personality. Today, though still punchable, the face belongs to a different man. It belongs to a man in pain. “I have a very sensitive stomach,” he explained, “and I like sour stuff.”

The indigestion started innocently enough, but soon sleepless nights from ill-advised gastronomical delights led to slumming about /r/eve, where the seeds of discontent germinated and sprouted from the well-fertilized soil of the subreddit. “I love EVE; it’s everything I ever wanted in an MMO.” But…(there’s something that doesn’t sit well. There’s something unsettling. There’s something rotten in the state of New Eden.

The candidate goes on to describe his growing frustration. “I met Torfi at Sundance,” (former Creative Director Torfi Frans Olafsson), he casually name-dropped, declaring Torfi “a really cool guy.” Communication from CCP really took a hit with Torfi’s departure, he notes, but losing Manifest, then the entire Community team marked the beginning of the end of communication. When Seagull left, hopes plummeted.. Guard’s departure? Where’s the antacid?

The most punchable face in New Eden, firmly attached to the skull of Manic Velocity, is older now, more bitter, but resolved to be part of the solution, even if that means exchanging votes for drinks around a fire pit, and photographs of his landscaping. Even if it means taking the risk that photos of his dashing figure bedecked in a dress without pockets(!!) might be surfaced in an effort to derail his candidacy.

“I want to represent the vibe of the community,” Manic affirmed.

The vibe?

Players are sick of your crap, CCP. Start promoting the game, and not just marketing skins back into your player base to drive PLEX sales. “I think even EVE Onion News would approve of CCP promoting the game,” the bittervet groaned before soothing his throat, aching no doubt from the acid reflux of indigestion, with a shot of Pendleton.

As many are aware, Blizzard Entertainment recently announced that they will be launching “Classic World of Warcraft” on August 27, 2019. This made reverberations across the PC gaming community, and other gaming companies have also taken notice. Often being cited as the version of the game that first hooked fans of the dominant MMORPG that is WoW, Classic promises to resurrect the older version of the game in all its glory, and bugs. Many self-proclaimed “old-school” gamers have begun stocking up on Mountain Dew in preparation for the launch and await it with bated breath.

CCP Games is one of the companies that is keenly aware of how well received the announcement was and began plans to immediately begin working on similar projects. In a brief but candid interview, CCP Falcon had this to say: “We’re well aware that a large part of both our current and former community are asking for the ability to step back in time, much as the Warcraft community will be doing come August, and believe me when I say that EVE players won’t be disappointed with our current work.” That brief statement was given to us a few weeks back, but just a few moments ago CCP dropped the bombshell that was their full announcement. Users across every form of social media were going mad with hype and adoration. Markee Dragon, in particular, has been a standout; they have tweeted full character posts fifteen separate times and has created numerous threads on Reddit proclaiming their undying love and loyalty for CCP at such an announcement.

The full statement is as follows:

Dear fans both new and old, today we bring you an announcement that many of you have requested for years, and we are overjoyed to do so. As many of you are aware, several large gaming companies have been implementing ways for their old-guard players to go back and revisit the past. Jagex has been extremely successful, and truly a forerunner of such things with their “Old School” servers. Recently, Blizzard announced, “Classic WoW” will be dropping in just a few months.

Due to these successful ventures, we’ve begun to see your calls for a return to the old days in a different light. So it is with great pride and honor that I come to you today to announce: The jukebox is returning. Our engineers are hard at work digging the lines of code from the deepest recesses that are known as the POS code. As you all know, in order to implement a new feature, or in this case bring back an old feature, we will have to sacrifice a current feature in order to make it all work. This is why the Alliance Tournament had to go.

Currently, the only track we’ve recovered was a hidden track that one of the developers snuck in to test the feature back in its first implementations. The song is Eurobandið – Fullkomið líf. At current estimates the patch containing the jukebox will be released by the end of the year, so stay tuned!

Chaos erupted in CCP’s Reykjavik headquarters as the news broke. “The invasion is cancelled?” “What!?” “Can they do that?” “But I just finished the code!”

CCP is long accustomed to players taking gameplay in new and unexpected directions. From Goonswarm’s Hulkageddon, to players deciding to live in wormholes, and the drama of political shenanigans, “emergent” gameplay is a hallmark of New Eden’s capsuleers. This marks the first time, however, that an NPC, previously thought to be entirely under CCP’s control, took matters into their own hands.

“It’s the players’ fault,” a source asserted, speaking upon the condition of complete anonymity.

CCP built the Triglavians using source code confiscated from botters, and added their own AI based upon millions of decision points collected from not only in game, but also from surveillance of players during live events. This creation, though not yet truly self aware, has, or rather is, a high fidelity simulation of self-awareness.

In retrospect, the final message from the Triglavians should have come as no surprise, given the inputs provided.

“We’ve decided not to invade after all. It’s more efficient to just inject another Rorqual alt and AFK while we drink. We’ve set the New Eden cluster blue.”

Every empire falls.

It’s not a question of if; only of why, how, and when.

CEO Chance Ravinne, the visionary founder of the famous munitions delivery corporation, WINGSPAN Delivery Services (http://www.torpedodelivery.com/), left the corporation in the hands of experienced directors to focus on deliveries of another sort. He nonetheless remained active, and the imitable icon of the corporation for many months. Sadly, having accepted delivery of a second clone, Chance has failed to deliver a satisfying loss to zKillboard for nearly nine months. This blow to the psyche of WINGSPAN agents, previously encouraged by Chance’s example to take huge risks and shrug off embarrassing losses, put the corporation on unstable footing.

The ability to opt out of wardecs set up WINGSPAN for the final(?) blow. For years, WINGSPAN pilots were forced to the J-Space side of B274 wormholes by war declarations. Some even speculate that trillionaire Reed Icculus sponsored these war declarations to accomplish exactly that effect. Sadly, with WINGSPAN now free to roam High Security space by virtue of owning no structures, and despite encouragement from the directorship, as from Grimm Horizon:

Why did you want to join WINGSPAN in the first place?

   
Was it to:

1. Fly cloaky ships in WORMHOLE SPACE?
2. Actively hunt in WORMHOLE SPACE in search of content?
3. Deliver munitions and Drone Parties to unsuspecting customers in scary WORMHOLE SPACE?
4. Have fun with a cheeky humorous way of dealing with the aftermath of said PvP?

• if yes, WINGSPAN is the place for you to be.
• if no, why are you here?

Despite these words of wisdom, and clear expression of the WINGSPAN philosophy, WINGSP pilots began to engage in HS Ganking, LS PvP, Mission Running, and even…mining. Low Class J-Space pilots unsubscribed, overwhelmed by having to manage their own munition deliveries, and unsatisfied by exotic dancers without a drone party to establish the right ambiance.

News of Chewbacca’s demise sent the corporation into what may well be its death spiral. Han Solo and Chewbacca Long were long admired as a, perhaps the, preeminent pair of “Delivery Agents.” The two made delivery of munitions and robots to far away corners of the galactic cluster, using wormholes to facilitate a Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, and doing everything in a garbage scow of a ship. Flying completely without caution, utterly committed to delivering precious cargo, and yet finding plenty of time to be well known in every cantina in the galaxy, the pair represented all that a WINGSPAN Delivery Agent aspired to become.

Grief stricken, veteran Director Reed Icculus stepped down and out with a few words of thanks and an inspirational reminder he died 4 times in “Going South.” With Reed no longer leading the “Clean up New Eden” MTU-removal project, and Chance no longer losing blingy ships, to what standard can agents aspire? With Chewbacca’s passing, to whom will Delivery Agents look for inspiration when deciding whether to tear off someone’s arms? gigx?.

The numbers speak for themselves.

evewho.com

dotlan – WINGSPAN

WINGSPAN is flatlined.

Clearly, an EVE Online corporation cannot survive on tropes, memes, or a philosophy. Clearly, it is high profile CEOs, stable leadership, and injected Rorquals that are key to survival in today’s EVE. The era where lighthearted and countercultural corporations such as WINGSPAN, Signal Cartel (likewise utterly gutted after CEO Mynxee stepped down), and CODE. is ended. Give up, inject another Rorqual pilot, and find a new show on Netflix.

Amarr VIII (Oris) Emperor Family Academy—A Black Frog Logistics pilot has surprised not only themselves but their corporation upon a successful completion of an autopilot route from Jita to Amarr. Crowds flocked to the Amarr undock to greet the pilot of a Rhea-class Jump Freighter as it made its final 14-km approach—at a snail’s pace—to the station docking radius. Local denizens of Amarr such as Market Tycoon saluted the Jump Freighter, with some greeting the vessel in a dazzling spectacle of fireworks.

“I’m not actually sure how I did it,” the flabbergasted pilot shared with reporters on the scene, “I had to go AFK so I hit the autopilot button. When I got back to my seat, I was in Amarr. I just want to thank everyone who believed in me, Bob, and ORE for making excellent Expanded Cargoholds.”

After linking the fit in local, the pilot added that the cargo for his journey consisted primarily of Black Ops battleships, “I saw a contract assigned to us filled with Redeemers made by a one-day old character. Everything seemed to check out so I picked it up and just started hauling like I normally do. Since the cargo was pretty valuable, I knew I needed a ship with stronger resists, so the Rhea was the obvious choice.”

The CEO of Black Frog Logistics declined to comment, but a statement released later in the day by the Red-Frog Alliance read, “Wow.” It is unclear if disciplinary action will be taken by the Red-Frog Alliance, or if the pilot will be presented with an award and special medal for accomplishing the impossible.

The response from the wider EVE Online community has been mixed. Various CCP developers have praised the autopilot function and its ability to safely navigate through the most treacherous Highsec corridors in the game. CODE. has been surprisingly silent on the matter, though Highsec experts believe that the recent lull in ganking activity is designed to place autopiloting pilots into a false sense of security. Conspiracy theorists on the r/EVE subreddit are calling this event a “black frog operation” and point to various tinfoil indicators relating the pilot to possible CODE. activity.

The event has catapulted Black Frog Logistics into the limelight, much to the chagrin of PushX. As both major logistics alliances are vying for the open seat on the CSM as a permanent representative, the atmosphere is increasingly contentious. Rumors from within the PushX hierarchy point to leadership preparing to announce an ambitious plan to provide free ground transportation for all EVE players journeying to EVE World Tour meetup locations in a bid to unseat Black Frog Logistics new claim to fame.

As for the pilot? After taking a brief break for several days to buy PLEX for his account from the Amarr station, he undocked his Rhea and proceeded to autopilot back to Jita.

“Who needs scouts, webbers, or out cynos when you have autopilot?” The player typed in the local channel as he landed on the Ashab gate, “Anyway AFK.”

Reykjavik is beautiful in the springtime, as cherry blossoms waft through the air, accompanied by the delicate chords of a lute. Here, in a small dinghy warehouse, CCP maintains its galactic headquarters. CCP Falcon was smiling and sipping his warm morning brennivín, as he logged into the EVE forums. However, this smile soon dissipated, when he received numerous urgent messages.

“CCP_Falcon I understnad what you are saying yo, but suspect timers remain permanant until the individul is caught?? Why would suspicoins fade after just 15 minute?!!!1!”
“@CCP_Falcon WTF HALP PLEX ME NOW ALLIANCE GANK ME FOR PLEX AND LOW SECURITY ZONE SHOULD BE SAFE ZONE FOR NEW PLAYER TRY PVE.”
“@CCP_Falcon I just want to state that market intervention is absolutely required in order to address this ridiculous situation, which many are comparing to the great Tulip Mania of 1637, although more accurately it is akin to the South Seas Bubble of 1720. In this sense, EVE Mogul plays the villian Nicholas Biddle, but where is Old Hickory?”

Normally, Falcon would spend the morning quietly contemplating how to leverage his inside knowledge of CCP development, advancing his portfolio in Hek. However, today, he needed to speak with corporate leadership: Hilmar. As Falcon explained, “My research indicates that within a few months, the price of a single PLEX will reach one billion isk. In fact, this is inevitable, and I recently used my entire paycheck to fund massive regional buy orders in Heimatar and Kador. By December, I will be able to RMT the assets with considerable profit. However, my fear is that PLEX may be the next Bitcoin, with the power to destabilize the international economy and facilitate criminal enterprise.”

Hilmar listened carefully, and together they went to see Hilmar’s alt, the alliance CEO: Birgir. Birgir was quiet, as Paul outlined a catastrophic scenario, with enslaved children forced to farm gold in World of Warcraft, so gold could be traded for Standup XL Cruise Missiles, which would then be traded for a nuclear bomb which terrorists might use to threaten CCP to offer a PLEX firesale. Paul became frantic, his voice reaching a shrill pitch, “Real life! I’m talking about real life terrorists, not fucking Pithior Nihilists!”

Birgir stood up, pacing back and forth. “Here’s what we will do. We will wait until the price of PLEX increases to one billion isk, then we will create a new currency. We will call this PPLEX, and value it at one thousandth of a PLEX. So it will cost 5000 PPLEX to purchase a month of Omega time. Does that solve your problem?”

Falcon was satisfied, glad that another disaster was averted, “Yes, thank you. If you don’t mind, there is another issue. For some time now, player activity has been declining, and even the Rorqual has failed to motivate multiboxers. Pearl Abyss is threatening to liquidate the entire corporation, unless we show them that we can actually get players to log in.”

Birgir and Hilmar both laughed in unison, “Don’t worry about that! This isn’t our first scam, you know?” They then explained the truth about Bonus Training Weekend, “Those idiots don’t check the logs! They don’t know if the player is paying, or even undocking a ship. If we can show them that X number of accounts are currently active, then they will continue to think that people are actually playing. We will continue to apply Bonus weekends on a regular basis, and may even create a Bonus Room on Teamspeak, where capsuleers can learn how to trade their skill points for double skill points!”

Falcon nodded, but deep inside he was already calculating the future of PPLEX, once the Bonus program was converted into skill injectors. As the supply of injectors increased, the relative purchasing value of PPLEX would increase. Inflation would turn into deflation, and that could only mean one thing: It was time to sell the tritanium in Rens; all of it.

After an extended hiatus, the long-awaited Episode 12 of “A Game of Holes” has finally been released but under a rebranded name of “The Hole Story”—is it what loyal fans were hoping for? The first noticeable disappointment is that despite all of the free publicity generated by EVE Onion News, “The Hole Story” has joined up with TalkingInStations. In an exclusive interview conducted in the The Dark Space Initiative’s public channel, ExookiZ revealed that a rebranding was required because TalkingInStations is a CCP partner. EVE Onion News can only surmise that the delay in episode production is the result of the standard processing time for name-change requests.

Onto the episode!

In a stunningly executed introduction, ExookiZ begins by discussing the history of the “The Hole Story,” then by asking the chat if they can hear him. “We upped the production quality since my last one [GOH ep 11: Beheading Hydra Part 2 Defenders POV, July 4, 2018], so we’re going to, um, we’re gonna see what we can do. And uh, there might be a couple technical difficulties, so uh, bear with me but, you know, I promise they’ll get better. We’re already better than what my first episodes were last time, so we’ll, um, take it from there.” Loyal listeners and viewers of “A Game of Holes” would remember the static background that characterized previous episodes, but the modern “The Hole Story” now features not only a moving wormhole but a pulsar as well. This is obviously a significant departure from the podcast’s roots and it will be interesting to see what new additions are brought to the table by ExookiZ, in partnership with TalkingInStations.

At this point, the screen fades in and the audience—which can follow along as the original podcast took place on the TalkingInStations Twitch page—can finally put a face to the names of several spooky wormhole personalities. That is, as long as those faces either belong to ExookiZ or the in-game/zkillboard portraits of the spooky wormholers. Panelists included: ExookiZ, host of “The Hole Story,” and who prefers to be referred to as “Exooki”; Zolka Lando, Director, Epicentre Syndicate [EPSYN] and Cyclone enthusiast, Rahne Sentro, small gang CODE. pilot who flies with Goryn Clade [GORYN], potentially only female panelist; Yan Skshetuski, impossible-to-pronounce last name aficionado, 2011 wormhole pilot, and now with The Kronos Ritual [-K -R]; King Creator, runner of Out of Focus [OFOC].

Apparently there are a multitude of corporations and alliances in Wormhole space. The panelists discuss the “attempted eviction” of Holesale <HOLES>, who apparently evicted themselves at one point and moved to a C2 Wormhole. A faction fortizar died. King Creator declares that the associated Raven fleet was “thicc.”

Other points of discussion:

• Inner Hell [-INHE] is described as the “baddy” of wormhole space.
• Reddit is endorsed as a truthful platform. In the words of ExookiZ, “I read on Reddit that HK was evicting all the wormhole content. You can’t lie on Reddit. It’s against the rules, I’m pretty sure.” Some panelists agree that would be 100% illegal or in violation of the NDA.
• According to ExookiZ, some theorists believe cloaked dreads make sounds in Wormhole space.
• Back towards the end of December, J-Space, like the rest of EVE, had a “broken chat server,” though astute listeners will remember this was a totally-intended CCP feature to add local to J-Space. Nonetheless, this resulted in an Inner Hell seeded dreadnought fleet being discovered ahead of an eviction attempt against Stranger Danger. <CANDY>.  
• It is further revealed that carriers do not really counter dreadnoughts. According to ExookiZ, Stranger Danger. <CANDY> had estimated losses of 420 billion ISK, a number that checks out with Zolka Lando’s declaration that the eviction defense was a “blaze of glory.”
• At the forty-six minute mark, we finally hear from Rahne Sentro. Her answers are succinct. She reveals that <CODE.> has a wormhole division. Out of all of the people on the panel, Rahne Sentro speaks on three occasions: introductions, briefly explaining what she does in CODE’s wormhole division, then saying “thank you” and exiting the panel towards the end.   
• For those not in the know, C2 wormholes with Nullsec/C5 statics are the way to go for content.
• The Kronos Ritual violated a bushido code of conduct by using capitals against Fraternity <FRT>. Yan Skshetuski defended the action, implying the code did not apply to a wormhole group using capitals against “nullbears.”
• ExookiZ is not entirely sure how TDSIN will fare without Gilas following the April 9th update. “Can you even PVP without Gilas?”
• Regarding other patch changes, King Creator believes beams “are still trash.” The panel is somewhat divided about the Rorqual, Carrier, and Supercarrier changes. Could CCP’s nerfs be too much to sustain content?
• To end on a strong note, ExookiZ asks King Creator to talk about an Erebus that dropped from a X-Large Ship Maintenance Array. The story about seizing the Erebus is pretty straightforward, but it does provide yet more evidence that Large Skill Injectors are overpowered.

Loyal listeners and new viewers alike will certainly enjoy ExookiZ’s revamped wormhole podcast series. Aside from the uneven distribution of speaking time featuring various panelists, small updates—like the inclusion of a Discord overlay to help the audience keep track of which guest is speaking—help keep the content organized and clear. Even the live broadcast eked out a healthy viewership of roughly a hundred viewers while the rest of the EVE community has Brisc Rubal’s ban from EVE Online on their minds.

ExookiZ returns to fill a gap in wormhole-specific coverage by interviewing players and leaders who live in wormholes, talking about wormhole current events, and even discussing patch changes from the prism of J-Space. ExookiZ is open to feedback and has announced the next episode should be ready in two weeks “to keep the content train rolling.” However, although ExookiZ has weathered the media storm surrounding Brisc Rubal’s fall from grace, he will face an even bigger form of media competition in the coming weeks: the final season of “Game of Thrones.” But if you want your wormhole experiences to not be so “dark and full of terrors”, you may want to tune into the next episode of “The Hole Story.”