“I’m on sixth Redbull sure but I think hole is moving toward me,” he said.

The poor Russkie was working on his twelfth hour of hole control. Rather than engaging in mind-numbing red-triangle-shooting like the rest of wormhole space, his corp preferred to make its ISK by bashing the structures of groups who had long since gone dormant. Since the goodies contained within were guaranteed to drop, they stood to make anywhere from 20b to 60b for an eviction of this size. All that stood between him and his loot was a mere 96 hours of boredom.

“I see people make complain about wormhole sound. But is not so bad. Very help for long hours cloaked on hole for doorway stop.”

Initially, there were some complaints about the changes the art team made to the wormhole animations and audio indicators. Some had said that it made it harder to hear reductions in available mass. Others had criticized the changes for forcing players to mute their audio altogether, to avoid having to listen to the din.

“It sounded like a soundscape for The Shining,” remarked a less enthused player.

After several months of torture, CCP finally got around to patching the audio back to something like the old standard of 2018. It seems that our Russkie friend will have to go back to relying on cocaine and Red Bull.

On 11 January 2020, a Rorqual interrupted an Eve University class taking place in the Kalevala Expanse, shouting obscenities in local chat before setting itself ablaze in protest. Students immediately ran to the Rorqual’s aid, attempting to use any kinetic, explosive, electromagnetic, or thermal devices they could find to extinguish the blaze and save the poor whale. Unfortunately, the Rorqual perished at the scene before emergency responders could even arrive. The flames from the Rorqual’s self immolation hit an internal fuel tank, causing a massive explosion and scattering remains all over the ore belt. This marks the fourth such occurrence since the new year began. “She didn’t even appear to panic, it was insane!” explained one of the students present, “she just sat there and burned.” Eve University now faces calls from terrified parents requesting that they suspend teaching all Advanced Artwork courses immediately. 

Per sources familiar with the event, the class began “normal” with no apparent issues. “We did what we always do,” claimed the source, “we entered a wormhole with a Null security static, then popped out in the middle of majestic space.” He described how the students staged on a blackops class battleship, while their scout found the perfect subjects for them to photograph. They moved about several times, finally landing in an ore belt to snap a few shots of the purple sunlight reflecting off large rocks of ore. It was the perfect lighting, a wonderful angle…and that’s when the Rorqual appeared. “Who would’ve thought an advanced photography class would end like that?”

The classes have an average of forty to fifty pilots, with the only prerequisite being training to use a covert cloaking device. This apparently allows for optimal positioning and ensures that student ship models are not in the way of the pictures they take.  When asked why they use a wormhole, students responded “It helps get us out deep into the void, man.” These students explained that they occasionally spend hours rolling the connection before finding the perfect spot for some photos. While it can take a lot of time, the majority agree the dedication is worth it. However, for the last several weeks, things have not gone as wonderfully as hoped. 

 Some of the newer students reportedly felt violent shaking in their limbs for several minutes during and after these events. A few freshman students even admitted to getting “the shakes” just thinking about the memory of exploding Rorquals. Not everyone seems to have been so affected however. When questioned, one senior student said “Naw, I didn’t get no shakes this time. I’ve seen it before, you know? I just wish these protestors would give it a rest and let me take some good screen shots of space once in awhile.” 

In a public address, the University has announced that it will immediately suspend all art classes pending an investigation. Eve University also announced the immediate suspension (with pay) for several as-of-yet unnamed guest lecturers while the investigation takes place. Trusted sources within the University have confirmed that Bomber’s Bar part-time professors were lecturing the classes just before every protest began, however no link to the professors and the actions of the protestors has yet been found. The University has requested that all future inquiries into this and related events be directed to their Pilot Relations office. 

Any students present during these events are offered trauma counseling with local Therapists through Eve Universities’ student mental health program.

CCP’s decision to allow developers to play EVE seems to have generated yet another unexpected change in New Eden. “I was sitting there looking at my corpse in space after an embarrassing PvE loss thanks to falling asleep at my keyboard, and I had an epiphany,” the developer reported, “why am I wasting my time with something only a bot could enjoy? What if I didn’t shoot triangles? What if I give up on training my cat to rat? What if nobody botted?”

And, with that, New Eden is on course to enter a new era. As of the next major update, no new ISK^* will be created in New Eden. The economy is now closed. CONCORD will no longer generate ISK to pay bounties. Non-Capsuleer corporations will no longer generate ISK to purchase commodities on the open market, nor for mission rewards.

Instead, every Omega-licensed capsuleer will now receive a monthly Basic Universal Minimum Stipend (BUMS) distributed evenly among all capsuleers, coming from 40% of all taxes and fees collected across New Eden. 20% of taxes and fees will be allocated to CONCORD to pay bounties in High Security space, 10% will be distributed evenly among corporations holding structures, and 30% will be distributed evenly to registered Non-Capsuleer corporations without regard for their standings or the perceived legitimacy of their organizations.

“I hate the idea that my taxes will go to Blood Raider corporate coffers,” said Amarrian sympathizer Dosanglos Bedrinkin, “but this is better than allowing bot-aspirants to drive rampant inflation. Something has to change. This will also ensure better distribution of mission running activities, as more popular Non-Capsuleer corporations will likely run out of income before the month is over.”

Recognizing the tendency to hoard ISK in a closed economy, all registered financial institutions will now collect a monthly tax, seizing 5% of the balance held by each player to augment the BUMS pool. Those players and corporations with an ISK balance in the 90% percentile of all balances will see an additional 10% of their ISK transferred to the pool.

Finally, to prevent hoarding unassailable wealth in non-capsuleer stations, and to encourage assets to be stored in Upwell structures, each Omega-licensed capsuleer will be limited to a maximum of 100B estimated ISK value stored in stations. Alpha-licensed capsuleers are limited to 2B estimated ISK value in stations. To facilitate this transition, and in an effort to “Clean Up New Eden,” all assets in stations will be transferred to the redemption queue, and organized into stacks consisting of the smaller of 1 item or 1B ISK estimated value. With the increased quantity of assets stored in Upwell structures, asset safety has been permanently disabled.

Launch date for the transition to the Basic Universal Minimum Stipend is highly dependent upon the amount of time it takes to move all assets into the redemption queue. Initial estimates place this process at approximately 38 years, during which all servers will be offline.

* CCP retains the right to generate ISK to facilitate in-game purchase of PLEX by authorized non-capsuleer corporations.
Cat ratting created by cropping https://www.flickr.com/photos/16725630@N00/393522910/ in compliance with license.

In a bold move, CCP Hilmar has pushed devs to find a solution for daily downtime…not because “it’s 2019 and this is embarrassing”, but rather as an answer to the capital movement tactic. Despite this, Hilmar downplayed it in somewhat confusing fashion, when sharing CCP Explorer’s tweet, which asked players to regard it as a “totally normal Wednesday”.

However, Hilmar later reiterated that he personally intended it as a method to reduce Super Capital proliferation. “Whenever there is a big fight like B-R, capitals are committed with the assumption that whatever survives until downtime can be extracted, later,” he explained. “This change has a two-fold effect: First, it removes this easy escape method, which we have seen employed by those losers in PanFam. Capitals will have to be defended once they have been brought onto the battlefield. Secondly, it makes it more difficult to move Super Capitals into position, in the first place. Downtime is hugely popular with those who have motherships and Titans to move, due to the protection that it affords. This does not make for compelling gameplay.”

Early opinions from players were a bit more disparaging, though; many echoing concerns from a forum post by RorqualPilot49, who asked: “…but what will we do with our Rorquals when the ore anomalies disappear?” Despite the consensus, some posted, like DonTrolleone89, saying “This feels like a huge buff. Also, bring back Blackout.”

Either way, this represents a massive technical undertaking for CCP, and I wish them the best of luck.

Alliance logos are coming to all capital and sub-capital ship hulls except for Triglavian ships. The new skins will be added to all players’ available skin list automatically, but if the player is not part of a player corp or alliance the logo will default to the star circle emblem. CCP Hilmar & CCP Ghost sat down with EVE Onion to give us a behind the scenes look at a totally new skin system called EGO.

CCP Hilmar: I had the strangest dream; there were these red curtains and this black and white zig-zag floor. I was lost in this very strange place when this very tall man approached me and started dancing. He was taking his clothes off…

I realized he was not a man at all: He was a spaceship! Then I woke up. These are the kinds of things Team Talos was built for, and that is why we are dedicating the dev time and resources to getting this new system into the game for our players.

CCP Ghost: One of the things I have found since I started researching the player base is that a player’s ability to individualize themselves by a function of self expression is really important. Wow that’s really amazing. This community is so amazing and I keep learning more about how all the variables interconnect.

The new skins will cost ISK to activate at the alliance level; that cost will scale with how many corporations are in the alliance. The new EGO skins are slated for release in April 2020 alongside EVE Online Legion.