Kemiönsaari, Finland – “Fanfest at Home” is in full swing with CCP Games livestreaming many interactions in the intimacy of a household setting. But what might have been lost in the fanciful banter as CCP Burger operated what was essentially his own cooking show, was his answer to the most important question of the event: “What is your favorite burger?” 

“Oh my favorite burger is like, is like pizza. I…I like them, I like them grilled. Always grilled. But if I am doing it for myself and my wife is not eating with me that night, I put anchovies into the ground beef.” 

His answer drew immediate condemnation from the off-screen interviewer, who was “disgusted.” But CCP Burger doubled down, responding, “No, it is amazing. It’s a lifehack.”

But could the unconventional ingredient at the heart of the burger, the meat itself, demonstrate secret core design principles of EVE Online’s “Age of Chaos?” 

Food is oftentimes the center of EVE Online controversies. Fleets have been decided by the fiery debate of whether pizza can actually be called pizza when ruined augmented by pineapple, with some FC’s declaring fleet members who hold to the travesty triumph of the culinary arts as fleet primaries. Even the highest profile betrayal in recent years—that of The Judge and the Circle of Two Alliance—had its beginnings in a Reykjavik restaurant.

But how can anchovies be reconciled with the burger? The concept may be foreign to many EVE Online players, but so was the notion of rapid, iterative changes to once-bedrock features and mechanics governing New Eden. If the perfect burger to CCP Burger is broken down into core components, many familiar parts of the game may be explained by the metaphor of the ground beef. The ground beef of a burger—especially for those burgers that do not stray into “Impossible” Whopper, salmon, veggie, or other anti-burger territory—is the building block upon which the popular food item is constructed. For CCP Burger, the metaphor of the anchovy is the adventurous burst of taste to turn a spacefaring MMORPG from just another game in the genre into a masterpiece of lasting design. 

The unexpected and unconventional have been key to the gamut of changes rocking CCP’s flagship game in recent months. Depending on the personal tastes of many players, the patches have either been a smashing success or a complete letdown—just as a burger marred enhanced by anchovies can be a hit or a bust. In fact, CCP Burger’s answer is illustrative as he even admits that this theoretical favorite burger would only be created if his wife was not joining him for dinner. Although he did not elaborate on the reasons why he would need to be only cooking for himself to enjoy his favorite burger, the implications weigh heavily. 

This admission speaks to the heart of recent attempts to “shake up” the defined meta of EVE Online. What might be perfect for a developer like CCP Burger may be unpalatable to many. Of course, CCP Burger also did not reveal the exact proportion of anchovy to ground beef—the off-screen interviewer was so shocked by the very concept that they did not make an attempt to follow up on CCP Burger’s ideal recipe—so it is a mystery as to the specific ratio of ground beef to anchovy that CCP Burger envisions as burger perfection. 

Nonetheless, the battle lines have been drawn among EVE Online players. For months, the debates on the official forums and the r/eve subreddit have leaned towards the divisive and dismissive. Players from both camps have already started raising banners, with both sides mustering for the inevitable confrontation. Anchovy adherents have pledged solidarity with CCP Burger and have declared they will exclusively consume anchovy-laced burgers at EVE Meets and future World Tour locations, while opponents to the Age of Chaos have outlawed any deviation from traditional burger recipes. Yet, as if given form by CCP Burger’s unconventional recipe, the champions of change have a new mascot upon which to shake the very foundations of EVE Online: the anchovy.

Inside sources disclosed today that CCP has internally committed to a date for including logistics on killmails. Previous leadership misunderstood the request for logi on killmails. The original story in Jira said “As a player, I want to see logi on killmails.” The accepted solution for this story was a series of nerfs to logistics, including the falloff changes. The solution appeared to satisfy the need, as logi ships did, indeed, appear on more killmails.

“It was really when Hilmar started flying logi with Warp To Me that we realized we completely blew this one,” an anonymous source confessed. “We really thought the players still complaining about not seeing logi on killmails were simply behind the times, or complaining out of habit, like that guy on /r/eve that keeps complaining about no gates to Stain. I mean, we’ve had gates to Stain since we added Stain!” 

With Hilmar’s contribution to a better understanding of the request, CCP will announce publicly within the next few hours that logi will appear on killmails, as of the 2019 August 6 patch.

In other news, Hilmar continues to listen to EVE players and take a very active role in guiding game mechanic decisions.

In light of his discovery that CCP’s ESI API is enabling “perfect intel,” and that many players found the blackout of zKillboard invigorating, a reliable source also indicates there will be an emergency patch on 2019 August 5 to permanently disable ‘https://esi.evetech.net/ui/?datasource=tranquility&version=dev#/Killmails’. “We’ve discovered that the killmails/recent endpoint is simply too big a part of the excessive transparency we’ve enabled in EVE Online. It is critical that EVE remain a dark and forbidding place, and killmails/recent sheds too much light on the tactical situation in real time.”

Squizz Caphinator, upon hearing the news, had just one question: “Where is the logi killmail for my broken heart?”

The door to the EVE Online Captain’s Quarters closed two years ago this August. Sobs gradually transitioned to merely the occasional sigh, and the reees of rage faded into a quiet undercurrent of discontent. Players grew accustomed to the fact that they would never again admire their filthy ship from the outer balcony, and that they could only watch station ads from the hangar.

A new “normal” settled in.

But Summer 2019, the Summer of Chaos, is not “normal” by any reckoning. While Walking in Stations will not return as it was, there is a glimmer of light shining from under that locked station door. Hilmar, judgement perhaps clouded by an extra cup of caffeine with his morning twitter, publicly committed to what can only be Dancing in Stations.

This news corroborates hopes Hilmar raised In his recent interview with Matterall of Talking in Stations, where he suggested that too many things seemed set in concrete, and needed to be shaken up, then hinted at capsuleers getting more exercise, saying “We want you on your toes…your heart rate is going up…that is the chaos era, and it is on.”

While details are sketchy, early reports indicate a possible Sparc integration with EVE Online, in which player avatars are automatically ported to Sparc, and capsuleers can enter a virtual arena for a dance-off. “This is a natural extension of the new ranked mode and custom game options in Sparc,” a source clarified, “porting the new avatars to Sparc was relatively painless thanks to our recent investment in tools. In future iterations of this integration, we anticipate extending from 1v1 dance-offs to small gang dance-offs, and allowing players to wager ISK upon the outcome, now that we know it’s legal. We also intend to eventually port corporation and alliance logos to Sparc uniforms at the same time we allow those logos on ships.”

Wash your socks, it looks like we’ll Soon™ be…Dancing in Stations!

Earlier today, Falcon, formerly known as CCP Falcon formally announced his resignation to CCP Games. After an overwhelmingly positive reaction to his gameplay suggestions on a Reddit thread, he was inspired to set off on his own. “I want a new game, and a new me to go along with my new hair”, says Falcon in his farewell post on the forums. “After receiving such amazing feedback from the community, I knew what I had to do. I’d make my own EVE, with blackjack and hookers.” he explained. 

Just after announcing his departure, he soon began discussing his plans for the future, including the details of his new project: N-EVE “Nearly Eve”. “The idea for the name is two fold: To stay as close as possible to the original game that I am remaking, and as an homage to my favorite runescape NPC, Nieve.” Falcon says, giving his Nieve body pillow a hug. 

When concerns were raised over copyright concerns, most notably that he’s basically just copying the entirety of EVE Online and making some balance changes, Falcon was seemingly unmoved. “I plan on moving to Texas and making use of the legal system there, as we all know it is the legislative powerhouse of the world.” 

Fundraising campaigns have already begun across all platforms, including Kickstarer, Patreon, and GoFundMe, to name a few. Falcon was very transparent with where the funding would be going. “The funds will be providing me and my team an office space in Dallas, Texas, as well as our new art assets we’ll have to purchase. We plan on just buying all the assets from Cloud Imperium Games’ Star Citizen project, as they’re basically all just EVE ships anyways.”

Announcements for a Permaband tour around the world to help raise projects were also a major highlight of all the announcements. “We’ll be singing mostly crowd favorites, as well as new songs from our upcoming album, ‘Asset Danger’.” This was the first mention of the new album, much to the excitement of those who first read the forum thread. 

“Speaking of asset danger”, Falcon laughing joyously said, “that will be one of the key features of N-EVE. No asset safety whatsoever. If that doesn’t have you convinced to switch, I don’t know what will.” 

Seems the humble opinion of one man may cause massive repercussions in the gaming industry. Stay tuned to EVE Onion for any updates regarding Falcon and his new project.