Ostingele—Placid

With the blue doughnut of null security growing more and more docile, and the last of the “old breed” solo PvP pilots dying out several months ago, Low-sec entrance gates across the galaxy have seen an influx of pirates and vagabonds ready to gatecamp—but one of their number has met with an unexpected conundrum.

“Listen man, I love killing as much as the next guy. Hell, maybe I love it more than the next guy,” said Dirk Diggler, a Shadow Cartel line member, “but I just can’t keep doing this. They don’t stop coming! Why won’t they learn?”

Diggler reported to Eve Onion on Monday that, in their multiple weeks camping the Stacmon gate in Ostingele Lowsec, members of Shadow Cartel have destroyed trillions in ISK and collected hundreds of bodies without much more effort than pressing F1 every few minutes. Because of this extended period of intense, adrenaline-pumping combat, Diggler noted that some in the alliance have already reported the onset of carpal tunnel, while others have developed an uncontrollable rapid twitching of their index fingers.

But for Mr. Diggler, it was not a physical ailment which caused him to reach out to Eve Onion. Instead, it was the constant return customers which eventually took a grave toll on his psyche.

“Honestly, we would kill the same capsules, over and over again.  They would just die, reship, then come right back through the gate. Beyond even the charred bodies and destroyed loot…it was the repetition that got to me. All they had to do was look at Dotlan; just check their maps once to see how many of their brothers had died on that gate. Hell, even maybe think for a second about what had happened to them twelve minutes before, but no…instead they would come back again, and again, and again, never ending, women and children, smoke and fire, fusion and conflagration. Who are we as a species? Do we do anything but destroy and kill? Are we any better than the Drifters? Am I any better than a rogue drone? How is a simple man to live with this constant slaughter?”

After giving Mr. Diggler a moment to regain his composure, we asked whether he would continue his pirate lifestyle despite these newfound moral misgivings. Diggler responded that he was now simply too sickened by the industry to continue his previous line of work. Instead, he was seeking “new opportunities”. Specifically, passing the time by opening a mobile salami and bodywork shop out of the back of his Thanatos. Diggler noted the low, low going rate of bodies in Placid as a key deciding factor in his decision, stating that, “those pirate guys from Firefly always got my motor running, and there’s just too much meat floating around this constellation not to make some solid ISK selling salami in Dodixie.”

Eve Onion decided to check in with some other nearby pirate groups to see if they shared a similar sentiment, but results were mixed—many refused to give quotes, while others just launched missiles towards this correspondent’s ship. The only verbal response to this question came from a lone pirate docked at an NPC station, who mumbled “[u]ngaa, bungaa, me like shooty pew-pew,” in response to the question.

It seems only time will tell if Diggler’s insight will spread further into the pirate community, but for the time being, capsuleers may want to avoid the charcuterie in Dodixie.

The markets of New Eden are a fickle mistress, even on the best of days. However, with the recent announcement of a new form of currency—Pope Coins (developed by the one and only Max Singularity)—and due to its near instantaneous rise in popularity, the market is on course to be changed forever. Not only has the currency completely replaced ISK for the Imperium, it is also spreading to markets across the galaxy.

Tired of the petty squabbling of the masses over ISK, the Space Pope decided to create a currency more in line with his vision of a peaceful galaxy. One that would be incorruptible, infallible, and utterly unique in design. Pouring over ancient tomes of ages long past, an ancient technology known as “cryptometricus veritas sans propositum monetæ” (translated and shortened to cryptocurrency) was discovered. This technology, refined and mastered effortlessly by the Pope allowed him to create a currency that was free of strangleholds from powerful and rich individuals and corporate entities.

The best part, however, was the method of generation of this new currency, which was quickly dubbed “Pope Coin mining”. No longer would one have to engage ruthless pirates or engage in mass lunar body destruction. Instead, almost anyone is able to generate this currency using already popular capacitor power systems (that are found in every starship in New Eden), and a relatively small amount of processing power of a computer. Unwilling to fully part with how the currency is generated with such systems, Max Singularity is quoted as saying, “It’s part technology, part magic!”

While the new currency is officially sanctioned by the Pope, and generally seen as a blessing by those within Imperium high command, there are several downsides to its sudden popularity boost. The average cost of a capacitor in the Delve region (which was the origin point for the currency) has gone up by 50%, with all reasonable projections calling for them to rise even higher. Thousands of market orders across New Eden have been readjusted to cope with such inflation, causing ship production to drop as over 60% of capacitors bought and sold are going into these “Popeminer” rigs.  This has been especially devastating to entities such as the Caldari Navy who rely upon readily available capacitors for fleet replacements.

As the currency continues to spread in popularity across the galaxy, several nefarious individuals have tried to reverse engineer the technology and produce currency of their own. From within the Imperium itself a small group tried to promote “Bee Coins”, while entities from other areas of space have in turn created “Pandemic Coinage”, “Provi Blocks”, and “Dino Coins”, among others.

Rumors have circulated that several business interests in and around Jita may be ready to place sanctions upon the currency due to the popularity and flexibility of the Pope Coin. Whether this is out of fear or as a mitigation strategy is yet to be seen.

In this edition of NERD, we’ve uncovered a lot of dirt and heard all kinds of scandalous news about all the big names in New Eden.

In this issue:

Who does Matterall really know?

Who’s really running CO2?

Ten tips to coping with a thankless career.

Are NPC miners actually CCP bots?

Origin: Yay or nay?

And so much more!

But first, a brief advertisement from our sponsor:

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Big Earl’s, home of challenge dueling: If you can fight a High-sec pirate in a duel and win, you get no down payment! Bring your trade-ins; bring your scam contracts; bring your slaves! That’s right, we accept all forms of payment around here.

Don’t wait, don’t delay, and don’t shoot our station or you’ll be a dead man! These events end the minute the last ship floats off our lot, so spin up your warp drive before you miss out on the sale of the century here at Big Earl’s!”

Well, would you look at that? Seems that advertisement took up all of the page space. Oh well, there’s always another time we can discuss these topics, right? It’s not like they’ll be irrelevant in a few short weeks and everyone will have moved onto something different. Oh no, New Eden is quite the stagnant place nowadays. Why I still hear of people asking to bring their Drake into fleets, and that joke was original about a decade ago!

Make sure to tune in to the NERD for all your juicy New Eden gossip, rumors, and outright fabrications of something resembling the truth.

12 STEP PROCESS TO BECOMING A CSM CLARIFIED IN RECENT CCP POST

Of the 12 steps required to qualify for CSM, four remain entirely impossible for the average human beings to obtain. A change clearly intended by CCP to encourage more Jovians to apply themselves and perhaps re-start the failing Jovian empire for other players to join?

A new player faction may just await us!

DEPRESSION KILLS MORE PILOTS THAN LATEST ‘MILLION DOLLAR’ SPACE BATTLE

A massive battle recently took place with the only real victims being all the participants and onlookers. Saddled with crippling depression that this is the highlight of their recent years, Kotaku articles listed a variety of reasons as to why the battle didn’t amount to anything spectacular yet the husks of these fragile and broken players still lurk the stars.

Haunting both the digital world and their family and friends, there’s not much we can expect from these broken players besides more intergalactic conflict without clear resolution.

CCP DECLARES PLUTO NO LONGER A PLANET. CUSTOMS OFFICE OWNER DISAGREES.

(Due to pending legal obligations, this story is not available until after the court case clears. Ownership of Pluto is still hotly debated.)

CHINESE PLAYERS ATTEMPT RESCUE OF STRANDED KIN ON TRANQUILITY

Last weekend over a thousand players of all shapes, colours and Chinese sizes poured into Tranquility on a government-mandated rescue mission to “unite the warring tribes” and “unify the scattered sons of starlight”; a statement that these players have understood to be “save the Chinese players from Tranquility and bring them back to Serenity, Now”

Using any ships available to fresh accounts, the Chinese players used jetcans to spread the word, and even their broken-english Jita scams brought in a small fortune from bored players who, as one such dope told this reporter soon after sending over billions for a capital ship that can’t even enter high security space, “I just wanted to see what would happen lul.”

All Chinese players are expected to be found and returned to Serenity by Thursday, as the Chinese government enforces a strict timeline on all public service acts.

CCP REMINDS PLAYERS THEY ARE THE VILLAINS.

CCP may be overestimating the amount of roleplayers lurking across the stars in their hit online video game EVE ONLINE. This weekend was the “stunning” revelation that players and not self-serving megacorporations were the true evil force.

CCP was sparse on details but did explain that, at most points in the Eve Online lore, the Amarrian race were the “good guys”, and “meddling players” were the cause of most issues.

“This is why we can’t do cool player interactions like yacht heists anymore”, CCP stated in a follow-up twitter post. “Thanks, meddling players.”

VIDEO GAME PROVES TO BE THE LARGEST EXPORT OF ICELAND. GOVERNMENT VOWS BETTER OVERSIGHT AND TAXATION ON PLAYERS TO PREVENT ABUSE.

Behind transparent aluminum and “unclassified whitefish”, Video Games continue to prove that Iceland has nothing to really offer the world.

When presented with these not so startling facts, the icelandic government has placed a lien on the Eve Online monument outside CCP’s headquarters, with the intent of charging a toll for the churning tide of visitors pressing their hands and murmuring prayers.

ALL MAJOR CORPS NOW REQUIRE YOUR FACEBOOK PASSWORD TO APPLY

All of the major alliances and their corporations would like to remind players that, starting on the 22nd, all players hoping to apply will need to provide their Facebook link as well as the password to access the account and view the information within.

Goonswarm has had this requirement in place for some time now, with the added stipulation that, should you have a Something Awful account instead, they will take that as an “offerings” and “spare thyself of facebooking shame.” The Mittani was not available for comment, but in local chat one of his many followers made clear that, “If you don’t like it, go make your own blue donut.”

Media companies are suffering in the wake of the sudden plummet in viewer count, with companies all across New Eden asking: Why? “It’s as if thousands of viewers of our televised programs lost access to their viewing screens” says an analyst for The Scope.  Viewer retention is very important for these companies, and thus several new shows have been pitched in order to reel back in the lost consumers.

The premise for Hanger Wars is rather simple, but very interesting. Several entrepreneurs take great risk in buying out closed off and sealed storage hangers of pilots that have disappeared, been captured by CONCORD, or have retired from their capsuleering ways. What lies inside? That’s for us to discover in real time alongside those that buy out the hangers. “One day you’re finding blueprint originals valued in the billions, the next day you open up the hanger of some wacko that stuffed dead rats full of Veldspar and left them to rot in his hanger,” says Bill Jones, one of the regulars of the program.

So far the series has been a big hit with test audiences, and is expected to be well received among the general populace; its premise being much like the lives of many of us here in space. You win some, you lose some, and you have to deal with a lot of sticklers along the way. In the premiere episode we were allowed to watch for review purposes, there was a bid war lasting over three hours for a hanger lot that belonged to a former well-known Jita scammer.  Let’s just say the five point four billion ISK investment for the hanger didn’t pay off.

Hanger Wars, coming this summer to a holo-viewer near you, has good potential to be a smash hit in this flurry of inactivity for the visual media of New Eden. I personally can’t wait to see what lies within the hangers of New Eden, and I hope you tune in to find out as well.