Today may just go down in EVE online history as the most brutal betrayal of all time. And as of this moment, no one is more at risk of losing their heads, or hands, than the illusive Mittani.

Like a thief in the night, the declaration of war came down the chain of command and caused every fleet commander in EVE’s largest alliance to rattle their sabres and clench their teeth in anticipation. “Gentlemen”, I heard over the notably aging Ventrilo channel the Goons have continuously run since 2006, “We’re going to war.” This was nothing new to Goonfleet, as any new member is effectively trained in a “constant war” doctrine that mainly involves teammates shooting you to send you home faster.

The clamor had begun. Small, timid voices piping up over the sound of burly space mercenaries of all different languages. Was it Klingon I heard in grunting, dislocated whispers? I wouldn’t find out because the channel was soon muted by the swift action of command. “Gentlemen” was repeated, the entire scene playing itself over again as if by script, but this time without the constant chatter and Duke Nukem soundboard spam to overlap the commander’s voice. He continued: “These people, they’re more comparable to animals than true men.” The sound of a water bottle being thrown caught my attention. Hard day at the office, perhaps.

“For years they’ve sat on their forum, upvoting themselves and babbling on in their stupid inside jokes. Cranking out propaganda and declaring themselves the bad boys.” he stammered, quickly correcting himself with a momentary pause. “Bad guys of space.” A quiet chorus of “yeah” came from the industry overseers who had unmuted themselves with their admin powers and only served to sound like mafia yes-men in the grand scheme. “So it’s off to war. We’ll move dreads, we’ll move supers, we’ll do whatever it takes.” was the jist of the speech that followed, mainly involving about thirty minutes of details involving logistics, moon mining operations and potential fleet movements. Considering the sizable crowd gathered in the ancient VOIP channel, I wasn’t able to gauge people’s reactions with everyone muted.

On and on the speech went, livestreamed on both Twitch and Youtube on three different channels (including Español) as well as via Soundcloud in condensed, easy-to-digest snippets, or HD if you opted for the Premium Goon Bundle (available on their website for $13.99 USD, 499 Plex via jetcan transfer or 1.63 bil ISK)

We finally reached the end of the three hour announcement as it was increasingly clear the gathered Goons where growing anxious. The big reveal. The target. Dogs of war frothing at the mouth, chomping on the bit, ready to let loose hell itself. The Mittani did not comment as he was on a two week vacation at the time his fleet commanders opened fire on each other.

Looking back, Goonswarm Federation vs Goonswarm Federation would turn out to be the biggest spectacle of the entire year and generate untold trillions of ISK for the industry backbone of New Eden.

Today marks a turning point for the empires. A much more valuable ore was discovered on the planet Pandora V: Unobtainium.

For over a decade, all space-faring races have had to resort to transparent aluminium for the windows and view screens of their vessels. This is no longer the case, as Unobtainium in its rawest form not only has ten times the durability, but a much cleaner, neater tint. Imagine this: Pilots may soon be visible inside their pod or even in their ships. You’ll soon be able to see within your stations and watch the meager civilians of the galaxy scurry about, or amuse themselves by staring out the windows watching others ganking each other in Jita.

When faced with the news that CCP would actually have to design and re-model ships around this new discovery, it was quietly announced that Unobtainium would have to go through “a few balance passes for review”, and most likely would result in nothing being changed at all.

Until CCP decides how to handle the revolutionary discovery, the planet and its system are in good hands and under careful 24/7 policing by the Goonswarm Federation, which has promised—after forcefully relocating the locals with clever use of duplicate avatars and a massive fleet presence—to let no one near.

Resource Wars launches October 26 launched regardless of the value of the ore, though rumor has it the materials collected by these operations won’t be of any use at all to players now that Unobtainium is available, or perhaps unavailable.

Coming next spring, Capsuleers on-the-go can engage in the exciting world of EVE Online from their favorite mobile device. In a bold move, CCP is announcing a brand new platform for their flagship title, that in the past was primarily aimed at the PC gaming crowd.

“It’s a new era out there,” CCP Falcon said in today’s press release. “We can’t survive as a company by catering to the original fans, we need a new generation of gamers to bite the hook of EVE Online.” The title of this cutting-edge smartphone app is reported to be “Nullsec Strike”. Players will have the option to mine for valuable ores in a game mode suspiciously similar to “Candy Crush Saga”. By lining up three or more minerals, you can collect a maximum cargo hold allotment for the day, before your ship has to travel back home to drop it off.

For a small micro-transaction fee of $.99 USD, players can ask for assistance from a friendly hauling ship to carry their ore back to base while they continue swiping through belts of asteroids. CCP Phantom mentioned that some mobile pilots would be able to unlock “ganking ships”, which can hunt down and destroy players who are happy to only play the mining puzzle game. Several optional combat modules are available to upgrade the ganking ship, for only $2.99 USD apiece.

A trusted source informs us that plans are underway to let players organize into “fleets”, where they can support each other’s efforts either in gathering minerals, or in ganking the miners. CCP is aware that the mobile platform market has many casual gamers, who may be frustrated at the concept of another player interrupting their experience, and so they will offer an optional “mining permit” for only $14.99 USD, which will offer immunity to ganks for at least one month.

Nullsec Strike will be available in the Google Play Store, and the iPhone App Store for download the first quarter of 2018. It is expected to cost approximately $24.99 USD, but can be downloaded to multiple phones per user.

Jita IV, Moon IV, Caldari Navy Assembly Plant

Apparently, the art of the scam is alive and well in Jita, and is thriving. It is expected to completely overwhelm the region in the upcoming years. A team of economists, scientists, and industrial experts calling themselves the World Trade Federation recently convened, announcing some startling findings.

According to Dave Johnson, Head of the WTF, the amount of fraudulent trade contracts produced in and around The Forge region are beginning to exceed the amount of legitimate contracts issued. He warns that if this trend continues, in less than twenty years there will be no legitimate contracts remaining.

Phil Erikson, speaking on behalf of the Sisters of Eve, raises an equally important, albeit completely different concern: Due to rapid increases in contract creation, the central processing systems within The Forge are being overwhelmed with data flow. If the projected contract traffic remains the same, or increases, a total system failure may be imminent. He admits the hardware used to filter and sort contracts are dated, and lack the computational power necessary to handle such a workload.

Erikson wasn’t supposed to speak on the subject of the dated hardware used, but now that the topic was out there, the attending press had many burning questions to ask. One that was answered was “Is our contract data secure? What if this hardware failure occurs, will we lose our investments?”  The WTF representatives all seemed to agree that our information would be secure, as it is slowly being backed up, however they cannot promise a 100% retain. This received many murmurs and concerned looks from those attending.

After a brief recess, the meeting resumed, this time focusing on the impact this trend would have on the market. “Invest in local retailers, do not do any trading via contract or third parties,” advises Clark Douglas, CEO of Vital Veldspar, a local mining supply company. “The way things look, contracts will soon become completely volatile and unreliable. If it looks too good to be true, it is.” When questioned on whether or not he advised investing in local business because he owned one, Mr Douglas kindly told the reporter to, “Get the hell out of here!”

While I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I, as an ever vigilant reporter of the Eve Onion, must bring this to you, fellow Capsuleers. It is a shame this wholesome, trustworthy world is taking such a dark spiral. Why, I remember when you didn’t even have to view the contents of a contract, and could just buy it outright, and know what you’ll receive in return. You could keep your ship parked with the keys in it and it wouldn’t get lifted, either. Those were the days.

“This is how every great story begins”, says a new player mining Veldspar in a 1.0 security system, a few hours into his Eve Online trek and well after he’s saved the universe from what appeared to be a sleeper drone invasion fleet, thus becoming not only the hero of an entire race, but an immortal space-faring pod-pilot in the same stroke.

ONE OF MILLIONS

He had seen a fancy youtube video explaining that, yes, you too are a valuable contribution to the living, thriving universe of New Eden—one of millions of shots made per day, one of trillions of m3 ore mined, and with December’s much hyped update looming on the horizon, today was the best time to start playing Eve Online.

Somewhat bitter at having to die in the tutorial, he was given a Venture by the kindly and mysterious AURA robot who continued to instruct him to press Help and talk to a support agent of some kind a few jumps away. Seeing no reason in actually doing such a thing after having lost his Scientist and Survivors in the final blast that sealed his fate as an immortal space-faring god, he’s left with no real option but to using the Civilian Mining Lasers he had gotten from AURA telling him to strip and trash his corvette.

None of this was readily apparent to anyone until an outburst happened in local. I was, by coincidence, traveling to Jita at the time to monitor the market manipulation of Clear Icicles by two barons who will remain nameless.

TROUBLE IN SAFE SPACE

“Can we do something about these bots?”, the rookie flashed across local. “Every time I find an asteroid belt to mine in, they warp in  and eat up the entire field.” Obviously, this rookie needed some help as he was two jumps from the nearest “protected” rookie area; multiple pilots soon came to offer some unique guidance—mainly in the form of casual griefing. EVE players are well known for welcoming new players, or as most people would call it, hazing.

Out here in the wilds of 1.0 space he would find nothing but trouble: A Thrasher was attempting to bump our Venture-clad new-blood miner while a Merlin was trying to bait him with jetcans. Undaunted, he continued to mine 5 units of veldspar at a time for hours more.

ESCAPE FROM NEW CALDARI

Despite the constant harassment (or as some would say, competition), he was able to fill multiple holds of Veldspar and make the four jump trek to Jita, a region that appeared to have the best prices and most buy orders. Netting himself a well-earned payout for filling his Badger, he was soon returning to the nearby field to resume his digital work.

Eventually interest waned and he had started practicing alt-tabbing to mine while playing other games—a critical skill in the vast world of EVE Online. As of writing a few days later, the rookie had forgotten to log back on and probably would not be seen again in New Eden as Overwatch was more fun.

CCP marketing and legal teams are working hard to serve players by protecting EVE Online intellectual property and ensure customers’ desire for EVE themed merchandise remains unsated, until CCP decides Soon (tm) that the time is right to launch an official online store with more than three grossly overpriced items.

At the helm of this critical anti-piracy effort is CCP t0rfifrans, who specializes in over promising and under-delivering, and is the namesake for

torfiphobia: the fear of a game designer over promising features, services, and other products to a game’s player base (credit: Neville Smit)

His large, but fragile ego threatened by creatives actually producing inspiring content,  t0rfifrans is rumored to have performed an exhaustive five minute search of the internet, where he uncovered a nefarious network of content creators rumored to nearly break even by offering EVE-inspired materials at reasonable prices.

This exhaustive search uncovered not less than:

• 11 RedBubble stores
• 6 Amazon vendors
• 12 Etsy shops
• 4 teespring outfitters
• 7 Flickr artists

At least one of these creatives,**redacted**, is rumored to have gone so far as to invest time and resources in preparing a prototype of a product for playtesting in order to validate viability prior to a partnership discussion with CCP, all without ever establishing a formal agreement to prepare a formal agreement under the guiding hand of t0rfifrans. Considering this creative’s track record of producing wildly successful materials, and their active engagement with the game and the community, this egregious act of fandom could not go unaddressed.

CCP t0rfifrans, reportedly livid that the community is proactively engaging in creating the content he should be driving, immediately jumped into action. t0rfifrans is rumored to have spent nearly twenty minutes typing and deleting messages to his legal team before spending another ten minutes filling in the blanks on a cease and desist letter from NoLo in order to protect potential future markets for potential EVE merchandise coming potentially Soon (tm). Unable to address the proliferation of dastardly pirates on multiple fronts, CCP t0rfifrans is rumored to have singled out the aforementioned creative for specific attention. Although rumors swirl about a secret objective to drive creatives into dark web markets—thereby boosting the value of cryptocurrency investments—this correspondent could find no evidence to support this spurious allegation against this paragon of creativity and bridge building.

A visionary genius, as well as a community builder, CCP t0rfifrans humbly acknowledges his success: “The sweet spot that we’ve landed at right now is focusing on what we are good at and partnering with those who are better at things we don’t know how to do,”  t0rfifrans elucidates in his A List interview on real world partnerships. “Our expertise is in generating computer games and generating online communities. We pride ourselves on doing that,” he continues.

Observers celebrate hallmarks of CCP t0rfifrans’s personal humility and community and relationship building expertise as:

• Handicapping Executive Producer CCP Seagull’s ability to respond to questions pertaining to EVE Online, and to make brand decisions, in order to ensure adequate centralization of power.
• Maintaining a clear wall of separation between product owners and the legal and marketing teams, in order to avoid any appearance of collusion.
• Ensuring that Intellectual Property queries have no clear owner, no consistent answers, no published guidelines, and no point person at CCP, in order to allow CCP t0rfifrans maximum flexibility with potential future decisions coming potentially Soon (tm).
• Clarifying “unapproved thoughts” in order to protect CCP artists from thoughtcrime such as implying that any successful idea has an individual other than CCP t0rfifrans as its author, or that any failed idea cannot be attributed to another. (Sadly, application of CH3CH2OH is rumored to interfere with this laudable effort.)
• Serving as the driving force to establish partnerships across North America to ensure the wild success of CCP’s VR endeavors, and the expansion of offices in Atlanta and Newcastle.

Never is CCP t0rfifrans visionary leadership more apparent than his support for “walk-in stations“, as he elucidates a vision in which “[players are] going to be playing gambling games.” His support for community content creators and close alignment with the broad player base is most evident in his solid backing for the Fountain War Kickstarter campaign, which enjoyed broad and vocal support, and failed to fund due to no fault of his own.

Players across the globe return the salute offered by CCP t0rfifrans, acknowledging his pivotal role in so much of what keeps EVE Online good, and protects us from the perils of greatness, and especially from the onslaught of new and returning players that might result from an engaged and supportive community of players and creatives engaged in viral marketing!

EVE stream mogul Rushlock launched a new program on his 2 November stream: He and Frank the Bank will begin selling EVE 2 Beta keys in Jita. “Frank will never have to go back to Provi,” Rushlock gloated, “and I’ll never undock my smartbombing Machariel battleship again!” The nefarious plan includes a three tier “Pay to Win” model, with in-game rewards tied to Twitch subscription types. A Founders pack, available to subscribers only, guarantees awesomeness.

“EVE 2: Rush to Second Genesis” is alleged to consist entirely of microtransactions, with Electronic Arts executives driving the business model and launch timing. Ship attributes are already stealth-linked to skins, but the new expansion should make these more transparent, and available only via microtransactions. Skills will also reportedly transition from no longer accessible to players via training, to instead delivered only via pre-loaded skill injectors, also available from the in-game store starting at € .99.

Rushlock offered EVE 2 Beta keys to his stream subscribers first, but promised that Frank will begin selling the keys in Jita, now that Frank has settled in after moving to his new Asian-themed palatial estate; rumored to be funded entirely by RMT.

Rushlock’s viewership is primarily newbros; he answers questions Mon-Fri, 10:00 til 16:00 EVE Time. Since newbros have notoriously limited resources, expanding the scam to Jita will ensure Rushlock gains access to ISK from the deep pockets of bittervets as they drunk-troll Jita and accept amusing scam contracts. Given the fact there is no EVE 2, and Rushlock does not, in fact, have an RMT operation, the entire scheme is all the more brilliant.

“ISK is easy,” Rushlock said, before spending nearly 10 minutes of his stream counting up the transactions and microtransactions in his wallet, then giving away a small skill injector in an obvious RMT. “EVE is a trap,” he smirked, “the whole game’s a trap!”

AMARR ROLEPLAY SOCIETY ELECTS NEW AMARR KING TO REPLACE UNRESPONSIVE AMARR PRINCESS

Amarr players have spent months attempting to reconnect with their distant and often unresponsive princess, elected last year after a crisis of leadership. Supposedly murdered, some claim the previous queen is simply taking time off and will return “any time now”.

Players from all over Providence have made the mandatory pilgrimage to Amarr to cast space ballots as to who they believe would make the best king. As an aside, actual leadership skill is irrelevant in the election: Amarr players focus more on who is the “most Amarr”, which could easily translate into another cold and unresponsive monarch and another election next year.

CALDARI REALIZE VALUE OF JITA, ATTEMPTS TO SELL

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Caldari State is on the back foot in their war against the Gallente, and has started their mandatory budgeting of all non-critical assets. Jita’s maintenance and fleet support yet again showed it was the only profitable part of the sprawling Caldari empire, though actually supporting it would not prove to be cost effective. Phrases such as “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and “Seems to be working fine as-is” were thrown around at the top-secret megacorp budgeting board meeting, followed by “If they want to blow each other up, just make sure they pay the fines.”

As of writing, fifty million civilian craft are lost daily to localized explosions of wardecced capsuleer ships attempting to undock nearby, making the actual sale of Jita nearly impossible for now. Regardless, the meeting made it clear this was the intended future for Jita, should the “slight murder problem” ever get cleared up.

GOON’S NEW HQ BUILT ON ANCIENT BURIAL GROUNDS

No one attended the opening of the Goon’s newest HQ to mark a stunning upset over previous, traditional openings with thousands in attendance and slow-motion time dilation ribbon cutting broadcast live on Twitch. This could possibly be because of the “strategic” location of the new base on top of an ancient burial ground, or the fact the new base has not one but six Station Containers full of frozen corpses, thus making it an actual burial ground as well.

The Mittani was unavailable for comment and this reporter attempted to interview a local goon representative, but was offered mining passes instead.

EVE ONLINE DECLARED UNDEAD TO PREVENT CHINESE BUYERS.

Today marked the turning point in Eve Online’s development. Citing an 18% increase in players over last year, it was announced that the game had officially reached Undead status and thus illegal for sale in China, who previously showed great interest in buying the franchise rights from CCP for reportedly six billion USD.

Some would call CCP’s surprise announcement a clever marketing move to corner the Icelandic Space Video Game (SVG) market, but many have taken it as admission that Eve Online was dead at some point, thus making it qualify for being undead in the first place. CCP responded via Twitter simply with “chill, nerds.”

On Tuesday, 17 October, 2017, as the world celebrated Spreadsheet Day (https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/spreadsheet-day/), commemorating the day that VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program for personal computers, was released in 1979, EVE Online players waited anxiously for CCP to announce an event in acknowledgement of this important holiday. Sadly, CCP, having quietly abandoned their long-time tagline “We create spreadsheets in space” for the trendy, but less distinctive “We create virtual worlds,” again failed to commemorate this day, disappointing players across the globe.

Long acknowledged as essential to EVE Online, spreadsheets play a critical role in all aspects of the game, the memeverse, and the community. CCP Quant’s Monthly Economic Report, consisting entirely of hyper-nerdy statistics, charts, and supporting spreadsheet data, is one of the community’s most anticipated updates, and frequently generates a greater response than graphics update announcements.

The EVE Online client user interface—which consists largely of linked spreadsheets under a thin veneer of space graphics—performs poorly under load. Many players choose to enjoy EVE Online in “Potato Mode”, with minimal graphical elements, particularly in large engagements. A growing minority is now calling for an option to set graphic quality to “Spreadsheet Mode,” a step below “Potato Mode,” which would display the underlying spreadsheet only, without distracting user interface elements. This request has thus far gone unheeded, despite the fact that critics have, on more than one occasion, described EVE Online as “Excel with a texture pack”; a distinction boasted by no other game in recorded history.

A consortium of traders, industrialists, and theory crafters such as Roedyn, “No-Longer-Fuzzy” Steve Ronuken, delonewolf, Suitonia, Rykki, and Jin’taan, hint that serious repercussions might follow if CCP Games again overlooks this holiday when planning the YC 120 event calendar. “We’re not suggesting we would coordinate the launch of a ‘Fall of Nerd Rage’,” alluding to the post-Incarna Summer of Rage spurred by micro-transactions perceived as abusive, “but neither are we suggesting we would not,” spreadsheet-fanatics hinted darkly. “Spreadsheets are an integral part of our play-style and culture, and refusing to acknowledge this day, so important to our subculture, hints at disenfranchisement at best, and outright discrimination at the worst.”

Leaders of the movement pressing CCP Games to recognize this important cultural event emphasized that their movement will not quietly accept only an annual event, but also expects ongoing engagement with their community. They initially suggest a multi-pronged approach beyond an annual event, emphasizing the importance of addressing each of the three major factions: traders, industrialists, and theory crafters.

1. Traders requested the option to view trade hub data directly in an in-game spreadsheet with support for simple formulas and lookups. “We should not have to rely upon third party out-of-game tools to trade in New Eden,” a representative suggested. “The market orders and history data are already available to tech-savvy traders via web services, but I’m a trader, not a technologist.”
2. Industrialists expressed excitement about the upcoming Mining Ledger. “This is a wonderful step in the right direction,” they exclaimed, “we just have to make sure it isn’t the only step.” Possible next steps include requesting that The Agency present invention and manufacturing objectives, in addition to mining objectives, and that CCP displays them in-game as color-coded spreadsheets.
3. Theory Crafters, although appreciative of the in-game Fitting Simulator, and the fact that upcoming releases include basic information on NPC damage types, also look for CCP to take the next step. “We would like to see exact information on enemy ship capabilities, even if this is gated by some skill or module. Some acceptable next steps would be to expand the functionality of ship scanners to provide a more detailed analysis of target capabilities, and provide an option to display this information in an in-game spreadsheet.”

All three stakeholders express that the in-game notes feature demands to be extended to support an in-game repository of spreadsheets, to facilitate advanced gameplay within the game, rather than relegating the most enjoyable portions of their gameplay experience to out-of-game tools.

Will CCP Games step up to the challenge, acknowledge Spreadsheet Day, and give this segment of their community the recognition and support they deserve? Only time will tell.

CCP representatives were unavailable for comment as of press date.

CCP finished their two-week sweeping reform of the infamous “Loot Box” policy today, finally removing any and all traces of the system from Eve Online’s code.

Scanning over the developer’s Twitter shows no signs that such a thing was ever announced or even prevalent in the digital world which calls to question just how two major northern wars were even funded. Possibly thousands of digital soldiers spent nearly two months duking it out for sovereignty in the far-reaches of the northern 0.0 space, and in the end barely moved many markers at all; instead opting to declare a stalemate when it was discovered that both alliances had nearly unlimited funds from the rare items found exclusively within Eve Online’s loot crates.

I was sent out to interview those veterans of the two Lootbox Wars, only to find hushed whispers and refusals to even discuss the subject. Some went as far to claim their country’s laws prevented any association with gambling or the like. Perhaps these players are being paid to maintain their silence as loot box hush money had become a trending topic, at least in the northern nullsec part of Twitter (which shares sixteen different languages and covers a vast amount of topics the southern empires would probably never even consider, such as potato-based cooking recipes).

Facing uncertainty, it was back to Twitter to find the answers, only there were none to be found: CCP has apparently deleted the expansion’s release notes and there is simply no mention anywhere of September 2016’s “Vast Quantities” update. Even now, Google shows little when polled for results on the subject: Did the expansion even happen at all? Let it be said the Eve Onion always investigates deeper.

For September, the website itself merely lists minor changes to Citadels and some small PvP events. Much like the now-legendary Walking in Stations expansion and updates, more of Eve Online’s grand history has disappeared into the mists of time—the only difference being the perhaps dozens of people who actually purchased loot boxes and SKIN crates during the brief window it was available.

We had all known that CCP’s real-money-for-virtual-goods system was an underused and generally unliked addition to the game, but none had expected a system that was at least profitable to go by the wayside with the elusive Icelandic developer—perhaps the law was the breaking point after all.

Delving into Icelandic law reveals very little, as the entire law and order system of the country is written in a language that not many can understand in the first place. Should an English version make an appearance, we assure you that The Onion will be the first to break the story.

For now, we can merely move on with our digital lives and hope that CCP finds a new revenue stream to support the sprawling space opera without the passive income from psuedo-gambling.