The Council servers for a six month term, with the first group elected back in March. Now they're preparing to pass on their power to a new group of players, with elections ending tomorrow. Unfortunately you have to be an EVE Insider to view the candidates, but they've got a whole page full, with platforms running anywhere from eloquently crafted speeches to "I love you." Now there's a message I can get behind.

EVE Online Candidates Page - Voting Ends Friday the 21st (Registration Required) [EVE Online]

The folks at Eurogamer speculate that this new FPS title could be console bound, pointing to a future of EVE presentation at the event in which CCP heads Hilmar Petursson and Nathan Richardsson suggested a console strategy for the title, complete with a slide mentioning the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

CCP hints at EVE FPS News [Eurogamer]

In addition to shops and bars, players will also have captain's quarters on their ships, while corporations will have meeting rooms and recruitment offices.

It sounds like EVE is slowly turning into the kind of space MMO I have always wanted, and that's very, very dangerous to my free time. Hit up the link below for Eurogamer's exhaustive look at all of the new features being introduced.

EVE Online: Walking In Stations Hands On [Eurogamer]

Army Tries Holograms, Qauntum Computing [DoDbuzz, via Gizmodo]

The free download will bring a major rebalancing of industrial craft - including a new Capital ship, the Orca - customizable storefronts for traders, weapons linking and a certification system for pilots.

At the back-end there are graphical tweaks and server improvements that take advantage of the new StacklessIO code to streamline network usage.

EVE Online: Free Quantum Rise Expansion Launches [Wired]

There's a more or less constant trickle of mainstream articles discussing people 'finding love in all the wrong places' — but Tom Francis has a hilarious look at his attempts to play the dating game in MMOs. He tracks his progress in EVE Online, WoW and City of Heroes. The CoH section is my personal favorite, featuring Francis' trenchcoated character, 'Manley Power,' whose bio page read "Power's two favourite things are commitment and changing himself.":

Although some of the female gamers I know only play sexy characters, all of them object to luridly over-sexualised body shapes. This did not seem like the sort of physiology a real woman would choose.

Still, I invited her to do a mission with me. She accepted and suggested I take the lead. Manley Power approved. I didn't want to spring the obvious question too soon, as it'd be a shame to creep her out if my intuition was wrong. But after skewering most of the goons in the warehouse together, an easy way to broach it occurred: "So, from the sheer size of your character's breasts, I'm guessing you're male in real life?" At exactly the same time, a speech bubble appeared over her own head: "lets go out."

Wait, what? Is Manley Power that attractive that she'd instantly ask his player out? Or was she referring to some sort of cyber-relationship? God, maybe she was male and still wanted to hook up in-game. I should have known when I found myself warming to my creation: I'd made him too pretty. I'd created a manly monster. Hang on, she probably means the warehouse. We've finished, we can leave now. "Yeah, im male lol" Correction, he probably means the warehouse.

It's a clever and funny look at the intricacies of introductions in MMOs - and a hell of a lot more fun to read than an article on some guy who left his real-life wife for a Second Life vixen.

The Dating Game [ComputerAndVideoGames.com via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Thus ends my attempts to Bazooka Joe every post I do today.

Ahem, anyway. We told you about the Council of Stellar Management a couple weeks back. They just had their big congressional session up in Iceland, home of CCP, the developer of EVE Online. A New York Times reporter went up to report on the proceedings and, surprise surprise. People are more civil in person than they are online!

Yet in person — around the conference table, in the CCP cafeteria, over cocktails amid the infamous Reykjavik nightlife — the vitriol and bickering that had often characterized their in-game interaction largely fell away, replaced by mostly cordial cooperation. Late at night, in the back room of a bar, you could even witness high-level political negotiations among the players.

Granted, it would take a deep and firsthand knowledge of EVE Online to report on any developments out of the Council of Stellar Management (I can't help but imagine Bill Lumbergh after typing those words). And the NYT reporter admits a general cluelessness — then again, aren't most of us. So, not sure what the confab accomplished other than taking the EVE players to a site where Icelandic tribes once met to resolve differences. And of course, since this was a summer conclave of EVE's student body government, you know that means at least one wholly unexpected hookup in a hot tub somewhere. But that wasn't reported.

A Council of Eve Online Gamers [The New York Times]

He covers the widespread competitive game scene in Korea, looks into Quake's evolving role in the London game scene, and visits Iceland to see the birthplace of EVE Online, to develop what he says is a story of "how games change the lives of gamers."

I thought the idea of a "travelogue" of game culture was interesting, so I asked Jim a few questions about the book, and his experiences.

How did the book come to be, and why did you want to write it?

Jim Rossignol: It started because of some interest around a feature I wrote on the gaming culture in Korea. PC Gamer UK was commissioning some pretty interesting and aggressive material in 2006, and it came out of that.

I was keen to lay out some of the ideas I'd been collecting in longform - there's only so much you can do when writing disconnected reviews and features. To come up with a wider perspective, and a wider take, on any given subject still requires a book.

What are the ideas that the book deals with, primarily?

JR: It's a book about how games change the lives of gamers. It starts out with a couple of specific cases - my own life and that of some people I know - and moves on to more general instances. The themes the book deal with are pretty diverse - boredom, propaganda, human computation, the nature of games as a medium - but they all tie into the idea that people are changed by gaming, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

Can you give a brief example of one of the instances in the story?

JR: Well, one of the more specific instances is the story of a friend of mine who now works in the games industry, but grew up escaping into games as a fairly unhappy child. He's a living instance of the kinds of traits and trends I want to talk about, because he's a person for whom some of the greatest moments in life have been to do with gaming.

Games were a way of escaping boredom and domestic discomfort, but ended up being an incredible life-defining force. He ended up playing Guitar Hero in front of thousands of rock fans at the Donnington Rock Festival in the UK, effectively opening the show for Guns & Roses. (Or so he likes to tell the tale.)

For whom is this book intended, and what kinds of readers do you hope will pick it up?

JR: Well everyone can read it, and will love it, obviously... but in all seriousness, it's an approachable book. Pop documentary, if that's a genre. I suspect there's a way to present any niche subject so that everyone finds it digestible and interesting, and I hope I've done that. It's more like chatty travel literature than dry academia, I feel.

What do you hope people will learn or take away from it?

I hope it helps people to figure out what they really think about video games. I don't want to lecture anyone, just offer some descriptions and examples that might be useful in making up your mind. One of the key tensions in the book is whether video games are fundamentally a waste of time, and what that even means. I'd like to think that both people who don't play games, and the gamers themselves, will find that they're able to discuss the pros and cons of being a habitual gamer a little more fluently once they've read it.

Along with all of the healthy player killing comes an entirely new region called Black Rise, which contains 49 new star systems and 40 new stations, many of which are already sworn to a specific faction.

It sounds to me like folks hungry for some ship-on-ship PVP might want to sign up for their umpteenth free trial of EVE Online.

Empyrean Age Features Page [EVE Online]

The Council of Stellar Management — which sounds like something from Dilbert — was formed by EVE developer CCP back in March, and now the two bodies will meet to discuss issues both real- and virtual-world pertaining to the game. The CSM's nine delegates and five alternates serve six month terms and were elected back in March. Developer CCP is based in Reykjavik (holy shit I spelled that correctly the first time).

They rep a gamer community approaching 250,000, according to CCP which bills the stellar managers as "the first democratically-elected governing body in a virtual world."

"The CSM will empower players with a formal communications channel to directly impact the development of their society as it grows more and more advanced," a release says.

This looks more like community outreach than actual lawmaking in an online world. That said, I really hope most of these delegates roleplay it for all it's worth, like the Galactic Senate in Star Wars or something. And if you play EVE and you've gotten scammed or fallen for the old can bait trick and you're pissed, write your delegate!

Council of Stellar Management [EVE Online]

The MMO biz is a capricious one, and most online games tend toward a naturally short lifecycle. Five years is a big deal for EVE, which distinguishes itself through both its aim to develop a realistic player "society" and its sophisticated in-game economy - they were the first MMO I'm aware of to hire a real-world professional economist in Dr. Eyjo Guðmundsson to manage it, and since then other virtual worlds and online games, such as Gaia Online, have followed suit. Many critics, like the PC gaming mavens of Rock Paper Shotgun, believe the industry can learn a lot from EVE.

Full release follows the jump, in which CCP has delineated what it considers EVE's "milestones" over its five-year run.

EVE Online Celebrates Five Years of Unprecedented Achievements in Online Gaming

The unique Sci-Fi MMO celebrates its 5th year of non-stop growth with an anniversary gift for subscribers

REYKJAVIK, Iceland—(BUSINESS WIRE)—CCP, one of the world's leading independent game developers, this week celebrates the five-year anniversary of its leading sci-fi massively multiplayer online game (MMO), EVE Online. What began as a highly advanced game, requiring a tremendous amount of skill and dedication from its players, has evolved into a fully functional, complex society that continues to attract loyal, active players. To commemorate EVE Online's five-year anniversary, current subscribers will receive a surprise in-game gift upon logging in after May 6, 2008.

Since its inception, EVE Online has achieved milestones in online gaming every year. Highlights include:

2003

May 6, 2003 - The highly anticipated EVE Online goes gold and comes out of beta to launch to the public.

August 13, 2003 - EVE Online earns CCP a place as a finalist for the prestigious 'Develop Industry Excellence Awards' in the category 'Best Online Development Studio'.

2004

April 26, 2004 - EVE Online breaks the 10,000 peak concurrent users threshold, with 10,396 players logged in at the same time in the same world, thus confirming the viability of the "one world" game vision.

2005

September 22, 2005 - In a little more than two years, EVE Online surpasses the 70,000 active subscriber mark.

2006

September 14, 2006 - EVE Online implements the massive improvements to its hardware infrastructure, enabling the capacity for up to 50,000 concurrent users.

November 11, 2006 - CCP merges with White Wolf Publishing, Inc., the world's second largest developer of offline role-playing, strategy and collectible card games, to become one of the industry's largest independent developers of virtual worlds.

2007

June 26, 2007 - CCP appoints the first Ph.D. economist, Dr. Eyjo Guðmundsson, to monitor and report on the status of EVE Online's economy, track political trends and follow the value of EVE's in-game currency, interstellar kredits (ISK).

November 16, 2007 - EVE Online's subscriber base shatters the 200,000 mark.

2008

March 9, 2008 - EVE Online sets a new peak concurrent user (PCU) record of 42,711.

March 19, 2008 - CCP announces the formation of the Council of Stellar Management (CSM), the first democratically elected governing body in a virtual world. Elections for the CSM began on May 5, 2008.

"As the EVE universe has evolved into a sophisticated society, it has attracted and maintained the interest of highly skilled, enthusiastic players at steadily increasing growth rates," said Nathan Richardsson, executive producer at CCP. "Looking ahead, CCP is focused on making EVE Online even more immersive and invigorating, and advancing the online gaming industry as a whole."

The next free expansion of EVE Online, called EVE Online: Empyrean Age, is slated to launch in summer 2008 and will give players the opportunity to support one of the four major empires with the introduction of Factional Warfare.

About EVE Online

Set tens of thousands of years in the future, EVE Online is a breathtaking journey to the stars, to an immersive experience filled with adventure, riches, danger and glory. With over 220,000 subscribers worldwide inhabiting the same virtual universe, EVE features a vast player-run economy where your greatest asset is the starship, designed to accommodate your specific needs, skills and ambitions. EVE offers professions ranging from commodities trader to mercenary, industrial entrepreneur to pirate, mining engineer to battle fleet commander or any combination of these and much more. From brokering business deals to waging war, you will have access to a diverse array of sophisticated tools and interfaces to forge your own destiny in EVE. Learn more and sign up for a free, 14-day trial at www.eve-online.com.

Definition of Subscribers

EVE Online subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active electronic time code (ETC) to play EVE Online, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions and expired ETCs.

About CCP

CCP is recognized internationally as an industry-leading pioneer of the single-server persistent universe architecture as the developer and publisher of EVE Online, the critically-acclaimed, science fiction-based massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). Utilizing a cross-discipline approach combining cutting-edge technology and artistic excellence, CCP is dedicated to providing vibrant, compelling products that transcend the boundaries of conventional MMOGs and facilitate social networking through virtual worlds. Founded in 1997 and privately held, the company is headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland, with offices in Atlanta, London and Shanghai. More information about CCP is available at the company's website, www.ccpgames.com.

"The server-side interface used by the client is carefully protected to ensure that no abusive or unwanted information is transmitted to, or from the internal EVE server systems. Nothing the EVE client can do can affect the game state, no advantage can be gained by manipulating the EVE client, no advantageous or disadvantageous information can be transmitted to other EVE users by altering the EVE client."

They are more like Facebook, or should be. They share the same technology, and they have to be considered as a social technology if the genuinely massively multiplayer gameplay is going to emerge. People interacting is all that matters here. We are going to stick to this vision with our games. It was what we believe in some form back in 1997 when we formed the company, and I think we demonstrated it with Eve. It really works. People like Eve and play it. They kept playing it. Twenty five percent of people who bought the game on day one are still playing it now and I think that is because of how the game is structured.

Great interview touching on a number of interesting points.

Eve Online Creator Reynir Harðarson [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Here's an article out of Wired I spotted shortly after coming aboard. It's a great look at Second Life and EVE Online griefers, whose behavior is truly sociopathic — in those communities. In the real world, they're average ordinary /b/tards and SA Goons — OK so they're probably sociopaths in the real world, too.

But it's fascinating to me, do they have the motivation to do, in real life, anything analogous to what they do in MMOs? And even if you're not interested in the probing psychological question, Wired delivers some bizarre vignettes, beginning with the story's lead:

But shortly after 5 pm Eastern time on November 16, an avatar appeared in the 3-D-graphical skies above this online sanctuary and proceeded to unleash a mass of undiluted digital jackassery. The avatar, whom witnesses would describe as an African-American male clad head to toe in gleaming red battle armor, detonated a device that instantly filled the air with 30-foot-wide tumbling blue cubes and gaping cartoon mouths. For several minutes the freakish objects rained down, immobilizing nearby players with code that forced them to either log off or watch their avatars endlessly text-shout Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Get to the choppaaaaaaa!" tagline from Predator. [...]

Soon after the attacks began, the governance team at San Francisco-based Linden Lab, the company that runs Second Life, identified the vandals and suspended their accounts. In the popular NorthStar hangout, players located the offending avatars and fired auto-cagers, which wrapped the attackers' heads in big metallic boxes. And at the Gorean city of Rovere — a Second Life island given over to a peculiarly hardcore genre of fantasy role-play gaming — a player named Chixxa Lusch straddled his giant eagle mount and flew up to confront the invaders avatar-to-avatar as they hovered high above his lovingly re-created medieval village, blanketing it with bouncing 10-foot high Super Mario figures.

"Give us a break you fucks," typed Chixxa Lusch, and when it became clear that they had no such intention, he added their names to the island's list of banned avatars and watched them disappear.

"Wankers," he added, descending into the mess of Super Marios they'd left behind for him to clear.

Honestly, I'm trying to imagine what in real life could be analogous to that.

Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World [Wired]

About the boot.ini issue [EVE Insider Dev Blog - Thanks Tyson]

...we discovered an anomaly in the EVE Online Database indicating a potential exploit. Our policy in such cases is to mobilize a taskforce of internal and external experts to evaluate the situation...that group concluded that our best course of action was to go completely dark while an exhaustive scan of our entire infrastructure was executed.

EVE Online service restored after unexpected downtime [eveonline]

What Eve doesn't do, of course, is create a world that is as compelling and immediate as World Of Warcraft. And this ties in to my final point.

You might respond to all this and say: "but levelling up gives us something to aim for, the skilling in Eve is so much more nebulous, so to speak. It's better to have quests and a magic horse at level 40 I can aim for. That is why WoW has some many millions of people playing it." This is correct, and it's another reason why the principles, rather than the execution, of Eve Online are worthy of copying. If you were to base your game on Eve you'd make skills, items, and equipment both aspiration-worthy and customisation-friendly. It's about presentation as much as mechanics .... One of Eve's failures is the obscurity of its aspirational targets - any game wanting wider appeal needs to present this more clearly.

It's a quick read & worth a read through, even if you're only tangentially interested in MMO game design.

World of EveCraft [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

"We're pleased to extend our relationship with TransGaming, as the company's expertise allows us to deliver the most innovative MMOG to more platforms," said Halldor Fannar, CTO of CCP Games. "By integrating TransGaming's excellent technology, we are able to keep our laser-focus on evolving EVE Online, while simultaneously expanding the EVE universe to even more players."

CCP Games and TransGaming Partner to Bring EVE Online to New Platforms

Reykjavík, Iceland, Toronto, Canada - September 11, 2007 - CCP Games, one of the world's largest independent game developers, today announced a partnership with TransGaming Inc. (TSX-V: TNG) , a leading developer of software portability products for the electronic entertainment industry. The strategic relationship will enable CCP to deliver its popular massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), EVE Online, with Linux and Macintosh platforms later this year.

TransGaming provides technology and expertise to deploy games across a range of platforms without the need for redevelopment and still maintaining the high quality of gameplay and allowing users of different platforms to play in the same perpetual online universe. As a result of this partnership, CCP will be able to expand the reach of its Sci-fi MMOG to new groups around the world.

As an element of the partnership, EVE Online and TransGaming will share quality assurance as well as technical support responsibilities but TransGaming will lead partnership and OEM opportunities for the Linux version of EVE Online. The two companies will work hand-in-hand to ensure all releases go smoothly, creating a transparent integration of the original EVE Online code with each platform.

TransGaming first introduced Linux users to EVE Online through Cedega, a software product that allows Windows games to run on the Linux operating system completely transparently and seamlessly. It was the popularity of this solution that indicated the strong demand for further integration between CCP Games and TransGaming. Later this year, EVE Online will be released for Linux with Cedega directly integrated into the game and on Mac through TransGaming's Cider portability engine.

"We're pleased to extend our relationship with TransGaming, as the company's expertise allows us to deliver the most innovative MMOG to more platforms," said Halldor Fannar, CTO of CCP Games. "By integrating TransGaming's excellent technology, we are able to keep our laser-focus on evolving EVE Online, while simultaneously expanding the EVE universe to even more players."

"EVE Online has always ranked highly with our Linux users and there is significant demand for it among other platforms, including the rapidly growing Mac base," said Vikas Gupta, CEO of TransGaming Technologies. "As EVE takes place within a single-server persistent universe, it's vital that the game is identical in every way across different platforms. This challenge is what makes the partnership with CCP both important and rewarding."

EVE Online is available for download now at www.eve-online.com.

After attending a conference on experimental economics in 2004 at which former lead EVE designer Dr. Kjartan Pierre Emilsson spoke, Guomundsson became fascinated by the way the economics of the game forced players to think in a more real-world business way. Three years later and here he is.

As the lead economist for EVE, my duties will include publishing economic information to the EVE-Online community. My duties will also be to coordinate research cooperation with academic institutions as the academic world has expressed quite an interest in doing research on this phenomenon

Move Over, Greenspan [EVE Insider Dev Blog]

"EVE Online has always been testing the boundaries of online gaming with its massive online universe, so it was a natural progression that such a dynamic and active virtual world had its own TV station." said Magnus Bergsson, CMO of CCP Games.

EVE TV LAUNCHES

The world's first Virtual World Television Station Dedicated to an MMO Goes Live

London, England and Reykjavik, Iceland - June 25th, 2007 - MMM Publishing Ltd, the producers of E-ON the official magazine for EVE Online, and CCP, one of the world's largest independent game developers and creators of EVE Online, have launched EVE TV. EVE TV is a weekly on-demand Internet TV broadcast dedicated to the virtual universe of EVE Online (http://eve-online.tv).

EVE TV is dedicated to reporting on EVE Online's ever-growing virtual society, the very latest in-depth news, in-game skirmishes, market trends, human interest stories, exclusive interviews and game-related features in a professional and entertaining weekly production. SpiralJunkie, EVE TV's lead anchor, is a veteran of the EVE Online scene and is ably assisted by the infectious enthusiasm of StevieSG. The dynamic duo are backed up by a first-rate reporting team, FortunaFive, Fangtooth Kasumi and Beefy Fiddler, not to mention a widespread crew of in-game correspondents, all providing the latest in EVE Online news - both in and out of the game - in real time. More information on EVE TV's presenters can be found at http://eveonline.tv/aboutus.aspx.

EVE TV was originally formed to broadcast from the EVE Online Alliance PVP Tournament in 2006, during which more than 10,000 EVE fans tuned in to the live, double-weekend broadcasts. EVE TV has been transformed into a weekly news-style broadcast of life in EVE Online's ever-changing virtual world. The service is hosted through Jalipo, the first online marketplace for TV and video.

"EVE TV is the next level in ground-breaking virtual media," commented Oliver Skelding, MMM Publishing's Managing Director. "It's a world first, providing communication to a community on a scale never before seen, giving players a platform to communicate with each other beyond mere web forums and podcasting. EVE TV is focused on player-led news and events and provides unparalleled access to behind the scenes information about the game. EVE TV is designed by the players, about the players, for the players."

"EVE Online has always been testing the boundaries of online gaming with its massive online universe, so it was a natural progression that such a dynamic and active virtual world had its own TV station." said Magnus Bergsson, CMO of CCP Games. "EVE Online is a universe run by its inhabitants and as such produces epic and diverse events that need to be reported in the same way they are in real life. EVE TV is the ideal medium for such reporting as it offers independent and timely information to the players and CCP itself."

I really need to check out Eve Online. I've been saying that for months now. It seems like it could finally be the MMO that captures my attention for more than a week. I might even try it later this month. Any suggestions from the EVE players out there?

"I just don't understand why people do yet another fantasy game. Why make a clone of World of Warcraft?" said Petursson, in an exclusive interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this [genre]. It's been done. Do something else.

Either way, I fully endorse his suggestion. Quit it. Just stop. "But it's a completely different type of elf!" *smack* Snap out of it. You are making a game that is already made. Michael Fahey

EVE Online boss questions glut of fantasy MMOs [GamesIndustry.biz]

Earlier this week it was revealed that there was some alleged cheating going on in Eve Online. The kicker was, the cheating was being credited to the game's development team. Yesterday, on EO's developer's blog, a dev known only as CCP t20 comes forth and admits that he/she was actually the perpetrator of the nefarious deed.

I'm here, laying out the facts of what happened in June 2006 so this whole issue — which jeopardized my colleagues, my company and our community — can be put behind us, I hope for the better.

The blueprints in question will be returned to CCP and reintroduced through a new raffle in the future. Specifically, these are:

* Flameburst Precision Light Missile Blueprint
* Phalanx Rage Rocket Blueprint
* Havoc Fury Heavy Missile Blueprint
* Bloodclaw Fury Light Missile Blueprint
* Spike L Blueprint
* Sabre Blueprint

Regrettably, my actions inevitably led to a shadow of suspicion being cast on a number of my co-workers, as well as Reikoku and Band of Brothers. I wish to make it clear that I acted alone and my co-workers and corp/alliance mates have been cleared of any alleged wrongdoing.

As much as this is a confession it is also a request for your forgiveness for events of which I'm truly sorry.

While I think it's great this guy came forward and cleared the names of his fellow colleagues and players, it really doesn't take a lot of balls to admit you're wrong when you don't have to print your real name. Flynn De Marco

on recent allegations [Eve Insider Dev Blog - Thanks, Doomstalk]

With the New Year just around the corner, MMO players are going to need a new calendar to monitor how many days they can safely go without sleep before succumbing to death's icy embrace. MMO Portal has exactly what they need in the form of their 2007 MMORPG calendar, featuring art from a different game every month, signed by members of their respective dev teams. It'll cost you $14.95, and 100% of all proceeds go towards the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee.

Featured games include:

• Dark Age of Camelot
  
• Dungeons & Dragons Online
  
• Eve Online
  
• EverQuest II
  
• Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising
  
• Lord of the Rings Online
  
• Star Wars Galaxies
  
• The Chronicles of SpellBorn
  
• Ultima Online
  
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
  
• Warhammer Online
  
• World of Warcraft
  

MMO Calendar 2007 [MMO Portal, via GamePolitics]

Vampires in Space! Vampire the Masquerade creators White Wolf Publishing and Crowd Control Productions, the minds behind EVE Online, announced this past weekend that the two companies have reached a merger agreement. White Wolf will be producing EVE Online strategy guides, novels, card games, and role-playing systems, whilst CCP will help bring WW's popular Worlds of Darkness setting online.

White Wolf holds a special place in my heart, having helped me meet lots of amazingly interesting (and ultimately psychotic) goth girls in the early 90's. The type who call themselves Anastasia and Jezebel but are actually named Pam and Bridget - both lovely names, but in decidedly ungloomy ways. I can't say much about EVE Online other than I really would like to get into it, but every time I try to play it I fall asleep. It's like sleepy time tea.

If all goes well with this merger, look for EVE Online LARPing in the near future. I'm gonna be an asteroid! Michael Fahey

CCP and White Wolf Games To Merge [Slashdot]

Something interesting is happening in Eve Online, the massive space MMORPG: the largest alliances in the game, Band of Brothers and Ascendant Frontier, have declared war on each other, sucking 9,000 players into the game's first truly massive PvP conflict. Huge battles are taking place for entire systems. And all in a game I once declared the world's prettiest spreadsheet.

Most interestingly, Ascendant Frontier pulled out the big guns in their war against Band of Brothers. In fact, they pulled out the biggest gun, the Doomsday Weapon, which looks like a sort of solar-system sized nuke. But even more hilarious is that apparently, Ascendant Frontier missed, mostly killing a good chunk of their own guys. Check the video after the jump for what the Doomsday Weapon looks like in action.

I always really wanted to love Eve Online because it ad the potential for just this sort of thing, but ultimately, I found that most of my time was spent flying from one place to another... something I would have found more manageable if I could have done it in the background as I worked, but my aging rig at the time didn't allow it. Now, I do have a rig that would support it, but it's OS X... when are you going to do a port, Eve devs? This sort of conflict is just the sort of thing that'd bring me back. Florian Eckhardt

First hostile doomsday device fired [Eve Online Forums]

I hate gold-buyers, and I refuse to do it myself. It is tantamount to cheating, as far as I'm concerned, and worthy of scorn. It fucks up in-game economies and makes out-of-game status into in-game status, which taxes the credibility budget.

Eric Nickell, a contributor on Terra Nova, floats the following suggestion:

Go ahead and do the StationExchange idea on all servers, allowing players to sell their loot for dollars, with the company skimming a service fee. The catch? Players who spend dollars to buy gold or items are given a rank which is visible in game. The rank would be something like "Comes from a well-to-do family", "From a Baronet's family", "From a Ducal Family", depending on how much they spend per month. The more they spend, the more noble the rank. The rank probably decays over time.

Even if the ranks are given this positive spin, I think/hope that the actual impact will be to let them function as mild stigmata. People who buy—I'm hoping—would tolerate the stigma for the ease of buying through the game, and getting on with whatever pvp or raiding they want to do. People who don't buy preserve the option to look down their noses at people who do. "Yeah, he's got a tier 1 set, but he comes from Royal Blood, and I got there as a commoner."

If I were to implement this, it would be a less flattering term than "born of aristocracy", but I still think it's a good idea. Nickell acknowledges the problem of gifting between alts (and other sorts of laundering) in the post, but posits that there could be tech solutions to keep the player in question marked no matter what. Eliza Gauger

Born with Thorium Spoons in Their Mouths [Terra Nova]

Eve Online is a game I desperately want to love: an MMOG that doesn't involve playing a bearded midget dressed only in his Underoos. I gave the two week trial a shot: I loved the imagination behind the universe and my Shodan-like ship A.I. But after the initial novelty wore off, I realized that most of my time was playing Eve Online was actually spent in another room entirely, reading a book. I guess that's swell for multitaskers, but I like games that actually require me to be around to play them.

Still, a lot of Eve Online fans should be interested by this Firing Squad interview with senior producer Nathan Richardson. One of the subjects touched upon are details about the upcoming expansion for Eve, including a slew of graphics improvements, better management of corporations, more organization tools for combat and better situational awareness. A lot of spreadsheet stuff, in other words. There's also going to be a Direct X 10 Version of Eve, called Eve Vista... you know. Eventually. Florian Eckhardt

EVE Online Interview [Firing Squad]

Eve-Ink chronicles Eve Online gamer Skarsnik's game-related tattoo project. The Eve-O player decided to have his back covered in a giant tattoo inspired by different game wallpapers depicting the game's four races.

So far only one of the four characters have been stenciled into his back, and a bit of the color added. Skarsnik says the work took eight hours. Figure he's doing four, in color and that there will be artwork filling in the space between the races and you've got one hell of a big, expensive and painful tattoo going on.

The Eve-Ophile reports that he's paying £100 an hour, so figure he can expect to be paying about £2400 for the end product.

Good thing he got the game designer's approval ahead of time. Brian Crecente

Eve Ink: A Tattoo Story [Thanks Joel]

I have no idea what the source of this chart is, but glancing at the most current numbers it seems pretty accurate to me. (If you know the source, email me and I'll gladly update this post.)

While the dominance of World of Warcraft is unsurprising, it does look like its never-ending ascendancy may be slowing. The popular Lineage is taking a dive, nearly on par with its sequel, which for about a year was exceeding its player base. (I wonder what caused all those people to come back to Lineage in the last year?)

Can that many people be playing RuneScape? Their website says they've got 70k people or so playing right now, so I suppose a three-quarters of a million subscribers is possible, but I'd never even heard of it. Maybe we know the source of this chart after all: RuneScapes' savvy marketing team. Joel Johnson (Thanks, Llama3!)

Update: Thanks to everybody who pointed out the source of this chart, the very fine MMOGChart.com.

Instead of my usual World of Warcraft binging, over the last week and a half I've been running amok in the complicated and brilliant space opera of EVE Online. Economy plays a huge role in EVE, but I was still pretty surprised when another guy I play WoW who jumped games with me passed along screens of an e-prostitute offering its services (see image). Names and faces have been blurred out to protect the innocent (and the totally guilty). The complete email he/she sent had a detailed totally NSFW list of "goods & services" at prices that within the EVE universe seemed pretty tame. To my knowledge, no one is offering a cyber sex review in EVE Online just yet, maybe because all you see of other players is a ship and a face?

Are You Good at Cyber Sex

Mark Wallace looks at the economies of MMOs and the inherent level of trust forward-thinking economies like the one in EVE Online demand in this week's edition of The Escapist. Beginning by looking at Second Life, Wallace eventually gets back to (as he usually does) EVE online, where he discusses the trust that must develop between player-operated corporations and alliances in deep space. In EVE, there is no real protection from scamming and the developers even suggest such in the game's FAQ. As I've written here before, it's pretty progressive and Wallace's piece in The Escapist reaffirms that.

Trust Me [The Escapist]

After I return from my holiday (which will consist of a trek to the frozen tundra of Northern Michigan and a return to the Jurassic-period internet they call 14.4 dial-up), I'm going to take the plunge into EVE Online via the 14-day free trial program they are offering. Mark Wallace's well-documented coverage adoration of the game, coupled with their new patch and player freedom have at least made me decide to take the plunge and check it out - it helps that the first 14 days are free, too.

EVE Online Free Trial [EVE Online]

The subscriptions numbers wouldn't say so, but literally every time Mark Wallace of Walkerings gushes about the game, I get closer and closer to breaking down and checking it out. In his latest discussion of the artful, pristinely developed universe, Wallace talks about the first player-created outpost residing in "Alliance" space - which sounds like it's a PvP zone, where there is no NPC interference. The Interstellar Starbase Syndicate Operations, one of EVE's uberguilds (they are player corporations in EVE), built the base. Player-owned property in MMOs is nothing special, but the ISS sold shares of ownership in its space base to players. There just is nothing like this currently in Blizzard's WoW, and while EVE doesn't sound like its offering end game instancing in the classic sense, the game's socialogical depth (at least when Wallace writes about it) seems infinitely more compelling. I am so tempted.

Going Public [Walkerings]

Jamie Fristrom at Game Dev Blog is really trying to get into Eve Online, but he can't. On MMO's he says:

They call it 'Evercrack' but it's not. If anything, console games are the crack. You buy the DVD (or "vial"), you put it in the console (or "crack pipe") and you get an intense, but short game experience ("high").

Some talk about drugs and video games, just wait till Jack Thompson gets wind of this and blows it out of proportion.