The next EVE Online Fanfest will be held on March 24 through March 26, 2011 at the Laugardalshöll Convention Center in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The change of dates will probably be well-received by most people, especially for those of us in the IT industry who now have an excuse to be out of the country during March Madness.

I guess now that we all have a year to plan our trips there’s no excuse for anyone, right? I’m curious how many folks are going to find a way out of this though. Really, it’s a blast, so I highly recommend people make an effort. You don’t even have to be some ultra-hardcore EVE zealot, Iceland’s a really cool place to visit.

Now even more so, since they’re totally smoking out Europe.

Sources:

• Eve Online Fanfest Announced: Better Time, Better Fanfest

That’s right.  I mean, was there ever any doubt?  I mean lets look at the sad sacks we had as competition for the award this year:

• Aion (you fly around with wings, for crying out loud)
• Lord of the Rings Online (ok I suppose this one’s reasonable)
• World of Warcraft (has anyone even heard of this one?)
• Wizard 101 (couldn’t get the Harry Potter license, eh?)

I jest of course.  There’s some decent competition there, so how the hell did our humble EVE get past the legions of artards still fattening themselves up in Azeroth?  Quoth MMORPG.com’s Jon Wood:

Coming up with a Game of the Year winner this time around was a difficult task. In the end, it came down to factors like: game growth, originality, overall contributions to the industry, fun factor, population and technological advancement and more.

Booyah.  *fistbump*

Sources:

• EVE Online: 2009 Game of the Year

Another dev blog from CCP Abathur, and that can only mean one thing: wide sweeping changes designed to annoy and intimidate the unwashed masses.  Everyone else — you know, the cool kids — will probably think this is totally rad.

First up, Titans are getting a Macross cannon, as you can see in the above picture.  That’s right, no more area-of-effect  tomfoolery, no more hot dropping your titan on a group of unsuspecting frigates, now you have to target a specific ship (ideally a large one) to punch in the face.

Next, moms are no longer moms anymore.

Motherships are being reclassified as Supercarriers. The name of ‘Mothership’ has long caused confusion as to what the intended role of these ships was supposed to be but we are finally putting that to rest.  This refocusing will see these ships go through a few changes.  Gone will be:

• The ability for Supercarriers to fit Triage modules.
• The ability for Supercarriers to fit Clone Vat Bays.
• The ability for Supercarriers to fit one additional Warfare Link per level.

Useless, right?  <lex_luthor>WROOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!</lex_luthor>

They’re getting Fighter Bombers, such as the one shown above, the best looking one of the bunch, the Gallente one.

Fighter Bombers will be unique to the Supercarrier class, launching specialized torpedoes capable of inflicting immense damage against other capital ships.

There’s more details on all of this of course, but you’ll have to click through to the Dev Blog to read about all of that.  Suffice to say, these are substantial changes to the way capitals will operate when Dominion hits.  For the better?  Worse?  Best way to find out is to wait for them to hit the test server and try them out yourself.  In the meantime, the debate rages on the EVE forums.

Source: Dev Blog

Oh wait, there’s a news article.

Ten free expansions down. Now an eleventh.  Set for Winter 2009, EVE Online: Dominion will focus on what is often cited as EVE’s “end game” – alliance warfare. It offers a complete overhaul of the current sovereignty mechanics in favor of a system that’s a brilliant mix of our game design vision and the input we’ve received from fans on forums, at conventions (FANFEST!) and via the CSM. Savvy alliances will benefit greatly from following and understanding these changes, which will receive extensive testing.

Ok, I’m intrigued.  For anyone who’s had anything to do with this “end game” they speak of, you’ll know full well that the current sov mechanics are pure joy in game form.  I’ve no idea why they want to change anything.

No idea at all.

*snort*

Source: http://www.eveonline.com/dominion/

It is with deep regret that we inform you of our decision to suspend certain banking activities with immediate effect. As of now both withdrawals and interest are frozen until further notice. This decision has not come lightly, we have critically analysed all aspects of the business and decided it is in the best interest of our customers and the long-term sustainability of the bank that these actions be taken.

Yes, lets analyze the issue of losses here, from the thread:

Losses

Losses to date have occurred as follows:
1. ~250b – Ricdic Theft.
2. ~380b – Loan Defaults
3. >48b – Share Losses
4. ~466b – Interest Paid
5. ~75b – Salaries

75 billion lost due to SALARIES?  Really?  To be clear, at least according to this post, they paid themselves more than their estimated losses due to Share Losses.

Ok, who wants to start the discussion about trust in EVE?

Source: EVE Thread

• ‘DUST 514′ is the name – looks very Halo. great feeling of warzone
• Been in development for three years at CCP’s Shanghai studio
• EVE players fight in space… Dust 514 players fight on the ground… both feed together to dictate control of systems in EVE universe.
• it’s a massively multiplayer game that ‘connects’ to the EVE universe. Dust will become an ‘input’ into who controls planets in EVE
• backstory to the ‘cloned’ soldiers coming in an upcoming EVE book
• takes place on the planets of EVE Online
• …it’s a hybrid FPS and RTS set within the EVE universe, for consoles. It’s CCP’s MMO for consoles!

Interesting!  I had a sneaking suspicion that if CCP did anything console-related that it would tie in to EVE data in some way.  It’s cool to know that if you decide to step away from EVE for a time to chill out on your console you can … well, still play EVE.

Source: http://twitter.com/developonline

UPDATE 1: Video of the game from the presentation is available here.  Ummm.. WOW???

UPDATE 2: Gamasutra’s got some excellent coverage happening on DUST as well.

The team-based game has the player “fighting in a massive war” on existing planets in the EVE Online universe, and is a standalone MMO title, “but is also connected to EVE“, according to the CCP boss.

In fact, when Dust 514 launches, the map of EVE, currently divined only by player structures owned in the PC game, will also take into account infantry successes and failures within the console game. Players in the PC MMO can “fund mercenaries and give them goals” in the console title.

Oh this is getting better and better. :)

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24886

In the weeks and months building up to June 22nd we monitored and analyzed activity of ISK sellers, and in particular, their supporting groups of macro-miners, ratters, mission farmers and other RMT related units. The information obtained by this research was then used to identify further RMT type accounts and to prepare lists to process in the action.  The preparations also included identifying various items of interest that we wanted to monitor and measure, such as market activity, server performance, petition trends and so on, as our intent was to examine the effects of the action in a scientific way and in as much detail as possible.  Finally, a lot of work was put into gathering information on and collecting lists of RMT type accounts to be targeted in the operation.

That operation involved the mass banning of the aforementioned nitwits from EVE.  Go now, smiling, to the dev blog that contains all kinds of happy charts.

Source: Dev Blog

I mean it has its own blog, right?  Gotta be something cool… lets see what it’s about:

By adding an “apply to join” button to the info window for a player corporation, it allows players to apply to a corporation without having to visit their corp office in specific stations. It’s like one-stop shopping: you browse for a player corporation, look over their information, and the button to apply is already right there!

….  wait, that’s it?  Seriously?

Seriously.

Source: Dev Blog

While a big departure from the normal style of CCP’s trailers (slow fades, gentle new agey music, sexy lady voice, nonsensical dialogue, sweeping space shots, internet spaceships), this one draws you in for reasons that are very different than game trailers in general.  Pretty sweet stuff.

Thoughts, oh writhing masses of New Eden?

Source: The Butterfly Effect

Expect the first wave of apparel to arrive in early October, when you can purchase the finest threads that New Eden has to offer.

So nothing’s available yet, you’ll have to wait some months, but JINX’s current offerings for gamers are pretty cool.  A collaboration with CCP should be pretty awesome.

Source: Game News