Listen to Some English Dudes Talk About BoB

DJ FunkyBacon of EVE Radio just dropped a note on the EVE forums about a live show being done today that should shed some light no the situation with Band of Brothers, with information direct from Dianabolic of Reikoku.

Just a heads up to the community. I’ve just gotten done interviewing Dianabolic of Reikoku as to what happened from the BoB persepctive and what it all means, and he had an interesting challenge for the ones responsible. We’re presently working on getting a rep from Goonswarm to make a statement as well, and there may be reps from one or both alliances guesting on the show today.

Possibility of a Goon and BoB rep on the same live show after yesterday’s events?  Hehe, yeah :)

Check the thread out to get in on the Q&A with your own Q’s, and head to EVE Radio to listen in.

Source: EVE Thread

Skill Queue Details Lovingly Delivered by Eris

Skill queues are coming to EVE, so we can all check off that one long-asked for item from the long list.

We´re developing a skill queue. I´m expecting that the bearer of good news is praised and flattered. The CSM was happy to hear we were developing a skill queue, but their songs of praise were rather short. I expect haikus.  You may want to read on and make yourself familiar with how the queue works and the early UI mock-up.

As with everything there is a catch, and that catch is the length of time the skill training takes.

The skill training system we came up with allows you to queue skills that will start training in the next 24 hours. You can enter in up to 50 skills in a queue, as long as they all start training within 24 hours. This leaves room to start a skill that will take 6 hours, followed with one that takes 12 to complete. With only 18 hours of training prepared, the queue still has room to start another skill.

Sounds good to me, so if you want the full story with picture you can click the link below.  But first, Eris demands haiku, and I shall deliver.

the masses have asked
and this looks really gorgeous
eris is so cute

<3 blinky

Source:  Dev Blog

The 2009 E-ON Awards

EVE’s all about democracy these days.  First it was voting for your favorites in CSM2, now you can have a say in the Third E-ON Awards.

For those that don’t know, the awards, administered by EON magazine, are to celebrate the efforts of the EVE community during 2008. Thousands of players voted last year, with Chribba and GoonSwarm deserving of their multiple laser-etched trophies, but will they be victorious again, or will new champions emerge?

Click here to start voting!

Source: Third E-ON Awards Thread

Premium Light, Same Great Taste, Less Calories

Looks like the Classic client is going the way of Tabula Rasa.

To accommodate older PCs and those who prefer to run twenty clients of EVE while they run SETI@Home and ray trace while compressing HD movies, we will deliver what we refer to as “Premium Lite.” Premium Lite will only require ShaderModel 2.0 hardware, and far less texture memory than the current Premium, ensuring good framerates on older hardware.

It’ll be interesting to see how this streamlining of the low end client works with older hardware, but if they’re successful with this then it’ll be a great advantage to CCP to not have to support two completely different client architectures.

Source: Dev Blog

Mac Users Get Graphics to Match The Price of Their Hardware

Looks like Mac users are finally getting some premium graphics love from CCP!

This is the culmination of over a year of effort on the part of development teams at both CCP and Transgaming and we are extremely happy to see EVE running in all its splendor on the Mac OS.

I don’t use my dusty old G4 iMac anymore, but for those with more current hardware this should be a welcome update.  It’s a beta test still, but give it a whirl and let them know how it works for you.

Source: Dev Thread

Tech 3 Details Emerge, Sound Like Expensive Lego

Thanks to Asestorian on Scrapheap Challenge, details are out about Tech 3 ships.  Some of the details provided by his post (some editing by me for brevity):

  • 12,500 possible configurations.
  • Five ship components needed. Propulsion, three mid sections (offense, defense, power core) and a sensor array (bridge type thing).
  • Each section determines separate abilities. Propulsion for speed, probably offense module for weaponry, etc, etc. Not been fully decided at time of writing.
  • The combination of the modules decides the overall stats of the ship.
  • Each section requires different skills.
  • It would appear that the power core decides what other hull modules you can fit, so you can’t have a nano-ewar ship with a billion guns. I might be reading that wrong though.
  • Alternatively CCP might introduce some kind of “heat” that allows you to overload the structure of your ships to get this kind of power from one, but only for a very limited time (might just be wild imaginings of the writer though).
  • You can disassemble an assembled Tech III ship.
  • Rigs: Probably only one, and will make it harder to disassemble the ship because obviously the rig will break. No mention of actual Tech III rigs so far though.
  • There is an implication that disassembling a ship might make it lose something. Talk about crew members or a ship being ‘sentient’ and thus maybe gaining ‘experience’ or somesuch that is lost when it’s broken down. Whatever it is, it’s talk of a ship learning and becoming better through some system. Not confirmed and at this point probably going to remain on the drawing board because of balance issues. It could stay there, or it could come in later.
  • You won’t be able to tell a ships role/subsystems from scanner results.
  • Only cruiser sized Tech III ships.

Check out the thread for some more speculation and details.  I’m not sure I’ll be jumping into these day one.  Well, especially since there will no doubt be a ridiculous amount of training required to get into these.

Source: Scrapheap Thread

Windows 7 Theme Packs

CCP Ghostrider is beta testing Windows 7, and has decided to make some themes for the OS available to the EVE community.

Being a Windows 7 beta tester I have taken it upon myself to create a few EVE Online themepacks for Windows 7. If any of you are so brave as to be running the Windows 7 beta (or will be tomorrow when the public beta is released), feel free to download these themepacks and simply doubleclick them for your viewing pleasure.

For those that are not sure what themepacks are, it is a new customization feature in Windows 7. Simply put, a themepack is a pre-packaged set of desktop backgrounds, window colors, sounds and a screen saver. Windows 7 has added the ability to select multiple files as a desktop background and can automatically transition between them at set intervals.

They’re not official but they look pretty sweet.  Check them out at the link below, and nice job Ghostrider.

Source: Forum Thread

Apocrypha Expansion Press Release

The next EVE Online expansion named “Apocrypha” will be coming to your game client — and store shelves — 10 March 2009.

The fabric of space itself will be transformed as vast, unpredictable wormholes open to connect previously unexplored regions of the universe to the stars of New Eden. The seeds of advanced new technology await inside of these cosmic anomalies for those brave enough to explore them. This infusion of technology will enable production of the most dynamic vessels ever – Tech 3 modular ships with an astounding amount of customizability that can fill any role from skirmish muscle to industrial support.

This new expansion will also include so-called “epic” mission arcs, and the official release of EVElopedia.

Source: Press Release

NTRabbit turns 100,000,000

Long time EVE player NTRabbit has just clocked in 100 meeeeellion skill points in EVE.

Daaaaaaaayamn.

To commemorate the occasion, he’s posted a thread on the EVE forums chronicling his very own backstory.

I made this post, a rare post, to celebrate myself reaching this achievement, and to use what benevolence I have to share some of my greatness, history and wisdoms with you. I am sure that many of you have enjoyed it.

To conclude – don’t hate me now, I have always been better than you. Now I just have the ninth digit to signify it.

Heh, oh NTRabbit…

Congratulations, dude.  That’s a ridiculous achievement.

Source: Forum Thread