One of the neato things about CCP is how much they engage the players with their vision of the future, and take feedback on upcoming changes.

No seriously, stop laughing.

Sure there has been the odd bump in the road in this, but overall they’ve had a pretty solid track record in the past.  Carrying on with that tradition, the cuddly CCP Abathur comes to the Test Feedback Forum with a new thread detailing their upcoming capital ship changes.  The following categories of tweaks are represented:

• Structure Signature Radius
• State Module Changes
• Dreadnoughts
• XL Turrets
• Citadel Torpedoes / Cruise Missiles
• Motherships becoming Supercarriers
• Titans

All of this will be going to SiSi in the next couple days. While future iteration on capitals is still possible, all of the above is what we consider to be updates and fixes to current issues. We look forward to your constructive and always enthusiastic feedback.

If you’re a student of recent history, especially a capital pilot, you’d know about what happened with capital ships just before Dominion hit.  A lot of the details of these changes seem to address the problems with Dominion, what players generally regarded as 100% pure grade-A bullshit.  Most notably, now mothersh– er, supercarriers — will have their HP boosted, and have a new breed of deployable death in the form of the fighter bomber.

Hit the thread below, read up on the changes, and most importantly: try them out on the test server and give your feedback to CCP.

Sources:

• Capital Ships in Dominion 1.1 (Thread)

At FanFest a couple of years ago, Hilmar promised “no more lag!” to the masses in attendance.  Surprisingly, and within the time period promised, it had looked like the goal had been accomplished.  Apparently, we all missed the wink, which meant “for a while”.

It’s no surprise to anyone who plays EVE that lag has reared its ugly ass again, especially since the recent Dominion expansion.  Luckily for us, CCP Tanis is on the case:

Howdy folks,

We are looking into the situation surrounding medium/large scale fleet battles, both in low-sec and also in 0.0. To get to the bottom of this we must run a series of mass-tests against both Dominion code and pre-dominion code.

“Howdy”?  People still say that?  Anyway it looks like the problem will be solved just in time for the holidays–

These tests will begin Tuesday, January 5 at 5pm UTC. They are expected to last for about 2 hours, each. We need at least 100 pilots, preferably 500+… the more people who show up, the better.

Test schedule:
Tuesday January 5 @ 17:00 GMT (0.0 Fleet/Sov tests)
Thursday January 7 @ 17:00 GMT (Low-sec FacWar tests)

— oh.  Well… holidays 2010 then.  Bummer.

Anyways, click below for the full details on how to take part in the test.  For those who haven’t worked on the test server before, you might want to pay special attention for how to set up a test client, lest ye mangle thine own Tranquility client.

These are really good opportunities to help CCP out with issues like these, so if you have the time on those days then I highly recommend at least trying to get in there, so they can collect whatever data they need to.

Sources:

• Hunting the Lag Monster

This week’s seen some interesting things happen in EVE.  A couple of patches later, CCP brings the sovereignty blocking units (SBU) to the game, allowing player alliances to fight it out once more.

No sooner does that happen, but Somal Thundir of Pandemic Legion hits the boards with this gem:

(14:31:27) jogyn: 13:30:37 Notify One of sniggerdly’s Sovereignty Blockade Units has been destroyed
(14:31:46) jogyn: they just destroyed our sbu that said invulnerable x)

mad props IT.

Broken mechanic, or exploit?  Or both?  Comedy either way given the level of irony being wielded there.

Update (14 December 2009): CCP have officially labeled this as an exploit.  Abuse it at you own peril.

So far I haven’t heard of any major news happening yet from the frontlines of the player wars, pertaining to the new sov mechanics.  Keeping an eye out though, but if you have anything to report please feel free to comment away.

EVE also celebrated breaking its PCU record last weekend, with 54181 pilots logging in at once.  Not too shabby, but at the time of this writing it doesn’t look like this weekend is going to be breaking that record.

Last week the podcast made a return, and the feedback I’ve received from folks by EVEMail and Twitter has been amazing. I’ve also got a crapload of new Skype contacts to call upon, so if you’re one of those who have sent me an add request thanks a bunch.  A new podcast should be up in a day or two, and should be something special.

In the meantime, by popular demand, I’d like to bring back the Failmail section of the podcast again (it was always planned to come back!).  There’ll be a bit of a twist, which you’ll have to wait for one of the next episodes when it comes back to find out what it is. *evil laugh*  If you have a ridiculous killmail showcasing some manner of fitting failure on the part of the unfortunate victim, toss me an EVEMail with the killboard link, or if you’re a Delicious user feel free to share the link through that to the podcast’s Delicious profile.  If you like, include any other information about the kill that you might know of.

I’ll leave you for now with a last little tidbit… in less than one week the return podcast snared well over a thousand downloads.  That’s amazing, especially since we’ve been out of print for so long.  Thanks for the support, keep the feedback coming (I listen!) and keep an eye out soon for the next ep.

Sources:

• CAOD thread from PL
• New PCU Record of 54,181 Pilots
• Exploit Regarding Outposts and Infrastructure Hubs