CCP is known for publishing two EVE Online expansions per year, but it looks like Incursion will have to be split up into parts to guarantee that it meets the company's standards. CCP Zulu outlines the team's launch plans for Incursion in his newest dev blog:

1. Release a first-step patch with a collection of player requested improvements November 30.
2. Release a second-step patch before Christmas (Only Santa knows what will be in this patch!)
3. Release key features of this expansion such as the Incarna Character Creator and Sansha Incursions in January 2011

Zulu goes on to list all of the updates that could be included in the Nov. 30 patch, such as 80 new story line courier missions, Rocket balancing, Tech 2 ammo balancing and more. The tentative list is massive, so be sure to check out in the full dev blog entry for more details.

The newest EVE Online dev blog provides a wealth of information on the incursions that will be occurring in the game's upcoming expansion. CCP Ytterbium gives some sound advise in the entry: "Incursions are full war assaults, treat them as such."

The Sansha's Nation will be invading systems anywhere at any time. Certain system-wide effects, such as reduced shield/armor resistances, will affect all players in the area. Players will need to group together to defeat the threat and earn rewards like ISK and CONCORD loyalty points.

Many more details can be found in the dev blog. Are you prepared to handle these assaults when Incursion goes live?

CCP has just launched the official website for EVE Online's Fanfest 2011. The event will take place from March 24-26, 2011 at the Laugardalshöll Convention Center in Reykjavik, Iceland.

This year's Fanfest will include traditional community team events, the annual PvP tournament, revamped pub crawl with a Dev, developer presentations on the future of EVE, the new Sisters of EVE program and the party at the top of the world, the biggest party in Iceland!

Attendees can purchase passes to the event and Spouse Access Passes using the PLEX system. Check out the new official site for all the details.

Tyrannis 1.2, the latest update for EVE Online, has gone live today and will change many things for players. The update features the transition to a 64-bit inventory system. There are also updates to the API system and several changes to the user interface.

Patch notes are available for review and a full discussion on the new updates can be found on the EVE official forums.

CCP Hunter, the database administrator in the Virtual World Operations department, just made an interesting announcement in an EVE Online dev blog. The official daily downtime for the game will drop from 60 minutes to 30 minutes on Nov. 1, and CCP's ultimate goal is to move toward no daily downtime in the future.

So what does this mean for you? More uninterrupted playtime on Tranquility, of course! Check out the full dev blog for all the technical details surrounding the change.

The winners of the EVE Online "Create A Starship" contest have been announced, and the grand prize design will actually be added to the game. You can expect to see the Tornado in EVE Online in the future. Here's what the game's creative team had to say about the ship:

"Rendering very Eve like, grimy/dark as Minmatar ships should be, really good render in the dark cinematic style of EVE."

The winner will also receive $900, an iPad, a Wacom Intuos4 Tablet, an Nvidia GeForce 480 GTX graphics card, and various deviantART items. CCP will be hosting another art contest in the near future, so keep an eye out for the announcement.

EVE Online players have been donating in-game currency to support the Red Crescent charity. The total amount raised has hit approximatly $14,905.50. All funds will be donated in the name of EVE Online players. Here are the details straight from the announcement:

The final tally has been done! A totally of 805 PLEX over 194 contracts were donated to the PLEX for Good: Flood Relief drive. The largest single corporation donation was 175 PLEX, and the largest player donation was 238 PLEX donated over multiple contracts. 167 million or so ISK was donated as well, enough to purchase half a PLEX on the open market.

Additionally, ISD made donations as well, with the equivalent of $818 donated by the ISD volunteers from their store credits.

Congratulations to EVE Online players for a job well done! Your donations will be making a difference.

CCP is getting geared up for the upcoming release of Incursion, the highly anticipated expansion for Eve Online. CCP Chronotis has just posted on their blog a major outline of all the upcoming changes and enhancements, "the icing on the cake," for Incursion.

Players will see changes to Tech II Ammo focusing on short-ranged versions. CCP is removing negative effects making the ammo a good alternative to the faction ammo. Players will notice that rockets have been given a power up to help make them more effective against frigate-sized ships. CCP has also gotten permission from the SCC to allow for the trade of all faction ships.

The team at CCP has been working extra hard on relieving the stress on the server from Fighter Bombers. A whole upheaval to the system and how the Fighter Bombers work, both graphically and informationally, will help players use the system with much less lagging and dragging.

The Incursion expansion is scheduled for release in November.

CCP has announced several new changes to the shortcut system are planned for EVE Online. Changes will be coming in the new expansion, Incursion, due out next month.  The devs have seen a need for players to be able to make split-decisions without going through a right-click menu.

Players can now bind shortcuts to almost any key on the keyboard, except for a few reserved keys like ENTER and ESC. Players can also bind shortcuts to their mouse keys, for players with more than the standard two-key mouse.

Combat shortcuts have also been introduced using the CTRL+Click example. CCP Optimal states, "Long story short, you can now do most in-space essentials like warp, approach, orbit, keep at range, etc. by holding down the designated shortcut key and clicking the target. Those shortcut keys are of course configurable, but the defaults are conveniently bound to buttons on the left side of the keyboard."

These changes are now live on the test server. Read the full blog post after the jump.

CCP Omen joined EVE Online's Planetary Interaction team in May, so it's only fitting that his first blog post focuses on the present and future of Planetary Interaction in the game. As you may have heard, planets will be the main link between EVE Online and DUST 514, CCP's upcoming FPS/RTS hybrid.

According to CCP Omen, here's what you can expect to see in November's Incursion expansion:

Upgradable Command Centers will allow players to increase and decrease the CPU/Power capabilities of their colony without having to tear it all down (existing undeployed command centers will be migrated to the new system).

Only the first Command Center must be bought and hauled in space, after that there is no longer a need to haul command centers in order to upgrade

Surveying has been radically revamped and will allow players to create extraction programs that span anything from an hour to 14 days!

Extractors can now be moved when in program creation mode

What are your thoughts on the planerary connection between EVE Online and DUST 514? Are you looking forward to the launch of the FPS/RTS game?