If you can't connec to EVE-Online on Saturday, here is probably why:

Our primary Internet Service Provider is performing hardware maintenance on Saturday, 19 May during the 0700 GMT hour. According to their update, they are projecting 2 service outages lasting approximately 5 minutes each.

In an effort to mitigate the impact of this outage, we will reroute connectivity through our back-up serivce providers. There may be some users who will still experience connectivity issues during this time period.

We apologize for any inconveniences caused by outages that occur during this time period.

Wardec fee changes, Freighters become more useful and various other goodness!

It looks like we might get our hands on some EVE literature some time in the future as a result of CCP's merger with WW according to Clover's latest Dev Blog

It is a well known secret that one of the main reasons for the CCP/WW merger was to broaden the EVE brand into new media. In order to do that there must be an EVE Bible accessible to all those working on non-computer related EVE stuff. Luckily, a lot of data useful for the bible already exists; it’s just a question of compiling it and tailoring to the specific needs of the bible. Hopefully, this means that we will see some EVE related products soon (look there isn’t even a ™ symbol after soon, that’s how soon it might happen).

Hammerhead wrote a devblog recently about the top-ten issues the community wanted addressed a year ago, and a review of what has been done or is being planned to deal with them. Excerpt:

Some people are misunderstanding the point of the new top ten thread I created over in the features and ideas forum, maybe because they didn't read the thread that I linked to. That thread is only for top ten lists, nothing else. Also many people I've spoken with didn't realize that the old top ten list and the report I posted about it was from a year ago. A lot of things can change in a year. I decided to blog and look at what we've changed based our vision for EVE and on the things that were in the old top ten.

There's a new Devblog up from CCP's Gnauton, centering itself around the effect of the White Wolf merger on EVE's backstory, and the revitalization of EVE's roleplaying events. Excerpt:

First off, I want to express my excitement about how the merger with White Wolf is going to help us expand on EVE’s backstory. The team over in Atlanta (comprising, as most of you no doubt know, a number of immensely talented world creators with dozens of years of experience between them) will be deeply involved in fleshing out the nitty-gritty of, for instance, planetary life in EVE; the way the actual people (read: the non-starship captains) of the world go about their daily lives, and how their societies function.

Exciting stuff, if you're into that sort of thing. For the rest of you, here you can find some videos of ships blowing up, hosted by the untiring Chribba.

CCP's Abraxas finally came through again with a new story, which he describes in his post on the official EVE-Online forums.

Today's piece is called "Methods of Torture - The Gallente". As I mentioned in an earlier thread, this is a bleak and ugly story. Of the four torture stories, this one comes closest to describing what real torture is all about: Not extracting information, but simply breaking someone down. Also, as with the other stories, this one is critical of its Empire. The Amarr story showed (in a light-hearted way) how a rigid, religious society produces a mad framework of freakish torture, and the Minmatar story asked what its revenge-bent society did to the people caught up in its hatred. This story poses the question, well, if you have a society where everything is permitted and where physical gratification comes first, what happens when its darker elements take those conditions to heart?

Fixes, Changes and Improvements

The 'Need for Speed' Initiative

As mentioned in Oveur's recent Dev Blog, changes are being made to the EVE Universe as part of the Need for Speed Initiative. These changes are being made previous to or as a part of the Revelations 1.3 patch include:

From CCP's Kieron:

As announced in the Player News Center, Tranquility will undergo an extended downtime on Tuesday, 30 January from 0800 to 1200 GMT. During this time, a patch will be applied to Revelations including a number of fixes and improvements.

For further information and discussion, please read the announcement post in the EVE Information Portal.

It's that time again, when half the world goes crazy with award shows. Of course, the gaming industry is no different, as can be seen by CCP's latest press bit:

On 22 January, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) released the names of the finalists in their 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. CCP is honored and proud to announce that EVE: Revelations is among the four finalists in the category of Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year. For more information about the awards and to view a full list of categories and nominees, visit the AIAS website.

Godspeed, little duckling. We'll be cheering from the back rows.

TomB recently wrote a Devblog on Invention and where CCP intend to go with it, touching on subjects such as the lack of interfaces in the game as well as the tools CCP are using to monitor the whole sordid affair. Excerpt:

Invention was supposed to be the revolutionary feature of Revelations and should have changed the entire science and industry genre as we know it, with the potential side effect that could change the biggest part of the player economy; Tech 2.

However, the effect that invention was supposed to bring has not yet been seen. The problem lies in the amount of players that have been able to attain the required tools to utilize the new feature.