The EVE cluster just went up, accompanied by a 62mb patch that makes up the Revelations add-on. Forums and other myEVE website functions are still down, and may remain so for a while. Please note that the game may be unstable, and players are reporting up to five minute lag spikes, so venturing outside of stations or safe havens is unwise until the cluster is back up to full strength.

Meanwhile, listening to RealX's 46 minute concert mix (CCP's Music and Sound Designer) from the fanfest is well worth the while.

Tranquility, EVE's main server, is being updated with the new (free) Revelations add-on. As a result, Tranquility will have an extended downtime, Tuesday 28th of November, running for 24 hours from 02:00 in the morning to 02:00 GMT Wednesday.

Stay tuned for more updates.

CCP released the full patch notes for the Revelations add-on scheduled for a November 28 deployment. containing fun little tidbits like these:

User Interface

• 'Warp to 0 km' will be added as an option to the 'Warp' menu.

Player Owned Structures

• A new starbase structure, the 'Drug Lab', is available on the market. This structure is used in the creation of Combat Boosters.

Exciting times ahead. Also check out the official Revelations features page.

This summer, CCP held the 2nd EVE-Online Alliance PvP Championships, with 40 alliance-backed teams competing for the grand prize. The whole thing was broadcast on EVE-TV, a new concept where they did not rip off standard sports broadcasts at all.

They promised us a DVD, compiling all the action and some of the more memorable moments on the couch, and it's finally out. As the blurb states:

If you missed the broadcast, or want to relive the action again, the official EVETV DVD Contains every single fight from the knockout stages, including both semi-finals and the gripping ASCN / BOB Final, complete with commentary and studio analysis.

Track it down in the EVE-Store.

We've got two new Developer Blogs up, covering both walking in stations as well as general balancing issues. Excerpt:

It's always better to address concerns in blogs, forums have so much volume that answers disappear the day after and we simply can't keep up with all the threads. Also, to keep the little sanity we have left, we prefer to read forums in controlled doses. Reading someone feels we should be used for minced meat isn't exactly an encouraging and inspiring atmosphere but hey, we like burgers just as much as the next guy.

Make sure to check out CCP's Dev Blog section for past reading.

In the words of CCP's Gnauton: "A new EVE Chronicle has been posted on the EVE Chronicles section of the web site. This week's instalment, "Eye for an Eye," penned by EVE player NTRabbit, is the tale of a capsuleer's bloody revenge."

Excerpt:

I think I found it easier to hate them. I had to feel something; being neutral about it implied that I did not care enough to form an opinion. Without that, there would be no reason or drive to continue. The feeling of hate allowed me to be here, to do what needed to be done without pause or contrary thought. I did not pity them, though, for I had run short of pity long ago; so much so that I had none to give, even for those who needed it.

One can also find it nestled amongst it's brethren in the EVE Chronicle section on the Official website.

From CCP:

Tranquility will have an extended downtime, Friday 17 November, running for 3 hours from 09:00 to 12:00 GMT. This downtime will be the final operation in adding 2 new IBM Bladecenters which adds more than 50 new nodes to Tranquility, increasing total capacity by 40%.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Be sure to set long skill training.

See either the official forum post or the news item.

A small, 5.6mb patch file (2.13.27121) was deployed today. Patchnotes consisted entirely of the following:

Autopatcher

• Changes made to autopatcher to facilitate larger patch files.

Additionally, Tranquility went down at 15:00 GMT and stayed down for an hour today. Much of the initial lag after the server went back up cleared up after an hour or two.

Mind that downloading the new patch through autopatcher might not work, in which case you can download the patch manually here.

As announced at the Fanfest and in a tandem Press Release, CCP and White Wolf are merging. CCP have now given additional detail in the form of a forum post on the official forums. Excerpt:

White Wolf will be forging ahead with their talents for the future production of an EVE Online based traditional RPG and table top starship combat games, as well as miniatures (and there was much rejoicing!), comics, graphic novels, etc.

CCP will continue to expand the number of developers in CCP and in the near future begin production on a to be announced MMOG based on White Wolf's World of Darkness RPG setting. While we will be able to use some of the technologies I mentioned earlier, this game is still a number of years from alpha, let alone release.

In other news, this week's Chronicle, The Shrinking Skin, is out, and focuses mostly on the upcoming "Invention" feature in Kali 1 (Revelations).