Final day of the EVE-Online Fanfest 2006 is behind us, and we return with a full coverage of it. And some pictures.

Excerpt:

The next, and last, presentation came from Hilmar Veigar "Hellmar" Pétursson, CCP's CEO. He began with talking about the exponential growth EVE and CCP have seen, with the subscriber count rising from 74,000 to 145,000 in the span of a year, and CCP's employee count rising from 55 to 145 in the same time period. He talked a bit about the Chinese Cluster, and the growing pains associated with nearly tripling the staff. He then switched on to the topic of marriages, first referring to the marriage proposal made on-stage last year between a New Zealand fan couple. And dropped the biggest bomb of the day.

See this, and other shocking revelations in our coverage of the fanfest!

So we've just returned from the first two days of the Fanfest, and it's been a blast. It's been so much fun, that we even went and wrote about it. Imagine! We also took pictures!

Excerpt from the article:

One very definite tendency was the formation of huge groups (sometimes labelled "blobs", one of many jarring references to EVE that seem to have grown to be a normal part of the english language over the past two days), and it was with one of those groups that me and a couple of others attached ourselves to when it came to find some dinner. Somewhere around the early evening, a local resturant was invaded by a group of 18-20, most of them Mercenary Coalition but occasional stragglers from other alliances floating along (including me), just for them to discover that 400g steaks were served there. A herd of cows gave their lives to nourish this great ensemble of warriors. So did entire fields of barley, come to think of it.

Find the article here!

It's here, almost.

And of course, we'll be there to cover it. Expect pictures and articles detailing our experience as we negotiate the questionable throng of 650 EVE geeks in the heart of Reykjavík.

Watch this space.

Also, to anyone reading this that will be attending - you're supposed to buy me a beer. National tradition. Honest.

Today we got an in-depth explanation of the upcoming new Gang/Fleet system from lead designer TomB in the form of a new Devblog. Excerpt:

You can now convert your gang to a fleet through an option by clicking the arrow in the gang header or right-clicking the header itself. This will change the gang to a fleet mode where you are can split the gang mates into seperate groups and assign commanders. This will also activate the ability of distributing gang bonus to gang members.

The hierachy of the fleet is split into a four tiered hierachy: Fleet Commander (1), Wing Commanders (5), Squad Commanders (25) and Squad Members (225). This means the biggest possible fleet in EVE an army of 256 members.

There's also a new Short Story out by the name of Saccade, which can be found here.

 

 

So we've got the Fanfest hitting the ground at the end of this week, with all the resultant change of pace in the community. Between the fact that all 650 tickets were sold, signups for the Fanfest Tournament ending at noon tomorrow and CCP promises of displays of public drunkenness, for those attending the Fanfest (as well as those wishing to) the upcoming Revelations patch (otherwise known as Kali) has taken a back seat for now.

In other news, an EVE-Online Homeworld 2 Mod? See for yourself!

We've got a new guide up, this time detailing the base intricacies of EVE's criminality system. Be sure to give it a look if planning to wander off into the darker end of the spectrum that is EVE. Excerpt:

Colloquially, Empire space in EVE is divided into "Highsec" and "Lowsec", or 1.0-0.5 and 0.4-0.0, respectively. The difference between these is that CONCORD is only present in Highsec - below 0.5 systems, the only protection given to pilots are sentry guns on jumpgates and at stations. Note that these sentry guns are not the end-all, be-all that CONCORD is, and that properly set-up battleships can easily tank them.

It can also be found somewhere in the vicinity of our Guide Section.

CCP finished the hardware maintenance and upgrades on Tranquility today, an hour ahead of schedule to everyone's great surprise. As has been pointed out before, after any large upgrades or patches it's a good idea to test the waters carefully, as some kinks and undiscovered bugs may be left to iron out.

The EVE section here on Allakhazam will also be going through some minor aesthetic changes over the next few days, mostly in the item database.

Sometimes it's nice to have something to distract you from the fact that you can't log on. Sometimes, Warp Drive Active is a very welcome distraction.

Warp Drive Active is a long-running webcomic based on EVE that has garnered some following among the community. Although updates are sporadic at best these days, it's worth it to flip through Winterblink's WDA archive while EVE is down. Or go outside for some fresh air. Whatever, really.

Tranquility will be going through some hardware upgrades on the 1st of November, which will take place during an extended 24-hour downtime from 10:00 GMT to 10:00 GMT on the 2nd. Be sure to set long skill training, as this extended downtime might well enough have to run for a little longer than planned.

In other news, CCP has launched a new website dedicated to the EVE-Online Collectible Card Game, where one can find forums dedicated to the newly-released CCG, as well as a list of all the cards in the game.

Following an apparent security breach, CCP has been scrapping many of their on-going larger story arcs, resulting in hasty wrap-ups. The first of these is the conclusion to the long-awaited Gallente Election Arc (a working account is required to view the in-game news). Excerpt:

Final election results are in from the Federation: President Souro Foiritan has claimed victory by a narrow margin, beating his opponent, Senator Mentas Blaque, by just a single point. This will make him the first president in Gallente history ever to serve more than one term in office.

"I am proud, and I am humbled, to be granted the opportunity to serve this great nation for five more years," said the President in an address to his supporters, delivered minutes ago from the steps of the presidential residence in Caille.

The ignoble end to an otherwise large-scale event has been met with some consternation by the RP community, but many feel that the circumstances are mitigating nonetheless.