If you remember what it was like when Arkanor was abundant in low-sec space (or any kind of mineral for that matter), or have flashbacks about when you lost your first cruiser (the one that took you a month to mine for), then we would like to hear from you.

In the next issue of E-ON (#011, out April) we will be publishing an article about the "Good Old Days" of EVE, to see if they really were as great as some of us remember, overrated, or somewhere in between. If you're a day one veteran and interested in taking part, EVEmail me with a very short bio and I'll get back to you in a couple of days with some questions.

Due to the patch issues we reported in the previous news item there will be a reboot to fix the issues. Tranquility will go down at 17:39 GMT and the reboot is expected to last for about 15 minutes. Please make sure your characters are out of harms way before the servers close!

We apologize for the inconvenience this reboot may cause you.

Discussion of this news item may be found in this forum thread.

Today we used a new system for deploying small scale client patches. As some of you have noticed, there was an issue that testing failed to uncover on the test servers; the file does not download correctly. The patch itself was designed to fix an issue with the keyboard not working on the login screen.

Due to these issues, we will be removing the patch during downtime tomorrow, 18 January. Having the new file will not affect your install once the fix is removed, and you will still be able to log in normally.

To manual patch:

Please note that these are default locations for English Windows installs only. The programmers are currently working on a tool to resolve this problem for those people with non-default/non-English installs. Download the file here.

You will then need to create the following directory, and place the file in that directory. As before, these are default directories, so if you have a custom install this is unlikely to work.

Win XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\CCP\EVE\dd7d3d04d133729bde20677ec76f5d63

Vista
C:\ProgramData\CCP\EVE\dd7d3d04d133729bde20677ec76f5d63

Linux
/home//.cedega/EVE Online/c_drive/Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/CCP/EVE/dd7d3d04d133729bde20677ec76f5d63

Mac
/Users//Library/Preferences/Eve Online Preferences/p_drive/All Users/Application Data/CCP/EVE/dd7d3d04d133729bde20677ec76f5d63

We apologize for the inconvenience this patch may have caused you, and…

A small number of changes were deployed to the EVE forums in an effort to improve the EVE community's interaction experience earlier today.

Based on feedback from EVE players, the link to report a forum post to the Community team has been shifted to the right, thus preventing accidental mis-clicks. Reporting a post for moderation review updates a page viewable only by the Community team.

Also added today is a check box in the top left of the forums, 'Display Images'. Leaving this option unselected will prevent the display of any images in forum posts, including emoticons and signature images. Dial-up users should appreciate the decreased forum load times, while any user who does not want to see forum signatures will now have this option.

More improvements will be made in the future. Please visit this forum thread for further discussion and updates.

It's time for yet another Live Dev Blog, this time about Fiction! We'll focus on the fiction in EVE Online that is not in the game and to help us do that we'll have Abraxas, Writer at CCP and the guy who writes the Chronicles. Abraxas will be joined by t0nyG, Lead Writer and the guy who is writing the upcoming EVE novel. We might get some previews of their hard work, and they'll of course answer questions about writing fiction, for all those out there who likes reading or writing. To help us ask them the questions we'll have Mindstar as usual.

This will all take place in the "Live Dev Blog" in game channel this Thursday, 17 January, from 20:00 to 21:00 GMT. To participate you'll need EVE Voice active and then join the in game channel and join audio. A recording of the Live Dev Blog will be made available at a later date.

Asking questions is easy, just go to this forum thread and post your questions! Please remember that the topic is the EVE Fiction and we'll focus on the fiction outside the actual agme, other questions may not be answered.

The latest issue of EON magazine is currently passing through the hands of mail delivery technicians across the globe and is arriving on doormats and in the mailboxes of happy and contented buyers. Details of what inside (and outside) the 10th issue can be seen HERE.

Potential readers may be interested to know that all buyers of the magazine get a free DVD featuring highlights from the recent Fanfest (massive thanks to CCP and EVE TV for that). Personally I think it's one of the best issues to date and I'd like to thank contributers past and present for helping to make the mag such a valued piece of EVE literature, and to readers and subscribers for their continued feedback.

Presently, there is a loophole that some corporations are using to avoid wars that have been declared on them. As soon as a war has been declared on the corporation, they join an alliance and, once admitted, they immediately leave the alliance again. The result is that they are only involved in an active war for 24 hours and not a week as should be the case according to normal war game-play mechanics. Bogus alliances have even been created for the sole purpose of giving corps a way out of wars.

This is an unintended game mechanic and it will be fixed as soon as possible. Until then we are putting a stop to this situation and anyone found abusing this loophole will receive a warning for their trouble. Repeated offenses of this nature may also result in a ban.

The secure part of our website (https://secure.eve-online.com/) will be taken down for some maintenance tomorrow, Thursday, 10 January from 11.00 to 13.00 GMT. During this period the services using the secure site will not be available, such as account management. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

The use of Black Ops Jump Drives to escape a CONCORD response in high-security space by jumping to low-security space has been deemed an exploit. This tactic has been reported to the QA team and will be resolved in the near future.

Anyone caught using this exploit will be punished accordingly, as this can easily be tracked and verified in our logs.

The Fifth Alliance Tournament is rapidly approaching and the rules are now available for review and planning.

As GM Nova stated, there are a number of changes made to the rules so there is a more level playing surface. These changes include:

• The most striking change is disallowing pirate implant sets. This will negate the huge advantage some high grade sets were providing.
• Faction battleships have been reduced in price by 5 points. We should now see more faction battleships as well as tech two battleships.
• The TotalHellDeath bonus has changed; or rather the requirements have changed, making it harder to get this bonus.
• Maximum warp in distance has been shortened to 50km.

This Tournament should be the biggest and best yet. Who will claim bragging rights for this year? Get ready to watch and find out!

The Fifth Alliance Tournament, coming to your computer screen, Soon!

On behalf of the staff and family at CCP Games and White Wolf Publishing, I would like to extend our holiday greetings to our community members, their families and friends. May all of you enjoy safe and happy holidays!

From all of us to all of you, Merry Christmas!

Today, at 10:36 GMT we unfortunately had an unscheduled downtime of the Eve Cluster connection. In preparation for certain downtimes, we sometimes need to ensure certain things are correct and in order, this preparation involves some network and systems changes for security reasons. The error today was a human operational error that involved accidently stopping the Tranquility communication with the world. We would like to emphasize that this is not any issue with the game, network, cluster or other matter and it was an unfortunate mistake on the part of the operator. We apologize for the early downtime today and we would like to further assure everyone that steps have been taken to ensure that this type of error happening again has been greatly reduced.

Discussion of this news item may be found in this forum thread.

Tranquility will undergo an extended downtime on Tuesday, 18 December. The start time is 1100 GMT and the length of the downtime is expected to be four hours. During this time, a patch will be applied to Trinity consisting of fixes and improvements.

Patch Notes are now available. Updates to the notes will be added over the weekend as more items are cleared through the Quality Assurance process. These updates will be highlighted with green text. Patch discussion may be found in this forum thread.

Please note: Training a long learning duration skill ending after the scheduled return to service is recommended.

After a long break we're back with the Live Dev Blogs and first out is of course one about the Trinity expansion. The people answering questions this time will be Hammerhead and Zulupark, so we would appreciate if your questions are about the new content and game design in Trinity. The new thing is that we will have one person asking the questions rather than have our speakers do it themselves, and the honor falls upon Mindstar.

As usual this will taker place in the "Live Dev Blog" in game channel this Thursday, 13 december, from 20:00 to 21:00 GMT. To participate you'll need EVE Voice active and then join the in game channel and join audio. A recording of the Live Dev Blog will be made available at a later date.

Asking questions is easy, just go to this forum thread and post your questions! Please remember that the topic is the Trinity expansion and we'll focus on content and game design, other questions may not be answered.

There is currently a problem with a few Starbases that makes it possible for those attacking them to increase their rate of fire so there's almost no delay. This is an exploit and we will take appropriate action against those found using it. We are currently working on a fix and it will be deployed as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Discussion of this news item may be found in this forum thread.

Dear players,

We have now deployed fixes for the issues that made it necessary to temporarily restrict Starbase warfare. The situation looks good and we hereby remove the restrictions on Starbase warfare, with the following notification:



We have seen quite a lot of cases where players have cyno-jumped into enemy systems and then logged off, waiting for the restriction to be removed so that they can attack. This is of course an exploit in systems where cyno-jammers are installed but did not work. We will only permit attacks by pilots who have jumped into the system after the restriction is lifted. Those found to have abused this will be punished accordingly and losses suffered by the defending parties will be reimbursed.

We thank you for your understanding and patience.

EVE Online Team

Recently, a number of unscrupulous players have been using a variety of means to try to gain access to EVE accounts. Some of these include the mailing of false newsletters to members of the community requesting the player visit phishing links or soliciting a response that includes account credentials. Please remember, CCP will never ask for your username/password and we highly recommend exercising caution when visiting sites of unknown origin.



Another method is for a player to gain access to an account, then join the player's corporation chat channel and tell others to download a screensaver or other program. Needless to say, the program turns out to be a keylogger or Trojan and anyone who downloads and installs is open to attack. Be cautious about programs you download and install, as there really are people who are out to get you or your ISK. If you have received screensavers or other suspect files recently, we recommend you perform a complete system scan for possible security issues.



Regards,

The EVE Online GM team

On 2007.12.09 20:18 Tranquility's simultaneous user number reached an astonishing 41,690 up from 38,242. This marks yet another proud moment in EVE Online's history. Records are made to be broken and EVE continues to attract new users with every expansion. This proves yet again that EVE is not simply aging gracefully, but is continually adapting, expanding, and improving in ways that will keep EVE competitive for years to come.

Dear players,

Due to issues that affect Player Owned Structures we are forced to temporarily prohibit POS warfare. This means that no attacks are allowed on starbase control towers, their attached structures or outposts. This also means that no control towers may be set up where a different alliance holds sovereignty . Players found in breach of this will receive warnings and structures will be removed.



Fixes for the issues will be forthcoming as soon as possible but until then we ask you to bear with us and refrain from any sort of POS warfare.

Thank you,

EVE Online Team

An issue has been discovered whereby Windows XP and older Windows OS users who have upgraded their EVE clients from Classic Graphics Content to Premium Graphics Content have their boot.ini file deleted. For users facing this issue, we recommend users DO NOT reboot their computers until this issue has been resolved.

We have taken down the ability to download the Classic to Premium upgrade patch until we have determined where the issue lies and how we can resolve this. Full install clients have not exhibited this issue and are safe to download.

Please note: This issue affects Windows XP and older users who have upgraded their EVE clients with the Classic to Premium version. It does not affect Vista, Mac or Linux users.

Users facing this issue are encouraged to visit this Microsoft Knowledge Base Item for a manual fix or try one of the below solutions:

Manual restoration of the boot.ini file

For users who have not rebooted their computers after installing the Classic to Premium patch:

1. Open notepad.
2. Copy the following text and paste it into notepad:
   
   [boot loader]
   timeout=30
   default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
   [operating systems]
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
   
   Note: If your operating system is XP Home Edition, please…