Thread: Developers Blog

Hours for PLEX feature temporarily offline

CCP has just taken the newly-introduced Hours for PLEX feature offline. The Account Management option was added to provide a more convenient way for EVE Online players who need a few hours of game time added to an expired account, allowing them to log in, redeem PLEX, and keep their account active.

Subsequently, we discovered that the feature could potentially be abused in the CSM voting process, and have temporarily disabled the Hours for PLEX offer. In meantime, CCP is reverting to the older system that was previously in place for reverse-redeeming PLEX. Players with inactive accounts may file a petition for a temporary reactivation in order to add PLEX to an inactive account.

We are currently evaluating the matter in order to determine to what extent, if any, this may have had on the CSM voting. An update will be posted when available.









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We have published a new edition of the reimbursement policy. There are some changes but nothing too dramatic - mainly just moving, combining and clarifying a few things to better fit our present situation.

Before I invite you all to take a look at the new edition, posted in its entirety below, I would like bring attention to some of the principles and practicalities involved.

Shit happens and people find themselves filing reimbursement petitions from time to time. Customer Support is here to help and this we aspire to do to the utmost of our abilities and in accordance with the rules outlined in our reimbursement policy.

The tl;dr version of our reimbursement policy would be, "If we can verify the cause to be a bug or server issue using server side logs, we'll reimburse." We approach each petition with the mindset of trying to find a reason to fulfill the player's claim, but if there is no verification to be had we will most likely have to say no. This is what causes the most friction and this is why we feel that our reimbursement policy needs to be well known to our players, as well as the reasoning behind it.

In EVE, as opposed to sharded universes of many other games, all players are located in a single game world and anything that one player does may potentially affect large numbers of other players. With a player driven economy and market system, all this adds complexity to our situation in regards to reimbursement, as reimbursing one player's losses may mean stepping on other players' toes directly or indirectly. Additionally, as an intervening force of many, we must be above making arbitrary decisions that could be construed as favoritism. Due to those complications, our policies may appear somewhat strict at times but they are geared towards maintaining a level of overall fairness for everyone concerned and protecting the delicate game balance.

Finally, we endeavor to be consistent in how we handle petitions and clear, relevant and enforceable policies play a key role in accomplishing this. Consistency can only be achieved by applying the same standards to everyone in a similar situation but often this is best done by not interfering at all. We try to keep the GM footprint in the biosphere as small as possible for a reason, while trying to fulfill as many legitimate claims as we can.



That's about all for now so without further ado, effective as of 11:00 GMT today, here is the new edition of:

EVE ONLINE REIMBURSEMENT POLICY

Players are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the following information and refer to this document before submitting any reimbursement requests. A loss of items, skill points or money within the game that may have been caused by unusual circumstances could be eligible for replacement if it falls within the scope of this policy.



As a rule, reimbursements will not be given unless a game master (GM) is able to verify that the loss occurred due to unnatural reasons through a review of the server logs. Due to the fact that logs and screenshots are easily altered, we unfortunately cannot accept player statements, chat logs or screenshots as definitive evidence for these cases.



Spamming the GM queue with petitions or e-mails requesting reimbursements or giving false information in an attempt to have an item replaced is not permitted and may result in disciplinary action being taken against your account. See Terms of Service.



Note that this policy is not all inclusive. Other situations outside this policy may be deemed eligible for reimbursement if circumstances warrant such a decision. These will be carefully reviewed on a case-by-case basis. No reimbursement requests are guaranteed to be fulfilled.

1. General Guidelines

The following list is a set of guidelines that are applicable to every reimbursement request. The sections below will provide additional notes or information that may apply to specific types of reimbursement requests.



1. All reimbursement requests must be sent within a week (7 days) from when the loss occurred. After that time we will not provide reimbursement.

2. Reimbursement can only be requested by the in-game owner of the items lost. Note that items in a corporate hangar or other corporate-owned entity are considered to be owned by the corporation and not a player. Reimbursement for corporate-owned items should be requested by the CEO or a Director.

3. Reimbursement will only be granted if a loss is attributable to a bug or server error.

a. Any losses attributable to errors in the EVE client may not be eligible for reimbursement.

b. Any losses attributable to problems with a player's system (i.e. computer, internet connection, etc.) or any system owned by a third party are not eligible for reimbursement.

4. Losses caused by lag or non-server related disconnection will not be reimbursed.

5. Any losses of any kind resulting from a large-scale player engagement are not covered by this reimbursement policy.

6. Potential or theoretical gain is not eligible for reimbursement. Only assets lost when already in possession of the player are eligible for reimbursement.

7. No guarantee of replacement is given or implied through the policies outlined here. A GM must investigate each case and refunds are given on a case-by-case basis.



2. Lost Ships

1. The insurance payout received when a ship is lost will be subtracted from a player's wallet if the ship is reimbursed.

2. Only items destroyed along with the ship are eligible for reimbursement. Any items left in space (in wreck, containers, etc.) are not eligible for reimbursement.

3. Ships destroyed by use of the "self destruct" feature or any action initiated by the owner (including but not limited to: recycling, trashing, etc.), whether intentionally or accidentally, cannot be reimbursed.



3. Missions

Missions may be offered by either NPC agents or as courier missions created by other players.

1. Mission collateral may be required for some missions. This collateral may be refunded in cases where GM investigation shows the mission creation was incomplete or if the mission was impossible to complete within normal gameplay parameters available to the player.

2. Reimbursements will not be granted in instances where:

a. A player who has accepted a mission decides not to complete it, for whatever reason.

b. A player is unable to complete a mission due to loss of ship under normal gameplay mechanics.

c. A mission objective is destroyed or stolen by another player.



4. Recycled Items

Recycling is a feature offered at many stations. Players may use the recycling facilities to "melt down" unwanted items into their component minerals.

1. Items recycled accidentally may be reimbursed on a case-by-case basis, but only if the minerals received have not been moved from the original recycling station and the original resulting "stacks" of minerals have been retained (thus not merged with other stacks of minerals or broken up into smaller stacks).



5. Trade Sessions

A trade session is the in-station exchange of items or money between two players using a trade window.

1. Any trades mutually accepted by both parties are considered final.

2. It is vital that items be carefully examined in the trade window before accepting a trade. This is particularly true in the case of blueprints and assembled ships.

3. In the event that a server node drops during a trade and items in the trade window have disappeared, reimbursement may be allowed following an investigation by a GM.

Note: Direct trades should be avoided with unknown parties - we recommend using Contracts.



6. Deleted/Corrupt Characters

Unwanted characters may be deleted at the character selection screen by clicking the skull and crossbones icon. A verification window will appear asking if you are certain you wish to permanently delete this character. Players are urged to exercise caution when deleting a character and to verify that this is an action they wish to take. Corrupt characters may have a graphic flaw that was undetected during the creation process.

1. Characters deleted either accidentally or intentionally may be restored on a case-by-case basis. Restored characters are returned "as is".



7. Containers

Cargo containers can be secure containers anchored in space or containers kept in stations or ship cargo holds.

1. Contents of lost cargo containers that were present in space may only be reimbursed if the container was an anchored secure container.

2. Lost non-secure containers that were present in space cannot be reimbursed.

3. Non-anchored containers will be destroyed during downtime if they are still present at that time. These cannot be reimbursed.

4. Anchored containers will be destroyed if no items are added or removed for 30 days. Those cannot be reimbursed.



8. Scamming

1. Assets lost to a scam may only be reimbursed if the scammer used a verified bug to hide his intentions to scam. Generally in-game scams are allowed and considered a valid tactic as long as they are done via normal game mechanics.

2. Players are cautioned to use their best judgment when entering into agreements with other players. To avoid getting scammed, please read our article on scamming.



9. Hacking & Account Transfers

Hacking is any unauthorized access to another person's account, by illegal means or not.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and for any damage, harm, lost or deleted characters, etc. resulting from your disclosure, or allowing the disclosure, of any password, or from use by any person of your password.

1. If your account is accessed by another player and assets are stolen or transferred to other players, we will investigate and items that we are able to track down will be moved back to the rightful owner.

2. Any ISK stolen from the account may be transferred back to the rightful owner on a case-by-case basis.

3. Any assets sold to another player will not be returned to the original owner; however, any ISK gained from the sale may be transferred to the original owner of the items instead on a case-by-case basis.

4. Reprocessed assets cannot be restored to prior status.

5. If someone gained access to your account as a result of your use of a third party program or other violation of our EULA/TOS, all requests for reimbursement will be null and void.











More...

As Fanfest 2011 rapidly approaches we want to bring you details of the many events that the Community team will be hosting at the Laugardalshöll Convention Center in Reykjavik. This year we have sold more tickets to Fanfest than ever before and we have planned a list of events to help you relax and have fun with your fellow players in between roundtables and presentations on the future of EVE.

As many of you will already be aware, the Community team work with the players during Fanfest to help support a charity. With the help of your generosity, we raised over 1,000,000 Icelandic Krona, approximately $8,500.00, during last Fanfest which went to support Child's Play. This year we will be supporting Get Well Gamers, a charity formed in 2001, with the goal of bringing video game systems and games to children's hospitals.

Not all of the Community events this year are focused on charity but they are all focused on fun.

Community Message Booth - The hub of all our events.

The message booth at Fanfest 2011 will be a place where you can leave messages for each other to arrange meetings, leave contact details or to sign up for the vast amount of Community held events during the three days of Fanfest. This area, which will be located near the silent auction stand, will be the place to sign up for the poker tournament, battle of the bands or any of the "True or False" and "You say, I guess" quizzes.

You should note that while all of these events are open to everyone, it is important to sign up early as there is limited availability.



Silent Auction - EVE collectables have never looked so good! (Charity event)



The Silent Auction is one of the most popular attractions at Fanfest as it generally holds some items that you simply cannot get anywhere else. Did you ever dream of holding a 100 day GTC once again? Maybe you would like to be the proud owner of a prototype t-shirt that never went into production? How about owning a one of a kind, hand painted Kronos ship model? These and much more will be on offer this year.

This year, the Silent Auction will follow the conventional description by having all bids displayed on sheets of paper up until the official finish time. To get your chance to win some great swag simply visit the Silent Auction stand on the ground floor and bid!



No Limit Texas Hold em Tournament - Spaceships are not the only PvP tournament at Fanfest (Charity event)



Last year we held our first No Limit Hold-em poker tournament which was a massive hit. We had so many people interested in playing that we simply could not accommodate everyone, and this year we aim to make this event even bigger and better. During Thursday, march 24 and Friday, march 25 we will hold qualifying rounds for players to move on to a final table showdown in which players can win some seriously good prizes.

The poker tournament is one of the major areas by which you can contribute to our charity drive for Get Well Gamers, and we reward this particular event with a lot of PLEX, ship models, medals and much more for the winners.

The question is, do you have what it takes to outplay the rest of the poker players at Fanfest and emerge victorious?



Photo Scavenger Hunt - Only those with an eye for brilliance will emerge victorious



Attending Fanfest is an exciting whirlwind of excitement, alcohol, and most importantly EVE Online and you don't want to forget any second of it, and because of this you will most likely have your camera at the ready on the off-chance you'll get a glimpse of CCP devs doing the conga line. So why not take advantage of the opportunity, take that embarrassing photo, and enter it into the Photo Scavenger Hunt for the chance to score yourself some cool stuff?

Working in teams of up to four, you will need to take photographs to depict common EVE sayings. These photographs need to be taken during your vacation at Fanfest 2011 to qualify. You can take pictures from all around Iceland as well as the Fanfest venue. Your five top pictures will be matched up to five EVE sayings from a list you will get when you sign up. These will then be judged by a special handpicked panel of judges. Judging will be based on which teams set of photos best represent the captions with relevance, humor and creativity. The competition is limited to 25 teams. Sign up early so you don't miss out. A full list of rules will also be available at the signup booth as well.



True or False - Your EVE trivia knowledge can earn you prizes

Think you know a lot about EVE trivia? Do you know your ships, items, ammo and EVE lore to correctly identify when the quizmaster is being truthful or telling a great big lie? If so, then this is the ideal quiz for you.

The format is based on the quizmaster asking a question with the players participating deciding if the answer is true or false buy lining up behind the true line or false line accordingly. The winner will be the last man standing.

Signups will be held at the message booth and we will allow two teams of 10 players to participate per day. The sign-ups will be on a first come, first served basis with the event running at 10:30 at 14:30 UTC daily. Prizes will be issued for winners.

Please note that times may change so it is essential that you come to the Community message booth and sign up early.



You say, I guess - Only the fastest minds and best clues will win

This event is another brand new Community event for Fanfest 2011. Teams of two players will participate at a time and each team will be given a set of cards with an EVE ship, item, a piece of EVE lore or meme written on it. Their job is to provide their partner with clues so that they can identify what is written on the card. The winning team during each round is the team who identify all items on the cards in the quickest time.

Speed is the name of the game and there will be two games played per day at 11:15 UTC and 15:15 UTC. Sign-ups will be held at the Community message booth if you want to participate.

Please note that times may change so it is essential that you come to the Community message booth and sign up early.



Incarna - Dress to impress



With the advent of our new character creator, and the upcoming release of Incarna, we will be holding an event during Fanfest which is aimed at rewarding players for dressing up in EVE related attire. The Community team will have spot prizes of EVE Store gift cards which will be issued to those who come to Fanfest, in costume, and who dazzle us with their creativity and likeness to EVE characters.



EVE Fansite recognition - Giving credit to our tireless fansites

Every year we see fansites dedicated to EVE Online get bigger and better with the fansites giving up their free time to report news on Tranquility, report major events and develop emerging communities of players who come to their sites for guides, tools or advice.

The community team will be meeting with these fansites to show our appreciation and to ask how we can help to promote their sites and fill them with additional content.



Popcorn and movies - oh nom nom nom!

During the movie show which will be held on Friday, March 25, the Community team will be handing out free popcorn to all who want it. This is just one of the ways we like to say ‘Thank you' for being such a cool community!

The Community team is honored to organize as many fun events as possible for players travelling from all over the world to celebrate EVE Online with us at Fanfest 2011. We hope to see as many of you aspossible at the message booth signing up for cool events or simply to hang out and chat with us for a while.

If you have not booked for Fanfest yet you can still do so by visiting ourFanfest page and signing up for the complete hotel and travel packages. We look forward to meeting you all in March!



The Community Team.



More...

*This is a guest blog, written by the members of the fifth Council of Stellar Management*

Everyone knows that EVE is special, and one of the ways that it is special is that EVE has the Council of Stellar Management (CSM), a democratically-elected stakeholder group that works on behalf of the entire EVE community.

The CSM performs many useful functions:

• Provides feedback to CCP on upcoming changes to the game and global game issues, often on a daily basis in a private area of the forums.
• Communicates player concerns to the devs, by formatting proposals for changes to the game, adding and maintaining pages for them on the EVE wiki, and voting to add them to the CSM Backlog.
• Travels to Iceland at least twice a year for concentrated 3-day summit meetings at CCP for in-depth face-to-face discussions of important game issues.
• Publishes comprehensive Summit Minutes detailing the results of the meetings.
• As a stakeholder, gives CCP a customer perspective on their decisions, asks hard questions, encourages CCP to justify their resource allocations, and, in the famous words of CCP's CEO Hilmar Petursson (aka CCP Hellmar), "calls bull****" on CCP when necessary.

So does the CSM get results? Well, here are a few examples:

• The skill-training queue was a CSM initiative.
• The CSM helped the players give CCP a corporation-wide wake-up call in the summer of 2010, resulting in CCP allocating more resources to supporting and improving old content.
• The recent removal of learning skills was implemented almost exactly as the CSM suggested.
• CSM and player pressure about performance issues encouraged CCP to create a special group, Team Gridlock, dedicated to the "War on Lag".
• CSM crowdsourcing and prioritization efforts resulted in many CSM-sponsored game fixes being released in Incursion, and the allocation of Team BFF to the task of "fixing potholes" during the current development cycle.
• CSM lead the effort to ensure than any micro-transactions added to EVE would be limited to vanity items.
• CSM encouraged CCP to implement staged release plans, as was used in Incursion and will be used with Incarna.

Serving on the CSM is time-consuming, frustrating, irritating, annoying, often mind-numbing and occasionally painful (damn Icelandair seats) -- but it's also very rewarding for those willing to put in the effort. In the current election cycle, 57 candidates have decided they are up to the task and are competing for the 9 delegate seats on the council.

How you can get involved?

Read summaries of the Candidates' platforms, then head on over to the Jita Park Speaker's Corner and ask them some hard questions of your own. Inform yourself on what the candidates stand for, then cast your votes (one per active account). The polls are now open!

Your vote makes a difference; last year a candidate missed out by only a handful of votes. Give your preferred candidate(s) the best possible chance -- Get to the polls and vote, and encourage your mates to do the same!







More...

As Fanfest 2011 rapidly approaches we want to bring you details of the many events that the Community team will be hosting at the Laugardalshöll Convention Center in Reykjavik. This year we have sold more tickets to Fanfest than ever before and we have planned a list of events to help you relax and have fun with your fellow players in between roundtables and presentations on the future of EVE.

As many of you will already be aware, the Community team work with the players during Fanfest to help support a charity. With the help of your generosity, we raised over 1,000,000 Icelandic Krona, approximately $8,500.00, during last Fanfest which went to support Child's Play. This year we will be supporting Get Well Gamers, a charity formed in 2001, with the goal of bringing video game systems and games to children's hospitals.

Not all of the Community events this year are focused on charity but they are all focused on fun.

Community Message Booth - The hub of all our events.

The message booth at Fanfest 2011 will be a place where you can leave messages for each other to arrange meetings, leave contact details or to sign up for the vast amount of Community held events during the three days of Fanfest. This area, which will be located near the silent auction stand, will be the place to sign up for the poker tournament, battle of the bands or any of the "True or False" and "You say, I guess" quizzes.

You should note that while all of these events are open to everyone, it is important to sign up early as there is limited availability.



Silent Auction - EVE collectables have never looked so good! (Charity event)



The Silent Auction is one of the most popular attractions at Fanfest as it generally holds some items that you simply cannot get anywhere else. Did you ever dream of holding a 100 day GTC once again? Maybe you would like to be the proud owner of a prototype t-shirt that never went into production? How about owning a one of a kind, hand painted Kronos ship model? These and much more will be on offer this year.

This year, the Silent Auction will follow the conventional description by having all bids displayed on sheets of paper up until the official finish time. To get your chance to win some great swag simply visit the Silent Auction stand on the ground floor and bid!



No Limit Texas Hold em Tournament - Spaceships are not the only PvP tournament at Fanfest (Charity event)



Last year we held our first No Limit Hold-em poker tournament which was a massive hit. We had so many people interested in playing that we simply could not accommodate everyone, and this year we aim to make this event even bigger and better. During Thursday, march 24 and Friday, march 25 we will hold qualifying rounds for players to move on to a final table showdown in which players can win some seriously good prizes.

The poker tournament is one of the major areas by which you can contribute to our charity drive for Get Well Gamers, and we reward this particular event with a lot of PLEX, ship models, medals and much more for the winners.

The question is, do you have what it takes to outplay the rest of the poker players at Fanfest and emerge victorious?



Photo Scavenger Hunt - Only those with an eye for brilliance will emerge victorious



Attending Fanfest is an exciting whirlwind of excitement, alcohol, and most importantly EVE Online and you don't want to forget any second of it, and because of this you will most likely have your camera at the ready on the off-chance you'll get a glimpse of CCP devs doing the conga line. So why not take advantage of the opportunity, take that embarrassing photo, and enter it into the Photo Scavenger Hunt for the chance to score yourself some cool stuff?

Working in teams of up to four, you will need to take photographs to depict common EVE sayings. These photographs need to be taken during your vacation at Fanfest 2011 to qualify. You can take pictures from all around Iceland as well as the Fanfest venue. Your five top pictures will be matched up to five EVE sayings from a list you will get when you sign up. These will then be judged by a special handpicked panel of judges. Judging will be based on which teams set of photos best represent the captions with relevance, humor and creativity. The competition is limited to 25 teams. Sign up early so you don't miss out. A full list of rules will also be available at the signup booth as well.



True or False - Your EVE trivia knowledge can earn you prizes

Think you know a lot about EVE trivia? Do you know your ships, items, ammo and EVE lore to correctly identify when the quizmaster is being truthful or telling a great big lie? If so, then this is the ideal quiz for you.

The format is based on the quizmaster asking a question with the players participating deciding if the answer is true or false buy lining up behind the true line or false line accordingly. The winner will be the last man standing.

Signups will be held at the message booth and we will allow two teams of 10 players to participate per day. The sign-ups will be on a first come, first served basis with the event running at 10:30 at 14:30 UTC daily. Prizes will be issued for winners.

Please note that times may change so it is essential that you come to the Community message booth and sign up early.



You say, I guess - Only the fastest minds and best clues will win

This event is another brand new Community event for Fanfest 2011. Teams of two players will participate at a time and each team will be given a set of cards with an EVE ship, item, a piece of EVE lore or meme written on it. Their job is to provide their partner with clues so that they can identify what is written on the card. The winning team during each round is the team who identify all items on the cards in the quickest time.

Speed is the name of the game and there will be two games played per day at 11:15 UTC and 15:15 UTC. Sign-ups will be held at the Community message booth if you want to participate.

Please note that times may change so it is essential that you come to the Community message booth and sign up early.



Incarna - Dress to impress



With the advent of our new character creator, and the upcoming release of Incarna, we will be holding an event during Fanfest which is aimed at rewarding players for dressing up in EVE related attire. The Community team will have spot prizes of EVE Store gift cards which will be issued to those who come to Fanfest, in costume, and who dazzle us with their creativity and likeness to EVE characters.



EVE Fansite recognition - Giving credit to our tireless fansites

Every year we see fansites dedicated to EVE Online get bigger and better with the fansites giving up their free time to report news on Tranquility, report major events and develop emerging communities of players who come to their sites for guides, tools or advice.

The community team will be meeting with these fansites to show our appreciation and to ask how we can help to promote their sites and fill them with additional content.



Popcorn and movies - oh nom nom nom!

During the movie show which will be held on Saturday, March 26, the Community team will be handing out free popcorn to all who want it. This is just one of the ways we like to say ‘Thank you' for being such a cool community!

The Community team is honored to organize as many fun events as possible for players travelling from all over the world to celebrate EVE Online with us at Fanfest 2011. We hope to see as many of you aspossible at the message booth signing up for cool events or simply to hang out and chat with us for a while.

If you have not booked for Fanfest yet you can still do so by visiting ourFanfest page and signing up for the complete hotel and travel packages. We look forward to meeting you all in March!



The Community Team.



More...

As the EVE Software team sat over a steaming bowl of sour rams testicles, the customary food in Iceland this time of year, the topic quickly changed to the observation that all items in EVE are in some sort of Inventory, just like all those steaming testicles were contained in this bowl in front of us.

As the night progressed and we stared into the Aurora Borealisto the gentle rumble of distant volcanic eruptions and soothing earthquakes, we passed along the bottle of Brennivín and as we progressed to the bottom the bottle we came to the conclusion that a dev blog on CARBON Inventory was due.

Last summer we upgraded the Inventory system to use 64 bit item IDs, that task was part of a larger process which is the "corification" of the EVE Inventory System, the end result of which will be the CARBON Inventory System.

The purpose of CARBON has been discussed in other dev blogs, but in short the goal is to separate game specific code and game agnostic code, the benefit of which will be simpler maintenance and better use of development resources.

The corification process of the Inventory System will take place in three steps, called Phase -1, 0 and 1:

Phase -1 - DB Upgrade (deployed 2 Nov 2010, Tyrannis 1.2)

This change was to upgrade to 64 item IDs, detailed in CCP Creber Cattus's "64 bits should be enough for everybody" dev blog.

Phase 0 - Preparation (deployed 8 Mar 2011, Incursion 1.3)

The primary goal of this phase was to prepare the code for further work. This consisted of general code cleanup and removal of dead code.

The secondary goal of this phase was to make some long overdue modifications to inventory operations, and toughen up some of the item transfer mechanisms to counter specific item transfer exploits and griefing.

Another optimization we released as part of this update is "Inventory Setification" which is promising a dramatic performance improvement both in high traffic systems such as Jita, and in inventory heavy operations (such as missile fights). More on that in CCP Veritas's "Missiles hate my hamsters" dev blog, and an upcoming follow-up devblog once the final numbers are in.

Phase 1 - Corification (work starting)

During this phase the actual corification will take place. Common inventory functionality (i.e., game agnostic functionality) will be separated from EVE and used to create the new CARBON Inventory System.

These changes (hopefully) will be transparent to the players, and will be deployed using our brave new world deployment scheme, where engineering updates are deployed separately from content and gameplay additions/modifications.

Here is a graph showing the evolution of the ratio of corified inventory systems to uncorified systems.



Thank you for your time. Now it's time to dig up the rotten shark and prepare dinner.



More...

As the EVE Software team sat over a steaming bowl of sour rams testicles, the customary food in Iceland this time of year, the topic quickly changed to the observation that all items in EVE are in some sort of Inventory, just like all those steaming testicles that were contained in this bowl in front of us.

As the night progressed and we stared into the Aurora Borealisto the gentle rumble of distant volcanic eruptions and soothing earthquakes, we passed along the bottle of Brennivín. As we progressed to the bottom the bottle we came to the conclusion that a dev blog on CARBON Inventory was due.

Last summer we upgraded the Inventory system to use 64 bit item IDs, that task was part of a larger process which is the "corification" of the EVE Inventory System, the end result of which will be the CARBON Inventory System.

The purpose of CARBON has been discussed in other dev blogs, but in short the goal is to separate game specific code and game agnostic code, the benefit of which will be simpler maintenance and better use of development resources.

The corification process of the Inventory System will take place in three steps, called Phase -1, 0 and 1:

Phase -1 - DB Upgrade (deployed 2 Nov 2010, Tyrannis 1.2)

This change was to upgrade to 64-bit item IDs, detailed in CCP Creber Cattus' "64 bits should be enough for everybody" dev blog.

Phase 0 - Preparation (deployed 8 Mar 2011, Incursion 1.3)

The primary goal of this phase was to prepare the code for further work. This consisted of general code cleanup and removal of dead code.

The secondary goal of this phase was to make some long overdue modifications to inventory operations, and toughen up some of the item transfer mechanisms to counter specific item transfer exploits and griefing.

Another optimization we released as part of this update is "Inventory Setification" which is promising a dramatic performance improvement both in high traffic systems such as Jita, and in inventory heavy operations (such as missile fights). More on that in CCP Veritas' "Missiles hate my hamsters" dev blog, and an upcoming follow-up devblog once the final numbers are in.

Phase 1 - Corification (work starting)

During this phase the actual corification will take place. Common inventory functionality (i.e., game agnostic functionality) will be separated from EVE and used to create the new CARBON Inventory System.

These changes (hopefully) will be transparent to the players, and will be deployed using our brave new world deployment scheme, where engineering updates are deployed separately from content and gameplay additions/modifications.

Here is a graph showing the evolution of the ratio of corified inventory systems to uncorified systems.



Thank you for your time. Now it's time to dig up the rotten shark and prepare dinner.



- CCP Orion









More...

I'm happy to announce that the polls for the sixth Council of Stellar Management elections are now open. There has been an unprecedented level of campaigning going on, much of which can be seen in the Jita Park Speakers Corner on the EVE Online forums. We certainly encourage you all to take a look and question the candidates on the issues that matter to you.

You can also see the summary campaign messages from each candidate on the voting page. When you're ready to vote or you want to see these summaries, head on over to the voting page!

In the words of the legendary CCP Oveur:

"I don't think any single external group has had such a strong influence on CCP, EVE and how we work as a company. And they are made stronger by your vote."

The polls will be open for two weeks and will close at 23:59 on the 22nd of March. All paying accounts that are older than 30 days at the time they vote are entitled to place a vote. Don't miss your opportunity to get your vote in, make sure your voice is heard!

- CCP Diagoras









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On March 11, 2011, the Miyagi prefecture was hit by a 9.0 Mw earthquake located off the cost of Japan, and the resulting tsunami devastated large portions of the Japanese coastline. Thousands of casualties have been reported. Power is out, and several nuclear plants are in severe crisis, with radioactive leaks being reported as radiation seeps from protective barriers never designed to withstand earthquakes of such magnitude. Millions are without water, and as each hour passes, illness, hunger, fear and death encroach upon the many innocent people.

Beginning March 14, 2011 and ending March 31, 2011 at 23:59 UTC, CCP will be accepting PLEX donations for PLEX for Good: Japan. Each donation will be converted into cash currency and donated to the Red Cross.

To make your PLEX donation:

• Contract your PLEX to the "CCP PLEX for Good" character, and please make sure the character is in the "C C P" corporation and that the name is spelled correctly to avoid scams.
• Contracts will be accepted within 24 hours of submission, though usually sooner than that.

CCP regards any scamming attempts surrounding this effort to be morally reprehensible and they will be met with swiftest action.

To learn more about how this program works, please check out this FAQ for more information.

PLEX for Good is an on-going charitable program initiated by the players of EVE Online. Past drives have assisted the victims of the Haiti earthquake and excessive flooding in Pakistan. To date, EVE Online players have donated over $63,000 USD (over 3600 PLEX) to those in need via this program, with almost $100,000 USD being donated by EVE Online players to charity since 2004.











More...

On March 11, 2011, the Miyagi prefecture was hit by a 9.0 MW earthquake located off the cost of Japan, and the resulting tsunami devastated large portions of the Japanese coastline. Thousands of casualties have been reported. Power is out, and several nuclear plants are in severe crisis, with radioactive leaks being reported as radiation seeps from protective barriers never designed to withstand earthquakes of such magnitude. Millions are without water, and as each hour passes, illness, hunger, fear and death encroach upon the many innocent people.

Beginning March 14, 2011 and ending March 31, 2011 at 23:59 UTC, CCP will be accepting PLEX donations for PLEX for Good: Japan. Each donation will be converted into cash currency and donated to the Red Cross.

To make your PLEX donation:

• Contract your PLEX to the "CCP PLEX for Good" character, and please make sure the character is in the "C C P" corporation and that the name is spelled correctly to avoid scams.
• Contracts will be accepted within 24 hours of submission, though usually sooner than that.

CCP regards any scamming attempts surrounding this effort to be morally reprehensible and they will be met with swiftest action.

To learn more about how this program works, please check out this FAQ for more information.

PLEX for Good is an on-going charitable program initiated by the players of EVE Online. Past drives have assisted the victims of the Haiti earthquake and excessive flooding in Pakistan. To date, EVE Online players have donated over $63,000 USD (over 3600 PLEX) to those in need via this program, with almost $100,000 USD being donated by EVE Online players to charity since 2004.











More...