I have begun to follow EVE Online much closer now that I have delved into it personally. In pure internet synchronicity, the news temperature surrounding the game has spiked in recent weeks.

First, September 3 housed their highest peak user count record to date. While 35,000 doesn’t seem like a lot of users in the post-WoW newsworld, when put in context the achievement is actually substantial. World of Warcraft has millions of players split into sharded servers of smaller population. The average US WoW Server has about 20,000 accounts (not all online at once - probably only a few thousand online at once during peak). Under this light 35,000 sharing one world and economy is an impressive endeavour (and no record breaking is possible without a little database record scratch sound effect).

In other news, the first report from CCP’s own in-house economist was posted. It contains the kind of qualitative analysis that makes my mouth water and makes drool come out of my eyes (er.. I think the other way around). Look for more awesome totally SFW graphs and charts soon.

Lastly, Shacknews released the second part of their ongoing series on EVE - primarily covering the GoonSwarm alliance and the drone bay worth of political intrigue swarming their frothy hull. This story covers the rocky formation of the alliance and some amazing PVP tactics.

It’s a good time to be a pilot. If you want to hop in for 14 days via the buddy program, just let me know, I can hook you up and show you around (read: I’m actually really a n00b but I think I’m hot shit).