CCP Games today announced that EVE Online has grown to include over 500,000 subscribers, marking ten years of consecutive growth for the spacefaring sandbox MMO. The news comes after recently launching Retribution, the game’s 18th free expansion, and re-launching in China with partner TianCity.

After working on the game for some 13 years, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson is justly proud of the achievement. “For me, this is a true testament that EVE can live on forever, as long as we do right by her. We have not come to this point alone; millions of players have helped push us to this milestone. I now know in my mind what I previously only believed in my heart: that EVE will outlive us all.”

That didn't take long. EVE Online is on its tenth anniversary this year, and as usual, the Fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland (home of CCP Games) is hosting the Fanfest 2013, celebrating all that is EVE Online. The theme is "EVE: The Second Decade," and they'll be celebrating the successful beta of DUST 514 as well as the launch of Retribution, the most recent expansion.

But, more notably, they have completely sold out as of last week, all 1,400 tickets went to EVE players all around the world. In coming weeks, CCP will detail the plans for live streaming of the event. 

Julian "Mirai" Williams

To say there's usually plenty to make the eyes bulge at EVE Fanfest each year is an understatement on par with "air is moderately useful."

As Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO of CCP puts it:

“Fanfest is the truest celebration of the EVE universe, where online foes become instant friends and shared war stories over drinks bring our wonderful community even closer together. This year, as DUST 514’s journey truly begins and we celebrate ten glorious years of EVE Online with our fans, CCP will be going bigger and bolder than ever before by creating a truly amazing Fanfest for those attending or following along.”

EVE Online's get togethers are not your typical fan events. Sure, there's the usual array of cool cosplay, discussions between fans and developers, presentations on the past, present and future of the game that you would expect.

But whether it is the unique atmoosphere of EVE itself, the passion of its unwavering community, or the frenzied pursuit of crazy in Reykjavik, EVE Fanfests are simply unforgettable. This year promises to be no exception, with the serenely beautiful and haunting score of EVE being performed by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, plenty of activities to keep you occupied and all the Quafe you can drink.

In an almost perfect demonstration of chaos theory, a small mistake by an EVE Online player gave birth to one of the biggest conflicts seen so far. Over three thousand players engaged in a frenzy of ship-to-ship combat, lighting up the darkness of space with the red glare of weapons fire.

In what some are now calling ‘The Battle of Asakai’, a small skirmish between two corporations began to escalate as allies from both sides started to join the fight. Events took a dramatic turn, however, when a Titan-class capital ship in the Clusterfuck Coalition (CFC) jumped to the battle instead of opening a bridge for their fleet.

Spotting an isolated Titan on the battlefield, the Honey Badger Coalition (HBC) rapidly dispatched further reinforcements, with the Pandemic Legion super capital ship fleet being among the first on the scene. CFC meanwhile responded with their own fleets and support ships, resulting in the massive conflict seen today.

According to Reddit user LG03, the conflict between the Goonswarm-dominated CFC and the Reddit-bolstered HBC had been brewing for some time. The user also estimated that some 650 billion Interstellar Kredits (ISK) of damage had been dealt to the CFC, while the HBC was nursing a smaller bill of 67 billion ISK. In layman’s terms, that’s approximately $20,000 versus $2000 of newly created space junk.

Goonswarm Federation CEO The Mittani also chimed in, stating that 3161 players took part, spanning 262 alliances and 715 corporations, making this one of the largest conflicts ever to take place in New Eden. PCGamesN also reports that the colossal scale of the battle also crashed the Dust 514 node in the region.

As salvage crews pick over the wreckage, many are wondering where the conflict will go from here. Will CFC and HBC negotiate peace, or are further battles likely to break out? With player-led action being what EVE Online is known for, anything is possible.

Source: Admiral_Dovolski (reddit, images), LG03 (reddit), The Mittani.

Via:  PCGamesN

Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer, Senior Contributing Editor

Let's take this outside...

When Retribution 1.1 hits EVE Online February 12, among the host of changes will be a very intriguing addition: dueling.

Instead of "stealing with consent" to flag and engage an opponent for the type of duels hitherto performed in game, capsuleers will be able to test their load out and skill one-on-one without fear of interference form the local authorities -- though that doesn't stop the local ratters jumping in, of course.

EVE Online gets a two-hit of blog posts today. 

The first is from CCP Unifex, who has been describing a lot of things planned for EVE in 2013, and the kind of schedule you can look forward to. Namely, splitting up the updates and changes throughout the year, and trying to work around 'themed releases.' Staggering content is always a positive thing. But, more notably, they split up the responsibilities into multiple positions, which leads us to the second post.

CCP Seagull has started his new position of Senior Producer, which means that he came in today with a new post adding onto Unifex's. He explained who he is, what his plan is, and what's coming up in the next month with Retribution's tweaks, including war declarations and ship balances.

2013 looks to be a bright year for everyone's spacefaring MMO.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Capsuleers are about to get some new resources to utilize and people to manipulate as just minutes ago, CCP Nullabor was confirmed that DUST 514 will be entering EVE Online's Tranquility server in just a couple of days.

"On Thursday the 10th of January, following a slightly longer than usual scheduled downtime, we will be migrating over players currently participating in the DUST 514 closed beta from Singularity to Tranquility. This is a particularly special day here at CCP as this brings to life an ambitious and incredibly exciting vision of a single cross platform universe, the likes of which have never been undertaken before."

Not only will DUST players be battling in the same universe, the vaunted cross game interaction will begin as EVE corps will be able to consider prospective ground troops as new members. Contracts will be drawn up, battles will commence and the kind of skullduggery that we adore about EVE will spread to new frontiers.

Will you be joining in the clinically executed mayhem?

Scott "Jarimor" Hawkes, Editor in Chief

EVE Online is certainly unusual among MMOs. In the staggering ten years it’s been running, the spacefaring sandbox has consistently grown in popularity. Yet Icelandic developer CCP shows no signs of slowing down, releasing Retribution – the game’s 18th expansion, planning a 10th anniversary FanFest and launching shooter Dust 514 on PlayStation 3 later this year.

For executive producer Jon Lander, part of that long-lasting success comes down to the basic concept of the game he leads. “I really struggle calling EVE a game. Certainly I, and a lot of the original developers, and the developers we have now, we all think of this as a massively multiplayer virtual world.” He continued “When you approach it from that angle, you realize that the important things in the real world aren’t necessarily games. The things which make a world meaningful are generally social interactions, and the evolution of history which can then affect the actions of the present.”

As we spoke just after Christmas, Lander went on to explain why his team don’t want to be the focal point for EVE’s stories. “If you play a game, and you play the imagination of somebody else, you’re playing through a single player game. I used to play a lot of the Splinter Cell games, and then I was playing a story which had actually come out of a developer’s head. I wasn’t playing my story – I sort of had to imprint myself on that.”

If you needed that one last reason to convince yourself to take a trip to Iceland, here it is.