MMO Portal has put together its 2009 MMO Calendar featuring autographed artwork from numerous games. The list includes Age of Conan, DC Universe Online, Dofus, EVE Online, EverQuest II, Free Realms, Guild Wars, Pirates of the Burning Sea, RuneScape, The Agency, Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft.

All of the proceeds go directly to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which treats children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases.

Also, everyone who purchases a calendar will be entered to win one of 10 prizes for each game, including boxed copies, premium accounts, 30- and 60-day passes, closed beta accounts and more. More information can be found here.

It's time gear up for EVE Fanfest, and the EVE TV folks have some great plans in store for those of us who can't attend! CCP Charlie, the newest marketing guy for CCP updated everyone on their plans!

While EVE TV may be changing a bit in the future, its ideals are still based on "something made by EVE players, for EVE players." I can safely speak for myself and others who have moved from EVE TV to CCP that we'll continue to put all our efforts, and our free time, into bringing you more events in the future.

Fanfest 2008

So next up on the EVE TV schedule is Fanfest 2008, held every year on top of the world in Reykjavik. The Fanfest is always a massive hit with those that can attend, meeting the developers of EVE, other players, their corp mates and getting the first viewing of what will be coming to EVE over the next year.

Despite CCP's economic woes, the developers' blog is still filled with a lot of updates regarding EVE Online.

Speaking of the economics, the newest blog entry outlines in detail some new alchemy mechanics that are being implemented to help ease the high demand on a limited supply of materials and minerals (dysprosium and promethium, for example).

We've created six new reactions which allow you to create key intermediate materials without relying on the rarest moon minerals. This isn't, of course, an efficient process! Each rare mineral has been assigned a more common counterpart, which can be used in the place of the rare mineral in these new reactions at a ratio of 20:1, which roughly approximates the difference in moon count between the rare mineral and the common mineral in each case.

Keep reading after the jump for more information on other recent blog entries, including a buddy invite contest for a new, signed computer.

As some of you may have heard, the world is in a little bit of a finicial crisis right now. One of the countries taking the brunt of it is Iceland, which also happens to be the home of Eve Online developer, CCP. Iceland, which effectively went bankrupt this month, has a very unclear future; many have been wondering how all of this is going to effect CCP and Eve Online. Warcry had a chance to speak with CEO Hilmar Pétursson to find out what is what.

While he certainly recognized the gravity of the situation, his views were, as a whole, optimistic: "The service we have to offer is very economically resilient," said Pétursson. "Paying $15 and playing as much as you want within a given month is a very strong value, especially compared to the price of a movie ticket." He believes that MMOs will be inversely affected by the economic crisis - people will be more likely to spend time online and in-game than watching TV or going out to the movies - and their own internal data has supported that, with people playing more frequently than they used to. "As long as we keep up our end of the bargain," he continued, "they'll be able to continue that."

Head on over to Warcry.com to read the entire article.

The developers of EVE Online are hard at work keeping us updated on the status of just about everything in the game. There's a bunch of new blogs, including a live one you can participate in tonight.

A live dev blog will be held tonight at 8 p.m. GMT in the "Live Dev Blog" in-game channel. The purpose was initially to introduce CCP t0rfifrans, who can no longer make it. Instead, CCP Zulupark, associate producer and content director, will take his place to answer all your questions. More information can be found here.

There were also detailed blogs posted today on the Orca, weapon grouping and Alliance Logo submissions. The full post regarding the Orca ship, which will soon arrive on the public test server, can also be found below, along with a screenshot.

CCP has announced the launch of EVE Online: Quantum Rise, the ninth expansion for the MMORPG. The free expansion, which will be available for download sometime in winter, will contain various updates.

Corporations will be able to set their products apart through customizable storefronts; the massive capitalist industrial ship Orca has been added to the fleet, and all industrial ships have been rebalanced and optimized; and certificates and medals will allow pilots to be honored for their hard work.

Further features include weapon linking, continuations of the massive Trinity graphics update, and changes to autopilot routes and avoidance techniques. Keep reading after the jump for more information and the full press release.

A live dev blog regarding medals and certificates will be held Thursday, Oct. 16 at 8 p.m. GMT in the in-game channel "Live Dev Blog."

It is time for another Live Dev Blog and this time it's Chronotis and Greyscale who will answer all your questions about Medals and Certificates. As usual Mindstar will be there to ask them your questions.

The full announcement can be found here.

Tomorrow's patch will disable "Ghost Training," which is the continuous skill gain on accounts in an inactive or expired state. Ghost Training will no longer function after Wednesday, Oct. 15.

For more information on the topic, check out this dev blog. It explains why CCP is doing away with Ghost Training.

There's no surprise that people have done this for the simple fact that it wasn't banned per se and also for the fact that it was possible. But recently we have seen a surge in this behavior in a way that we were essentially supporting and maintaining a large number of customers that weren't paying us regular subscriptions. That's not fair towards CCP as a service provider and it's not fair towards other players that pay a subscription but don't make use of this bug.

EVE Online will receive a new patch entitled Empyrean Age 1.1.1 on Tuesday, Sept. 30. The critical changes will include a new autopilot feature that will allow you to avoid set systems and regions, a system cap on the number of players allowed in a given solar system, and an auto-move feature during login to move to a neighboring system if your current one is full.

The full patch notes can be found here or below the jump.

Also, CCP Games warned users today that an advertisement for a skill training macro sent by Gold Harvest Macro Solutions contains a Trojan. Do not downloaded this software, and scan your system if you did.

I've never met Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, but I can easily surmise that they're great guys. Not only do they create hilarious webcomics every week, but they also founded Child's Play , a charity that organizes toy drives to children's hospitals throughout the world.

CCP Games , the developers of EVE Online , is supporting this great cause by offering one player and their guest the opportunity to win a tour of CCP Headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland. Bidding for the silent auction starts at $1,000 and ends on Oct. 22.