The Safe Spot — Episode 11: Summer Rules

 No guest this week — just Rixx and me catching up, comparing notes, and accidentally wandering into one of those bigger EVE conversations: what actually makes the game work after all these years. A little summer lull, a little corp movement, a little real-life desk tinkering, and then straight into the rules beneath the rules.

Brawl or kite: how a veteran pirate rebuilt my Hookbill for Faction Warfare

 

It's late. I've been dabbling with my Caldari Navy Hookbill fitting for the past hour. Trying to figure out what's the best setup for my first foray into Faction Warfare (or Factional Warfare?). I think I've got a good fit, but I'm not convinced.

Then comes the next question: what next?

I've joined the Caldari faction, read through all the WARNINGS, but I have not a clue where to go next. The Militia tab popped up, but the conversation doesn't seem too friendly (aren't we supposed to be in the same camp?), and I resist the urge to ask. I'd rather test the waters by myself first, though that might be a bad idea, since I'm now a flashing little blip on someone's overview.

Then I remember Rixx telling me about using Plexes to get into PvP.

So I message him. "I'm in a Hookbill, looking to find Plexes. How does one do that? Please don't laugh..."

The complete guide to planetary industry in EVE Online

Last evening, my new corp's CEO (more on that later) ran a ninety-minute tutorial on Planetary Industry in lowsec. Genuinely interesting stuff, and exhilarating when you're being chased around a system — enough that it sent me down a rabbit hole earlier today.

I went looking for more, found a handful of YouTube guides, and figured the useful thing to do with that research was put together one guide that actually covers it end to end: what PI is, the two philosophies for running it, what to train and in what order, and how to build both an extraction setup and a full factory chain.

Get ready to dive down another long guide. You should come out the other end with a solid foundation on Planetary Industry — or Planetary Interaction, if you're working off the same ancient New Eden memory as I am.

The Safe Spot — Episode 10: "Black Rise Regional News"

Ten episodes! 10!!

I honestly can't believe we've hit double digits. Most podcast series — EVE or otherwise — never make it past the first handful before fading out, so the fact that Rixx and I are still here, still recording, and still having an absolute blast feels like a milestone worth celebrating. 

And we're not slowing down. No siree, Bob! 

We've got so much more in store.

So, in this episode we welcome Black Rise Regional News — let's call him "Burn" short for BRRN — to The Safe Spot. Burn is a Caldari faction warfare pilot, UCN director, and the creator behind one of EVE's most unique written content projects: a regional newspaper covering the wars, politics, and shenanigans of Black Rise and surrounding space. 

Rixx and I dig into how Burn went from flu-ridden backlog gamer to militia diplomat and propagandist-in-chief, and I listen in while the two of them swap faction warfare war stories along the way. 

I mostly listened and took notes on this one — these two had a lot to talk about!

Speedlinking New Eden — June 7th, 2026

The week New Eden held its breath.

That's the only way I can describe it. Seven days, almost no major announcements, no lore bombs, no surprise developer streams — and yet the whole EVE ecosystem felt coiled, tense, pointed at one fixed date: Tuesday, June 9th, 11:00 UTC. 

The Cradle of War expansion drops in less than 48 hours and the pre-launch machinery ran full-tilt this past week: expansion notes published early, a developer roundtable posted to YouTube, and the Mastery Pack sale running down to its last hours.

Oh, and NoizyGamer quietly dropped some of the most interesting player-retention data of the year. We'll get to that in a minute.

Let's jump right in.

The Safe Spot — Episode 9: "Featuring Oz"

Hey everyone, we're back after what felt like forever. I got pulled into the Habs' Stanley Cup run (no shame, that was a hell of a series for our Montreal Canadiens), and we finally sat down for episode 9 with our very first official guest: Oz. 

Both Rixx and I were genuinely stoked about opening the format up to guests, and even more so that Oz agreed to be the first one through the door. I came in with way too many questions lined up like a checklist, and Rixx, true to form, just rolled with the conversation in full Buccaneer bravado. 

Very different styles, yet somehow it worked. 

Coriolis: The Great Dark session zero - The exploration begins

Last Thursday evening, while the Habs plowed through the Carolina Hurricanes, my roleplaying buddies and I were rolling up our characters for a first run within Coriolis: The Great Dark.

I picked a Roughneck, with Machine Tender as her specialty and Mechanics as her innate talent.

Your archetype already tells you what kind of story you came to play. A Roughneck says: "I want to be the one with grease under my nails when the lights flicker, the one who notices the hum in the bulkhead before anyone else does."

Not the diplomat or scholar. Not the mystic or poet. The hands.

What is Coriolis: The Great Dark?

Coriolis: The Great Dark is Free League Publishing's sci-fi roleplaying game, built on the Year Zero Engine. It picks up the Third Horizon setting and pushes deeper — into uncharted space, dead civilizations, and the strange things still waiting in the dark between stars.

Players take the role of Explorers: salvagers, scholars, mystics, and roughnecks crewing fragile ships on the edge of known space. The play loop leans toward investigation, exploration, and atmosphere — closer to Alien, Dune, and The Expanse than to a tactical shooter.

Combat is fast and lethal. Faith and technology share the same table. And the universe, more often than not, is watching you back.

The Safe Spot — Episode 8: "Our EVE Fanfest 2026 reaction"

This one's our reaction episode to EVE Fanfest 2026, which wrapped up the day before we recorded. Rixx and I sat down Sunday evening to talk through everything — the Polaris Award he picked up while not even being in Iceland, the Cradle of War reveal, the Google DeepMind sit-down, where Vanguard and Frontier are headed, and a pile of asides along the way. 

It's a long one, but a good one. 

Pour something cold (or hot, in Rixx's case) and dig in.😂

Speedlinking New Eden & more - The May 17th, 2026 edition

Back in the heydays of this EVE blog, I used to do this thing called the "Speedlinking New Eden", which was a weekly wrap-up of EVE Online news, and then some. So with the excitement around the Fenris Creations rebrand, the Google DeepMind announcement and EVE Fanfest 2026 wrapping up, I thought I'd rekindle this initiative. 

Fanfest week. Three days of keynotes, reveals, and blood donations (yes, literally). Fenris Creations came out swinging with a three-expansion arc, a new extraction shooter playtest, a survival sandbox reset, and enough coverage to keep you scrolling for a week. 

Let's go.

What DeepMind's partnership could actually mean for EVE's future

Earlier this week I wrote about the Google DeepMind and Fenris Creations partnership and came away cautiously excited. So I took Friday off from work to make sure I could watch the LIVE broadcast from the Harpa Concert Hall. Then earlier today, Hilmar and DeepMind's Adrian Bolton took the Fanfest stage for 'The Infinite Game' session, and I walked away with considerably less. 

The above video was added on Fenris Creations channel on May 25th, 2026. I thought I'd add it here for full context.

Like a lot of those who listened in, I came away fairly empty-handed from that conversation. Not disappointed, but very much hungry for more. As in a lot more. Yes, yes, there was lots of framing, lots of "excitement" about the partnership's potential, about AI lifting the popularity of games like Chess and Go, but very little about what it actually means for the game we play. 

So I thought I could give it a try myself and dive into how I'm hoping DeepMind's research could realistically be applied and leveraged in EVE. Basically trying to add the substance that was missing from their talk. Trying to imagine what that near future could be.

I'm probably going to be way off mark, then again maybe not. We'll see.

But I thought I could give it a try. 

Here goes nothing...

What's ahead in this post:

• NPCs that actually adapt to how you fly — not harder stats, different behaviour
• An AI-powered NPE in Exordium that keeps rookies alive past the two-hour quit window and hands them off to real player run corporations
• Dynamic universe events that respond to what players are doing, not what a designer scripted
• Behind-the-scenes economic modeling that could make balance patches less painful
• The stuff I think people are overhyping — and why TiDi probably isn't going anywhere

It's a long read, but if you care about where New Eden is headed, you'll want to stick around.
So grab a coffee, tea or a cold one, and let's dive in.

From CCP to Fenris Creations: EVE Online enters the Age of AI

 

What a time to be an EVE player!

When the news dropped Wednesday last week, I wanted to sit down and start writing immediately. CCP Games rebranding as Fenris Creations. Entering a research partnership with Google DeepMind. Damn!! But the hot take is rarely the right take. So I shut up, read everything I could find, and gave myself a few days to let it settle.

It's been nearly a week since the news dropped, and this is where I'm at three days before Fanfest starts: I'm excited. And I'm eager to learn more when DeepMind founder Adrian Bolton takes the stage alongside Hilmar at Fanfest later this week, even though I won't be there in person.

I've also been following EVE's development since the late nineties, which means I know how to be excited and skeptical at the same time. I've had practice.

So buckle up folks, cause Kansas is going bye-bye, as this is going to be a "DeepDive" into the biggest EVE news in years. Pun very much intended!

The Safe Spot — Episode 7: "Pearl Abyss & Fanfest"

Big news this episode — Pearl Abyss is selling CCP Games back to its own leadership team, and Rixx and I break down what that means for EVE Online, Frontier, and Vanguard. 

We also look ahead to Fanfest 2026 (which neither of us is attending this year, don't judge), swap some FanFest war stories from years past, geek out over the EVE Faction Warfare Yearbook, touch on the brand-new Capsuleer Days event, and Rixx shares a couple of PvP encounters that remind us all why you check local and never fly what you can't afford to lose.

The Safe Spot — Episode 6: "Exordium | Training wheels don't teach you how to crash"

In episode 6, Rixx and I dig into the biggest EVE Online announcement in a while — CCP's Exordium, a 53-system PvP-free region for new players. We've got strong opinions, open questions, a healthy dose of skepticism, and a quick recap of the latest Frigate Free-For-All. I was also fresh off a trip to France and still a bit jetlagged, so bear with me.

New Eden Banter #2: You're the Executive Producer of EVE Online

Welcome to the second installment of the New Eden Banter (NEB), the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux (that's me!). The NEB involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a couple of weeks to post articles pertaining to the said topic.

The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the New Eden Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com.

Check for other New Eden Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic: CCP just handed you the keys to EVE Online. You're the new Executive Producer — full authority over development, technology, marketing, monetization, and community. The only mandate: make EVE thrive. What's your vision? What do you prioritize, what do you cut, and what sacred cow do you slaughter first?

You are the Executive Producer — but first, understand what you're running

The Safe Spot — Episode 5: "Bad Patch"

In this episode, recorded back on March 24th, Rixx and I dive into what happens when CCP pulls the rug out from under your favorite ship mid-stride. Rixx has been on a PvP tear, stacking up fights and cracking the mystery of his disappearing video recordings, while I'm still reeling from the Catalyst major update that basically nerfed my entire gameplay loop. 

We get into patch notes philosophy, Pochven lore, blockade runners, abyssal arenas, and why the best advice in EVE often comes from the guy who just blew you up.

What returning EVE Online players need to know before undocking

This guide is based on a video by AloneInFinland, an EVE Online player and fantastic content creator who covers gameplay, fitting advice, and the state of the game from a veteran's perspective. Full credit to him for the insights, warnings, and hard-won lessons that follow. 

You can watch the original video on which this guide was built below. 👇

Overview

As I've mentioned before in recent posts, if you're coming back to EVE Online after a long break — whether that's five years or fifteen — there are a handful of changes that can ruin your day before you even realize what happened. In AloneInFinland's opinion, the biggest and most dangerous of these is the introduction of lawless systems in what used to be safe high-sec space. This guide walks you through what changed, how to protect yourself, and what else you should double-check before you undock that expensive ship.

Backrooms: This is the horror that gets under my skin

I first came across the concept of Backrooms back in 2022. Unless mistaken, I think that's where I first read about it anyways. It was a PC Gamer article "Noclipping is no joke: the strange world of The Backrooms explained" article which introduced me to "The Backrooms" — a concept that had started as a single creepy image posted anonymously on 4chan back in 2019. Just a photo of a yellowed, fluorescent-lit room that felt deeply, inexplicably wrong. No people. No context. Just endless, empty office space that seemed to go on forever. 

The description that came with it didn't help remove the confusion: "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in The Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms."

WTF? 😦

The article went on to explain the origins of The Backrooms and mentioned Kane Parsons (known online as Kane Pixels), a 16 year old Youtuber that had taken that single creepy image and turned it into something extraordinary. Using Blender and After Effects — tools he'd taught himself —  uploaded The Backrooms (Found Footage) to YouTube on January 7, 2022. Minutes and minutes of found-footage horror set inside those endless yellow corridors. No budget. No film school. Just a teenager with a laptop and a gift for dread.

I went down the rabbit hole that evening. Watched the videos. Then went to Wikipedia to make sense of it all.

Then completely forgot all about it.

The Ten Commandments of the returning EVE capsuleer (now that the kids have grown up)

Back in 2010, I wrote a post called The Top Ten Commandments of the Capsuleer Parent. It was about survival — squeezing EVE Online into the margins of parenthood. Nighttime ops after bedtime. Changing diapers between gate jumps. Negotiating screen time with your spouse like it was a sov treaty.

That post came from the trenches. I was tired all the time, I was stubborn with my gameplay and blogging, and I was absolutely not giving up my game time.

Fast forward to 2026. The kids are grown. The house is quieter. The evenings are mine again. I should be living the dream, right?

Well. Sort of...

Here's what nobody tells you about coming back to EVE after a long absence: the game kept going without you (of course it did!). And so did you. You're no longer the same player. The game's not the same game — it is in a way, but it's also so different. And that freedom you spent fifteen+ years fantasizing about? It feels different than you thought it would.

So in the spirit of the original, here are the updated Commandments. 

Not for the parent surviving the chaos — but for the returning capsuleer looking at his docked ship and wondering where the hell everything went.

New Eden Banter #2 — Topic announcement: You are the Executive Producer

Every player has opinions about how EVE Online should be run. Most of us mutter them into comms after a bad patch, or rant about them on Discord, Reddit, or even a blog post for the old timer like me!

In this second New Eden Banter, you get to put those opinions on the record.

This month's topic

CCP just handed you the keys to EVE Online. You're the new Executive Producer — full authority over development, technology, marketing, monetization, and community. The only mandate: make EVE thrive. What's your vision? What do you prioritize, what do you cut, and what sacred cow do you slaughter first?

What do you do?

Weekend refit: My Merlin gets teeth and my skill queue a trim

These past few weeks, I've had the focus of a fruit fly on speed. Everything seemed like a shiny new toy. So this weekend, I sat down and took an honest look at what I actually wanted to do over the coming weeks, and also longer term.

On one side, there was PvP. I've been wanting to dabble for a while now, and I had a small collection of Merlins sitting in hangars without a proper fit between them. I knew the ship could brawl. I just hadn't put in the work to make it happen.

Then there was the Hecate I'd recently purchased. I'd started training for it with this idea of testing it as a fast-align, small-cargo hauler — something to replace the Sunesis now that the Catalyst update clipped its wings. A T3 tactical destroyer doing courier work. Admittedly a strange choice, but if the numbers worked, it could make for an interesting story.

And finally, blockade runners. Rixx brought them up during our last recording of The Safe Spot (YouTube | Spotify). He'd mentioned the Amarr Prorator as a solid ship for the job. So I started poking around the intertubes, and that's when I came across the Caldari Crane. Love at first sight. Covert cloak, decent cargo, warps cloaked — everything the Sunesis wishes it could do.

So there I was: a skill queue that looked like a capsuleer suffering from an identity crisis, ships scattered across half a dozen stations, and Merlins without a proper PvP fit. Something had to give. 

I needed to put things in order before this mess became my undoing.

When CCP snubs its most dedicated creator, it's not just his loss — it's ours

First things first: congratulations to every creator who made the EVE Creator Awards shortlist. This is CCP's first crack at a formal recognition program, and the names on that list represent real work, real passion, and real contributions to New Eden. 

Well deserved, all of you!

This post isn't about any of them. It's about a name that's missing.

Earlier today, CCP Games published the finalists for the EVE Creator Awards — eight categories covering streamers, video creators, podcasters, writers, app developers, and more. It's a genuine effort to celebrate what makes this community unique. But when I scrolled through all forty finalists, one absence hit me immediately.

Rixx Javix is nowhere on this list.

The Safe Spot — Episode 4: "FF4A & Beyond"

In this episode, Rixx and I catch up, announce some exciting podcast distribution news, then dive deep into Stay Frosty's legendary Frigate Free For All (FF4A) event. 

I also share the story of my first real hauling adventure in low sec — complete with the sweaty palms and the adrenaline rush — and Rixx drops some hard-earned wisdom on surviving gate camps, dealing with AFK mistakes, and not panicking when things go sideways. 

We wrap up by talking about Rixx's new weekly show, Pirate's Corner, and the importance of opening up and sharing stories with the community.

Let's dive in!

Clipped wings, new teeth: Refitting the Sunesis after the Catalyst nerf

Three days. That's how long my "Learning to Fly" post lasted before CCP clipped my wings.

I'd just finished writing about the Sunesis — my fast-align small hauler, Athena's Wings — and how she could haul almost 1,200 m³ of cargo while warping in 1.75 seconds. Sub-two. Practically uncatchable. The whole point of the ship.

Then the Catalyst major update dropped on March 18th, and CCP decided the Sunesis had been having too much fun.

Star Wars would be better off without the Force

==> [Join the conversation on Bluesky once you've read the full post!] <==

Star Wars doesn't need the Force

Let me put it another way... Star Wars doesn't need the Force to hook us in, to make that universe captivating.

The Force has become a deus ex machina for a lot of the Star Wars content these days.

Hear me out...

The best Star Wars project ever made — and I mean ever — had no Jedi. No lightsabers. No Force pushes, mind tricks, or mystical prophecies. No chosen ones. No ancient Sith knowledge. No midichlorians. No glowing blue ghosts dispensing wisdom from beyond the grave.

Andor's second season hit a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest-rated live-action Star Wars anything — beating both its own first season and The Empire Strikes Back. It became the first TV series in history to land five consecutive episodes with IMDb scores of 9.5 or above. It won five Emmys from fourteen nominations, including Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Its finale topped Nielsen's streaming charts with 931 million minutes watched in a single week, beating everything else on every platform.

No Force required.

So maybe it's time to ask the question that Lucasfilm clearly doesn't want to hear: does Star Wars actually need the Force at all?

Dune Part Three: Darker, bigger, and exactly what was needed

The trailer for Dune: Part Three — the final chapter in Denis Villeneuve's trilogy — dropped yesterday.  I've been watching it over and over, trying to pick up every hint and detail buried in those two and a half minutes. If this trailer and the first two films are any indication, we're in for a hell of a ride. What an epic finale this will surely be!

Despite what some will say, I'm not usually one to go full fanboy, but I'll make an exception here. 

Villeneuve's adaptation of the Dune universe has been close to perfection — though honestly, after Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, I shouldn't be surprised. The man knows how to make magnificent cinema. But even Villeneuve would be the first to admit that none of this works without Frank Herbert's brilliance on the page. This pulls me right back to cracking open that first Dune paperback in college (what we call CÉGEP here in Québec) and realizing I'd found something different — a universe so layered with political intrigue and backstory that it felt less like science fiction and more like something that actually happened, or would in humankind's far future. 

That's a long way from the almost comical early adaptations we endured on both the big screen and television.

And now we're getting Messiah.

Learning to fly: Finding my wings in EVE Online

Just like that Tom Petty song, I've been learning to fly over the past few weeks. Not in the poetic, soul-searching kind of way — more in the 'please don't let me die on this gate' kind of way.

A few weeks back, a new acquaintance within New Eden (thanks for the intro, Rixx!) asked me to help gather a ton of stuff scattered across a few dozen systems — some in high-sec, some in low-sec. We're talking stations I’d never visited, assets worth Billions of ISKs, collecting dust like forgotten relics of a past life in space. The kind of stuff you want to move quickly while unnoticed. 

To pull this off, I needed a ship that could do three things well: carry a decent amount of cargo, move fast, and — most importantly — get out of dodge before anyone could lock me down. Not just fast. Sub-two-seconds-to-warp fast.

Enter the Sunesis.

Disclosure Day: Spielberg goes back to what he does best

The legacy

What happens when the world finds out we’re not alone? That’s the premise behind Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg’s new sci-fi film, hitting theatres June 12th in IMAX.

Spielberg built a good chunk of my childhood imagination when it comes to making first contact. Close Encounters (1977). E.T. (1982). Even War of the Worlds (2005), which doesn't get enough credit for how effectively terrifying it is. The man knows how to make these moments feel real — the awe, the dread, the quiet terror of realizing the universe is bigger than you thought.

Disclosure Day looks like it's tapping into all of that again.

The Safe Spot — Episode 3: "More Questions"

Episode 3 of The Safe Spot is here! This one was all about me bringing my "dumb newbro questions" to Rixx and getting real, practical answers from a veteran pirate who's been living the lowsec life for almost two decades now. 

I spent the weekend of February 14-15th not actually playing EVE but doing the metagame — researching skills, reorganizing assets, and realizing my stuff is scattered across New Eden like a space hoarder. 

So naturally, I came to the show with a list of things I needed to figure out, from picking a home system to knowing when I'm actually ready for PvP.

Here's what we got into.

Four screenshots. That's all it took for me to buy Planet of Lana II

I usually don't play puzzle-platformers. I think Child of Light was the last one I played. My Steam library is a graveyard of city builders, strategy games, and the occasional RPG that have swallowed months of my life. If you told me yesterday that I'd drop money on a side-scrolling adventure about a girl and her cat-like companion, I'd have laughed.

Then I saw this post from The Indie Boss Bluesky this morning.

Four screenshots. Hand-painted environments. A dense forests, alien ruins, light cutting through fog in a way that made me stop scrolling. I didn't know what game it was. I didn't care. I just needed to see more.

Turns out it was Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf, the sequel to Wishfully Studios' 2023 puzzle-adventure. I'd never heard of it. It's sequel, Planet of Lana II, launched yesterday, March 5th. I had zero knowledge of this game's existence before this morning. None whatsoever. No trailers watched, no previews read, no wishlisting on Steam.

I looked it up on Steam. 10% off for launch. I bought it before I even watched the trailer.

Sometimes your gut just knows. You see something and the decision is already made before your brain catches up. No research, no review hunting, no hemming and hawing over whether it's worth the price. 

Four screenshots of a world that looked like it was painted by someone who actually cares about beauty, and that was enough.

A lament for the Galaxy that could have been - A Star Wars poem

The following is a poem inspired by the raw, harsh, and brutal world of Andor and Rogue One (watch the videos above and below if you need reminding). A series and a film that gave us the true visage of what Star Wars could have been — should have been. The more I rewatch these two cinematographic masterpieces, the more fed up I get with the prequels, the sequels, and the weak series we were force-fed on Disney+. 

Yet I still have hope...

New Eden Banter #1: The MMO that keeps rewriting its own history—EVE Online at 23

Welcome to the very first installment of the New Eden Banter (NEB), the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux (that's me!). The NEB involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. 

The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the New Eden Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. 

Check for other New Eden Banters articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic: EVE Online is now more than two decades old—older than some of its players. In a genre where most MMORPGs fade or shut down, EVE has kept evolving. What do you think is the secret behind its longevity? Why is EVE still here—and still feeling alive—when so many of its contemporaries have declined or disappeared?

The MMO that keeps rewriting its own history—EVE Online at 23

EVE Online launched in 2003. Some players undocking today are younger than the game itself.

In a genre defined by shuttered servers, EVE is still moving—still generating wars, market crises, betrayals, fear, paranoia, and those "wait, THAT actually happened?" moments you simply cannot script. So what's the secret?

It's not one thing. It's a stack of design decisions that transformed EVE from a game you play into a place you inhabit. One that you live in.

The Safe Spot — Episode 2: "The Depths of Eve Online"

Since you can't call it a podcast series without a few episodes, here's Episode 2 of The Safe Spot! In this episode, Rixx and I went deep — maybe a little too deep. We barely touched the agenda (again, I know!), but what we did cover was worth every detour. 

I'm still peeling back layers of New Eden, Rixx shared the full story of how he became one of lowsec's most notorious pirates, and we somehow ended up talking ship skins, Pochven, and the philosophy behind why EVE hooks us the way it does. Oh, and I introduced Rixx to end the show. Yeah, go figure!

Here's what we got into.

New Eden Banter Prompt (NEB #1): EVE Online's longevity

 

EVE Online is old. Not "two expansions ago" old, rather over-two-decades old.

In MMORPG years, that's basically ancient history. Some games from that era are gone. Others are technically "alive" in the same way a half-dead station light is alive: still on, but… you know.

And yet EVE is still here. Still evolving. Still producing war stories, betrayals, spreadsheets, friendships, grudges, and moments that feel uniquely New Eden.

So let's kick off the launch of the New Eden Banter with a big one:

This month's prompt

EVE Online is now more than two decades old—older than some of its players. In a genre where most MMORPGs fade or shut down, EVE has kept evolving. What do you think is the secret behind its longevity? Why is EVE still here—and still feeling alive—when so many of its contemporaries have declined or disappeared?

The New Eden Banter: EVE Blog Banter returns (2026 reboot)

Some traditions deserve a reboot.

Back in 2008, I kicked off something called the EVE Blog Banter—with a monthly email that invited bloggers to write, reflect, argue, and occasionally confess their in-game sins. The format was simple: one shared topic, many voices, and a roundup so everyone could discover each other.

I ran it for two and a half years (26 editions), then passed it to other EVE bloggers who kept it going. By the time I wrote my last entry—#68, back in October 2015—the community had produced almost 70 banters worth of arguments, stories, and insights.

Fast-forward to 2026. The platforms changed. The "blogging is dead" takes have multiplied. And yet... here we are. A few of us are still writing about EVE. Still sharing our virtual lives. 

Still building corners of the internet worth visiting.

So I'm bringing it back. 

EVE Blog Banter returns as: The New Eden Banter (NEB).

The mirage of a safe place and a taste for revenge

This short story was inspired by real events in New Eden. Names and star systems have been changed to protect the anonymity of the pilots involved. What follows is sort of fiction — and another attempt (not my first) at writing.

*************

Suspended in gel and wired into the ship’s nervous system, a capsuleer’s thoughts were translated by implants into clean data—synthetic voice, clipped text-bursts, or raw intent—riding laser-tight comms hull-to-hull, between star systems, across the void of New Eden — threading light through the dark like a needle through black silk. Replies didn’t reach ears. They arrived inside the pod-feed as overlays and sensations, as natural as breathing used to be.

“Natural,” in the same way a scar eventually became part of your skin.

The corp channel drifted under everything: under route calculations, under market pings, under the soft lies stations told. It was always there, a cold thread woven through the skull.

A presence joined.

ROOK VEYLAN: Greetings...

His salute didn’t make a sound. Instead, it bloomed as a bright glyph at the edge of vision, paired with a faint pulse of recognition—comradeship translated into harmless bytes on a hyperdata-stream.

Another presence flared immediately after—hot, ragged, too fast for the smoothing routines to hide.

SABLE WRAITH: Guys. Quick question.

A hitch in the feed—hesitation rendered as a fraction of delay.

SABLE WRAITH: If someone attacks and my drones kill them… I can strip the wreck, right?

Two replies snapped back almost at once. Clean, low-emotion packets—the kind veterans used when they already knew exactly where this was going.

HASK MEREV: Yes.

IRON KADE: Yes. If you’re still on grid.

Sable Wraith’s signal surged again, spilling context like a cracked seal.

Getting dropped into a Fallout TTRPG mid-campaign? Obviously I picked the glitchy murder-maid robot!

It's mid-evening earlier this week, and I get a message from my favourite DM, who's been running D&D campaigns I occasionally play with a few former work mates and their buddies.

He tells me they're running this cool Fallout campaign and are down a player. Would I consider joining them even though they're already four game sessions in?

My answer: you had my YES at hello!

So I'm basically getting dropped into an ongoing TTRPG campaign mid-season, come Monday evening. And suddenly I'm doing the narrative version of jumping onto a moving train.

No slow “meet the party in a tavern” intro. More like “welcome to the wasteland, try not to freeze.”

EVE Online Glossary: Essential terms every capsuleer needs to know

As I've been putting together these EVE Online guides, I've been constantly stumbling over terms and abbreviations that left me completely lost.

Some terms I already knew from experience, playing back in 2004 through 2011. But for plenty of others? I've had to stop mid-draft, go digging, and find out what people actually mean when they say things like "brick tanked," "kite," or "burn back."

Sometimes the hardest part of EVE isn't fitting a ship or learning the UI—it's understanding what people are saying, or what the guides are telling you.

If you're new, returning after a decade or more, or just tired of feeling like everyone's speaking in encrypted abbreviations, this is your decoder ring.

This glossary gathers the terms you'll actually hear in corp chat, on comms, in local, and in the places where you'll find the info you need, but need a dictionary to make sense of it all. It's not a complete encyclopedia—it's meant to be useful: the words that pop up when you're hauling, exploring, joining fleets, or trying to figure out why everyone suddenly got quiet after someone said "combat probes."

Bookmark it. 

Keep it open on a second monitor. 

And when a guide starts sounding like a different language, come back here.

The Safe Spot is LIVE! (and I'm equal parts thrilled and mildly terrified)

Alright. We did the thing.

Rixx Javix and I have officially launched The Safe Spot "The Rixx & Kinux Show" — a bi-weekly EVE Online podcast — and I'm sitting here with that strange cocktail of feelings you get when you ship something you actually care about: excited, anxious, hopeful.

Excited because I'm back in New Eden after a long time away, and EVE still has that "you're never fully in control" living on the edge magic, and I get to talk about it with my good friend Rixx.

Anxious because launching anything public is basically inviting the universe to throw tomatoes while you're still adjusting the mic stand (speaking of which, I'm still waiting for my Blue Yeti mic ordered this past Saturday, but stuck in some warehouse somewhere this side of the Hudson). 

Hopeful because this isn't some one-off "hey we made a thing" moment. This is a long-term project — something Rixx and I have been talking about, poking at, shaping, and slowly building for months.

Hauling safely in EVE Online: Hard-won lessons from high-sec gankers

After a few months back in New Eden, one major shift stands out from my time away since 2011: ganking in high-sec has gone from occasional chaos to predictable business. It's not random violence anymore—it's optimized, profit-driven hunting. Which means you need to stop thinking of high-sec as "mostly safe" and start thinking of it as "safe only if you're not worth killing."

This guide distills practical hauling wisdom I've been collecting as I rebuild my instincts. Most of it comes from watching experienced players review catastrophic losses—particularly MarkeeDragon's "Ganked Awards" killboard reviews, which are equal parts hilarious and educational.

If you're new to EVE, returning after years away, or just tired of losing ships you didn't need to lose, these rules will help.

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn—Owlcat's RPG looks like it actually gets it

I was about to restart The Expanse TV series for a full rewatch when I made a crazy choice: I cracked open Leviathan Wakes instead. As if I had time to dive into a new book series!

I'm barely past the opening, but it's already doing what the show did best—and it had me thinking about what an Expanse game actually needs to get right.

So when I finally caught the announcement trailer for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn in late 2025 (it dropped back in early June of last year, and I'd also seen it pop up on Kickstarter at some point), I hit play with that exact mindset: hopeful, cautious, braced for impact.

Detour into the unknown: My first steps into Exploration flying a Heron

I'm hitting pause on my Enforcer grind—and my eventual dive into PvP—to try something completely different: Exploration.

After months of security missions and getting my Merlin into proper fighting shape, I figured it was time to learn scanning, cloaking, and the art of sneaking around New Eden. You know, useful skills for not getting podded too quickly when I finally do jump into PvP.

Right now I'm sitting at 665 out of 750 Enforcer points (still not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds impressive). I could push through those last 85 points running the same missions over and over, but that familiar itch kicked in—the one that whispers, what if you did something else?

So I took the detour.

CCP's 2026 War Plan: Big promises, thin specifics (for now)

By now, you've almost certainly heard about CCP's plan for 2026. If not, there's plenty of coverage to catch up on — MassivelyOP, ShackNews, and MMORPG all have writeups, and fellow EVE bloggers like The Ancient Gaming Noob have already weighed in. But after spending a full hour watching the "Directors' Letter Chat: 2026 & Beyond," and then going over the news items, I wanted to add my own take to the pile. 

Fair warning: there's a mountain of content to unpack here, so settle in.

Announcing The Safe Spot: a new EVE podcast (first episode Feb 10!)

 

EVE Online has a funny way of sticking with you.

Even when you're away from the game for a long period of time, you still remember that first undock into the unknown... and getting instantly podded the moment you jumped into nullsec. That moment where you had to decide: am I done, or am I learning something here?

That's the spark behind The Safe Spot — a new podcast Rixx Javix and I are launching.

Why joining a corp changes everything in EVE Online (and how I landed in Quantshure)

I've officially joined Quantshure, part of Xagenic Freymvork (VAULT). I hadn't really planned for it this soon, but my NEOCOM Corporation tab kept blinking (or was it just lit up?), and that invitation sitting there was too tempting to ignore.

And yes, I did have a brief moment where I thought: "Well, clearly they saw something special in me if they invited me."

Then reality checked in: it was automated. 😉

Why EVE Online’s economy feels more real than most MMOs (REVISED)

Here's what makes EVE Online's economy different: destruction isn't a failure state—it's demand.

When a fleet of battleships explodes in null-sec space, that's not just content for a killboard. It's an industrial signal. 

Somewhere, a manufacturer needs to replace those hulls. A miner needs to harvest more ore. A hauler needs to move materials across hostile space. A trader sees opportunity in the price spike.

Most MMOs fake their economies the way movie sets fake cities—the storefronts look real until you try to open a door. EVE does the opposite. It builds a system where players are the economy, and then it designs that economy to consume what it produces. Loss drives replacement; replacement drives industry; industry drives logistics; logistics drives trade; trade funds the next round of chaos.

Rinse and repeat.

That's the hook in Economics Explained's “The Economy of EVE Online” video I'm sharing below. Though it's a tad outdated, it still captures this fundamental insight: EVE turns players into producers, movers, traders, and destroyers—because the economy only works if people do all of it.

This article unpacks why EVE's economy feels surprisingly real, even to people who study real economies for a living. I'll keep it as simple as possible.

My first Cormorant: a practical PvE-to-PvP guide for first-time pilots

After running Level 1 missions along the Enforcer career path over the last few weeks*, I was awarded a ship I’d never personally flown before: the Cormorant. And it came with a SKIN. Sweet!

This was perfect timing because I’ve been sitting on SKINs for ages thinking “cool cool… how do I actually use these?” But couldn't figure it out! Turns out: this was the push I needed. And I had two AIs to guide me through the process of getting it on this new ship.

This post is basically my “new ship, new chapter” brain-dump. 

Making a living in EVE Online: Part 1 — Quick wins and survival habits (REVISED)

(Latest Revision - January 30, 2026)

Most new pilots hit the same moment: you finally have some ISK, you lose a ship, and suddenly you're doing mental math at every undock. This post is here to break that cycle. The goal isn't to get filthy rich on week one. Though THAT would be fun. Right?

The goal is simpler—and way more important: you learn to stop being broke forever.

That means you learn a couple of income loops that are predictable, and you adopt a few survival habits that keep your wallet alive even when your ship goes BOOM!!

Because it will.

For All Mankind Season 5 and the long promise of Mars colonization

The Season 5 teaser for For All Mankind was released earlier this week, and it reminded me why I keep coming back to this series.

At this point, the show isn’t really “alt-history space race” anymore. It’s closer to “what happens when space stops being a stunt and becomes a system.” The Moon base era, the push toward Mars, the slow shift from exploration to infrastructure — that’s the part I’ve been enjoying most, and it feels like Season 5 is going to lean into it even more so. That teaser definitely teases us about it!

Le Grand Mort: A Beautiful, unsettling journey between two worlds

I started reading Le Grand Mort years ago—back in 2016 or 2017—after picking up the first two volumes at the Montréal book fair (Le Salon du livre de Montréal). It was one of those “this looks gorgeous, I need this on my shelf” impulse buys… and honestly, it was a good one.

Then life did what life does. I kept collecting the series in the background, and Volume 8 eventually made its way into my stack around the COVID era… and then just sat there, unread, quietly judging me from the bookshelf.

This past Christmas break, I finally fixed that. I went back to the very start and read the whole thing series properly—from Volume 1 to the very last volume—so I could experience the story the way it’s meant to unfold, not as scattered memories separated by years.

(Warning: some spoilers ahead!)

And yeah: it was absolutely worth the reset.

A practical guide to staying current in EVE Online: Podcasts & Streamers

EVE Online podcasts and streamers that keep you up to date

If you want to stay in the know about what’s happening in New Eden—the shifting geopolitics, wars and alliances, the economy and trade meta, and the steady stream of “wait… when did that become a thing?” tips and tricks—having a few solid podcasts and shows in your rotation makes a big difference. They’re the easiest way to get both the headlines and the context, whether you fly every day or you’re coming back after a break.

This post is a curated list of currently active EVE Online podcasts, shows, and creators. Each entry includes what they cover, who it’s best for, and where to listen or watch—so you can find the right “keep me current” feed without digging around.

This list is a work in progress. It’s what I’ve been able to find and verify over the last few weeks, across audio podcasts and Twitch/YouTube shows. If you know other great EVE podcasts, shows, or creators—especially niche ones (wormholes, industry, abyssal deadspace , factional warfare, markets, exploration, etc.)—please share them in the comments and I’ll expand the list.

Crovan rebooted "The Drone Bay" and I’m weirdly emotional about it 🥹

I had one of those “wait… what year is it?!” moments this week: I discovered that my old podcast co-host, Crovan, has brought The Drone Bay back… on YouTube.

The Drone Bay... The Drone WHAT?!!!

Originally, The Drone Bay was one of the early EVE podcasts way back in spring 2008, and seeing it resurface in 2024 hit me right in the nostalgia module.

Resonance gives off cinematic sci-fi vibes and a whisper of mystery

 

That gameplay trailer for Resonance absolutely stopped my YouTube scroll.

There’s this immediate “okay, I need to know what this is” vibe: a lone alien explorer following a signal into the ruins of a dead (robotic) civilization… and then—because of course—waking up something colossal that really wasn’t asking to be disturbed. 

The tone feels quiet, mysterious, and big in that “ancient machines + lonely planet” kind of way.

The atmosphere is gorgeous. The visuals absolutely attention-grabbing.

Making a living in EVE Online: a blueprint series for earning ISK

EVE Online has this weird superpower: you can log in with a rusty frigate and no clue what “transversal” means… and still end up building a living. And do so fairly quickly.

Not a questline living. Not a “the game hands you gold for showing up” living (though there's a bit of that of course).

But a real one.

New Eden is one of the only game worlds where “making money” isn’t a side activity. It’s a whole ecosystem. You can be a scavenger, a prospector, a courier, a trader, an industrialist, a pirate, a soldier-for-hire… and the economy actually has room for all of it because other players create the demand (and the chaos).

Crazy, eh? I know!

That’s the hook for this series. I’m putting together a practical, blueprint-style set of posts that maps out the major ways capsuleers make ISK—from the stuff you can start doing today, to the systems that feel like you accidentally enrolled in an MBA program run by space criminals. 

No fluff. No “top 10 secrets.” No pretending there’s one “best” way. 

Just a ladder you can climb.

After Hours, Episode 3 (2016): Rixx Javix and I talk EVE Online, EVE blog banters, and community weirdness

The above is "After Hours Podcast – Episode 3", and it’s a nearly-decade-old (May 2016) chat between the infamous pirate Rixx Javix, and myself — looking back on the “golden age” of EVE blogging and how that whole scene shaped a lot of us.

I came across that old episode while researching for an upcoming project on EVE Online podcasts, past and present (more on that later).

The Time Masters: the weird, beautiful French sci-fi I’m finally revisiting

I first saw Time Masters (Les Maîtres du temps) in my early teen years, and it grabbed my attention immediately.

Not simply because of the visuals, or the title, but because it was different. Very different...

It looked nothing like the cartoons I’d grown up with on TV or in theaters. This was before I’d even stumbled into Akira, Nausicaä or Robotech—back when “animation” mostly meant one familiar lane: Disney, Warner Bros. or Hanna-Barbera. And then this showed up, looking like it came from a completely different universe.

So this past Christmas, I did what any reasonable middle-aged guy does when nostalgia starts tugging at his sleeve: I put it on my wish list. A few days ago, it finally landed in my hands. I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Was the magic just nostalgia doing its thing? Or was the film really as special as I remembered?

Either way, I hit play.

I wasn’t disappointed.

A beautiful Blender tribute to Homeworld intro: the Taiidan fleet arrives

Some games don’t just start — they announce themselves.

This sub-minute Blender tribute to the Homeworld opening sequence absolutely nails that feeling. The quiet dread. The impossible scale. That slow, inevitable moment when the Taiidan fleet drops out of hyperspace and you know things are about to go very wrong.

For me, this hits straight in the nostalgia cortex. Homeworld was one of the first PC games I played after jumping ship from Macs in the late ’90s, and that opening — paired with Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber — never really left my head. It wasn’t bombastic. It was solemn. Operatic. Like space history unfolding in real time.

This tribute gets why that intro worked. It’s not about flashy dogfights or camera gymnastics. It’s about weight. Fleets that feel ancient. An empire arriving not in a rush, but with absolute confidence. You don’t need dialogue when the music and motion already tell the story.

Huge props to Venture Pictures for capturing the soul of it so cleanly. 

This feels like a quiet reminder of why that original reveal mattered so damn much.

The joy of figuring it out: what the Merlin taught me about EVE Online

One of the things I’m genuinely enjoying right now is rediscovering how much of EVE Online lives outside the actual game play.

What?!! I hear you say. Bear with me a second...

In EVE, skills matter, obviously — but they’re only part of the equation. The real learning happens in the fit and in how a ship is meant to be flown. Lately, that’s been my trusty Merlin, and figuring out how to lean fully into its brawler nature instead of fighting it. Short-range blasters, afterburner over speed tricks, scram and web to keep fights close, and a solid shield buffer so it can sit in the pocket and trade blows. I’m training into the guns and support skills that make that setup work, and paying attention to why each module belongs there.

That process — reading, testing, undocking, exploding, tweaking — is where the fun is.

Seriously! That might sound like a chore to some, but it's allowing me to learn the game nice and slow. At my own rhythm.

In EVE, your ship doesn’t reach its potential just because your skills say it should. It does when the fit makes sense and you fly it the way it was designed to be flown. Now go back, and read that last sentence once again, cause it says a lot about the game.

I’m pulling all of this together into a more detailed post soon, in which I'll be digging into the Merlin itself, the modules and fittings I’m training toward, and how brawler and kiter tactics actually play out once you’re on grid.

But for now, I'm heading out 12 jumps, getting myself a new skill in order to use my new Tech II blasters!

Fly safe!