Red Moon Rising.... and still rising

Well last night was patch night, so I wasn't counting on logging into EVE. As with any patch deployment, I set up a long skill training; in this case Production Efficiency to level 4, which will finish Sunday early morning. So there's no worries there.

But I did think I was going to be able to login tonight and witness a red moon rising and the empires coming into conflict.

Heck, who was I kidding. As in any major patching, there are always some unforeseen problems and the RMR patch was no exception. As long as the downtime does not last passed Sunday, I can't really complain. And I know the boyz from CCP are doing all their best, despite all the difficulties they may be facing. I've tried logging in a few times tonight, but after manually patching the EVE client, which went smoothly, all I got to see of Red Moon Rising was the client GUI updates pictured here for your enjoyment.

I'll try again tomorrow morning before going off to work, just to give myself a glimpse of what to expect over the week-end. Though I won't have as much time to play as I originally had planned. It's the Xmas Holidays and we'll be pretty busy with parties and family & friends visits over the next few weeks.

But I've planned a few full days of EVE in between Xmas and New Years, so I can't complain. Will have lots to do, if I want to get myself some of those new ships that will be available with RMR!

Man, I can't wait!!

EVE Online Upgrade: Red Moon Rising

Well this is not Kali (the next EVE expansion), but it's something that should keep us EVE players happy until it comes out. If you purchased E:ON, then you know what's coming to EVE soon: humongous ships that will redefine fleet battles. They should make things very interesting, though it may take a while before we actually see any of them flying through soon.

In it's press release , CCP hinted on some of the cool things RMR will bring forth:

• Titans: The largest, most fearsome space faring battle vessels ever created
• Carriers: Front line capital ships providing fighter coverage and support for fleets
• Bloodlines: The addition of Asian bloodlines available to each of the races
• COSMOS Constellation Expansion: Addition of constellation missions to Gallente and Amarr territories
• Fighters: The main offensive and defensive weapon of the Carrier
• Starbases and sovereignty: Additions of roles to improve control access of services and improved calculations of player-determined Sovereignty

And this is all free! All thanx to CCP's amazing customer offer for EVE Online. And so will Kali. I'm really amazed that they're able to do so. I'm sure it has a lot to do with CCP's superb management skills and the constant and steady success of EVE popularity. Which says a lot about the quality of this galaxy spanning virtual world. When I joined EVE, over a year ago, there were about 40,000 subscribers and about 5,000 concurrent players. Now it's somewhere about 80,000 and 17,000 players (on one server).

I can't wait until the holidays!

P.S.: click here to get a zipped file of all Red Moon Rising screenshots.