EVE

CCP will be attending Gamescom 2010 in Cologne from Thursday, August 19 to Sunday, August 22. We will have a booth available for player meet ups or for players to come and talk to us. Full details can be found in this thread.

Known for creating animated avatars, EVE Avatar is giving away four $50 EVE Store gift certificates. Drawings will be held once a week from July 25 through August 15, 2010. To enter into the drawing click HERE. 

G-G78S, Curse – After some protests over delays, the prizes for Alliance Tournament 8 winner Pandemic Legion and runners up HYDRA RELOADED, Darkside and WE FORM VOLTRON have been awarded.

Pandemic Legion [-10] team member Fintroll commented on the prize award delays stating “This is the third year running that Pandemic Legion has won the Alliance Tournament. In the previous years we have had much worse trouble receiving our prizes; including a time we placed but did not win I believe the wait times we endured were 6 months, 4 months, and 3 months respectively. I’m not sure why it’s such a struggle every year to get us our prizes. [The Tournament organization] has to be aware that someone is going to win every time and is going to be anxious to get a hold of their rewards. Every other tournament in the known universe, awards are ready to be handed out before the tournament ends, and given out immediately after.”

Pandemic Legion received 50 Adrestia Heavy Assault Cruiser ships, a Gold Medal for each participant and 50 Billion ISK for their victory. Fintroll added that he believes these ships “will have great value in Alliance Tournament IX, which of course More >

While many of the ex-Ammatar elite who returned to the Republic following the Elder War have found the transition difficult, there are a good many who have retained the optimism that led them to defecting in the first place.

Omad Durgen was a Vice-Admiral in the Ammatar Fleet before the Elder Invasion. He and a group of loyal officers commandeered a ship and defected to the Republic, even aiding the Elders for a brief time before the ship sustained too much damage to continue. “It was glorious,” Durgen said. “We all thought we’d come to the Republic as heroes. The wayward sons, returning with the heads of our enemies held high. It wasn’t to be so.”

Durgen, like many others, found that the long-held beliefs and hatreds that had developed in the Republic were difficult to overcome. “It didn’t matter that I had defected. All that mattered was that, at one time, I had fought the Minmatar on the side of the Empire. I was a murderer, a butcher, a race-traitor,” he said. “I hoped to enlist in the Republic Fleet, but they would not have me. I was a security risk, they said. A potential spy for the Empire. “

Durgen has More >

Following the Elder Invasion over two years ago, thousands of the Ammatar Mandate’s former elite defected to the Minmatar Republic. For many of them, the road to reintegration into the Minmatar tribal system has been lined with hardship.

Stripped of their former power and coming to a nation that views them with centuries of built-up suspicion and hatred, the Elite have been faced with challenges that many of them have not been able to overcome. “I oversaw an entire planet in the Mandate,” said Ramius Throten, a former Mandate district governor. “I did what I could to assist my fellow Minmatar. I made sure the slaves kept in my district were well treated. I turned a blind eye to raiders whenever I could, which wasn’t often enough for some. Despite my efforts, I have been ostracized in the Republic.”

Throten is one of many who has been soured by the prejudice he has faced. Though he spent over a year living in the Republic, he has recently immigrated to the Gallente Federation. “In the Empire, I was derisively called ‘minnie’ and treated as inferior to any Amarrian. In the Republic, I was called slaver and always viewed as a traitor to More >