In past years, CCP has been a supporter of the Child’s Play Charity, an organization which uses donations to provide games and hardware to hospitals for sick children.  It’s a really amazing charity with a truly noble and achievable goal.

Continuing in their tradition of holding silent auctions at the yearly EVE Fanfests, this year they’ve included something special: a tour of CCP’s HQ.

As part of the silent auction, fans arriving on or before November 5th 2008 have the chance to net themselves an exclusive view of the world of CCP through a unique tour of the office led by CEO Hilmar Pétursson.

The minimum bid is $1000 USD, which may seem pricey, but it’s going to a good cause, and the way the financial sector is faring these days might actually be enough to purchase a game by the time November rolls around.

Source: Win a Tour of CCP Headquarters

It looks like CCP’s doing something to help out everyone who “accidentally” makes their way into Jita during peak periods, and ends up getting stuck and/or suffering from massive amounts of lag. In addition to the recent (and temporary) system cap on the number of pilots present, they’ve just released a new dev blog detailing some upcoming changes to autopilot routing: an Avoidance List.

We have a new feature in place that allows players to set a list of systems, constellations and regions that the autopilot should never send them to. This list is preconfigured to avoid the Jita system.

I can think of a lot of really good reasons for this. Really great news, and a long time coming.

Source: Dev Blog “A Tale of Two Cities”

Recluse Viramor has received a nice new Megathron model from the CCP Store, and has been gracious enough to post a pile of pictures online for us all to gaze in awe at.

The bluey-ness of the ship is caused by a matte finish reflecting the wonderfully clear day outside, so it’s not like the model is painted that way.  It seems the models are as reflective of their environment as the ships are in the game.  Very cool.

Also, these things are monsters!  Looks like you get what you pay for. A lot of people have expressed concerns over the expense of these things, but given the size and detailing I think it’s pretty justified.

Source: EVE Online Megathron Battleship Model