EVE Online: Crucible 1.5.3 will be deployed on Tuesday, March 20, during an extended downtime. The server will go down at 11:00 and service will resume at 11:40 UTC 11:50 UTC. This update includes fixes for a number of issues introduced in Crucible 1.5. Full patch notes for Crucible 1.5.3 can be found at the bottom of the page at this link.

Schedules are now finalized and up for EVE Fanfest 2012. Tune in to the live stream  to see all the presentations and events happen I real time. The full schedule is available by clicking on this link.

As part of a Dev Blog in January, 2012 we announced several community themed events for Fanfest attendees this year. One of these events, the office tour with our CEO, CCP Hellmar, allowed the lucky winner and a friend a VIP tour of the office, a goodie bag on site, lunch with the Devs, the opportunity to present a  game design idea to CCP Soundwave and entrance to the VIP area of the Fanfest party. The lucky winner? Well, you can see for yourself by clicking on this link.

Tranquility will undergo an emergency reboot at 15:10 UTC to resolve issues with players being unable to log in. The downtime should last for no longer than 15 minutes so we expect to return to service by 15:25 UTC. A forum thread is available here should there be any further updates.

We have found a solution for some people who are getting corrupted downloaded data. The problem is caused by an antivirus/firewall called ESET Smart Security.

Players are asked to try to disable the protocol content filtering:

·  Open the main window for ESET

·  Press F5 to open the Advanced Setup Window

·  From the Advanced Setup tree, click Personal firewall,  Protocol filtering (for ESET Smart Security) or Antivirus and antispyware, Protocol filtering (for ESET NOD32 Antivirus).

·  Untick the checkbox "Enable application protocol content filtering"

·  Download the latest repair tool: http://cdn1.eveonline.com/client_repair/345/repair.exe

·  Drop the repair.exe into the EVE client folder.

·  Run repair.exe

This will update your game client, take you to the latest version and give you a working version of the Launcher.

If this resolves your problem, please contact the customer support for ESET and ask them send out an update to the protocol filtering or ask that they contact CCP Games via email security@ccpgames.com so that we can resolve this issue together.

Cyrillic characters in the EVE install path name cause the EVE Launcher to throw an error and not continue with patching the client. We are working hard on resolving this issue and will publish an update with instructions once it is out.

There is currently a workaround that people can use in the meantime:

A) Move the EVE client to a folder which does not contain any Cyrillic characters in the path name.

B) Start the repair tool and let it run, go into the client folders bin directory and start ExeFile.exe.

We have been experiencing some issues with the forums loading extremely slowly. Rather than cause continued frustration for players, we will be taking the forums offline at 14:30 UTC to investigate and fix this problem as quickly as possible.

We apologize for this unexpected downtime and will keep you updated on the landing page which will appear while maintenance is underway.

Every year at Fanfest we hold a VIP Office Tour for a player and a friend at the CCP HQ. This year, all Fanfest attendees can enter to win by simply donating a PLEX to the character CCP Office Tour. As part of the prize, the winning player will get to pitch a game design change to CCP Soundwave! Full details can be found in this blog.

On Tuesday, March 13, we will release EVE Online: Crucible 1.5, along with the new EVE Launcher. Players will be asked to download a small patch after downtime on Tuesday which will contain the Launcher. Once this has been completed, the EVE Launcher will start, which will automatically patch your client to the correct version. Full details are available in this blog.

Players may have been experiencing issues with Account Management in terms of account reactivation and purchase or use of PLEX. The issue has been identified and resolved with most services restored. Recurring billing is still unavailable for now but we expect this to be rectified in the coming hours. Recurring billing may be delayed for a few hours. We apologize for any inconvenience and expect to have normal service in place as soon as possible.