Greetings friendship pilots!

As announced during the pre-Fanfest stream, the 12^th Alliance Tournament will be kicking off on August 16^th, 2014. There are a few things I want to confirm right now, with the juicier details regarding all aspects of the tournament being published at later dates. 

The format of the AT XII will be the same as last years’ Alliance Tournament. 64 alliances will duke it out in a double elimination format where all matches matter. We will also go back to 4 weekends of broadcast time.

To fly with an alliance in the Alliance Tournament XII you will need to have been a member of that alliance from downtime on the 24^th of April, 11:00 UTC. Each alliance may only field one team.

This rule is intended to ensure that players compete on behalf of the alliance which they belong to in-game regardless of tournaments (their home alliance) and to prevent alliances from splitting into multiple alliances to field so-called B-Teams without the referees having to resort to draconian measures. It is not intended to punish players who may have been caught outside their home alliance for some minor reason. If you are caught outside of an alliance you consider to be your home alliance, check to see if you meet these criteria and submit a ticket to have the situation rectified:

• The character in question was not in any alliance at the time of the cutoff on April 24^th.
• The player wishes to rejoin the alliance that the character was most recently a member of
• The character in question has spent a significant amount of time in this alliance over the past year

Please note that the criteria listed only guarantees we will consider your case; each situation will be handled on a case by case basis. We will not grant exceptions for corporations or players who were members of other alliances on the 24th, as they are encouraged to compete with that alliance.

There will be future Dev Blogs in the coming weeks which cover the rules, broadcast schedule and sign up details, so stay tuned! For those who missed the previous ones - the matches from Alliance Tournaments IX, X, and XI are available on CCP's YouTube channel.

EVE TV's Player Commentator Team

We will once again be opening up the application process for players who would like to be PVP commentators. These elite players are handpicked by us to fly out to Iceland for the tournament finals played over the final two weekends, joining the team here at CCP HQ to help us run the live broadcasts.

As a commentator you'll be on the set discussing the tournament, tactics, teams and talking with developers about EVE live on air. You'll also take shifts in the commentary booth providing live commentary on the matches themselves. You need to know your PvP and you need to know how to keep on talking!

Alliance Tournament XII will take place over four consecutive weekends starting on Saturday, August 16^th and ending with the grand finale on Sunday, September 7^th. Flights (from all Icelandair destinations) and accommodations are supplied by us. All you need is a little spending money.

So you're interested? The next step is to check this short list and make sure you match what we're looking for!

• Can you come out and play? Selected players will need to hold a valid passport (we will require scans to confirm this at a later stage) and be available to fly to Iceland on Wednesday, August 27^th and return home on Monday, September 8^th.
• A sense of humor is a must: commentators will need to be sharp-witted, knowledgeable, presentable and comfortable with talking on camera and into a microphone. To increase your chances of getting through, we highly recommend submitting any pre-made or purpose filmed video you have of yourself (link to a YouTube clip!) as part of your application.
• You need to know your PvP: We don't despise industrialists, mission-runners and miners but as this is a PvP tournament and you need to be well versed.
• You must be 21+ in order to apply.

If you are interested in taking part, please email us at evetv@ccpgames.com by 23:59 UTC (Eve Time) on Sunday May 18^th, 2014 with the following information. Those lucky enough to be selected for the second round of eliminations must be available to attend voice chat interviews on Saturday, May 24^th, 2014. The chosen commentators will be announced by June 11^th, 2014.

• Character and real name.
• Date of birth.
• Nationality and current country of residence.
• Tell us about yourself, both in game and out. Remember what you're applying for and sell yourself to that effect.
• Confirm you are available between the 27^th of August to 8^th of September to fly to Iceland. If you need to book time off work / school please don't do it until we accept you; but please check that it is possible, if there is any doubt here please let us know.
• Remember your applying to be on TV! Include any multimedia you think shows you off, all of the people chosen for the last Tournament had sent in video clips/links to YouTube!
• Applications close on May 18^th, so get mailing!

A final note: The Tournament from the perspective of a commentator is an amazing experience. You get to take part in a unique production, fly to Iceland, get a tour around the CCP office and chat to developers like almost no other players will ever get the chance to. But with great power comes great responsibility; planning and promotional shows take place during the weeks up to the final show and you may not be asked to fly to Iceland if you fail to take part or become unavailable during this time!

On behalf of the Tournament Team

CCP Gargant

The second weekend of the New Eden Open II will start this Saturday, the 8th of March, at 15:40 UTC. 

Be sure to tune into the CCP Twitch.tv channel here: http://www.twitch.tv/ccp.

We have already had 32 matches of adrenalin-fuelled explosions, with plenty of upsets and even the first ever instance of reverse TiDi! The entirety of last weekends' matches can be viewed on the EVE Online Youtube channel: Day 1 ; Day 2.

Tune in to http://www.twitch.tv/ccp on Saturday and watch CCP's Bro, Fozzie, Dolan, and Rise talking about the seriouslynest of businesses: Internet Tournament Spaceships!

The matches will also have russian commentary provided by CCP Leloo and CCP Vesna Prishla here: http://www.twitch.tv/ccprussian

The second weekend of the New Eden Open II will start this Saturday, the 8th of March, at 15:40 UTC. 

Be sure to tune into the CCP Twitch.tv channel here: http://www.twitch.tv/ccp.

We have already had 32 matches of adrenalin-fuelled explosions, with plenty of upsets and even the first ever instance of reverse TiDi! The entirety of last weekends' matches can be viewed on the EVE Online Youtube channel: Day 1 ; Day 2.

Tune in to http://www.twitch.tv/ccp on Saturday and watch CCP's Bro, Fozzie, Dolan, and Rise talking about the seriouslynest of businesses: Internet Tournament Spaceships!

The matches will also have russian commentary provided by CCP Leloo and CCP Vesna Prishla here: http://www.twitch.tv/ccprussian

EVE Online: Rubicon 1.2 is scheduled to be deployed to TQ during an extended downtime on Tuesday, the 18th of February 2014.

The server will be brought down at the normal time of 11:00 UTC, but downtime is extended to 11:45 UTC for a total of 45 minutes.

As always during deployments, please remember to set a long skill in training.

EVE Online: Rubicon 1.2 is scheduled to be deployed to TQ during an extended downtime on Tuesday, the 18th of February 2014.

The server will be brought down at the normal time of 11:00 UTC, but downtime is extended to 11:45 UTC for a total of 45 minutes.

As always during deployments, please remember to set a long skill in training.

EVE Online: Rubicon 1.1 has been successfully deployed  today, January 28th 2014.

Full patch notes are available here.

To report issues discovered, please go to this thread. Alternatively, head over to this thread and give us your feedback on 1.1!

We are planning a mass test on our Singularity to test the migration of the EVE Universe data. If you’re interested in attending please join us on Singularity, Tuesday, February 4th, at 17:00 EVE-time (=UTC). All participants will receive a small reward of two million skill points on Singularity.

Please refer to this forum thread for more information about how you participate in the test, and this EVElopedia article for more information on mass testing.

When flying your first AU's in New Eden, it is good to know where valuable information is readily available to you. If you ever feel lost or confused, fret not! Below are some very good sources of information, and communities of other players:

First off, you will have three open chat channels when you first create your character. Whenever one of the channels is highlighted, it means you have unread messages there.

• The local tab is your local channel. It contains all other players that are in your current system, so don't be afraid to talk there when taking your first steps and requesting assistance as required.
• The corp tab is your Rookie Corporation Chat. Rest assured that this channel is filled with new players just like yourself, so chat away!
• The last tab is the Rookie Help channel. That is absolutely the place to seek assistance and ask questions!

If you ever lose one of these channels, don't worry. You can click the little chat bubble and find them there, most notably the help channels under the Help category. Otherwise they will be at the top of your menu, on the left side of your screen.

The EVE Online Community Team have been running New Player Training Sessions (NPTS) specifically targeted at players that would like to know as much about specific features as possible. If you wish to know more, they are available on the EVElopedia. The EVElopedia is also an excellent source of information for other matters. If you want, you can also join the New Player Training Sessions chat channel in-game, by clicking the chat bubble and typing in the name of the channel.

Check out the official EVE Online New Pilot FAQ for a boiled down explanation of many basic points, what to expect, and how to attain it.

Lastly, there is no better source of experience and help than the existing players. Remember that this is a single-shard server, which means everyone plays on the same server. Notable places to check are the EVE subreddit, the New Citizens Q&A forum on the EVE Online forums, and the EVE University Wiki. If you have a Twitter account, you can see what clever things the other players are saying by watching #eveonline and #tweetfleet.

EVE Online is a terrific game full of wonderful people. Go join them; but most importantly of all, have fun doing so.

From the 30th of January to the 13th of February, a build containing the migration of EVE's universe data will be available for public testing on Singularity. It would be great if you could help us to make sure that we did not miss any bugs in our internal tests. This patch should include nearly no player-facing changes, but it is a very big change to some of our backend systems and contains, for example, a complete new path finder.

If you would like to participate and help us test this change, head on over to this thread for all the information you may need.

The sign-ups for the New Eden Open II have now been closed. This means the silent auction for spots in the tournament is now live!

As stated in the dev blogs announcing and detailing the tournament, the silent auction closes at 23:59:59 UTC on the 23rd of January and bids submitted after that will not be accepted.

Captains of teams that are signed up can send their bid to the character 'CCP Alliance Tournament' to try and secure a spot in the tournament. Once you have submitted your bid via EVEmail to CCP Alliance Tournament, you put up a contract assigned to the character with the amount of PLEX you bid. Only then will your entry into the silent auction be accepted. The 5 PLEX used to sign up will then be added to your bid, to make the final amount of PLEX you bid towards a spot.

If your bid secures you a spot in the tournament at the end of the silent auction, the contract will be accepted and you will be notified via EVEmail. After the silent auction ends, there will be a random draw for the last 3 spots in the tournament where those teams that didn't secure a spot have a chance to get in.

Teams that still have pending invites and/or have more than 12 members in their team after the silent auction ends, will be contacted to finalize the roster. Any characters that did not have an invite before downtime on the 20th of January are not eligible to participate. 

If you have any questions, come over to the EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion forum! The tournament team hangs around there to answer as many questions as possible.