From a CCP news release:
 Greetings from CCP.
We could not imagine a more exciting time for EVE Online. Truly.
Here’s a quick breakdown of things going on.EVE Online: Apocrypha
More and more details from our upcoming March 10th expansion are coming out every day in DevBlogs and news stories. You can join our RSS feed for DevBlogs here:Â myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp
Main features outlined already are: Wormholes and exploration, a new NPC race and revamped NPC AI, a reimagining of the New Player Experience, and the addition of a skill queue. Further details will be available soon on eveonline.com/
Furthermore, with the release of Apocrypha, we’ll be available in retail outlets all over the known universe through a distribution deal with Atari.
When was the last time you reviewed EVE? Before the Quantum Rise expansion? After 10 free expansions and 6 years of continuous growth the game has changed quite a lot.
EVE Online Alliance Tournament VI comes to a finale this weekend LIVE on TV.
Watch the top 32 alliances fight it out to see who will be crowned the PVP Champions of EVE! Tune in here: www.eveonline/evetv to catch the must-view matches on Saturday that will include the #1 ranked alliance R.U.R. fighting at 1500 GMT, defending champions Ev0ke at 1900 and a rematch of last weekend’s nail biter between Against ALL Authorities and HUN Reloaded at 1940. Along with the matches, we will have Developers on the couch with some sneak peeks on the upcoming expansion “EVE Online: Apocrypha”!
The action continues all weekend with live broadcasts starting at 1450 GMT each day, continuing until 2100 on Saturday and 2200 on Sunday. Previous matches are available on our YouTube channel — www.youtube.com/CCPGames — along with a whole lot of other exciting things. It’s a popular event and vaulted us into the top 15 directors on YouTube for several days.
The Second CSM Meeting
The Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is a player-elected representative body responsible for bringing player issues to the developers and then reporting back on the discussions to the player base. Several issues have been pushed through production including the inclusion of a skill queue in the upcoming expansion. The CSM meets in Iceland once per six month term and the meetings are arbitrated by a professional moderator. The results of their last meeting can be found here: myeve.eve-online.com/council/transcripts/2009/CSM_CCP_Meetings_15-17_01_2009.pdf
CCP CSM Project Lead Petur Oskarsson and the CSM members themselves are available for interview upon request.
Other things of interest:
There have been two major in-game, completely player driven events in EVE recently.
The dissolution of one of EVE’s longest standing and largest player alliances, Band of Brothers (BoB), without a shot fired. This IS metagaming intrigue and has proven quite popular in the media’s eyes.
-While we refrain from commenting on player events–preferring the living history of our single-shard world to stay with the players–I am happy to put you in touch with the parties in question. They have given us the permission to do so.An in-game assassination DURING last weekend’s Alliance Tournament elimination rounds.
-The spirit of competition still has an undercurrent of political intrigue via a high profile vendettaWe’ll be at GDC San Francisco to show off Apocrypha. March 23-27th. gdconf.com/. It’s never too early to set up an interview. Just send requests to nedcoker@ccpgames.com. Halldor Fannar, our CTO, will be presenting “From Evolution to Revolution: Upgrading the Graphics Engine of EVE Online.” Our CMO, Ryan Scott Dancey, will speak on “Network Marketing: Leveraging Social Networks to Grow an MMO”. We’ll have a variety of other CCPers there ripe for the interviewing and will be in the West Hall (Career Pavillion) at booth #230.
We’ve recently broken our PCU (Peak Concurrent User) record with 48,065 people in the same persistent game world at the same time. We’re quite proud.