If you are reading this and NOT a CCP Dev…

…then this is for you! Christmas, CCP, You, and Our Thanks!

Pilots of New Eden,

It is that time of year again. The time of year when you curl up in front of the fire with a hot cup of coco… HAHAHA who am I kidding. It's that time of year when you all log into EVE to get away from your family so that you can actually enjoy your holidays!

To help support you all through this difficult time of year we have a set of gifts for you. These gifts will be given out on December 13th, 20th, and 27th. Each offering something unique, some of which I am sure you have already guessed about, and some of which you have no idea will be coming.

Enough of this random introduction, let’s get on with the dev blog.

What Can You Expect From Us:

I wanted to say nothing, but I was told that was not a very nice thing to say. What we are doing however is something I consider to be incredibly awesome, and I hope you all do as well.

December 13th:

Snowballs and Festival Launchers. I could end this blog here and walk away happy. I am sure most of you could stop reading at this point and be happy. But no, I am not stopping. Everyone will receive 1 Festival Launcher and 300 Snowballs. You can take this, run around, throw them at people in space, and just generally have a good time. Let’s stop for a quick Q&A:

Q) Will the Snowballs melt?
A) No. 😀

Q) Will my previous melted Snowballs become un-melted and usable?
A) No. Sorry, those will remain a collector’s item.

Q) What about my old Snowball Launcher?
A) Those are being renamed to Festival Launcher and will be usable.

Q) WHY ARE YOU RENAMING MY SNOWBALL LAUNCHER!
A) I am an evil person. Also, see below. 😀

Q) Can I shoot people in high-sec with these?
A) Yes. The snowballs are not an aggressive action. People you shoot with them will not get a damage notification and will only see you as yellow boxing (targeting) them.

Q) What are the fitting requirements for the Festival Launcher?
A) 1 CPU, 1 PG, and an open launcher hard point.

Just so you are all aware, I wanted to give half of you Snowballs and the other half Festival Launchers on the first day, then wait a bit and reverse it. I thought that would have been funny. Apparently it is not in the "Christmas spirit" whatever that is supposed to mean. :/

Honestly we all really hope you guys enjoy this. I know the moment we started looking at the Christmas gifts Snowballs were first on many of our minds. With just a few words everyone who heard about it was onboard. So much so that when we asked the art team if they could look at bringing back the old Snowball effect they came to us with not just a new effect but a new launcher and missile just for the Snowballs.

December 20th:

Snowballs would probably have made most of you happy enough that we didn't even need to launch Retribution… OK maybe not that happy as Retribution was a totally amazing expansion. We however decided that this would be a good time to give you just a little something extra.

So what are we giving you above and beyond Snowballs? Well honestly, some completely random stuff. I am not going to say what we are giving you here as there are those of you who look forward to the surprise; if you wanted to know though I am pretty sure with a little looking around you could figure it out… well part of the gift anyways. 😉

For some of us this is the best part. Snowballs are amazing and all, but these gifts represent EVE history. They take jokes, events, failures, success and cement them in EVE for all time. They prove that not only can we laugh at our players actions but laugh at ourselves as well. As far as we are concerned these mean a lot. While they may not do anything for you, we do hope you find them as awesome as we do.

December 27:

When we went to art and asked them to just dig up the old Snowball effect and they came back with not just a brand new effect but launcher and missile as well we were all incredibly happy. We could not have asked for more. They asked us something though. They asked if they could do Fireworks as well… I… I didn't really know how to respond. I didn't want to sound like the giddy kid I felt like but I also of course didn't want to say no. So with as much professionalism as I could muster up I responded with "Oh hell yes!"

How Do You Get This Stuff:

On each of the specified days during downtime your gifts will be delivered to you through the redeeming system. So after downtime on the 13th, 20th, and 27th login to EVE and check the redeeming system to see what you have received! If you are unfamiliar with the redeeming system please see this page: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Redeeming

Q&A:

Q) How will Fireworks act compared to Snowballs?
A) Exactly the same with a different visual effect.

Q) Does that mean I can put them in the Snowball Launcher?
A) There is no Snowball Launcher, there is only the Festival Launcher and it works with both Fireworks and Snowballs.

Q) What happens if I shoot someone who is shooting Snowballs at me in high-sec?
A) Assuming they are not at war with you, they are not a suspect, and you do not have a limited engagement with them: CONCORD will kill you.

Q) Won't that lead to lots of people being tricked into getting CONCORDed by mistake like it did before?
A) We sure hope not because we don't want to remove Snowballs again.

Q) Hoping not is all fine and good, but what will actually stop this from being different than before?
A) Lots of things have changed in Retribution allowing us to do this. Here is a quick list:
1) When someone shoots Snowballs at you the person shooting only shows up as having yellow boxed (targeted) you. Before they would show up as red boxed (shooting or hurting you).
2) When you get hit with Snowballs you no longer get a 0 damage notification. Nothing happens.
3) Everyone has the new safety system. So long as your safety is not set to off, or red, then you CAN'T shoot back. The belief being that when you turn off your safety you are a big boy and know what you are doing. Right?

Please note that the gifts cannot be changed by Customer Support (or CCP).

Final Words:

By the time this dev blog goes out there will have been another one thanking you all, our players, for another great year and wishing you happy holidays. I am going to take this opportunity though to thank you all again on behalf of everyone who put their own time into the Christmas gifts this year. Have fun with the Snowballs and Fireworks, learn about the history we all share, and most of all no matter what holiday you celebrate have a good time!

Well that is all from me here, thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

CCP FoxFour on behalf of everyone who had a hand in the Christmas gifts.

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