erlendur-s-thorsteinsson
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EVE hits new milestone with 56,021 players online
It was just last week when we mentioned EVE Online's new peak concurrent user (PCU) record of 54,446 pilots online. That record was smashed yesterday though, only one week after the previous PCU record was set, with 56,021 pilots online in New Eden. Beyond the new PCU record being set, this past Sunday's traffic may also make CCP raise the limit on number of players that can be in the Jita trade hub at a given time. 1400 players crowded into Jita yesterday, which is apparently the hard limit that the game's developers had set for the busy solar system. This prompted CCP Games Software Director Erlendur Þorsteinsson (aka CCP Explorer) to state, "We have been increasing the limit in the last few weeks and it looks like there might possibly be room for more in Jita." This could be good news for the legions of traders who flock to the system, and overall a good sign for EVE Online to see the PCU climbing higher and higher. Likely a major factor in the surge of active players is the upswing in nullsec alliance warfare which resulted from changes in the Dominion expansion -- not the least of which is that a certain moon material holds great value now; the desire to control these rare resources is a major driver for large scale conflict. And of course, the recent 'get EVE for $5' sales on Steam probably hasn't hurt either.
EVE Online coding honcho profiled in 'Master of the Universe'
Most gamers probably aren't familiar with IEEE Spectrum, but it's a publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world's largest professional technology association. Fans of EVE Online who are curious about the people behind the sci-fi title might be interested in checking out IEEE Spectrum's piece on CCP Games and the man who directs the EVE Online Software Group: Erlendur Thorsteinsson, also known to players as CCP Explorer. The profile is written by Erico Guizzo, titled "Erlendur Thorsteinsson: Master of the Universe." Guizzo's piece sheds some light on what brought the Computer Science Ph.D. to CCP Games in order to tackle the myriad challenges of improving EVE's single world environment. The article also gives mention to the work done behind the scenes on the title's more ambitious projects, including adding wormhole exploration to the game with the Apocrypha expansion, and the forthcoming Walking in Stations where player avatars will step out of their ships for the first time. [Via CrazyKinux]
EVE Trinity: CCP's take on the boot.ini debacle
In a recent EVE Dev blog, Dr. Erlendur S. Thorsteinsson, big shot Director of the EVE Online Software Group shed some light on the installer code that ended up bricking computers running certain Windows XP installations. I'm not a programmer, but I can tell the EVE: Trinity installer code was a wee-bit sloppy from reading the following discussion thread. The good software Doctor also poses several questions and answers to instill a little clarity on what CCP is doing to make sure this doesn't happen again.According to the Dev blog 215 players contacted CCP directly for assistance. Other numbers are missing, left to the wayside, numbers much bigger than 215. How many premium patch clients were downloaded prior to the applied fix? CCP has those numbers, but in this case, Thorsteinsson leaves an impression that CCP is downplaying the boot.ini fiasco as something that more or less only affected a handful of players. As seen in this thread and many others like it, tons of players took their own initiatives without contacting CCP at all. Anecdotal evidence alone would put the number much higher, into the thousands, but probably not in the tens of thousands. CCP has gone on to implement better testing (you know normal Windows XP installs their players actually use) procedures to improve QA procedures and practices.
EVE Online Mac and Linux game clients to be released on November 6th
They're here... new clients at long last, well almost... There is word from Erlendur S. Thorsteinsson, Software Director at CCP Games, that the upcoming Revelations 2.3 patch will contain formal support for Mac OS X and Linux. The new patch will also include a few other minor fixes for those left in the dark ages with the Windows XP client. The new clients use Cedega, but this version has better functionality since it will be directly integrated into the game for Linux and Transgaming's Cider portability engine for the Mac client. I pity da-foo with no EVE Online client. The twenty or so players waiting for the official Mac client can breathe a sigh-of-relief and start gloating about how shiny EVE Online will play on their Macs, and how it's an infinitely better playing experience because EVE is running on a Mac. Sweet, I can't wait. Earlier today, I attempted to play EVE Online on my brother's MacBook Pro via CrossOver and the results led me to punish my G4 tower, a sad carcass languishing in a corner left to serve only one function -- my kicking post. I was taunted and shunned away thanks to some duplicate trial account error when attempting to get my capsuleer on. Three trial accounts later and junk gmail accounts added to the fodder; one activated EVE account; some tissue boxes; I threw-up my arms in disgust. After some soul-searching, I found that I wasn't the only one suffering with this problem and no one had posted a solution. This news makes it all happy fun-times again. I'm going to go hug it out with my dead G4 now. The full post deets after the jump: [via: Linux Games]
