"The CSM [player-run council] is a dirty election. It’s a third world election. Anything that’s allowed under the EULA in Eve is allowed in the election. You can buy votes, dead people can resubscribe and vote, you can scam people for votes, so it’s hardly an iconic democracy. So, this coming election, almost every major candidate you will see on the council will have been backed by a null sec plot. In advance, we’ve all met and spoken to one another to decide on the issues of the day. So I’m not going to be a voice in the wilderness. I’ll be speaking alongside people I’ve been fighting with or working with diplomatically for years."

This interview is full of some great moments - nice to see the "1% problem" acknowledged by a player, but gosh, you can see the appeal of that 1%. This line was particularly acute.

"In fact, when Dust 514 launches, the map of EVE, currently divined only by player structures owned in the PC game, will also take into account infantry successes and failures within the console game. Players in the PC MMO can "fund mercenaries and give them goals" in the console title." Oh, now that is nice: CCP build a multiplayer game for consoles, and tie it - with data and everything - to the PC MMO, but it's only an indirect link. As a 360 owner without a PC, I shall have to be proud to serve in the mobile infantry.

"CCP often touts this sort of thing with the bland marketing lingo of 'player generated content.' What that actually means is that you get to share a galaxy with Russian aluminum magnates, French-Indonesian nightclub-owning hackers, self-aggranziding 'spymasters,' and people who will cut the power lines to your house to destroy your internet spaceship. There's something deliciously addictive about the sweeping, endemic insanity, one of the ever-present yet rarely remarked upon facets of this most unhinged of MMOs." Some first-hand evidence of just how deep, how hard, and how crazy EVE gets.

"CCP Games has uncovered an exploit in Eve Online that survived in the game for 4 years and may have had a massive impact on the game and game economy." Read the links for more details; suffice to say, EVE is going through a major economic upheaval right now; exploits that have lasted for four years are no longer viable, and everything's getting very expensive. Sound familiar?