For the Christmas holidays CCP has decided that every active pod pilot is to be gifted a ship specifically designed for exploration. CCP often have a surprise for capsuleers during the festive season such as last year's Snowball Launchers and 300 Snowballs. It seems that with the whole discussion of last year's CONCORD fearsome ship removal to panicking pilots that mistakenly thought that they were being aggressed with harmless snowballs, CCP have opted for a safer, more user friendly present.
The Zephyr Exploration Ship due to be released from the 19th December 2009 till 6th January 2010:
Image: e107_images/newspost_images/zephyr.jpg
Not many details have been released for the piloting of the ship, however sources say that core Astrometric skills will put you in good stead. Every Zephyr hull will also be provided with a free Protoype Iris Probe Launcher, specifically designed for wormhole exploration. What looks to be a frigate-sized vessel has been quoted as being the ultimate wormhole exploration ship as Sleepers will not fire upon it, whether or not this is true remains to be seen. Powered by super-light sails the Zepher does not use conventional starship drives, lowering it's mass and signature radius.
Makhar, head of the Guild Alliance, announced his resignation today. He originally joined the Independent Miners Guild as a young graduate of the Pator Tech School six years ago and quickly rose through the ranks to become CEO of the corporation. After a year as head of the IMG Makhar left but later returned after IMG membership declined to lead the corporation in one of the largest periods of growth it has seen. Only one year after resuming leadership of the corporation he led the founding of The Guild alliance which he went on to lead for a further six months.
Those close to Makhar have commented that he has become dispirited lately with the departure of some of the Guild's longest standing members and that he feels that there are greater challenges for him elsewhere.
In a leaving message, Makhar told all Guild members that he had been with the corporation for a long time and felt that it was now time to "move on". As Makhar steps down he hands over full control of The Guild to the Director of the Guild's Production division Selviran.
Selviran was unavailable to comment, but sources close to members of the management team have been heard to say that she has plans to revolutionise the way The Guild operates and that she expects great things from The Guild over the coming months.
Amarr Empire officials have confirmed that the recent rumours regarding The Guild's support for their war against the Minmatar Republic are accurate. Following a secret agreement, made several weeks ago, the Guild Navy has dispatched ships and pilots to an undisclosed location within The Bleak Lands.
Recent, unconfirmed reports, leaked on Galnet show that the Guild Navy has already joined the fighting alongside the legions of the 24th Imperial Crusade, the well-known militia unit of the Amarr Empire. Despite early losses the Guild Navy is said to have been part of a successful offensive against Minmatar forces in the Sasan constellation earlier today.
A guild spokesman had this to say; "I can confirm that the Guild Navy has agreed to support the Amarr Empire in it's continuing war effort against the Minmatar Republic." When asked about today's engagement the spokesman refused to comment, saying "I am unable to discuss ongoing operational details for reasons of security. However, I can say that Guild pilots have been active in recent engagements in The Bleak Lands."
It is still unclear at this stage exactly how much involvement The Guild has with the Amarr-Minmatar war. The head of the Guild Navy, Makhar, whilst himself of Minmatar origin is well-known to sympathise more with his bretheren in the Ammatar Mandate and has himself lived within the Empire for some years. Unfortunately Makhar was unavailable to comment.
Improvements have just been released on the Guild's galnet site. The changes include a system for members to order cut-price goods from the Guild's production division, GProd as well as improvements to the guild's forum system. Less obvious changes include improvements in the way user permissions are dealt with behind the scenes.
Dr. J. Ninety, the Guild's Galnet administrator was heard to say "The new system is really super, everybody should find it really easy to use!"
The Guild Alliance's Personnel and Training has launched a new service to provide free training materials for capsuleers over the net. The new video tutorials will cover a range of topics and will be aimed at guiding new and experienced capsuleers to developing their skills and abilities in a host of different fields.
Although the service was launched with just one video available to start with plans are to develop more videos for general release. Guild executor Makhar said "Consider the first video a taster of what is to follow. Of course we will be refining and improving videos once they are released and for that reason we are very grateful for any feedback we recieve. Each video can be rated and commented on, so do please tell us what you think."
No timescale has yet been set on the release of further training videos but it is assumed that they will be made available as soon as they are ready. To access these resources visit the Guild's website.
