Guest Blog: Industrial Sized Knowledgebase Plans | EVE Online

Guest Blog: Industrial Sized Knowledgebase Plans

2011-04-14 - By CCP Manifest

EON Magazine has been instrumental in covering EVE Online and its society for quite some time and have written some killer guides that have lead to Great Success! over the years.  The partnership with the guys from ISK the Guide offers forth the most epic guide for any game ever, and Zapatero is here to explain a bit more about their plans going forward. - CCP Manifest


The feedback received since the release of ISK 3.0 has been incredible. To date, the guide - including the original Hungarian (1.0) and the follow-up English edition (2.0) - has been downloaded more than 300,000 times. Already it’s the most well-read EVE publication in the history of the Great Game and at almost 400 pages it’s also one of the largest to devote itself to its understanding.

Since getting involved in what has been an incredible community project, the plan for developing the ISK guide has been to keep updating the downloadable digital (PDF) ‘lite’ edition and, of course, to ensure it remains free for all, plus to develop a ‘premium’ edition that would give players the physical strategy many have been craving since 2003.

That plan has changed a little bit.

Instead of ‘lite’ and expanded ‘premium’ editions, we will be publishing two separate print volumes. There are a few reasons for this, but the main one is that after printing prototype copies of the lite edition to show off at Fanfest, we realized it’s anything but light. As for the new ‘Premium’ chapters that are in development, they are almost certain to weigh in at another 350-400 pages - another guide in themselves!

Ostensibly then, Vol.1 is the current lite edition (although it will be fully updated for Incursion 1.4), the print edition of which, as previewed at Fanfest, is available now on pre-order from the EVE Store for $35. If you apply the checkout code ISK305 during the pre-order period (until April 22nd) you will enjoy a $5 discount on your order. As with EON magazine, shipping is from the UK and costs $10 to UK addresses and $15 to all other countries. At 1.5kg it’s a weighty beast.

For those that visited us at Fanfest to talk about the guide, thank you all for your valuable comments. We will be going for a wiro-bound edition, but with more substantial rings and thicker cover stock. The prototypes held up pretty well after three days of near-constant thumbing by hundreds of people, but we will make it sturdier so it can endure the rigours of the modern desktop environment.

The free PDF version will remain free, but will be available as both a ‘Double Page Spread’ version and a ‘Single Page’ version, by popular demand.

ISK Vol.2 will focus exclusively on PvP in all it’s various forms. When we say all forms, we mean of course combat forms. It will be a very comprehensive manual for all levels of ship-to-ship combat, from low-sec piracy to null-sec starbase sieges and fleet engagements, aimed at everyone from the rank-and-file grunt to the high-level fleet commander. It will include guides for all the combat hull types.

We will announce availability of Vol.2 in a few weeks. It will almost certainly weigh in the same and cost the same as Vol.1 (with the same pre-order discount). There will be a digital version of Vol.2 but it will not be free.

Personally I’m very excited about seeing both volumes of the Industrial-Sized Knowledgebase out there, but especially Vol.1. The amount of work that has been put into the project by Laci, Mermalior and a large number of other players throughout the community and across the world is evident across every page. The resultant book is both a testament to their efforts and to the scope and complexity of EVE itself. As a player who bought the very first official EVE guide in 2003 and felt more than a little disappointed by it, I can honestly say that ISK is the first EVE guide that has done justice to the game. It’s an incredible piece of work and I hope you guys enjoy it.

EVE’s infamous learning cliff will be overcome!

~ Zapatero

Editor, EON magazine