In the months and weeks leading up to the much anticipated 13th Alliance Tournament of EVE Online, the discussion within the community revolved as much around the future of of EVE as an e-sport, as it did around the tournament itself.

Speaking with CCP as early as Fanfest this year, AT enthusiasts got worrying signals from CCP that there would not be as much emphasis on EVE as an e-sport directly from CCP going forward. Since then however, CCP have let on that they very much intend to heavily support player-run EVE-sports events instead. This became increasingly clear when CZ received an interesting update from #EVE_NT Collides organiser (and CZ contributor) Nashh Kadavr yesterday.

These skins will not be available anywhere else and will exclusively be limited to the 150 given out. The prizes will be divided amongst the teams as follows:

1st place: 45 SKINs

2nd place: 30 SKINs

3rd place: 20 SKINs

4th place: 15 SKINs

5th-8th place: 10 SKINs

The first seven teams to be invited to this season of Collides are well known names: Pandemic Legion, Warlords of the Deep, Camel Empire, Exodus., Shadow Cartel, Hard Knocks and Tuskers Co. Within an hour of the invitation going out, both Tuskers Co. and Hard Knocks had accepted, with more to surely follow.

The expert commentators for this season should be no strangers to the community either, with names like Chessur, Apothne, SirSqueeebles, Bei Artjay, Bob Shaftoes, Suitonia, Gorski Car and Biohazard, along with guest commentators showing up as the season progresses.

What is #EVE_NT Collides?

The idea to create Collides – a serious, player-run championship that would run regularly and include expert commentary – came from Bei Artjay (Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork). Inspired by the Worlds Collide event at Fanfest 2015, he set about the task of making the monthly 5-man team contest a reality. He was soon joined by #EVE_NT organiser (one the largest player-run EVE events in the world) Nashh Kadavr. Thus the name #EVE_NT Collides was born. Due to RL commitments on the part of Bei, he had to step down from ownership to a producer position, making Nashh the sole owner of the championship.

You can read more about the origins of #EVE_NT Collides

in this article by Nashh

.

So far, three bouts have been broadcast, run in a best of five, 5 vs. 5 format. You can see all of them on the official

#EVE_NT Collides website

.

CCP support and the future of EVE-sports

While CCP have been supporting #EVE_NT Collides since the start (CCP as a company sanctioning the championship and individual devs helping out with each episode on their free time), this new season shows them finally commit to their promise of supporting player-run EVE championships and tournaments in a concrete way.

The unique SKIN provided by CCP for the championship will mean that there are real prizes to hand out, whereas the previous season was only for bragging rights. This means that more teams will be able to motivate participating and spending time theorycrafting and practising for the championship.

While it might be argued that CCP should commit further as a company, rather than individual devs putting in their free time to help out, this is most certainly a step in the right direction. It strengthens #EVE_NT Collides’ position as the premiere player-run EVE-sports event and serves as an inspiration to others interested in organising player tournaments.

Winter may be coming, but we’ll have eight, top quality bouts to look forward to, giving EVE-sports enthusiasts quality content each month and breathing new life into EVE as an e-sport.