tl;dr - Log on all your accounts over the period 19.00 to 20.00 on Sunday 5 May 2013 to hit a new PCU record the day before Eve's 10th birthday. Then come along to a party and fireworks display for EVE's birthday at midnight afterwards. .

Released on 6th of May 2003, on the 6th of May 2013 EVE will officially be 10 years old.

The current PCU record is 63,170, set in January 2011.

In celebration of EVE's 10th birthday, players of EvE lets challenge ourselves, our alts, our corpmates, our alliance mates, people we play with, people we kill, people we trade with, people we die to, people we meet in local, people we know IRL, people we know from player gatherings and everyone else we know who plays EVE to log in on 5th of May 2013 at 19.00 with the aim of hitting a new Peak Concurrent User record just in time for the birthday celebrations.

Why 5th May, not 6th May? Why 19.00?

EVE has always hit PCU figures on Sundays, and 5th May is a Sunday. Last Sunday we were in touching distance of 60k PCU.
Per these graphs: http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility , 19.00 - 20.00 is the peak time for a Sunday. If we do this right, on 6th May CCP will be able to issue a press release noting EVE's 10 year birthday AND a new PCU record.

Why should we, the players, give a **** about PCU, which is largely a marketing claim

A marketing coup, and the success of EVE in general, means more subscribers. More subscribers means more people to play with, corp with, trade with, kill, be killed by, scam, rob, extort, steal from, share with, help, hinder and stomp on the sandcastles of. Even for bitter vets like me who play Skilltraining: Online, there is a huge amount of pleasure to be had from being able to say "yeah you heard about that incredibly successful, incredibly hardcore game, EVE Online? I was relevant in that game, once."

Who honestly doesn't feel a little proud of EVE's achievements?

Why post this thread now?

There are 10 Sundays to go until 5th May, so I'll be providing a countdown of sorts. I will be posting weekly (monday) updates of the PCU figures. Its quite possible we will have a new PCU record before 5th May but that wont change anything - we should still aim to beat it on 5th May.

Weekly Update - PCU

Sunday 23 January 2011 - 63,170
...
Sunday 24 February - 59,300
Sunday 3 March - 60,476
Sunday 10 March - 55,858
Sunday 17 March - 55,521
Sunday 24 March - 56,951
Sunday 31 March - 51,350
Sunday 7 April -
Sunday 14 April -
Sunday 21 April -
Sunday 28 April -
Sunday 5 May - GO TIME



Potential 5 May ~18:00 - 24.00 Event

Considering a possible event to celebrate hitting a PCU record if we do so.

The current front runner idea is a massive (largely uncoordinated) fireworks event in a system other than Jita (lag and TiDiwill be more spectacular than any event). My current preference is outside Yulai X - DED Assembly Plant which is the precursor to Jita IV-4 at release so has some nice symmetry for EVE's birthday.

The event would start just before peak time, aiming to go on through the PCU record to just after midnight (i.e. Eve's birthday). Hopefully CCP would get involved in the fireworks.

RvB have confirmed they will run some kind of freeforall to coincide with this event / as part of it.

Please post your suggestions for both system and event in the thread.