Current Users of EVE ... Looks to be up about 10%

Last June I noticed that about a week after the Incarna patch, online users of EVE looked to be down about 10%. Lets see how things look now, nearly week after the Crucible patch:

It now looks to be up around 10% (green line compared to purple), hitting close to or exceeding 50k online users, numbers I have not seen in months. This seemed to have been true over this past weekend as well. In short, things are looking pretty good for this patch. Obviously there are a lot of possible factors, but considering the good reaction to this latest patch, in contrast to Incarna, I think that Crucible is to be credited.

CCP has done something that is almost unheard of in the tech industry, it put away it's own arrogance and listened to its users. That this happened in Iceland, a country credited with being populated by stubborn Vikings, is all the more exceptional.

But wait, there is more to be done. Firstly us EVE players really need to reward CCP for this shift. Give your friends invites. CCP has given out new 60 day invite key (which sadly does not reward the deliverer). Send this to a friend whom you think might want to play EVE. Imagine the effect within CCP, and the wider gaming community, if EVE suddenly gets a spike in revenue for:
1. All but abandoning micro-transactions
2. Listening to the users
3. Driving Improvements to old features instead of just adding more fluff.
4. Communicating openly with the player base.

Gamers all over the industry should know that this is the opportunity to show the publishers that we want quality over trinkets, game-play over pay-to-win and give developers frustrated by greedy executives a nice data point that says.... PLAYERS PLAYERS PLAYERS PLAYERS!!!