Category: EVE Online

I’m back in EVE Online.

I foolishly thought I was finally done with this game and gave away most of my ISK (in game money) to Alaph. This was done, in part, to discourage my return. However, I recently learned some co-workers started playing EVE and they have lured me back in to help them. Therefore, I canceled my WoW and EQ2 accounts and fired up my EVE accounts. Playing with friends trumps over playing a game you vowed to never play again.

I logged in to find myself deep in Goonswarm space. It appears they have pushed BoB out of what used to be ASCN space when I left. The nice folks in local spent some time trying to recruit me and finally relented to my requests for a pod-destroyed trip to Empire space. Even better, they purchased all my ships and modules at a more than fair price before sending me on my way. Good folks out there, nice to know.

Found I still had a few ships in Empire so now it’s time to learn about the new features added since I left. If nothing else, the new graphics in the Trinity expansion look amazing!

– Ethic

According to these threads on the EVE Online boards, a flaw in an optional EVE:Trinity patch sometimes erases the boot.ini in the Windows directory instead of in the EVE Online directory. Unfortunately, c:\boot.ini is one of the main files used during the boot process of windows, and without a proper boot.ini file, Windows simply won’t start. The file is only used in the boot process, so it will run fine until it’s rebooted, at which point, getting the machine up and running again requires some fun tech support-type work.

Putting aside the obvious question, “How did this get past QA,” why would you ever name a file the same thing as an essential part of the OS? That’s just begging for trouble.

EVE Online had some unexplained downtime last weekend. Now it has been explained:

…we discovered an anomaly in the EVE Online Database indicating a potential exploit. Our policy in such cases is to mobilize a taskforce of internal and external experts to evaluate the situation. At 12:57 that group concluded that our best course of action was to go completely dark while an exhaustive scan of our entire infrastructure was executed.

What we discovered was an indication that one of our databases was being accessed through a security breach…

Read the rest here. CCP sure gets their share of controversy.

– Ethic

Yesterday a BOB Titan was downed by Goonswarm and allies. It’s the first time that a fully complete and piloted Titan (the largest ship in the EVE universe) has been downed while in active service. It is a surprising twist in a saga of online and offline conflict that has embroiled CCP, the developers of EVE, in a maelstrom of metagaming machinations – allegations of developer malfeasance and bias, cover-ups and conspiracies exposed by individuals of dubious reputation and siezed upon as useful propaganda by characters with obscure and highly questionable motivations. It is an epic story that has made headlines and the destruction of this ship is just another paragraph in that story.

I don’t even play EVE – why do I care?

Continue reading Space (I believe in)

Contemplating the latest EVE brouhaha, I began to wonder why I did not give CCP the benefit of the doubt. This is not a question of whether CCP lost trust over the t20 incident (and he still works there, right?); I assume the best of people, to a ridiculous degree unsupported by the past several millennia of human history. And it is not as though I am ignorant of who the Goons are. I think it was the firing of the volunteer. I feel rather alone in thinking that is a larger issue than having a direct line to the developers.

Continue reading Self-Reflection

EVE Online Dev Blog, 2007.05.29 – Selected highlights:

To begin, we address the allegation of CCP Sharkbait joining a player corporation to spy on their alliance. As you are about to read, this allegation is FALSE.

Next is the allegation of the Aurora event team rigging an event arc. This has also been proven FALSE.

Last, there is the allegation of the unfair dismissal of an ISD member from the volunteer program. Again, this has been proven to be FALSE.

This concludes the investigations into these allegations. We will continue looking into other allegations of misconduct, as well as following up the leads we have received from our players over the weekend. Further updates will be posted as they become available.

Continue reading CCP Investigates, Finds the Evidence Lacking

[EVE Online] [Later update: this was probably not a real thing, at least not exactly as stated. While there may have been some official misconduct, the likely larger story is one faction from the game playing the metagame and “working the refs.”] Have you heard about the latest EVE scandal? You can read about it here or here; you can read about the previous (similar) one here, although that one did not include abuse of volunteer staff. Wasn’t it nice when the drama was just about players cheating each other? Is it an official perk for employees that you can ban people if their presence annoys your friends?

So I’m about to uninstall EVE. I am not currently subscribed, and I cannot think of anything that would make me re-subscribe at this point. Also, I do not plan to try World of Darkness Online, as I would hate to find my chantry deleted because someone’s friends’ Garou wanted a new caern.

: Zubon

Update: CCP responds. I am headed out of town, and with any luck there will be a more complete response from CCP when I get back. My apologies in advance if I have contributed to unfair accusations.

[EVE Online] A recent email from CCP offered me a free 7 day come back offer. Figuring it was a good way to train a skill for free (skills train in real time even if your account is closed), I popped in to see what was new. I found myself staring straight into the drama of space.

It appeared that my former corporation in EVE, Ars Caelestis, had been disbanded by the CEO. In fact, the claims were such that he stole lots of ISK on his way to the full and final destruction of the corp. The CEO, Achilles Thorongmor, did not go quietly into the night as I expected. I thought some of you might find it interesting to see some of the things that go on in EVE Online and I leave it to you to decide what is right and what is wrong.

Continue reading Space Drama