Monday, April 11, 2011

The 2011 EVE-O Forums Debacle

Wow.

This is the first word that comes to mind when thinking about last weekend's melodrama around the failed New Forums. To me it started when some well-known forum denizens who I believe play the forums more than the actual game (I call Akita T to the defendant's box) posted an ungodly amount of "Waaaaa the new forums suck!" whine threads. At first I thought the issue would slowly blow over because this was only the reaction of people getting thrown out of their comfort zone. For the record I'll say that I actually liked the look of the new forums; the EVE client has already damaged my eyes enough with it's microscopic font, it was nice to have something readable for once. The avatars were on the large-ish size but I could live with that. But it turned out the whine was about to turn to vinegar.

I won't go back into the details, Helicity Boson has already done a better job describing the Epic Forum Fail than anyone could have.

After various attempts at quick-fixing the problem which looked more like fixing a steel frame with duct tape, a few weird/idiotic posts on Facebook, the banning of the player who prooved how bad the situation could get, and finally the complete roll-back to the old forums, I came away extremely disappointed with CCP's handling of the situation, and my already dwindling interest in EVE has taken yet another hit. As I commented on Helicity's post, I can live with a few lag issues because all multi-player games have them to some degree. I can live with bad design if the game behind it is interesting enough to me. I can even live with faulty/broken/unbalanced game mechanics along the lines of hybrid guns and over-powered ECM because there are other ways to have fun in the game. But a direct threat to not only my game account but to my entire computer? From a company that two weeks ago was basking in its own glory and and flaunting its commitment to excellence and delivering the goods? I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable.

So am I ready to emoragequit yet? No, not quite. I do log in a lot less these days, but not just in EVE. With the awesome weather Montreal finally got it was way more fun to be outdoors doing urban exploration than to sit at my computer reading the rage of other players. When I do log in there's plenty of fun to be had down in Curse. But when I look at the big picture of EVE, not just my little corner of the universe, I realise that the thread attaching me to this game is getting thinner by the day. There are already plenty of things I have zero interest in, and shenanigans like last weekend's are only bringing me closer to the proverbial "Fuck that noise". My subscription renewal is coming up in June. I don't think I'll be saying I'm leaving forever, but I seriously think that I will take the summer off and see if CCP can get its act together, especially knowing that a significant change in the gameplay (ie: Incarna) is on the way. So no, you can't have my stuff; I will try to get it gloriously blown up first!


Fly hard, but if the game fails fly something else.

o7

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