Header art by Quendan Comari
In EVE Online, this massive multiplayer online role playing game, almost all travel happens through stargates which connect different regions of space.
Only alliances and large player corporations with long-term veteran players can travel using Titan bridges or by using capital jump drives; even then, they have to move cynos using stargates. Wormhole mechanics and scanning, even for some hardcore vets, might as well be voodoo. EVE players are used to these difficulties. It’s a hard game.
But today, while I was traveling through the region of Venal, at 12:51 EVE time, CCP crossed the red line by forcing me into virtual lockdown.
Unable to Use Stargates
On my screen I saw this message: 12:51:12 Info Server: ongoing disruption prevents this action. Disruption may persist for some time.
So, while creating some event for capsuleers living in highsec and lowsec, CCP managed to close all gates in nullsec as well. But by doing this, CCP has forgotten EVE is a sandbox game, as they advertise on their own website: “Experience space exploration, immense PvP and PvE battles and a thriving player economy in an ever-expanding sandbox.”
With many of us being forced into lockdown in real life due to Covid-19, EVE is a sort of escape from the grim reality of staying in a locked apartment, unable to move around freely. EVE is an escape, a place where we should be free to go anywhere we want to go.
Therefore, being forced into virtual digital lockdown by CCP, forced to stay in space in an empty system with nothing to do for hours, is really sick. Freedom of travel was the essence of this game; now it is gone, ruined, destroyed by CCP.
Most of us don’t pay our monthly dues for this game just to see the dudes at CCP sitting in their office having a laugh at capsuleers unable to use stargates – unable to use any tactics, strategies or enjoy the sandbox freedom that EVE Online has advertised.
We will not tolerate virtual lockdown.
Enough is enough.
What’s Next?
Even if CCP turns stargates on later today or tomorrow, we all will have this thoughts sitting in our minds: What if the next time I warp my 10-20-50-100 billion jump freighter to a highsec gate from lowsec and I can’t get through? Will I have it reimbursed by CCP? What if my fleet or alliance member asks me for help and we can’t use stargates to help him? What if I assemble a fleet and try warping through a route I’ve used a dozen times to get into a fight and suddenly I can’t get through?
What if my titan won’t tether on a citadel?
What if I can’t dock back once I undock?
What’s next CCP?
Back to Controlled Gameplay
Recently the CCP dev team introduced EDENCOM cyno jammers, deployed by EDENCOM forces in lowsec systems. They greatly affected movement of goods to and from nullsec empires to the trading hub of Jita.
Does this move by CCP represent more freedom or less freedom? Does it get nullsec pilots more involved in the lowsec sandbox? It certainly does not. The Discord channels around EVE were filled with anger and frustration among jump freighter pilots responsible for doing logistics once those jammers appeared.
Getting around EVE in capital or supercapital ships became a real pain for many capsuleers.
Another example of controlled-vs-sandbox gameplay is the CCP creation, metaliminal storms.
Now, in order to live in nullsec – just to move around, go krabbing, or fighting – capsuleers have to keep in mind “weather conditions,” what type of storm is happening and where and how it affects gameplay.
EVE is already a hardcore game for newbies, with a lot of information to swallow and remember. All these new changes are just more extra pressure. When I first time jumped into nullsec 15 years ago, my heart was pumping, I was panicking, and I had no idea what to do and what was going on. Now, if someone told me my scan resolution is +20% because there is some shit-storm, I’d just laugh in his face. For hardcore vets, these storms are nothing but another means by CCP to affect their gameplay, forcing them to stockpile extra ships and fits to counter the effects from those storms. The storms do not give any extra positive player experience to either new or experienced players. So, what’s the point?
Now we see the CCP team initiating drastic changes and limiting freedom of travel in EVE. What is the CSM’s stance on these covert and direct actions?
What’s next, CCP?
News | CCP Follows Past Endeavors with Big Investment in Blockchain
The Extinguishing of FI.RE?
Ushra’Khan Execute the Siege of Amamake
Guilford Australis
One of the unique aspects of EVE compared to other MMOs is that it has always been mainly a player-versus-developer experience rather than mainly PvP or PvE. The players simply can’t and don’t trust CCP to make intelligent and fair decisions.
This seems to have intensified following the pointless stupidity of the Chaos Era (in which Hilmar’s stated goal was to screw over players as frequently and badly as possible so they are kept off-balance) and the formation of Team Talos (which has greatly accelerated the pace of CCP’s fundamental development strategy: “You like the stuff you spent months training into and making ISK to buy? NERF NERF NERF NERF NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE”).
I was about to say I’m not sure how much more of this players will tolerate, but then again we’ve put up with FozzieSov for five years and citadels for four years.
October 13, 2020 at 3:39 PMRayford Carpathia Guilford Australis
Can I has your stuff?
October 13, 2020 at 3:43 PMBumpy Dog Rayford Carpathia
Purile. Reddit is over there.
October 13, 2020 at 6:40 PMRayford Carpathia Bumpy Dog
It’s spelled “puerile.” Dictionary is over there.
October 13, 2020 at 9:28 PMBumpy Dog Rayford Carpathia
Oh gosh. You got me with the “cannot spell” gambit.
puerile
/ˈpjʊərʌɪl/
adjective: puerile
childishly silly and immature.
“a puerile argument”
October 14, 2020 at 5:33 AMNoob
So there are these things in the game called wormholes…
October 13, 2020 at 4:47 PMGuilford Australis Noob
There are also these things in the game called stargates.
October 13, 2020 at 5:18 PMLibluini Guilford Australis
Stargates were a mistake. Destroy them all.
October 13, 2020 at 9:15 PMGuilford Australis Libluini
When I was a youngster, we had to slowboat those 5,000 AU to Jita. If the engine died, you had to get out and push. And you were REALLY screwed if the Blood Raiders showed up then.
October 13, 2020 at 9:26 PMSimon Chui
Don’t have to fix server instability issues,
October 13, 2020 at 8:57 PMIf you make server instability an “event”.
steppnav
PAYING_SUBS = (Interesting Content + Rational Risk + Affordability + Comradery + Ability to Plan + Pride of Accomplishment) / (Unreliable Expectations + Excessive Complexity + Wasted Training (real and in game) + Sadism + Purchasable Superior Operational Situation + Unpleasant People + Pride of Superiority)
Very crude and simplistic. It is very hard for people to remember what it was like to be utterly clueless in this game. A lot of this shake and bake stuff does not help. High Sec was/is primary school. Go all Ad Hominem on me, but Paying Subs keep the computers on and the humming beings behind us casting those multi-colored shadows on this cave wall. There was some interesting content and the teams that formed on both sides of the Trig conflict were awesome opportunities. But now the real reason for our struggle is gone. People joined in for different reasons. I think quite a few of use were fighting to keep the circulatory system of the game from being damaged. Others were hoping for REAL new opportunities to figure out new things and have new ways of PVP’ing. I’ve been looking around in Niarja, but the Trig versions of jump gates aren’t easy nuts to crack. I have NO intention of grinding out standings with Trigs just for the privilege of jumping their precious gates. My Bowhead and tech one Freighter are stuck on one side of Niarja. So they are only useful for my main fun corps on one side. Meh. I’m still irritated about the obliteration of HiSec war decking and the inability to track the online/offline of targets. Meh.
October 13, 2020 at 11:01 PMOrihara Izaya
While I could comment on many things, I’ll bring up one particular point made here. The effect of the gates going temporarily going offline isn’t (or at least shouldn’t) be that players now fear this happening at any point in any place. It has been made overwhelmingly clear, well in advance that on this particular day some stargates will occasionally not function as normal. You could wait it out offline, or you could keep playing while knowing that.
October 14, 2020 at 11:52 AMGeorge Ewing Orihara Izaya
That assumes that average players read devblogs, eve forums and pay attention to what’s happening in game. They don’t. They are sheep who are easily surprised by what others have planned for.
October 14, 2020 at 1:24 PMOrihara Izaya George Ewing
In basically any other game I would not expect that. In a game that is played as much out of game as Eve, what with the theorycrafting, logistics, out-of-game tools, I would expect players to read devblogs, whether or not they are going to live up to that expectation. If an active player doesn’t even read what the client throws right in their face then I am sorry to say I have no sympathy for them.
October 14, 2020 at 3:15 PMGeorge Ewing
Eve is going through some fundamental changes, changes which some players don’t like, and others applaud. It would be my guess that the ones applauding represent Eve’s future, while the ones booing represent Eve’s past. CCP has determined the former are more valuable than the latter, and that’s fine with me.
October 14, 2020 at 1:28 PMGerd L. Plüü George Ewing
Apart from the fact that I’m part of Eve’s past, there’s another thing that worries me about this development: Where do players go that prefer emergent gameplay, metagaming and deep, complex and often times unexpected player interaction? There are plenty options for games with developer-driven content on the market – do we need yet another one? On top of that – many of those games died after just a few years when the “Content Patches” started to become stale, yet Eve is nearing the beginning of it’s third decade, even though it didn’t even know “Content Patches” for most of it’s runtime.
October 15, 2020 at 10:38 AMDraco Morrison
boo hoo
October 15, 2020 at 1:10 AM