After 12 years on a support system developed in-house, CCP Games has decided to integrate a new 3rd-party system. This decision comes after nearly a year of testing behind the scenes and is detailed in a Dev Blog by CCP Panzer. This new system is developed by Zendesk, a software development company out of San Francisco, and offers a variety of upgrades from the previous system, including a streamlined web interface, updated FAQ and knowledge base, a yet-to-be-implemented live chat, and more.
The biggest impact for players is the removal of the in-game petition system; players accessing the F12 Menu will be redirected to the Help Center in an out-of-game browser. Similarly, players accessing support.eveonline.com will be redirected to the new website. This consolidation is designed to reduce maintenance for and increase the effectiveness of the new system. Previously, CCP was maintaining two separate pipelines, an inefficient system.
What isn’t changing is the GM team on the other side of the system nor, presumably, their ban on publishing responses to petitions. Similarly persisting will be CCP’s continued development with Zendesk on this new site. Slated for the near future are the live chat feature and in-game notifications to ticket responses. Social media integration in some form is also being considered, though the particular implications of that have yet to be revealed. Ultimately, though, this new system provides a better platform for CCP and players to interact and will continue to do so with further development.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Set’s Chaos.