Seoul, Reykjavík

In a stunning turn of events following the public outcry over many EVE Online players being treated as “unwilling collateral damage,” Pearl Abyss CEO Robin Jung has ordered freshly-acquired CCP Games to suspend a “balance pass” previously scheduled to be released in October. “Pearl Abyss is committed to engaging with the player community and reviewing player feedback, for without players, we as developers would be out of a job. This culture extends throughout all of Pearl Abyss and our subsidiaries and we will not tolerate poor decisions that threaten the health of the player communities we have worked so hard to cultivate.”

Seeking to reassure investors during a quarterly shareholders’ meeting, Jung expressed dismay at CCP’s lack of public relations expertise. “It is utterly embarrassing for a company to refer to some of its own players as ‘unwilling collateral damage,’ and it is for that reason that I reluctantly invoke the veto power established in Article Six.”

Article Six of the “Acquisition Agreement Concerning Pearl Abyss and CCP Games” outlines the procedure by which Pearl Abyss, as the majority owner of CCP Games, can suspend the “creative independence” established in Article One of the same document. Notably, this invocation of the veto power can only be exercised through unanimous agreement of the Pearl Abyss Board of Directors, indicating that Jung did not issue the declaration unilaterally—and likely over the objection of CCP.

Under normal circumstances, Article One governs the unique relationship between Pearl Abyss and CCP Games, in which the former allows the latter to develop pre-established IPs such as EVE Online with full creative independence. However, as Jung explained to shareholders, Article Six provides the boundaries within which that creativity must abide. Furthermore, it supplies Pearl Abyss with a great amount of flexibility for how to handle emergent breaches of creative conduct, with remedies ranging in seriousness from ordering a simple review of policy to outright removing CCP developers, employees, or executives from the company.

In this case, Jung—and the Pearl Abyss Board of Directors—selected a relatively light sanctions package. In a statement issued by the Chairman of Pearl Abyss, Dae-Il Kim, “The Pearl Abyss Board of Directors hereby unanimously orders CCP Games to suspend the release of the ‘October Balance Pass’ until further notice, to establish player-led focus groups to analyze, review, and propose amendments to the ‘October Balance Pass’ as currently published, and to issue an immediate apology for insulting a significant portion of the player population. At the heart of this order, we expect CCP to listen to its playerbase.”

Despite what some observers in Reykjavik are calling a “heavy-handed” response disproportionate to the offense, Jung struck a forgiving and optimistic tone. “CCP Games has much to learn about how to properly treat players. We can either choose to see them as a piggy bank or walking wallets, or as living, breathing people who share in the creative storytelling and development of our games. It is a long and arduous process but I remain confident that CCP will continue to learn and grow in this regard.”

Reykjavik – The “Burn Jita” riots have long been recognized as a triumph by EVE Online players against unpopular CCP practices. During the riots, players traveled to the Jita trade hub and continually bombarded an in-game structure until the lag was so unbearable that CCP had to reverse on a range of issues. Today, however, according to leaked CCP documents, and in light of player outrage over the October Balance Pass, CCP has been testing an innovative idea—cutting players off from Jita completely.

The leaked email, supposedly written by Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, titled “Greed is Good But Revenge is Better,” was confirmed through anonymous channels within CCP and independently verified with the CSM. This revelation indicates that CCP had communicated the new policy to the CSM at a prior date, though it was not confirmed if the memo had been drafted in a previous form at the time of the CSM summit in early September, or if a new draft had been issued following player outcry to the October Balance Pass.

The memo marks a shift in CCP’s policy when interacting with the player community.

“I want to begin by thanking everyone who had to handle the childish screams of our players after the announcement of the changes in October. At the same time, I want you to know that I have been working with our server technicians and executive producer to ensure that we will retain full control of our game. During the week of September 24, we will be testing out a new concept—shutting down Jita. This will send a message to the buffoons that we will not tolerate being forced to change our development plans and schedules. They are all about to become ‘unwilling collateral damage.’ Now, our first few tests may seem game-wide, but we’ll make some small iterative passes to limit loss of access to Jita.”

Responses to the e-mail from CCP and the CSM, represented through CCP employees quoting them, were largely positive.

“To be quite honest, I don’t know why we didn’t think of this in the first place,” wrote CCP Falcon, lead community organizer, “When the screeching gets so bad we have to change our patches, why don’t we just kick them where it hurts and shut down Jita?”

CCP Rise, who had amended the October changes in an attempt to ameliorate wormhole players, wrote, “Finally! Dealing with those idiots was a complete waste of time! Also, Jin’Taan wanted me to tell everyone he loves these new policies. Has everyone read his kickass INN article?”

Responding to CCP Rise, Hilmar wrote, “Yes I did! It’s good to see a CSM with some balls. Make sure he gets a position next year even if you have to fudge some numbers.”

Although the current tests were too successful in that the entire game was affected, according to CCP back channels, additional iterations will be made so that the only system affected will be Jita along with the wider Forge regional market. Nullsec alliances, already alerted to the policy through their CSM representatives, have created a bartering economy through the contract system to insulate them from reliance on Jita. A player coalition of wormholers, highsec carebears, and lowsec groups is allegedly forming to protest the changes, but without a Jita to “burn,” it is unlikely they will be able to sway CCP policy.

“This acquisition will be excellent for CCP, for our games, and especially our players,” Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games, said cheerfully as he patted the server hardware sitting next to him on an Icelandair flight to Seoul the morning of September 9, 2018. Speaking to reporters on Saturday, EVE Online’s slowest time of the week, Péturrson assured those gathered that any disruptions in service for CCP’s hit sci-fi MMORPG would be barely noticeable.

That was before the CCP team missed the connecting flight to Seoul in London’s Heathrow Airport.

“I’m not sure we are going to make it,” Hilmar said impatiently as the CCP Dev Team slowly snaked its way through Heathrow’s byzantine queues and transportation services, laden with backpacks of their office belongings from Reykjavik while carrying or pushing server equipment. Looking back over the caravan of polo-clad staff and employees, Pétursson muttered to reporters, “It may not have been a good idea to do an office move at the same time as a server transfer.”

In order to better accommodate the move and to provide as little disruption to EVE Online as possible, twenty percent of the server architecture was left behind. A senior CCP server technician, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the Pearl Abyss acquisition, stated, “We believed that twenty percent would be sufficient, considering the traditionally low player turnout on weekends and the numbers of players who had reported they were unsubscribing and uninstalling our client over the last few days.”

Expecting that the lower player population would translate into less stress on the servers, the remaining twenty percent was designed to primarily accommodate Jita station traders, players using the autopilot feature, and to support the monetary transactions on the EVE Online website. When players began activating modules, undocking their ships, and transferring items between hangars, however, the remaining architecture began to cascade in failure.

Players immediately noticed the slowdown in service. The r/Eve subreddit was especially active in voicing disappointment, with many users lamenting they might “have to go outside.” Players purportedly from Australia, on the other hand, believed the lag to be a new game feature designed to equalize latency.

At the gate, the CCP team let out a collective sigh of traveler’s disappointment as they watched their British Airways flight depart for Seoul. After taking nearly half a day to navigate through Heathrow, the team was exhausted. Server equipment and office supplies were heaped in the waiting area while CCP staff worked to book the next earliest flight to Seoul, though British Airways was unprepared to accommodate such a large party on any flights for some time.

CCP Falcon attempted to take to the forums to address user concerns, but his responses were delayed by up to thirty minutes or more. CCP Guard, who had been carrying server equipment under both arms and had subsequently disappeared behind the stacks of equipment, could not be reached for comment. When pressed on when he believed the servers would be back online, Péturrson declined to answer directly.

“All acquisitions have unexpected situations and we just need to be patient,” Péturrson said as he opened his smartphone to a surface vessel shipping company’s website.

Have you or a loved one been affected by lag in EVE Online? We would love to hear from you! Tweet us @EVEOnionNews

Popular charity event Games Done Quick recently concluded its SGDQ event, raising just over $2 million for charity. For those not in the know, Games Done Quick is a charity livestream that brings in various video game speedrunners to complete video games in a speedy manner while viewers make donations for charity. However, there is often controversy at such events, such as the exclusion of certain runners and games, and this year is no different.

EVE Online was slated to be played at the event in front of a large audience, but was cancelled soon after the stream began. No exact reasoning was given to the runner, but speculation of the war starting up, and people actually doing something in the game for once, made the RNG too unpredictable, and the speedrun wouldn’t be completed in a reasonable period of time.

“The run was going to be a 100% map exploration” said a disheartened Jermino93, who was going to run the game, “but now people are actually undocking supers; it’s like a whole other game now. It’s as if you practiced version 1.0 of a game, and the developers patched to version 3.3 overnight. My entire route will have to be remade, now.”

He goes on to explain how his route took into consideration the average amount of player activity per system, types of ships active, and security status, among other values. It was a lot easier to map these things out due to how predictable EVE has become. That’s all been shaken up. “I’ve never had this happen before” says Jermino93, amazed at how radically different the game is now.

Not all hope is lost, however. Jermino93 says he has plans for a different type of speedrun come the next GDQ event. “I’m doing my best to reduce RNG for a speedrun to get one billion ISK from scamming in Jita. GDQ should approve this run because they’re real familiar with money-related scams,” were his last words before being escorted off of the GDQ event grounds, along with me and everyone he had spoken to that day.

After considerable positive feedback concerning the reduction in Jump Fatigue, CCP has officially renounced the new plan. “In the next few days,” says CCP Falcon, “a new item will be available in the PLEX store that will reduce the blue timer created by Jump Fatigue. A stimulant for capsuleers to keep them going for the long haul.”

To be sold individually—and in bundles—these “stimpacks” will enable more rapid capital movement. “Like coffee for truckers,” one dev was quoted. “We hope Stimpacks will allow more rapid hauling for freighters and enable players to engage in capital brawls further from their null fortresses.”

When issues of balance and inequality favoring so-called “wallet warriors” were brought up, CCP stated they plan to up Jump Fatigue timers again, balancing out the reduction offered by these stimpacks.

FRT exec Noraus has been praising the news on Reddit, calling it “a long-time coming that CCP delivers on this hotly debated topic.”