Image: Reddit thread showing Jonathan Sarge photo of C-64 and unattributed image of a TRS-80 running EVE Online
“Do I smell ageism,” an angry player asked, “or is that just Mentholatum in my nose?”
CCP is under fire for alleged ageism after sources reveal they have terminated plans to support several classic gaming platforms. As part of the “Fight or Flight” Quadrant, CCP is aborting attempts to support the following platforms, despite their apparent popularity within the EVE Online community: Compaq Portable, Commodore 64, Apple II, TRS-80, TI-99/4A, Magnavox Odyssey, and Atari 7800.
“I’ve spent countless hours keeping my Compaq Portable in good shape for EVE Online,” one enthusiast explained. “I quit playing when they ruined the game with T2 ships in the Castor release, but someone told me official support for the Compaq Portable was coming Soontm, and probably in the same update as the Low-Sec gate to Stain. That kept me engaged with the community all this time. I don’t know what game I’ll choose now. I heard rumors that Metro Exodus and Hunt The Wumpus might be coming to my preferred platform. Either way, I guess CCP doesn’t want my money.”
Heartbroken players are sharing pictures of their favorite platforms running EVE Online one last time before the patch goes live in a grassroots effort to persuade CCP to rethink their plan. There has thus far been no response from CCP, despite broad support within the EVE Online community, as evidenced by several “F for respect” and “7o” salutes, and at least one planned cyno vigil.
“It’s not about ageism or platform bias,” an insider clarified. “Last week, EVE Online experienced a major DDOS event as a result of an effort by a technician in the hosting center to connect to EVE Online from their Commodore 64. The C-64 obviously doesn’t have excellent support for the new transparent CCP Logo displayed when initiating the launcher, so the technician wrote a BASIC program to initiate the connection using an undocumented API. Unfortunately, a misplaced GOTO command resulted in an infinite loop. This event triggered a serious conversation about platform support, and whether it is fair to the broader user base to include undocumented features for the benefit of officially unsupported platforms.”
“I’m not buying their argument,” an Apple II aficionado grumbled, “is EVE Online really so much more complex than Elite, which runs just fine on my machine? CCP managed to delete boot.ini on supported platforms, but somehow they want to shift the blame for the DDOS to those of us who identify as retro platform gamers? Let’s face it, CCP’s new overlords don’t care about our community; Pearl Abyss only wants young gamers dumb enough to buy all the latest hardware. I’m going to go check out Dual Universe; Högni Gylfason went there from CCP, and he is over 40 – maybe he will be more interested in equal rights for older gamers.”
What about my TI-83 ? Are they still developing for that or any other math calculators?
This has me incensed. I have spent the later part of the last decade getting my ENIAC vacuum tube computer up to snuff out in my spare jumbo storage unit. I mean I really can’t pay attention to Eve while it’s running because I am having to constantly replace tubes and the power bill is killing me but still. These greedy bastards at Pearl Abyss need to think about the countless 10’s of us out there still using 1940’s technology.