Quite without realising it, I seem to have drifted out of EVE Online again. It's not a bitter thing, or an angry thing, unlike many of my previous flouncing hissy-fits. I just seem to have 'had my fill' for now. Clearly, an MMO that you buy, just about struggle through the first (free) month in and then abandon in disgust is Not Very Good, but as well as that, I start to see that the mark of a
really good MMO, is that somewhat bizzarely, it's good enough that you can amicably walk away when you've had enough, and that it doesn't keep you playing and playing, long past the point it was last interesting or fun. A good MMO has to keep you in the first place, but I think, is mature enough to let you go too.
Very subjective, of course, and perhaps a bit of over anthromorphising on my part. Of course MMOs don't have wills and desires of their own - it's just a server, dum-dum, but I've sometimes played online games where it's been actually quite difficult to cash in the chips, call it a day, and let it go, and from reading a lot of blogs, I don't think I'm alone in this kind of dead-horse beating, this strange refusal to admit that perhaps "SuchAndSuch Online" isn't
quite as much fun as it used to be. We end up plodding on through the day-to-day, maybe afraid to acknowledge that it's simply a thing of addiction now.
I'm older and wiser these days I expect, and it's easier to just stop playing when I've had enough, and I can't remember the last really awful MMO I've stormed out of, which is due in part, to me tending not to go for new-new MMOs these days, but instead revisit the ones I've liked in the past.
I'd just like to point out this particular resignation is nothing at all to do with the current ongoing CCP/BoB/Goons thing. It's fascinating, and even I've had a bit of minor soapbox mileage out if it all, but being a bit of an Empire-Hugging Nobody, it doesn't have much relevance to my everyday game.
I do wonder if the current plan, which seems to be to turn EVE Online into The Democratic Glorious People's Republic of EVE, with elections and all the rest, will actually help matters much, mind you. Plenty more klever bloggers than me have been pointing out that in the end, those who don't want to believe CCP are on the level, won't, no matter what lengths they go to.
If it were me, I'd just take
private, internal, measures to make it less likely to happen again, and then draw a line under the whole thing, leaving it to the individual players to decide if rampant cheating is ruining their own day to day game-lives. I expect in pretty much all cases, where the player happens NOT to be a fleet commander fighting tooth-and-nail for a bit of empty space in the arse-end of beyond, none of the events of the last few weeks are affecting them in the slightest. "Here is our game - take it or leave it." The basic game of EVE is certainly strong enough to withstand that kind of scrutiny, and I doubt most subscribers care that much. I don't, and although, yes I'm leaving, it's not about this at all.
I wonder if a more distant, 'professional', and yes, even aloof, relationship with the players, such as we usually see elsewhere in the MMO world, might make things less awkward for CCP, rather than this current, 'what else can we do to win you over?' idea that's in the works now, which frankly, is just likely to give fuel to the usual low-grade flames of the kinds of message-board rabble-rouser you get everywhere, and who basically get his or her 'game' from the forums, not the server. Some folks are never happy.
Anyway, it's been a decent run this time though, with new things still being seen and uncovered, both on a purely game level, and in the social game. Exploration and Scanning, Salvage and Rigs, and the Tier 2 Battlecrusiers, my favourite of which is the Hurricane...so sleek, so pointy... The Factional Warfare I was hoping to see this time through didn't seem to quite make it in, which was a shame, as I still think the game needs some form of ''PvP-Lite" - a way to get a bit more used to the ins and outs of that, very significant, yet brutally complex, aspect of the game without having quite such high stakes, security status hits and so on. I've also just missed 'Heat', a new feature that allows you to gamble with modules, overpowering them for improved performance, at the risk of them blowing up. It's encouraging to see how much new stuff was in there since my previous season, and it's this kind of tinkering about with new mechanics that makes the MMO more appealing than offline single-player games, which rarely change much past the first go.
Exciting times with EVE Inter-Corp War too, which was thoroughly enjoyable, although possibly because we were winning mostly. I expect it's not quite so much fun if you're outnumbered and unable to leave the station without getting insta-ganked, and in any event, I'm not sure I have the sheer nervous energy to keep at wars all the time. Again, the corp are good people, friendly and helpful, although like most of my online guild adventures, I didn't really engage enough to be able to think of them as close friends. Amiable compatriots, one and all!
So once more, time to park up, and pick a really long skill to train - Battlecruiser V, probably. Because yes, I know I will be back - EVE is one of those few titles that I never really leave, merely take holidays from now and then. I've no idea when I'll return, but the mid-long term future of EVE looks good, with a planned DirectX 10 upgrade, (screenshots of which look almost TV/Movie quality, and quite stunning), and a whole 'walk about stations' thing that will finally see us pilots
getting out of the spaceships, for the first time in years. And between now and then, I'm sure there will be hundreds of smaller features, fixed and changes to make life interesting all over again.
But for now, time to fire up the Futurama-style stasis chamber, and get a good fourty-thousand winks...