Big news, everybody! Turns out CCP has some balls.
On the 30th of September CCP released the latest expansion for EVE, which due to the 6-week release interval on them didn't include a lot of "AWSUM" stuff, but anyway. On the weekend before that the big in-game 0.0 alliances
jointly released a statement where they proposed how game development of 0.0 space should be dictated. People started wondering why this "Null Deal" proposal came about. Why would almost all the big alliances do this?
The answer came in a dev blog on the 1st of October, a full 14 days before its estimated publishment: CCP are planning a big change to the 0.0 lifestyle in the next expanion. (Start of November.)
CCP are nerfing what is known as "power projection", the ability for any big 0.0 alliance to be able to send a fleet of capital ships to ANYWHERE in the galaxy in roughly 15 minutes using jump drives and jump bridges, which are self-made "stargates". What's more, the current mechanics allow for these jumps to be done with little or no consequences, and to be made for whatever reasons. So frigates and cruisers getting pounced upon by carriers and titans is not only a thing, but quite common too. CCP's proposal is to put in consequences to jumping by introducing "Jump Fatigue", meaning that players will have to wait a certain amount of time until they can jump again, and that this waiting period grows longer for every jump made. The math is complex, but as is jump fatigue can quickly accumulate into extravagantly long time, with the maximum possible somewhere around 8000 years. Obviously they're still working out the minor details, but this is the gist of the plan. To somewhat counter this, capital ships will now be allowed to use stargates.
This means that fleets will now have to be deployed strategically, you can't just bring in a WTFPWN-fleet from the other side of the galaxy at the drop of a hat. Actual PLANNING will be required and the reach of the big alliances will be cut drastically short unless they spread out their fleets... and the players. Suddenly it will take some serious manpower to run a deep space alliance that stretches tens of lightyears!
It took 26 hours for a 200-page forum thread full of cries of outrage, sub cancellations, expletives, accusations, cries of pain, cries of joy, congratulations, high-fives, announcements of re-subs and various kinds of merriment to form. One of the better gems from that thread was when a player DEMANDED to know how CCP tought they could make such a drastic change to the game without playtesting or consulting a focus group. CCP's response: "This thread IS the focus group."
With this information in mind, someone went and took a look at the "Null Deal" proposal from the 0.0 again and examined their proposal in detail. Turns out that their proposals would counter and mitigate EXACTLY the proposed changes that CCP announced. Then someone checked when the last Council of Stellar Management meeting was, connected all the dots and the NDA-breaking mole on the CSM was discovered, someone who went and blabbered EVERYTHING that went on at these meetings to the 0.0 alliance leaderships. Expect a purge of the CSM shortly. CCP didn't just strike a blow against the big 0.0 alliances, but uncovered their mole(s) within the company. Hopefully this will have ramifications.
But one point worthy of mention is the origin of the power projection nerf. The original idea came from a former CSM member named (in-game) Marlona Sky, with some further input and revisions pulled from elsewhere. The "jump fatigue" proposal had been known and knocked around in online discussions for a few months, but it was not known that CCP was planning to implement it until very recently. So many of the "serious EVE players" have sent Marlona Sky emails. Threatening emails. The worst threats are not aimed at Marlona Sky personally, but at his niece. Rape, murder, the works. It's bad enough already that his niece had already found her backpack once stuffed full of stickers with the Goonswarm logo with the message "Tell your uncle we said 'hi'", but now he has to involve the authorities. Again.
Speaking of Out-Of-Game harassment, CCP banned a bunch of players lately with little as no explanation, only a statement saying that those not only found guilty of certain forms of harassment would from now on be permabanned, but that everyone
associated with those same characters will also be banned. (A further point of note is that CCP refuses to explain what their exact criteria for harassment is). Of course several of the banned individuals came forward, all humble and innocent-looking going: "Why was I banned?", "What did I do wrong?", "How come I'm banned and that guy is not?" "OHNOES, I'M BEING HARASSED/PERSECUTED!!", etc. Someone finally caved in and told them to their face:
We all know you're a bunch of sociopathic sadistic fucks. We don't want you in our game, so we're kicking you out. Don't come back.
And then someone posted these VERY informative graphs: The average number of players logged into EVE.
This one shows the past 5 years:
("B-R" is that large fight that made the headlines.)
And this one shows only the current year:
Someone said that the power projection nerf would bring EVE Online to its knees. EVE is on its knees
now, this is CCP trying to save themselves from going under.
Let's see where this goes.