Eve is a hardcore PVP based MMORPG. This means that the person who is cheating can then have a better chance of blowing up your ship and taking your fittings.

I would have been more annoyed at losing stuff to a hacker than losing a few hours' gametime.

Oh, and calls for refunds come every time the game goes down and then people do maths. In this case we're talking about roughly 18p worth of downtime per player.

Genraly the team are verry good with their community commucations. Like to aplaud their presistant skill. There might be those who want their £0.02 back, but its worth it for developers who actualy care!

Hardly. Even if you pay monthly rather then in a block, it's about £10.41 a month, so a shade over £31 for 90 days and a fair bit less if you pay for 90 days at a time.

As for the shutdown, it was annoying, but better that then someone getting a massively unfair advantage. The lack of information was the biggest pain, but info was spread out via the "official" IRC channels later on and CCP have promised to set something up to pass on info in the event something like this happens again (although they really hope not).

They should probably think about not having the eve-online game and their websites running from the same server. Everything went 'dark' including the forums, all the game servers (there are test servers as well as the principle game server) and even CCP's company site went down. I know they recently locked some forum threads as they (CCP) complained they were interfering with some *game* database work, and although I'm no expert in this area, I'd suspect the eve game is vunerable to a d.o.s. via this connection.

I am an eve-online player, have been for a few years now. One of the most important thing for me as a player is not having massive issues with people gaining unfair advantages though hacks or throwing $$$ at the game.

CCP (the ppl who made eve) have a no cash for isk policy, however if you buy a 90-day card you can 'sell it for isk' in a way managed by CCP. This may seem to a casual observer as cash for isk, but it is imposible to stap this sorta thing out so i feel it is better to be managed by CCP than not. As its managed there is no scope for being cheated as the seller or buyer.

It also means that people who can not afford time cards, can gain time cards by making isk though the eve economy (which benefits everyone).

Now it may sound like I am getting away from the 'it all went dark' issue, but after having played games at the same price point (£10/month) I find the service, support and development of the game much to my liking (you do not unlike WOW need to buy expansions ontop of the monthy price, you do not unlike Planetside get the feeling you have been abandoned and never get your tech questions answered to conclusion, unless its another gamer than figures it out).

So for me, going dark is just a sign of them doing there job, did it hack me off at the time... hell yes, have I forgiven them, of course. Would a little note to say 'its not you, its our side we are working on' and maybe keeping the forums up would of been better, yes that would be true (maybe next time).

The concern mentioned above about too many interdependent systems I feel is a valid issue, but more for a performance perspective than a reliability one (as eve is rather reliable).

The only issue I have with eve is as its re-written as the graphics and gameplay are updated, I find having to move to vista to get all the cool new shiny bits very irritating (even if they will maintain support for the current client in NT/XP for awhile). I also found after there move to faster servers a year or so ago made a performance improvement, but there more recent move to a MS based system has had a negative effect (and as eve always struggle with the very large loads that could come its way in massive 400 odd player fleet battles) not improving on performance is a negative rather than a neutral.

Anyway, most of this is perception rather than fact (not that there is a difference from a customers point of view), and of course there is EVE in China now too, how strange.

-sin

If you buy timecodes from one of the online resellers and opt to pay in dollars you end up paying around £20 for 90 days.

Some B.O.B. POS's were coming out of reinforced....

They've finally fixed one of the exploits they were told about over a YEAR ago. Shame the injection attacks still work :/

What

an

annoying

thing

to

happen

-dpb

Actually its just over £7 a month if you use timecards. :]

Hi there. CCP did absolutely the right thing by offlining the game.

However, it's now come the time to split at least the forums away from the game database.

Having No Info(tm) with no forum and no (basic) website whilst the game is being researched offline is no longer acceptable. If I did this in my job, the Service Delivery Manager would come down on us with a ton of very heavy bricks.

We ARE the business users. Keep us informed. By all means shut down a critical transaction system when it's got problems. Do no shut down the only means of communicating with the stakeholders of your business.

(Have posted same to EVE Online forums)

the eve forums have been filled with people whining, wanting re-imbursement, demanding to know exactly what was going on, whilst throwing out the usual threats to cancel all 500 of their accounts and bankrups CCP.

sod 'em. CCP made the right call, and at the end of the day it's all just internet spaceships. i don't care what happened, only that when i logged back in the following day everything was back to normal.

Anonymous Coward you started well but then you just had to descend into FUD didn't you....

The new graphics engine coming soon will not require Vista or DX10 for any of its bells and whistles. EVE is currently using DX7, they're just updating it to DX9 and unless your computer was obsolete 5 years ago it will still run the game and you will get new graphics. There is a DX10 engine in the works and due to MS that will be Vista only but it is at least a year away and the DX9 client will still be supported.

Even when CCP do discontinue the DX9 client you still won't be forced to buy Vista. There are currently OS X and Linux clients in beta testing. So you'll be able to choose Mac, Linux or Windows.

As for "there more recent move to a MS based system" you really have no clue. You're probably referring to when they recently upgraded to SQL Server 2005 or maybe even before that when they upgraded to Windows 2003 x64. But, they were using Windows and SQL Server before. The EVE cluster has always run on Windows using SQL Server.

Really, ten hours? That's harsh. All that mining time gone to waste...! And all those hours of training time lost...! Now I'll never get that Titan!

Eve is just ProgressQuest with a sci-fi slant and graphic interface. It's about as interactive as watching paint dry and only half as fun.

"Tom Sawyer, you tricked me! Playing Eve Online is not as fun as previously indicated."

I have been a constant eve player for 2 years now, I also work in the IT industry. I believe their reaction of shutting down the server was the correct thing to do, although , there other services inc. website should have had a holding page. I also jumped on the IRC rooms and there was not much information there, mind you they were probably all busy.

Yes it was annoying to have several hours DT, but atleast they have stopped some one/group from cheating.

Eve's not for everyone, but its the most thrilling game I've ever player. The time invested in saving for a ship that can be lost in player-versus-player combat means every fight is a real rush. I often get the shakes playing it, and I recently found out I'm not alone - a friend who brought his laptop to my flat to play online with me mentioned getting the "pvp shakes" too. Eve's harsh and unforgiving combat system, and the lack of artificial rules and no 'respawn at the graveyard' rubbish makes it exciting to play. And that you are taking real risks means you need to really trust your friends online. I've forged several good real life friendships now through eve. The community or players is close-knit and mature (and very IT oriented).

"Eve is just ProgressQuest with a sci-fi slant and graphic interface". What rubbish. Stick to WoW and grinding for your magic boots.

I totally agree.

At the time where the breach were discovered, was it possibly impossible to tell exactly which systems had been compromised. So rather take ALL of them down an do a thorough audit.

Wow, the Reg has been invaded by Eve-O players!

How long's it take before we take system sov?

Here's me hoping this comments thread will devolve in a slagging competition between EVE and WoW players --- "magic stuff is childish, It's so immature" /cartman-voice, "EVE is essence of boredom, concentrated for maximum tedium" etc.

Both fair points to make, but I'm paying my 0.02$ in ElReg access fees (to EDF) for seeing a full mud-slinging fest. I have a family bag of crisps and a sixpack on standby; don't let them go to waste.

Too much like work.

Mine asteroid, get T2 resources, build ship, equip it, blow it up.

Hmm .. "no respawn at the graveyard" .. so you dont own implants? .. noob.

EVE is all about the economy its the best MMORPG at making you feel like your really slaving at the coal face.

Its also the largest single world MMORPG .. none of this "worlds" stuff .. but then being in a fleet battle was always like watching Rolf Harris, "can you see it yet kids ?" nope all the drones are lagging us to shit and back.

Also Space is BIG, really big. Its BIG and empty, which says everything you need to know about the game. ; )

The game and www server dont run off the same server, they just share the same database. The one with the security hole...

Mining asteriods is one thing, but EvE is not for Carebears.

Get into 0.0 or low-sec space and get PvP-ing, if you suffer from PvP Shakes GOOD! :) Thats what makes the game exciting, now...lets crush BoB together !!

"Oh, and calls for refunds come every time the game goes down and then people do maths. In this case we're talking about roughly 18p worth of downtime per player."

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of your comment, that refunds aren't necessarily deserved it's arguably more than just a case of figuring out how many hours of their subscription was lost and comparing it to the total possible hours in a subscription period. For example I doubt hardly anyone plays at 4am to 6am so to those not playing at these hours, those hours are worth nothing. If however they have a family and kids or other commitments then if an evening, particularly a Friday evening is their only chance to play each week then that playing time may be worth a whole lot more to them.

Go outside, fresh air etc.

They did the right thing, they should have told the customers but they're probably well aware that the vast majority are too immature to be told and will kick up a shitfit.

Stated above is that it may have been an inconvenience to someone who was relying on that day to play eve, if this is the case then surely they have a right to cancel and receive a refund, oh wait.. they'd not want to do that... they're too busy relying on the game for social activities and 'fun'. Watching Star Trek is probably as boring as EVE, WoW is no better - play IRL games like rugby... christ, reliance and crying over a game downtime - it's a GAME, albeit they provide a service, surely this is far too OTT for a GAME!

Yes I was slightly miffed at having no notice of what happened, but over the hours i began to piece to togther what happened. CCP did the right thing , call it damage limitation, can you imagine the outcry if some of has had stuff lost etc.

Eve O is unforgiving if u don't know what ur doing, but the rewards are pretty good

Seriously, who mines asteroids for minerals? Haven't you noticed that button to melt down your victims' stuff yet? I mined more in a couple of months in WoW than I ever did in years of EVE.

Respawning with full kit is for FPSes.

Under these circumstances, shutting the lot down was the right thing to do. No question otherwise, leaving it up with the risk of things getting worse would be foolish, I think we can all agree that.

Asking for their money back is also stupid. In cases like this, I do believe that the customers game time should be extended for the duration of the downtime. As loosing 10 hours of play is really a disgrace.

The reason I say this is simple. Eve has to be frank far too much downtime, a scheduled one hour daily down time, and extended downtimes in Eve are far form rare.

I have played EVE for some time now, and have seen so much downtime it's beyond a joke. For one thing, 1 hour a day takes the piss to be frank. We as customers are paying for 90 days or 30 (what ever) yet we are actually receiving 90 hours less than what we pay for. When you add all these ours together, you realize we loose quite a lot of time in which we are paying good money for.

To make things worse, the so called "1 hour" downtime is quite often more than an hour. Now a 5 - 10 minute restart of the servers is logical when you consider the daily traffic, but an hour? Takes the pure, unfiltered piss.

But back on point, in this case. DT was sensible and the right thing to do, but I stand against loosing 1 hour a day, every day on top of that.