EVE General Discussion

I am cancelling my subscription due to my belief that the chronic problems that I have witnessed will never be addressed. They cover two main categories, Quality Control and Resource Usage.


Quality control

Constant patching. Patches are not an acceptable form of Quality Control. Yes, I know that current business management practices say that the business will make more money if they let the users be beta testers (lots of game companies are doing this). Try calculating how much money is being made from me when I cancel my subscription over issues caused by being a beta tester. Respect me and give me a quality product for my money. Seriously.

Downtimes after major upgrades have never once been managed successfully. There is always a “last minute rush” to get things working which always extends downtimes by significant amounts. A serious company would take steps to ensure that such transitions would go smoothly. If they had succeeded even once, I might believe they are actually taking steps… but the results speak for themselves.

There are at least three different methods of patching that I am aware of. There is the in-game version where the patch downloads from within Eve itself. There is the newest version, aka the Eve Launcher. And finally, the most annoying one of all, is the 5mb downloader that must be downloaded in order to get an 8mb patch. I will discuss the last one more in the Resource Usage section.

Recurring bugs are a huge problem. Sound. Need I say more? No, but I will. I recall a little over two years ago when the sound system was absolutely broken. For a year. Yes, an entire year. I had to turn off the in-game sound on all of my computers (2 desktop and 1 laptop) for an entire year so I could play the game. Even now, after certain patches, I get weird static sounds periodically or sounds that do not play at the proper level or… meh. I suspect the sound system needs to be reprogrammed from scratch by someone who actually has experience writing such code. I do not mean to hurt the feelings of the coder who wrote the sound system but seriously, give it up. Let someone who is competent do it.

Sideways warp effects. I did not experience this bug at all when I first started playing. It is now a regular feature that keeps resurfacing. Not once or twice but constantly. I am unsure but it could be every third patch unless the moon is eclipsing a planet or there is a supernova in M61 that also coincides with the day of the week being a Tuesday. You can assure me that this is permanently fixed but the track record says clearly otherwise.


Resource usage

Network resources are abused in a grossly incompetent manner. The constant patching is a problem but read the part above about the 5mb downloader for an 8mb patch. When that method was in the heaviest use, I was on “broadband” that was roughly equivalent to a 56k modem. Yeah, I was not a happy camper. The other item in network resource usage is the inventory. A few (6?) months ago, I would dock and it would take 10 seconds or more for my ships to show up. It is generally reduced to 5 seconds or less now, but why is it not immediate (like it used to be!)? It seems that every time I dock, the client is downloading all of the inventory. If this is the case, it is grossly incompetent. Once the initial data is downloaded, the client should only get fresh data when there are changes, and that data should only be a delta. A periodic refresh, possibly time based (every hour?), could be implemented without serious problems.

The only computer based resources that frustrate me to death are the graphics. Okay, being pretty is important. I can understand and deal with that even if I do not respect it. Something is seriously wrong when a Macbook Pro made in 2010 overheats on a silly space-sim game while being able to play halflife 2 or more modern games without any real issues. I am sure that the graphics are more cutting edge now-a-days but the half life 2 (Source) engine could be swapped out from whatever graphics engine is currently being used and almost nobody would notice a difference in graphics quality. Yes, I travel around the world a LOT and I can not bring my desktop computer or home network connection with me. Resource usage is a massive problem for me.

Hm. Why not? Let’s throw in something recent so the message is clear: The recent inventory management screen. People complained. People made suggestions. People showed how it could be implemented without causing major issues for people. All of it was soundly ignored. The new inventory management was sent out despite some minor bugs and it was made NON-OPTIONAL. Arrogance at its finest. For myself, I actually mostly like it despite the minor bugs but there is one major issue that I have with it. My ship’s cargo bay. I am unsure why my brain works this way, but I need to have a ship‘s cargo bay. Perhaps it is a mental separation that I need because, in my mind, the game is ship-centric. I do not know. Tweaking an inventory management screen is NOT a ship's cargo bay.


I have tens billions of ISK worth of resources, ships, etc. in my hangars (no, I am not giving it away, it will rot). I have been playing this game for a fairly long time. I have made lots of friends. At some point in an abusive relationship, the person being abused needs to say enough. Well, I am saying it now. Enough!

To all of the capsuleers I have interacted with (positively and negatively), I will have fond memories of you. To CCP, well, let's just say that seeing your name on ANYTHING will assure me that I should stay far far away. Good bye and good luck to all.

stuff ! can i have ?

Get ready to have your thread turbo trolled...

Name another MMO that doesn't inject bugs. Hell, many of the big single player games are coming out with some rather massive bugs these days.

Best. Glitch. Ever.

http://youtu.be/fEh3N__hJ5E?t=2m22s

May I gain access to your bank account so that I might lose it all in blinks?

I do not now, nor have I ever, played any other MMO. Regardless, I would find this state of affairs unacceptable if I were to play them.

This account is paid up until 11 June 2012 and another account for several more months. Regardless, they are both cancelled.

Regards,
strike

Maybe you should read my post? I travel with the 2010 Macbook Pro. My main home computer has GTX460, 16 cores of 2.6 ghz goodness, and 24 gigabytes of RAM. My secondary home computer, which also can not fit in my luggage is a dual core 2.4ghz, 6 gigs of RAM, and an 8800GTX.

I will keep your recommendations in mind though. Thanks. (kind of surprised at how many responses there are. This was meant mostly for CCP but the cancellation screen spit it out.)

Hello OP.

From the outset I must say that I appreciate and respect your views.

The universe can be a harsh place.

However, before you step in the void could your have a quick look in your inventory for certain items - I appreciate you find the tool to do this somewhat unwieldy.

If you have and could possibly spare any drugs, alcohol or exotic dancers we could very much use them in TLP's Pleasure Dome.

I myself have recently discontinued my pilot's license - for rather tragic personal reasons but we plan to go out with a bang.

Since I've had to disable the sound due to a crippling memory leak introduced in Crucible and never fixed or even responded to, I can sympathise. In fact, the constant serious bug introductions from SiSi to TQ is one of the main reasons I'm leaving too, as well as a few other people. So you're certainly not the only one in this situation.

Apparently CCP are looking to improve the situation with regard to bug reporting and feedback but let's be honest, a certain over-quoted phrase Hilmar used springs to mind again and again. Time will tell.