Talk:Eve Online/Archive 14

Game Patches
Is it worth adding something about patches that are released for the game IE the graphics upgrade that was just released? Inputdata (talk) 17:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

boot.ini


This should be included somewhere in the article. Do a google search, apparently there's several articles about it on various websites. I would edit it in myself, but the article is protected. tildetildetildetilde —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.114.231.100 (talk) 22:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It was, but a kindly editor decided to invoke WP:DATED and nerfed it -- Simon Cursitor (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It really wasn't appropriate for an encyclopedic article, as per WP:DATED. I wholeheartedly believe it is an important news item for the community, but it's definitely more suited towards wikinews than wikipedia. TheCommodore7 (talk) 15:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 21:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I tried to think of an appropriate comparison to including the boot.ini info in the article. Like "including this info would be like so-and-so." I didn't come up with anything. A patch deployment for an MMO didn't go as smoothly as the developer had planned. Now having my boot.ini deleted and essentially being unable to start Windows is a major problem - no matter how I put it. However, it boils down to a faulty patch. If we included the boot.ini deletion where would we stop? Maybe the next patch instantly causes a bluescreen and hundreds or thousands of players lose a file that affects their machines in a similar way. I don't really know where to stop and what to include in the article if it comes to patch errors. I think it's more appropriate to leave out faulty patches completely. What do you think?


 * It seems to me that we should start a new content article for EVE Online to stop this main article from growing too large. This kind of news can be in that article named EVE Online: Expansions. Alatari (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't believe that the boot.ini news should be included at all, as covered before it is news not encyclopaedic content. -- Richard Slater  (About) / (Talk) 14:22, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That a downloaded content from a MMO could create unbootable computers might be embarrassing but definitely notable. I've never heard of it before. It's made the nerd news Alatari (talk) 15:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * ^^^^ I meant more like a single sentence under the 'Criticism' section mentioning it, rather than a whole paragraph which it sounds like ya'll assumed I meant. Kind of like, "Eve's developers were widey criticized for releasing a patch that deleted boot.ini from many users' computers." And just leaving it at that. :/ tildetildetildetilde —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.114.191.161 (talk) 05:19, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * FWIW -- re notability, how many other online-game providers have iissued a patch which assasinates the OS on the computers of most of its player-base ? -- Simon Cursitor (talk) 11:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Good question, two conclusions can be drawn from that statement. 1) no other game has ever eaten a system file or 2) no one remembers when it does happen. It affected a handful of users who downloaded a patch in the space of two hours, the resoloution to the issue it caused was posted on the forums, on the news and in-game, is quite frankly a simple task, made more complicated if you try and reboot. Even if you did reboot CCP offered one to one technical support to affected users - so it can't have been that difficult to resolve. I honestly don't see why an encyclopaedia would include scentences regarding things that happen here and there. -- Richard Slater  (About) / (Talk) 14:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....... The article has a 'Criticism' section, hence I assumed it might be relevant. Guess I was wrong. tildetildetildetilde —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.114.191.161 (talk) 22:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It's also worth noting that, according to the dev blog, only around 200 people were affected by the issue to the point where they needed to contact support. The reality is, most users have Windows installed on their primary partition on the first hard drive, and relatively-few users downloaded the premium content patch in the space during which it had this flaw.  Jouster  (  whisper  ) 01:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The boot.ini issue should be mentioned in the main article. It is extraordinarily rare for a game to render a computer unbootable. An analogous situation would be the mention of fire dangers in the Ford Pinto Article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto. Even though the event is quite rare (27 out of 2 million in the Pinto case), it is uniquely bad engineering/design that very negatively influenced the users. Another example might be the "Corrupted Blood plague incident" in the World of Warcraft article. Anyway, the scope of the flaw and fact that it is was repairable doesn't change the fact that it was (nearly?) unprecedented in the world of PC gaming.Jhhays (talk) 21:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Jhhays, I actually think that the Corrupted Blood incident probably isn't encyclopedic enough for entry in the article, but I don't edit the WoW article. As for the Pinto, we still talk about that to this day.  Do you really think, 20 or 30 years from now, people will still want to discuss the boot.ini incident?  It's comparing apples to oranges. Again, I'm all for its dissmination in forums, websites, news sites, etc.  I'm not trying to hide this under a rug.  I just don't think it's encyclopedic. TheCommodore7 (talk) 15:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Corrupted Blood has it's own entire article... Like I said before we need an EVE Online: Expansions article to put things of that sort.  Alatari (talk) 15:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * In the Expansions of EVE Online article I've added the boot.ini issue to the Trinity section. Initially I was against even mentioning it seeing that it would be out of date pretty soon. However, I've come to the conclusion that it was a unique behavior and worth a note. Feel free to edit the article as you see fit. I for one think we can now settle the discussion and store it in the archives.

Eve Time Code/Game Time Code
The following text is incomplete and in misleading in regards to the selling of ETCs for in-game ISK: It is also possible to pay for a subscription through the in game purchase of ETC (EVE time cards) using ISK (in game currency). This system was instituted by CCP and the transactions are protected by CCP staff.[36][37] This allows more advanced players able to generate the needed ISK to pay for their characters without any real money. ETCs come in 30-50-90-100-180 day increments, and are treated just like normal subscriptions in every way.

I decided to link an EVE Tribune article, regarding this practice, which explains the whole system quite comprehensively. My edited version:

It is also possible to pay for a subscription though the purchase of ETCs (Eve time cards) via independent retailers for real money or in-game using ISK (in-game currency). The latter method allows relatively advanced players to play the game without paying real money - one player may buy an ETC for real money and then has the possibility to sell it to another player, in-game, for ISK. The system is monitored by CCP through the Sell orders forum. ETCs come in 30-50-90-100-180 day increments, and are treated just like normal subscriptions in every way. TheZoolooMaster (talk) 16:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I wonder if it should be clarified that once a GTC is sold for isk it is applied directly to the purchaser's account and cannot be resold? The point behind this is supposedly that it becomes harder to generate rl money for isk, since people would prefer the safer route of selling GTCs than buying from a farmer and risking a ban or other penalty. 194.80.51.125 (talk) 14:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 21:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, I think that's good to know for the reader. Personally I'm not familiar enough with the details of GTC selling to write anything more than the article currently says. I wouldn't even be able to name appropriate sources. But whatever helpful information you can add - feel encouraged to do so.

Kali 4 Content
In the paragraph about Kali 4, it says that it will contain Ambulation, the upcoming feature allowing pilots to walk around in stations. The citation link goes to a forum post stating the codename of the next patch (Kali 4) but doesn't say anything about what it will contain. Also the very next paragraph talking about Ambulation states that CCP hasn't set a date for its release. So, one of them is wrong. If the first one is right, it needs to be cited properly (because for one thing, I'd like to know for sure about it if they are saying its gonna be in the next expansion), otherwise it needs to be removed. -- CecilTyme (talk) 05:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 18:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's speculation when CCP will release Ambulation. An anonymous author from the IP address 24.170.194.92 simply wrote that it will be part of Kali 4. If we started writing whatever we wanted then I would really like to make up something juicy and add it to the article as as "fact", too. It's save to remove it, Cecil. I checked back to when this info actually emerged. On November 4 Gunnar Guðvarðarson added Ambulation as a feature for Trinity. Subsequently this was removed since it lacked proof. The Ambulation info has been solely in the "Planned future developments" section ever since. A few days ago it popped up in the "Major content patches" section again - only this time as part of the Kali 4 instead of Trinity content. And while Ambulation belongs to the article in general it is enough to mention it once in the "Planned future developments" section. When we eventually dig up a source that names an actual release date for Ambulation (or at least the expansion CCP plans it for) then we can go add it to the Kali 4 paragraph or whatever it'll be.


 * I agree, I just didn't want to unilaterally change it without a little discussion seeing as I don't keep up with all the interviews and outside press releases that CCP does. In fact, I only learned about the plans for this feature several months ago by reading it here in the future developments section.  I just wanted to check if that had changed before I removed it. -- CecilTyme (talk) 04:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 14:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Whoops :) Cecil, you also removed the part about Factional Warfare - that wasn't necessary. According to CCP Explorer's forum post Factional Warfare is currently planned for Kali 4. It's not yet clear whether Kali 4 will eventually be renamed to "Revelations III, Revelations IV or something completely different.", to cite Explorer. But still Factional Warfare is planned for this expansion. I've reverted this part of your change so that Ambulation is still not in there and Factional Warfare is in there.

GA on hold
Some issues that need to be addressed with this article: -- David Fuchs ( talk ) 22:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Images: the logos are fair use, and should probably be eliminated, as they don't contribute the the article as a whole. The article also feels cluttered with so many large images. Scale down the size or number.
 * Scope: haphazard at best. EVE_Online should be merged into Development; the patches list should be removed entirely; Demographics should be merged into another section; Criticism should be expanded into a reception section; short, one to two sentence sections should be merged (for example, making the Mac and Linux Support together with the Vista contents as a 'Compatibility' section?)
 * Citation needed templates need to be addressed.
 * Formatted references according to Cite web would aid in verification.
 * There are also some serious point of view issues to, regarding the issues with the developers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Fuchs (talk • contribs) 22:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Apparently this article fails also #5 of the good article criteria, because the article isn't stable at the moment. --Mika1h (talk) 14:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no good history of EVE Online. It's copyrighted 1997 but the MMO left beta in 2003.  A huge 6 year gap of development history.  The Elite to Eve section is all we have in that area currently. It shouldn't be too hard to move the content/patch releases to their own article.  Hopefully surviving the deletionists attacks.  I love the use of pictures through the article and have no idea why anyone would suggest they be eliminated for this is an intensely graphical game.  It seems a taste issue between readers of graphics free books and USA Today style articles.  Maybe the pictures just need to be consistently laid in the upper right or left corner of the section they are attached to.  Alatari (talk) 15:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I shrunk the insignias and bordered them along the Race histories. Tried to get the font colors to match the actual insignia colors without success. If you all like it you can add their insignia's inline in places as so:


 * The Amarr make use of slaves such as the Minmatar
 * The Amarr make use of slaves such as the Minmatar ... naawww that's too much clutter. Alatari (talk) 16:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

''Edit on February 20 by Aexus: ImageBacklogBot has deleted two non-free images on February 18. I checked the images in question (the Amarr and Minmatar logos) and added a fair-use rationale to each of them as well as to the three other factions' logos: Jove Empire, Caldari State and Gallente Federation. Since we already use all five logos in the article itself I've created rationales only for the article - not for this Talk page. This will prevent them from being deleted. To keep this section readable I've removed the remnants of the image links that ImageBacklogBot hasn't deleted. -- Aexus (talk) 03:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)''

-- Aexus (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC) -- Aexus (talk) 00:04, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, Alatari. I've top-aligned the table you made. With monitor widths lower than about 1280 pixels and the standard font size the table otherwise aligned itself in the middle of the paragraph which looked wrong. I think it's better now. What do you think about the change? Another possible improvement might be to let the text float around the table. However, according to Help:Table we shall not "under any circumstances, use float". Ah well, I think it'll be okay without floating text.
 * Can't see much diff on my monitor settings but I'm sure it's a needed change. You can float images but not tables I suppose. Can we cross out number 1. now? Alatari (talk) 22:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you upto creating the EVE Online: Expansions article and fighting the deletion attempt? He suggested in 4. The patches list should be removed entirely but I don't think it should be tossed completely.  WoW (albiet 16x the number of users) has an expansions article.  Alatari (talk) 22:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we can cross out no. 1, yeah. And yes, while David Fuchs suggested to re move the expansions instead of just moving them somewhere else I do think that they deserve a mention. And if they interfere with the good-article nomination then a sepereate article should be appropriate.

To-do list for our good-article nomination
The to-do list at the top of this page contains the improvements suggested by David Fuchs. Since Alatari has already done some crazy editing shit today I've ticked off one item, namely Merge "Elite to EVE" section into "Development" section.
 * I seriously disagree with 2. and like the images in the article. Why read about an online MMO without pictures? Alatari (talk) 22:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I was bold and combined sections into common groupings without changing the text. Some linking sentencing maybe needed.  The order of headings could be juggled.  I was thinking along the lines of starting the most virtual (Eve Universe and in game items) to most realistic (Cost, Public Perception etc.)  Costs section doesn't seem to fit with anything else well so I left it on it's own.  Alatari (talk) 23:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please take a serious look at the flow of the article and see if the flow from most virtual to most realistic feels right to you all. I changed no content just organization.  The two week spots are in the Players and Communities section which needs more information on clans/alliances/corps and conflict and the Development section needs more details on what happened from the conception in 1997 to the Alpha tests in 2002.  Alatari (talk) 23:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the expansions to their own article, Expansions of EVE Online. I'm done with it - at least technically. The expansions article doesn't feel right yet. If you see where to improve please go ahead and edit it. On a side note: As Alatari has pointed out the article may get nominated for deletion. To prepare for it I've started an appropriate section on the article's Talk page. If you have an argument for why the expansions article shouldn't be deleted please add it to the Talk page. -- Aexus (talk) 00:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC) -- Aexus (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * For the requested citation on expansions being free, does suffice?194.80.51.47 (talk) 15:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * D'oh! Oh man, that page is so painfully obvious :) I googled my ass off to get a source and didn't find anything but forum posts by players. Thank you for the hint, 194.80.51.47!
 * Maybe some of the compatibility info can be put into an expanded like the WoW sidebar has.  Alatari 24.217.80.190 (talk) 07:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Tweaked the pictures a bit more to make the paragraphs break evenly, made small caption text and enlarge a couple pics so the details were more clear. Moved the Eve representative pic to the Development area and the Gallente ship to the lead.   Alatari (talk) 13:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The only remaining citation-needed template
In the references I've found one link that didn't work anymore, namely for the tournaments section. We need a working link for the statement that Band of Brothers won the second Alliance Tournament. The text reads: "A total of 95 matches were scheduled, with the Band of Brothers alliance emerging the winner on the final day." It was linked to this site. However, it currently returns HTML error code 500 aka "internal error". Does anyone know another source for the statement that BoB won the 2nd tournament? -- Aexus (talk) 00:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC) -- Aexus (talk) 01:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've found and added a new source for the statement that Band of Brothers won the 2nd Alliance Tournament. Now all citation-needed templates have been addressed! Wee!

The images
I think we should discuss how to proceed with the article's images. I've reverted changes made by Alatari and I don't see the end if we don't talk this over. Alatari, you had enclosed all image captions in tags. Now, I claim my sight to be about average. Not eagle-like but not bad either. And I had difficulties reading the -tagged captions. If this was the way it was meant to be than captions had the tag set by default. However, they don't have it. I think it's best not to "tweak" the captions' font size.

On to the image sizes. Saturday I set all image widths to 200 pixels. Afterwards Alatari set some of them back to their former values and tweaked others. Setting them to 200 pixels was a concsious decision. One suggestion David Fuchs made to help make this a good article was to scale down the images' size or reduce their number. I agree with Alatari that it's probably a matter of taste whether you want images or not in this article. Personally I prefer to have images. However, I think David Fuchs is right in the sense that the same width for all images would improve the article's look and feel. I'm not picky about the actual width - be it 200, 300 or whatever pixels. But I think the same width would improve the article.

What do you guys think about it? Can we get a consensus here? For example 250 pixels?

If an image like e.g. the one of the Quafe bottle reaches into the neighboring section - so be it. I don't mind.

On a side note: I've reverted the caption of the ship comparison chart. While I think the circumflex is a nice idea to indicate the Eiffel Tower I'm convinced that the average reader will mistake it for a typo. I don't want to change what doesn't actually need a change. -- Aexus (talk) 02:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

lead photo
IMO, the Gallente ship undocking is too detailed at 300px and too dark to be a great lead-in photo. Let's take some suggestions for a lead photo that is awesome, looks good at 200-300px and represents the heart and soul of EVE Online. Alatari (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

little confusion
i'm a gamer debating trying this game, but it reads a little confussing. is flying and combat like a traditional space flight game, like Wing Commander or X-Wing, or is it a roleplaying game style where you just issue commands? and in regards to the company cheating and using their Dev powers to help their in game friends, what happened with that? i don't see any concrete follow up on it here anymore... that would seem like something important to have here, if that issue is being addressed since it reads like it's just been brushed over. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.13.115.55 (talk) 18:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Think of like Homeworld with one ship and that's what it's like to fly in EVE. And the reason that there's not a lot about the developer misconduct is because most of the things that prove it are things like chat logs, forums, blogs, screen-shots, irc logs, etc and are not things acceptable to claim as sources on wiki for various reasons.  For those of us that lived through those times in EVE, we find it sad. RyzenVH (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I am proposing the prior comment, by User:RyzenVH, for deletion, as it is unsubstantiated by any independent source. -- Jubelum (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 12:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a talk page. The heck? TheCommodore7 (talk) 16:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes this is a talk page. Ryzen can say what he wants. This is looking more fishy. Sounds almost like someone is trying to suppress something they don't want others to hear about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Terlipressin (talk • contribs) 05:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Awww... I think it's cute... RyzenVH (talk) 10:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Goztek (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Would this Eve Online Dev Blog "On recent allegations" be an appropriate source?


 * Yes, we consider blog posts by the developers appropriate. But did you actually want to ask in this section? Your question looks out of place to me. Maybe you intended to post in another section. Anyway, technically all EVE dev blogs are fine. -- Aexus (talk) 16:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

EVE wiki?
I distinctly remember there being an EVE wiki. Did that project get discontinued? Because that was a great site. This is still informative, but its so boiled down that it does you almost no good if you're looking for specific in-game information. I'm hoping I'm just blind, so if anyone knows where it got squirreled away, please let me know on my talk page. Much obliged.Brinlong (talk) 17:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There were at least two EVE wiki's that I knew of, as well as a third that never got off the ground because no one had time to write for it... Anyway, one was at, but it seems that it has fallen into disuse and server errors. I used to run with that crew, so it's a bit sad to see that happen.  The second that I know of is a "History" wiki at .  It looks decent, but there is a lack of articles that one might consider important. RyzenVH (talk) 20:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There's also eve-wiki.net. Aexus (talk) 19:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Trial accounts are not deleted
Under the 'Buddy program' section is written: "Those who are paying members of EVE Online can send an infinite number of 14-day free trial acounts [sic] to their friends via the 'Buddy Program',[77][78] available from the EVE Online website (However the players characters are deleted if at the end of the trial unless it is upgraded)."

This is false. No account is ever deleted. It is actually even common practice for players to create purpose-built alts on a trial account only to set a long skill to train just before the end of the trial, and then to reactivate the account right when the long skill finishes training. Players can save a month's worth of subscription costs this way. tildetildetildetilde —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.33.73.232 (talk) 18:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Feel free to change the article accordingly. -- Aexus (talk) 16:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Dead Links
20: This link is dead It refers to the guide. I recommend that perhaps this link replaces it: http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Guide:Skills_and_AttributesTwobells (talk) 14:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

-- Aexus (talk) 14:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The info still is on the EVE Online website, only it has been moved from chapter 7 to chapter 6 and the HTML pages are in different folders now and have different names. The Skills Guide in particular is now here. I've fixed the reference in the article. As for eve-wiki.net it's not an option to use wikis of any kind as sources here on Wikipedia. Wikis are by their very nature self-published content. Everybody can contribute. For the wiki in question this is, of course, very fortunate. However, this makes it inappropriate as a source on Wikipedia as per the WP:RS policy. See the section Self-published sources.