Yes… It's lupus !

So, I received a mail from an old e-friend, a few weeks ago, asking me:

"Hey, what's up with you not posting on the cranky blog in months, is EVE not broken naymore ?"

To which I replied:

"I gather they're trying hard to fix it, and they seem to go at it more or less the right way, from what I'm told… just can't bring myself to get suckered in caring again, as I'd likely be just setting myself up for disappointment. ;)"

Yeah, I use old-school smileys in email, gimme a break: I was trying to sound lighthearted about it all.

Because the truth is, it's kind of sad. It's like expecting your kid or brother to fail horribly at everything: you simply don't want to feel that way.

Nor do you want to feel smug or even vindicated: it's like being right about a close relative's cold really being lupus…

And man, was I right.

After a last-ditch attempt at poor spin-fu, it took a full three months for CCP to take — but not before another sorry burp trying to sell us on space barbies — its true first step into the program.

From that point on, it was pretty much by the book. Again, I can't really take credit for it, considering I was merely stating the obvious, but let's still recap because it's (almost) nothing but good news (at first).

1 • Come clean.

A solid first step with Hilmar's letter of apology has been since followed by better, cleaner, and somewhat more candid communication with the players at large, and CSM especially.

Vikings are wimps.

2 • Pay the price, in blood.

That they did, an in more than one way. Twilight got all but canned, as did Zulu, and a few hundreds CCPers found themselves looking for new opportunities. Although one might quibble on who got the short straw vs who shoulda, there's no question it was  flogging time @CCP.

3 • Shake hands. 

It started right after the apology, with the announcement for a massive Winter Expansion, solely focused on spaceships, eased in by the highly-symbolic return of the spinning ship, and with just enough barbiedollery for Torfi to save face (hint: too late).

From there, CCP has been hard at work showing EVE players it's for realsies, which after the generally positive reception given to Crucible, in the wake of a pretty good FanFest, and ramping up to the launches of DUST 514 and the very promising Crucible summer expansion sort of starts to sound convincing.

Doesn't look like a myrm, at all.

So why am I here, wasting perfectly serviceable electrons on wordz, when I could be zipping around in one of those new glass cannons, when CCP finally is seemingly cured from its :awesome: phase ?

Well, boys and girl, because I have a gnawing sense that our still-somewhat-Icelandic overlords are just about to screw the pooch deep and hard, once again.

It has to do with griefer culture, trying to please the wrong people, and pendulums, but that's for later, because right now, I'm overdue on more important stuff, like a toast of foie gras* and an episode of Community.

[*Which means no ducks were harmed during the making of this post, your soul is safe.]