Yesterday, CCP needed to take EVE Online offline and shut down all its servers. The reason – a DDoS – was hotly debated on various forums. Amusingly, hardened EVE players asked why attackers would chose a harmless (and comparatively small) internet game company. The answer is so simple: “Tears” you idiot, the driving fuel of all senseless malice. Now you know how miners feel when you suicide gank them and take their game away… (*)

But that aside, there were some riotously funny comments about this event as well – all in all people seemed to take this lightly. Bad stuff happens to good companies and the imminent launch of the Odyssey expansion and a few decent wars have put the normally grumpy neckbeards into a forgiving mood.

Prize of the best comment goes to “Proud Dad” on TheMittani:

Today I learned my daughters name. She is now 3. Thank you CCP

It had me smiling all day.

We knew that this attack was serious business but nothing that can’t be handled. Sure, CCP will have to put in night shifts, drink coffee. I would not blame them if they delayed Odyssey by a few days – I prefer they have their stuff in order before they go on. But fundamentally, we all knew that the servers would come back online, that spaceships still undock, towers still need fueling and that sleepers didn’t really sleep (what do Sleepers dream about, btw. Jovian Sheep?).

But “What If”?

What if that had been the last day of New Eden? What if, CCP’s investors had decided that enough is enough and pulled out? What if this had been the end of EVE Online?

Many years ago, the same question was asked on some World of Warcraft forum. What would the players do if Blizzard shut the doors. The overwhelming majority of responses to that question were individual, they would take their favorite character, his pet (Hunters ftw!) and log out somewhere scenic. If this was the last day in Azaroth, players wanted to spend it with their character on some rock overlooking the water. I am personally too pragmatic for something like this but I understand the desire. You nurture a few characters for a long time, farm loot to farm better loot and basically put time into his progression. But curiously, nobody on that forum replied that they would meet their friends, guild mates etc for one last Dungeon run, one last camp fire somewhere, one last social event. World of Warcraft seemed to be a single-player game and you die alone.

But how about EVE? If tomorrow was the last day of New Eden, I know what I would do – I’d EVE mail all my friends my gmail address and make sure that we have our existing communication tools (jabber, TS, Forum = all provided by our Alliance Leader) up and running. I really don’t care about the spaceships but losing this community would hurt like hell.

What would you do if EVE was shutting down permanently tomorrow?

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(*) and no, I am not that serious about that comment, so keep your flamthrower in your pants, geek-with-body-odor-who-has-a-Napoleon-complex