EVE Online Capital Ship Change Prompts Community Revolt

Because EVE Online skill training is a constant for all players, it can take nearly a year's worth of dedication in order to fly one of the game's massive capital ships, on top of the exorbitant monetary cost. This would explain why the EVE community has been in a full revolt over the past two days, following an announcement by developers CCP that detailed proposed changes to the game--changes which would significantly weaken the power of both Motherships and Carriers "What we want is pretty basic: We want to make fighter wielding capital ships more reliant on their support fleet and less of a direct über deathbringer," wrote newly-instated game designer Zulupark. "We feel that capital ships are being used way too much as better-than-battleships-at-killing-stuff ships, when we in fact think that they should be used more as the-ships-that-keep-other-ships-alive and provide-them-with-additional-firepower ships." Dealing with a game that takes months to get into, and years to master, any far-reaching changes instantly become sensitive issues. Sensing imminent backlash, Zulupark stressed that the drastic proposal was only that, and requested feedback from the community. What he received was overwhelming. In a 90-page forum thread--still growing at a rapid pace--reactions have ranged from cautiously optimistic, to calling for the developer's head. "This is a great change," wrote Popperr of Goonswarm. "While this change has a well-found base logic, this is not the way to apply a fix," wrote Akira Miyamoto. "With this change, a carrier has no way in hell to even minimally defend itself." Others were not as kind, or as coherent. "So for **** sick, first u telling that now we r the solopwn mobiles, after u saying wtf where my support was cuz i can't do solo atm , and triage mode, ROFL--buy a book CArrier--book for dummies--i can't move, can't deploy the fighters, so u don't know how the carrier works, so stfu pliz. U just ****** up urself dude," wrote a cogent Inturist. "CCP you are a bunch of lying scumbags. Take a long walk off a short pier," said Druadan. "Accounts cancelled. Hellgate: London, here I come." Dozens of players have pledged to cancel their accounts over the controversy. CCP developers have apparently made no final decision one way or the other, but the changes were already implemented on the EVE test server as of today.