I've written about these connections extensively here in the past. Eve is a lot like the tide. The tide rolls in and out and nothing you can do will stop it. But the tide is also made of many, many smaller and larger waves. Often driven by the wind. It is impossible to argue this. I've been playing and writing about playing Eve for long enough now to know - these are truths.
I've been having a particularly horrible time in real life lately. And, once again, my experiences have directly related to what happens in-game. I won't bore you with the details, but it has been rather horrific. All of which is only the preamble to a larger point I want to discuss. And one that has been on my mind for a few weeks now. I have a question about Eve that no one seems to ever ask:
Just how f**ked up is Eve really?
[Insert long diatribe about how much I love Eve here]
Let me give an example. The other day I had caught a Comet with my Garmur. The Comet was dead. The Garmur a good 2k faster, set up in a nice kiting position. My manual flying working just fine. And yet - I got caught somehow. One second he was safely away and the next I was scrammed and webbed. I lost the Garmur. It happens. So my friend Oma was in fleet with me and offered to give me the Sentinel he was flying, since he was logging off. I took the Sentinel and shortly after that we spotted a Vexor inside a Medium plex. I warped in to get tackle. This is about as safe an action as you can have. I had no fear, I would warp in, burn off, hold point and wait for help. The only worry would be drones, but that wouldn't be immediate and the Sentinel is very fast. I've done this before. This time it didn't work. The Vexor got point. Which is, in Eve terms, nearly impossible. And no, the Vexor didn't have Sensor Boosts or anything weird. And no links were up for him either.
These types of failures happen. Heck, we've developed an entire cultural response to anyone who even dares to complain about it when it does happen. The sheer amount of vitriolic anguish directed at anyone who dares to mention a technical flaw is insane. Which only makes me wonder even more.
Is it possible that this happens more often than we are led to believe? We focus on a lot of issues as a community, but I honestly can't remember a serious discussion about the fundamental operation and error content of Eve. How often does Eve generate errors? How often exactly does 2+2=5? Just how buggered is this legacy code? Is it only getting worse as more and more new code is pilled on top of older and older code?
The issues are not as obvious as they used to be. Back in the day I remember the undocking bug, when hundreds of your own ships would undock with you. I once lost half a fleet when we jumped thru a Gate - half the fleet was transported about 17 jumps away. The list is a long one. But those were obvious. The things I am seeing on an almost daily basis are not as obvious. They are more subtle.
Fleet bonuses not working. D-scan errors. Loss of camera settings. Unexpected jump of perspective (this one is freaking annoying in the middle of a fight to suddenly find yourself looking at the target ship), and other subtle, small, annoying, doesn't quite work, what went wrong, ways.
Look. I'm just asking. I've grown to expect these types of strange behaviors. I aways chalk it up to the randomness of life. This is Eve's way of mimicking the kind of strange random crap that happens in real life all the time. Sometimes things just don't work. But, on the other hand, it did get me to thinking about it on a more fundamental level. Maybe I'm taking something for granted here. Maybe, just maybe, there is a larger issue at play. And perhaps, just perhaps, something really is wonkers down in the belly of the beast.
The tide rolls in. And the frequency seems to be increasing.
Is there a cause for concern here?