Ten years ago this month CCP released a new expansion and immediately I noticed something... well, odd about the Vagabond - the distinctive "frills" were gone. Suddenly the vaunted death machine looked like a Stabber. I looked at the patch notes and saw nothing mentioning any changes and immediately sprang into action on Twitter. Remember these were the dark ages, before I knew anyone at CCP. All I had was social media, photoshop, a relationship with EON Magazine, and some vague cloudy understanding about what went on over there in Iceland.
So Seismic Stan and I felt that this issue needed to be addressed. The Vagabond needed its frills returned and sooner rather than later. And believe me when I say this, our tongues were fully in our cheeks about this entire incident. We saw it as a way to not only correct an obvious error, but also a way to have some fun with the community as well.
We created a benefit concert. An Ad that appeared in EON Magazine. And an in-game event of Vagabonds that went to Jita and then down to the system were the makers of the Vagabond live. We had a good sized turnout for that and had a blast. I also started putting victorian style frills on Twitter avatars.
It was a fun couple of weeks. Eventually someone at CCP mentioned the rumbles on social media to one of the Art Directors, who it turns out had simply forgotten to turn the frills back on, and the Vagabond was once again sporting the signature wings.
All is well that ends well. And yet another chapter of Eve Online history you won't read about in a book.