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@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan would know better than most the special kind of pain that would be involved with trying something like this. He used to tell us truly harrowing tales of working with that code and almost inadvertently creating Skynet.
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan I'll attempt to give you some idea of what I mean. I last heard this story maybe 10 years ago, so I may not remember every detail with 100% accuracy. I'm pretty sure they use it as a warning to new Devs at CCP about the pitfalls of over-ambition... #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan It goes like this. There was this line of code in the game from back in the early days, before even the launch of the game in 2003. The dev that wrote it left no note as to what it did, only a note that said "DO NOT TOUCH THIS!" and his initials. #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan Now, the current devs at the time, this must have been 2007 or so, could not, for the life of them figure out what this code was for. So someone (NOT Masterplan) figured they would just remove it and see what happened. In the test environment, nothing did. #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan So this removal of code was left as is, and eventually the build was released on tranquility. Reports started coming in, a few at first, but soon all of nulsec was ablaze. POS towers had begun to turn on their owners and were killing their ships and pods. #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan The scary thing about this wasn't that the POS towers were killing their owners, because it wasn't all of the owners. It would let some live, and kill others. POS towers were showing the first signs of becoming self aware! #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan In a state of near panic (or bemusement, depending on who you talk to) CCP pulled the server cluster offline and got to work trying to figure out what happened. We, the players were left all day with nothing but the song "Downtime" by DJ Doby on loop on @GRN_EveRadio #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan @GRN_EveRadio And it took a long time to figure out that the issue was the line of code that simply said "DO NOT TOUCH THIS!" It was written into the game long before POSs were introduced, should have had nothing to do with it, but when changes were rolled back and it was put back #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan @GRN_EveRadio everything returned to normal. Apparently that line of code, which I believe is still in the game somewhere, is the only thing preventing Tranquility from becoming self aware and destroying all of mankind. CCP devs are the keepers of an incredibly dark power. #tweetfleet
@rox_lukas @winterblink @HilmarVeigar @CCP_Masterplan @GRN_EveRadio So i guess the moral of this story, is also the answer to your question as to why CCP will likely not roll back the clock to a "Classic" version of the game. Some things created by past powers are better left remembered than resurrected. -end #tweetfleet
