EVE Trinity: CCP's take on the boot.ini debacle
In a recent EVE Dev blog, Dr. Erlendur S. Thorsteinsson, big shot Director of the EVE Online Software Group shed some light on the installer code that ended up bricking computers running certain Windows XP installations. I'm not a programmer, but I can tell the EVE: Trinity installer code was a wee-bit sloppy from reading the following discussion thread. The good software Doctor also poses several questions and answers to instill a little clarity on what CCP is doing to make sure this doesn't happen again.
According to the Dev blog 215 players contacted CCP directly for assistance. Other numbers are missing, left to the wayside, numbers much bigger than 215. How many premium patch clients were downloaded prior to the applied fix? CCP has those numbers, but in this case, Thorsteinsson leaves an impression that CCP is downplaying the boot.ini fiasco as something that more or less only affected a handful of players. As seen in this thread and many others like it, tons of players took their own initiatives without contacting CCP at all. Anecdotal evidence alone would put the number much higher, into the thousands, but probably not in the tens of thousands. CCP has gone on to implement better testing (you know normal Windows XP installs their players actually use) procedures to improve QA procedures and practices.
I can't help but laugh about his questioning on why Windows XP doesn't protect its own files. Yea, not a bad stab to take, and Vista users puffed out their chests when hearing they were in the clear, and it helps a little to laugh about it all. (Did you survive the reboot shirt I asked for -- more boot.ini shenanigans) I still can't help sensing a little bitterness even if he's quick to point out he isn't blaming Windows XP. I'll take my own stab; why didn't the Doctor notice EVE's "legacy" filenames earlier and change them right away as playing matchmaker with critical system files is stupid. Numerous players pointed this flaw out that went unnoticed by EVE QA for months, well six years really. The good news is EVE filenames are under review and if any others are found to be interfering with Win XP system files they will be dubbed with new monikers that play nice.
[via, Heartless Gamer]
