The internet is a strange and unpredictable thing, especially when populated with EVE players. Last week, whilst suffering from a bout of post-night shift insomnia, I entertained myself for a few hours by following up on a half-baked idea I'd been sitting on. I posted a link to the resulting blog-post maze on Twitter and called it Incarna: The Text Adventure.
To my astonishment, in forty-eight hours 'Incarna: TTA' had more unique visitors than this Freebooted blog gets in a month and it's now had more page visits than Freebooted has had since I started tracking the statistics. Big thanks to EVE News 24 who generated a huge amount of interest. Needless to say I was stunned.
Some of the kind comments taken from around the web:
"Satirical Genius" - CCP Manifest, CCP's voice of sanity.
"..actually more fun than the CCP version." - CSM Seleene, the sensible good-looking one.
"Pure genius." - Ripard Teg, Blogging Robot from the Future.
"Every so often something brilliant happens...Enjoy." - Rixx Javix, Word Autocannon.
"This is seriously brilliant. I was laughing out loud before I even left the balcony." - DavidKMagnus, interwebs dood.
Obviously, as a "game" (and I use that term very loosely), I:TTA has little replayability due to the limited content, so unsurprisingly the huge traffic spike tailed off to almost nothing after a few days. As an experiment, I thought I'd try to breathe new life into it to see if those players would revisit to explore the "new content".
I really enjoy writing what is essentially a tongue-in-cheek review of EVE, it's developers and it's community and would be more than happy to continue to update it on a regular basis if there is a persistent audience for it. But equally I can accept that it may have just been a flash-in-the-pan and its day in the sun is now over.
This "patch" is the litmus test.
The "Patch Notes"
Incarna: TTH v1.1
- Some minor grammatical and layout changes have been implemented.
- The Agent Finder tablet and other coffee table items are now interactable.
- The holoscreens are now useful.
- Planetary Interaction has been enabled.
- Capsuleer Care and Protection have overcome their comms problems and are now available to assist via the intercom system.
- Room Service is now able to provide a limited menu.
- The concierge is available to deal with your complaints.
- It is now possible to escape Captain's Quarters by means other than undocking (clue: ask Tech Support).
- The mysterious station atmosphere problem is explained.
Additional Update #1
- It is now possible to commit suicide if the claustrophobia gets too much for you.