The nullsec communications blackout in EVE Online came with plenty of warning for players, but it was still a surreal experience for veterans when the communication channels just… went away. But the blackout is ending today, with communications coming back online and allowing everyone to go back to the way things were after just over two months in the dark. The reversion was announced at the game’s fanfest in Berlin, with the official announcement explaining that the experiment gave the developers new information for the future.
“Over the course of the blackout we’ve seen some substantial changes in player behavior and a massive impact on those we believe to be suspected of botting,” CCP says. “The duration of the blackout wasn’t specified in order to allow us to gather information without a hard deadline for concluding it. After 66 days, the blackout of local chat in nullsec will come to an end during downtime today, September 16 and local will return to immediate mode with full population counts and member lists.”
Even so, it’s not clear quite why the blackout is ending, although our own Brendan Drain has provided some theories about the concurrent drop in player activity that may be tied to the communication loss. It’s equally unknown whether this lack of communication was always meant to be temporary or just didn’t produce results that the studio was happy with. Regardless, the comms are back online; it remains to be seen if this will result in everything getting back to normal.
