true true
I am an eve-online player, have been for a few years now. One of the most important thing for me as a player is not having massive issues with people gaining unfair advantages though hacks or throwing $$$ at the game.
CCP (the ppl who made eve) have a no cash for isk policy, however if you buy a 90-day card you can 'sell it for isk' in a way managed by CCP. This may seem to a casual observer as cash for isk, but it is imposible to stap this sorta thing out so i feel it is better to be managed by CCP than not. As its managed there is no scope for being cheated as the seller or buyer.
It also means that people who can not afford time cards, can gain time cards by making isk though the eve economy (which benefits everyone).
Now it may sound like I am getting away from the 'it all went dark' issue, but after having played games at the same price point (£10/month) I find the service, support and development of the game much to my liking (you do not unlike WOW need to buy expansions ontop of the monthy price, you do not unlike Planetside get the feeling you have been abandoned and never get your tech questions answered to conclusion, unless its another gamer than figures it out).
So for me, going dark is just a sign of them doing there job, did it hack me off at the time... hell yes, have I forgiven them, of course. Would a little note to say 'its not you, its our side we are working on' and maybe keeping the forums up would of been better, yes that would be true (maybe next time).
The concern mentioned above about too many interdependent systems I feel is a valid issue, but more for a performance perspective than a reliability one (as eve is rather reliable).
The only issue I have with eve is as its re-written as the graphics and gameplay are updated, I find having to move to vista to get all the cool new shiny bits very irritating (even if they will maintain support for the current client in NT/XP for awhile). I also found after there move to faster servers a year or so ago made a performance improvement, but there more recent move to a MS based system has had a negative effect (and as eve always struggle with the very large loads that could come its way in massive 400 odd player fleet battles) not improving on performance is a negative rather than a neutral.
Anyway, most of this is perception rather than fact (not that there is a difference from a customers point of view), and of course there is EVE in China now too, how strange.
-sin