CCP announced this week that they’ll no longer develop or support the native Linux client for the dog-eat-dog MMO and followed up with an announcement that they’ll be getting rid of the “classic” client in favor of the souped-up graphics version that appeared with the Trinity expansion. These tidbits were dropped along with yet another record peak concurrent user record to the tune of 48,065 users. Perhaps all those folks were looking to jump into the breach opened by the destruction of one of the largest and most powerful alliances this week. Destroyed from within by a turncoat, of course.

I’m sure CCP crunched the numbers for the former, probably noting a low percentage of Linux client logins compared to development funds to keep it running, and really I can’t blame them if the hardcore Linux players have found ways to run the Windows version as well as it seems to run using unsupported instructions outlined on a FAQ page on CCP’s site. But getting rid of the Classic, lighter-weight graphics engine game sounds like a bad idea to me. Yes, computers are getting faster and GPUs are stronger all the time, but don’t they realize that part of WOW’s appeal is that it can run on almost anything?

Last time I ran a trial of EVE Online it didn’t go so well with the Premium graphics client, so I switched off the premium graphics and chugged along with Classic graphics. And frankly I didn’t find the Classic graphics to be poor at all. Maybe they’ll compensate by giving more options to turn special features of the Premium graphics setup off or scale them back, maybe not. Time will tell.

One bright spot in recent EVE news is that they’ve decided to add in a skill queueing feature. You’ll be able to queue up skills as long as all of them will begin within the next 24 hours. This will keep the hardcore players from having to log in at 3am when training finishes up to avoid losing time while sleeping, and it will allow new players to set up a chain of low-level skills with a minimum of fuss. Not a bad feature if you ask me.