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What if CCP had pooled all their resources for developing Eve?

Author
Callyuk
M1A12 Corp
#21 - 2013-07-05 23:49:16 UTC
Goon Tears is the Buisness Model were talking about ?

Like Reinforced Nodes They mad BRO LAWL
By Sion Kumitomo

Dear CCP:

I love spaceships. I love the sandbox. The sheer possibilities afforded by the near-limitless options and the organic player-driven content are things you just can't find anywhere else. So what I say next, I say out of deep concern. Though you might find it hurtful, it is not meant to hurt.

Incompetence like this ruins your sandbox.

By 'this', I mean the re-mapping of the node in Z9PP during the battle yesterday. The battle in Z9PP started with the destruction of a TEST ihub around downtime, and over the next twelve hours, the system saw varying levels of continued conflict. At peak, local was near 2000 pilots with more set to join the fray. That is, the battle itself was still in the process of escalating. All of this was abruptly ended by the incompetence of your engineers. Further escalation of the battle would have seen hundreds of capitals lost, and supers perhaps fielded or lost. It would have been a battle to remember, a battle that would have graced headlines, a battle pilots would have recalled with pride, or with horror. And that's just the start of what your mistake cost you and thousands of players.

I've seen allegations of t20 levels of conspiracy by various parties, but I think we both know that's not the case. You didn't do this out of malice—I'm certain it was just as you said here, a mistake. Mistakes are fine, everyone makes them. But making the same mistake repeatedly means you aren't learning from them. GSF's own dread fleet was saved by a similar node remap a scant couple of weeks ago, a similar missed opportunity to showcase the vibrant and violent nature of EVE.

But incompetence is worse than malice.

As a company that thrives on occupying a niche in the MMO market, it is in your best interests to prevent this from ever occurring again. These kinds of massive battles and the surrounding narratives are what give you free publicity, both through word of mouth and in the gaming press. If you don't hold your people accountable, and if you don't strive to ensure that checks are in place to prevent this, you're not just hurting the players involved directly, you're hurting the whole game—including yourselves.

You cannot risk your reputation becoming 'lol CCP', nor can you afford to pass up the windfall that massive battles generate for you. What astounds me most is that something like this, something so precious and important to your business model, is something that doesn't have multiple checks in place to prevent just such an event from occurring. This wasn't “just a fight”. These events and others like them are what drive the whole of EVE. It should come as no surprise that players expect pvp to matter in a game built around the integral idea that pvp matters.

Why you wouldn't protect these events as much as you are able is quite utterly beyond me. I don't mean to denigrate other aspects of the game, of course, but let's be honest: the biggest draw of EVE is the possibility that you will have a part in something major. And when it comes to that, very little equals a huge war-turning battle, the murder of a capfleet, or the destruction of thousands of ships. Remember Asakai? That now infamous system and so many others like it are the beating heart of this game. Massive battles are your piles of gold, their stories your frankincense, and their widespread impacts your myrrh.

You can't make pvp matter without making it matter when it matters the most. You cannot allow typos to undermine your game and the potential of EVE, not when it is something so important to your business model.

I don't want a witch hunt. No one does. You've already given us answers as to what happened, and I commend your openness. Communication lets all of us know what transpired and is a great starting point. But it is just that, a starting point. Moreover, what was offered was merely an apology, whereas what you require is action towards a permanent solution. My sincere hope is that you address this issue and communicate to us how it has been addressed. Failing that, I suspect we'll have our answers during the next major fleet battle.

But remember, CCP, this isn't just about the fights. As stewards of the sandbox, you are accountable for it, and it is your reputation and your game that are at stake. So for your sake and ours, the remapping of a node with an active battle must not be allowed to happen again.

Your players understand these implications, CCP. Do you?
Tiber Ibis
The Paratwa Ka
#22 - 2013-07-05 23:49:22 UTC
Maldiro Selkurk wrote:
I will bring up the 800lb gorilla that EVE players, Devs and Mgmt. so love to hate, World of Warcraft. Hate the game if you will but learn the valid lessons it has taught most (read: everyone except CCP) that taking care of casual gamers will bring you wealth beyond imagining AND more importantly allow you to properly develop exciting environments for both pve and pvp players alike.

CCP and a certain percentage of the EVE player base love to remark about how EVE is still growing after 10 years while other games of lost subs.

At least one of those other games monster stomped EVE in subs a long time ago, made more money than CCP's grandest dreams could even come close to and had more money to develop their game than EVE ever will, i cant for the life of me see where this brings about bragging rights for EVE.

A couple of things wrong with your thinking. Like I said above, you are thinking in a small minded way and not looking at CCPs vision for eve. The truth is that WOW is dying specifically because it catered so much to casual gamers. You can collerate its decline with the expansion which tripled xp gain. So that pretty much blows your whole post out and is where your argument falls down. Catering too much for casuals is the path to decline.
Inokuma Yawara
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#23 - 2013-07-06 01:45:57 UTC
"What if CCP had pooled all their resources for developing Eve?"

Then they'd have all of their eggs in one basket. That is NEVER good for any kind of business.

Watch this space.  New exciting signature in development.

Ckra Trald
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#24 - 2013-07-06 02:30:29 UTC
i think WoD looks excellent.

i like the gritty and graphic look of it, it isnt one of those love story vampire games and i think a adult audience would enjoy it a lot

http://www.rusemen.com/ Join Tengoo xd

NinjaStyle
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#25 - 2013-07-06 03:34:30 UTC
ShahFluffers wrote:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3295939#post3295939


Basicly they could be hiring more for Eve instead of Dust so that is bullshit and the main point of this thread is very valid and I kinda wish they would FOCUS ON EVE!
Maldiro Selkurk
Radiation Sickness
#26 - 2013-07-06 04:38:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Maldiro Selkurk
Tiber Ibis wrote:

A couple of things wrong with your thinking. Like I said above, you are thinking in a small minded way and not looking at CCPs vision for eve. The truth is that WOW is dying specifically because it catered so much to casual gamers. You can collerate its decline with the expansion which tripled xp gain. So that pretty much blows your whole post out and is where your argument falls down. Catering too much for casuals is the path to decline.


I know exactly what CCPs vision is and how horribly bad it has been for the development of this game, why is everything left broken, because CCP kept strictly to its vision of what it wanted this game to be and lost sight of the basic economic reality that you cannot achieve your development dreams without money, every game needs casuals in considerable numbers to fuel the engine of development with the necessary cash influx casuals bring and CCP doesn't get that and apparently neither do you.

You claim I am small minded while you fail to notice that the 2 million subs wow lost this year is still about 4 times as many subs as EVE has managed to acquire after 10 years of trying and as i pointed out in another thread the way EVE shoves alt accounts down your throat, let's be totally honest here the actual number of unique players of this game is probably more in the 300k range making wow's player base conservatively 20 times as big, in 20% less time.

Having played wow from day one till about 4 months ago i can assure you without any reservation that what made wow an unbridled success was that Blizzard cared for and catered to casuals in its player base, while still providing a rich gaming experience for both its pve and pvp hardcore players.

I don't know why wow is in decline but more importantly neither do you. You point to a single case correlation and draw a cause and effect conclusion based on that correlation, well let me show you just how powerful my "small mind' really can be.

I walked outside my house today and it was breezy so we can correlate me walking outside with a breezy day by your logic that single case correlation means that there must be a cause and effect relationship between me walking outside and it being breezy, so then by extension of that logic it must be breezy every time i walk outside and i can assure you that is not the case.

Next time your behemoth brain is in statistics class how about stop drooling on your desk and pay attention.

Looking at the sum total discourse between your behemoth brain and my small minded one, I'm going to be content with my small minded one that is trumping yours with ease that makes taking candy from a baby seem a daunting challenge in comparison.

NOTE: for those that may read this post, please keep in mind that the other respondent insulted me first and when that happens the gloves come off and its go time. I have always and will always defend myself from personal attacks.

Yawn,  I'm right as usual. The predictability kinda gets boring really.

Maldiro Selkurk
Radiation Sickness
#27 - 2013-07-06 05:00:27 UTC
Callyuk wrote:
lengthy post removed for space efficacy.


You present a logical argument with sound and substantive support for your conclusions. Although i disagree with some points you made my disagreement amounts to nothing more than personal preference and so, without reservation I....

+1 you!

I really appreciate a good quality post, hope to see more from you in the future.

Yawn,  I'm right as usual. The predictability kinda gets boring really.

Falin Whalen
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#28 - 2013-07-06 05:59:27 UTC
Do not go there OP, for that way lies madness. The what if's, and might haves, will drive you to insanity.

"it's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves." The Trial - Franz Kafka 

Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#29 - 2013-07-06 06:24:07 UTC
Let's assume that the only income CCP derives from the game of Eve is what they pull in from subs.
Between the Serenity (China), and the rest of the planet (TQ) , CCP is looking at what, 900.000 subs?

Let's assume a sub rate of 15 dollars/ hour, based on staight US dollar subs, EURO subs, plex sales US dollarsbuyers, and non U.S plex buyers.

That works out to 13.5M / month, US dollars, or 162M / year.

Is that a large enough cash flow to assign devs to fixing alleged issues with Eve (I don't believe "fixing" stuff like skill names was high on the priority list of Eve players), plus overhaul Dust (c'mon folks, read the 3rd party reviews, Dust needs a lot of work), plus on the outside chance of working on WoD, I strongly doubt.

162M / annum pays for the Iceland. Atlanta, London, and Shanghai sites, but from an R&D perspective,162 M simply does not go that far.

Sure, Eve would be immensely more popular if they focused on one game, and ditched the Eve meta-game as well.
But that is not going to happen. Ego's are involved at this point, and we all know what happens when ego's enter the fray of logical discussion.
Alundil
Rolled Out
#30 - 2013-07-06 06:32:59 UTC
I saw the title of the thread and thought to myself...."Self, here's a topic you've not seen before. Check it out."

Sadly, I realize that it was simply another "EVE is dying" thread with a deceptive title.

You got me
::shuffles off muttering about whiners::

I'm right behind you

Ace Uoweme
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#31 - 2013-07-06 09:50:42 UTC
Samroski wrote:
ShahFluffers wrote:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3295939#post3295939

What that post says is that if a developer is moved to Dust, he's replaced.

I'm suggesting that if there was no Dust, and all the developers who are working on Dust and WoD spent their time and effort on developing Eve.


In other words be a one trick pony in a fiercely competitive gaming industry.

Game companies have to have more in their portfolio than just one pencil drawing.

CCP needs DUST as Blizzard needs StarCraft and Diablo.

_"In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." _ ~George Orwell

Tiber Ibis
The Paratwa Ka
#32 - 2013-07-06 09:58:14 UTC
Maldiro Selkurk wrote:
Tiber Ibis wrote:

A couple of things wrong with your thinking. Like I said above, you are thinking in a small minded way and not looking at CCPs vision for eve. The truth is that WOW is dying specifically because it catered so much to casual gamers. You can collerate its decline with the expansion which tripled xp gain. So that pretty much blows your whole post out and is where your argument falls down. Catering too much for casuals is the path to decline.


I know exactly what CCPs vision is and how horribly bad it has been for the development of this game, why is everything left broken, because CCP kept strictly to its vision of what it wanted this game to be and lost sight of the basic economic reality that you cannot achieve your development dreams without money, every game needs casuals in considerable numbers to fuel the engine of development with the necessary cash influx casuals bring and CCP doesn't get that and apparently neither do you.

You claim I am small minded while you fail to notice that the 2 million subs wow lost this year is still about 4 times as many subs as EVE has managed to acquire after 10 years of trying and as i pointed out in another thread the way EVE shoves alt accounts down your throat, let's be totally honest here the actual number of unique players of this game is probably more in the 300k range making wow's player base conservatively 20 times as big, in 20% less time.

Having played wow from day one till about 4 months ago i can assure you without any reservation that what made wow an unbridled success was that Blizzard cared for and catered to casuals in its player base, while still providing a rich gaming experience for both its pve and pvp hardcore players.

I don't know why wow is in decline but more importantly neither do you. You point to a single case correlation and draw a cause and effect conclusion based on that correlation, well let me show you just how powerful my "small mind' really can be.

I walked outside my house today and it was breezy so we can correlate me walking outside with a breezy day by your logic that single case correlation means that there must be a cause and effect relationship between me walking outside and it being breezy, so then by extension of that logic it must be breezy every time i walk outside and i can assure you that is not the case.

Next time your behemoth brain is in statistics class how about stop drooling on your desk and pay attention.

Looking at the sum total discourse between your behemoth brain and my small minded one, I'm going to be content with my small minded one that is trumping yours with ease that makes taking candy from a baby seem a daunting challenge in comparison.

NOTE: for those that may read this post, please keep in mind that the other respondent insulted me first and when that happens the gloves come off and its go time. I have always and will always defend myself from personal attacks.

This is general discussion, if you were offended and think I made an offensive personal attack then you won't last long here. :)

As for business, how exactly should you measure success? This is the small minded bit I was talking about. Should success be based upon number of subs as you indicate here? No, what good is masses of subs if you only make $0.01 from each sub. So subs does not matter. Is profit a good measure of success? Well that all depends on the business vision, and I get the impression Himlar hasn't gone into this purely with the motivation of profit. So again, profit is not a good measure of success in this case. So how about we look at Himlar vision for eve, to become the largest sci fi simulation in existant, and I would say he is doing a pretty good job and it is still growing.

The difference is you and Blizzard place emphasise purely on subs and profit, Blizzard has courted the cash cow which is casual gamers too much and as a result the game is in decline. And by the way, this assumtion has nothing to do with statisitcs, although Im sure statisitcs would back this up also, but it has to do with what most people regard as common sense. :)
Tiber Ibis
The Paratwa Ka
#33 - 2013-07-06 10:05:23 UTC
Ace Uoweme wrote:
Samroski wrote:
ShahFluffers wrote:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3295939#post3295939

What that post says is that if a developer is moved to Dust, he's replaced.

I'm suggesting that if there was no Dust, and all the developers who are working on Dust and WoD spent their time and effort on developing Eve.


In other words be a one trick pony in a fiercely competitive gaming industry.

Game companies have to have more in their portfolio than just one pencil drawing.

CCP needs DUST as Blizzard needs StarCraft and Diablo.

You don't know the first thing about business evidently. Funny how people feel the need to spout how CCP should run their company when they have literally zero knowledge or experience on the subject. First rule of any business is specialise to succeed. Generalisation has been the path to failure for countless business's.
Ace Uoweme
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#34 - 2013-07-06 10:24:52 UTC
Maldiro Selkurk wrote:
I know exactly what CCPs vision is and how horribly bad it has been for the development of this game, why is everything left broken, because CCP kept strictly to its vision of what it wanted this game to be and lost sight of the basic economic reality that you cannot achieve your development dreams without money, every game needs casuals in considerable numbers to fuel the engine of development with the necessary cash influx casuals bring and CCP doesn't get that and apparently neither do you.


Even Blizzard had to change some core designs in WoW. One core design that they had since inception was the silhouettes that players could distinguish classes with (why the models are just the same with each class over the years. You could tell who was a caster from melee, or a paladin from a warrior simply by what their class wears. Each class silhouette was unique). They changed it to offer appearance armor, and it didn't come easy as it changed how they wanted players to view classes itself.

Times change. Players are different every 3 to 5 years. They're raised on different games with better features. Those players seek similar goodness they see in other games. This is how/why Blizzard had to change, the new players are different.

Games have to stay current as the industry evolves. If it doesn't it's but a niche game with all the problems niche games have -- like barely enough players to keep the money flowing in for development (the worst problem). The devs in EvE are moderating the forum for Pete's sake, there's not much money in this studio to hire community managers or forum staff, they're doing it all. The only time in WoW do you see an influx of devs on the forums is when production is over (like a month or so before an expansion is released, their work is done it's upto marketing and distribution and the network guys then. When it's released, they go back to the office, as they work on the next expansion...2 year production times for expansions). That's not a good sign, it's showing projects aren't being funded, and they're not busy working on them.

When a company has the cash influx players can see what it does, and how much content they get from it. The company now has the luxuries that money can buy, and it's funneled into other areas as well. Be it on the forums with dressing it up (since it's the front door of a company); be it even making statues on the front lawn of their headquarters; to making fancier looking launch pads (anyone notice that Blizzard is asking for beta testers for it's new launch pad?) and offering merchandise to buy.

They can now project influence and can then start buying influence, such as those very expensive animators and artists, that's more expensive than programmers these days.

Remember on a thread at the WoW forums and we were talking about pristine servers, and Bashiok (the community manager) popped in and said even if they did bring the past expansions back to so-called pristine servers, it wouldn't be as before. Things have changed since then, be it tech or how they want to envision the game. They could do it, but why would they want too? They long updated how they produced the games, and it was clear after WotLK they don't like hand tweaking raids so classes can play (which is why WotLK was so good, it had devs individually hand tweaking raids per class). Not fast to produce, and tedious.

CCP if they're not at that stage yet, will be. And gamers have to realize games have to evolve. We all have our favorite expansions and features, but tech and all changes, and if the game doesn't, it becomes stagnant and inefficient to produce better content.

A game company can't just sit on it's laurels (Blizzard and SOE learned some bitter lessons when taking their player bases for granted). It must produce better and better content. Even for the devs they're human too, they would like to do more, add more and build better worlds. It's fun, exciting and it shows how good their team is at producing content to the world. When others see it, they gain respect. Morale is increased, they're happy and what they produce shows it. In return players are happy, and the money comes in.

It's a working relationship. Adapting devs along with adapting players = a better game for all.

_"In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." _ ~George Orwell

Miilla
Hulkageddon Orphanage
#35 - 2013-07-06 11:16:38 UTC
We make mining exciting once a year but they just cry about it.
Templar Knightsbane
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#36 - 2013-07-06 11:20:04 UTC
Saying CCP shouldn't develop other games like DUST514 etc. is like saying:-

Coca-Cola shouldn't make Sprite and Fanta... Then what the **** would i mix with my Vodka???

Cmon get a grip peoples world with no Sprite is a bleak world!!!
Asptar Monastair
Frontier Adventurers
#37 - 2013-07-06 11:36:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Asptar Monastair
If there was no DUST or WoD there would be no incentive to hire the extra staff in the first place.
The new staff is an investment into these franchises, it the hopes they will become a new revenue source. Those same resources spent on EVE are a lot less likely to give comparable returns, because EVE is an established product, while DUST and WoD are for new markets.
Seven Koskanaiken
Shadow Legions.
Insidious.
#38 - 2013-07-06 11:39:44 UTC
Callyuk wrote:
Goon Tears is the Buisness Model were talking about ?

Like Reinforced Nodes They mad BRO LAWL
By Sion Kumitomo

Dear CCP:

I love spaceships. I love the sandbox. The sheer possibilities afforded by the near-limitless options and the organic player-driven content are things you just can't find anywhere else. So what I say next, I say out of deep concern. Though you might find it hurtful, it is not meant to hurt.

Incompetence like this ruins your sandbox.

By 'this', I mean the re-mapping of the node in Z9PP during the battle yesterday. The battle in Z9PP started with the destruction of a TEST ihub around downtime, and over the next twelve hours, the system saw varying levels of continued conflict. At peak, local was near 2000 pilots with more set to join the fray. That is, the battle itself was still in the process of escalating. All of this was abruptly ended by the incompetence of your engineers. Further escalation of the battle would have seen hundreds of capitals lost, and supers perhaps fielded or lost. It would have been a battle to remember, a battle that would have graced headlines, a battle pilots would have recalled with pride, or with horror. And that's just the start of what your mistake cost you and thousands of players.

I've seen allegations of t20 levels of conspiracy by various parties, but I think we both know that's not the case. You didn't do this out of malice—I'm certain it was just as you said here, a mistake. Mistakes are fine, everyone makes them. But making the same mistake repeatedly means you aren't learning from them. GSF's own dread fleet was saved by a similar node remap a scant couple of weeks ago, a similar missed opportunity to showcase the vibrant and violent nature of EVE.

But incompetence is worse than malice.

As a company that thrives on occupying a niche in the MMO market, it is in your best interests to prevent this from ever occurring again. These kinds of massive battles and the surrounding narratives are what give you free publicity, both through word of mouth and in the gaming press. If you don't hold your people accountable, and if you don't strive to ensure that checks are in place to prevent this, you're not just hurting the players involved directly, you're hurting the whole game—including yourselves.

You cannot risk your reputation becoming 'lol CCP', nor can you afford to pass up the windfall that massive battles generate for you. What astounds me most is that something like this, something so precious and important to your business model, is something that doesn't have multiple checks in place to prevent just such an event from occurring. This wasn't “just a fight”. These events and others like them are what drive the whole of EVE. It should come as no surprise that players expect pvp to matter in a game built around the integral idea that pvp matters.

Why you wouldn't protect these events as much as you are able is quite utterly beyond me. I don't mean to denigrate other aspects of the game, of course, but let's be honest: the biggest draw of EVE is the possibility that you will have a part in something major. And when it comes to that, very little equals a huge war-turning battle, the murder of a capfleet, or the destruction of thousands of ships. Remember Asakai? That now infamous system and so many others like it are the beating heart of this game. Massive battles are your piles of gold, their stories your frankincense, and their widespread impacts your myrrh.

You can't make pvp matter without making it matter when it matters the most. You cannot allow typos to undermine your game and the potential of EVE, not when it is something so important to your business model.

I don't want a witch hunt. No one does. You've already given us answers as to what happened, and I commend your openness. Communication lets all of us know what transpired and is a great starting point. But it is just that, a starting point. Moreover, what was offered was merely an apology, whereas what you require is action towards a permanent solution. My sincere hope is that you address this issue and communicate to us how it has been addressed. Failing that, I suspect we'll have our answers during the next major fleet battle.

But remember, CCP, this isn't just about the fights. As stewards of the sandbox, you are accountable for it, and it is your reputation and your game that are at stake. So for your sake and ours, the remapping of a node with an active battle must not be allowed to happen again.

Your players understand these implications, CCP. Do you?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnd5ilKx2Y
Ace Uoweme
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#39 - 2013-07-06 11:45:35 UTC
Miilla wrote:
We make mining exciting once a year but they just cry about it.


Because: one man's fun, is another man's poison.

One sided fun, isn't everyone having fun.

Same goes with development. Working on one project for 10 years, even the devs get cabin fever.

_"In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." _ ~George Orwell

Karak Terrel
Foundation for CODE and THE NEW ORDER
#40 - 2013-07-06 14:28:21 UTC
Samroski wrote:
I cannot help but think what eve would be like now had CCP concentrated on Eve alone.

Happend once, was called Apocrypha, the best expansion ever.