EVE General Discussion

I am rapidly finding EVE to be in its best state in years. Ship rebalancing has left players with a much larger range of boats to fly for the same role, and each race has several viable PVP and PVE platforms, moongoo was nerfed, exploration has been made more engaging, and there are a slew of tantalizing changes coming in November. CCP certainly has a long way to go, but things are looking bright from a mechanics standpoint, and I applaud CCP for their progress.

However...

The last few weeks have seen a very intense period of public relations catastrophes. Now, I only recently reactivated my account about 1.5 months ago (which I did specifically because I read about the HAC/Command Ship buffs and could not contain my joy), but I have heard/read that the last year or so has seen a few incidents similar to the recent TOS and SOMER Blink firestorms. Having not been present for prior events, I cannot weigh in on them, and will focus on the two most recent issues.

CCP, this has to stop. The decisions that lead to the issues in question is one thing, but your responses to players' reactions is entirely inexcusable. Dev/GM responses as of late have been vague, unhelpful, slow, or any combination of the three. All of this is hurting your players, and thus your bottom line.

The recent community handlings are a massive disservice to your design teams as well. They are working incredibly hard to make this game balanced, convenient, and fun. And they are succeeding! But by making conscious choices that are sure to be inflammatory to the playerbase (and really, you couldn't not see this coming), you are working against your own progress.

In the space of about 2 weeks, you have:

The changing of long understood rules into a vague and draconian mess

And the blatant favoritism of for-profit player organizations, analagous to the (in)famous T20 incident.

All of this is working counter to the open sandbox oriented gameplay that you have spent so long cultivating, CCP and more than a large part of your customer base has voiced its discontent. I know that personally, I've held off on purchasing the Collector's Edition and resubbing my alt in light of these decisions, and I know that there are many players that are quicker to control their purse strings than myself. If this current PR trajectory holds, people are liable to start jumping ship as we witnessed in 2011.


Following the Incarna debacle, you promised more transparency and dev-player dialogue. Time to put your money where your mouth is CCP, because people are going to start taking theirs elsewhere.


TLDR: EVE can be the best game ever, but if you play favorites and your handling of the community is poor, people will still stop playing.

Hear, hear. Shame this will be locked because the ISDs are lashing out at everything with the word "SOMER" in the OP.

The TOS changes don't bother me nearly so much as the handouts to Blink. In that case the 'transgression' is in concrete measurable terms, and the issue can be clarified by the items' ISK value.

In a way, I think that makes the TOS changes a little more worrisome. They are at least being addressed though, even if the CCP response was sluggish.

only refines to 1 trit

Haha yes, priceless. Its not like CCP has and will continue to give them out like candy. Everyone investing in them is just throwing away their ISK. It´s not even a collectors item, because it will only go down in value. Its a virtual pad on the back and you want one too, thats why you´re angry.

Cannot agree more.

If CCP cross the collusion with players line in the market, are they also doing the same in alliance tournaments? In fleet battles? My gut says 'probably not' but I'm less sure than I was. Especially with the secrecy.

q9pp