EVE New Citizens Q&A

Watch this (Incarna starts at 23:35): A Tale Of Internet Spaceships. It goes into the topic (too much, so it dominates the documentary).

Just search for Incarna and Walking In Station (WIS). For example:
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/looking-ahead-captains-quarters-and-the-road-to-incarna/
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/incarna.-welcome-your-future.-2/
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/fearless-virtual-goods-and-rage/
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/accord-reached-at-ccps-special-summit/
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/a-letter-to-the-followers-of-eve/

Walking in stations (WIS) was supposed to get us out of pods and face-to-face. Mini-game of life in stations. Stuff was demo-ed at fanfest(s). Implemented: only Captain's Quarters (a room in a MMO where you can't interact with anyone), and NES added with outrageous costs for "micro-transactions". All at the expense of Flying In Space (FIS), the core of the game, and what subscribers paid for. And lastly, CCP's attitude towards their players.

I think he's asking about the Jita Riot (shooting the statue etc), not the Goons' Burn Jita event.

- Back then the game was in a sorry state, had been for years, and in need of a lot of attention but CCP was wasting its time and money on other projects (WOD and DUST) using EVE ("our") money. Then Incarna was announced and had nothing but nonsense content, stuff we never asked for and the game didn't need at that point. When we asked when CCP deemed it necessary to actually work on some game mechanics and core ******/broken game aspects we got a "yeah well, we're kinda busy you know doing this and that. Perhaps in 18 months we'll be able to start looking at it". To which we all responded with a "are you ******* kidding me?". That was strike one.


- We also got the NEX store at that point, its introduction was lead by some "marketing guru" they had hired (which we never heard of again). One of the items they wanted to introduce was some hilariously overpriced bullshit dumb nonsense thing which was defended with "well, some people buy $1000 pants irl, you know" to which we responded with "are you ******* kidding me".

Apart from the obvious (and perfectly fine) "fancy stuff" like clothing and all that they also introduced ships but not as you see them today (what we have now is effectively a BPC that requires a normal in game built ship and assets). What they came up with was literally "pay gold, get ship", completely circumventing the player driven economy/sandbox which as fckups go is hilariously dumb as hell. To which we, again, responded with "are you ******* kidding me".

Then the rumour started that they wanted to introduce a form of pay2win (gold ammo) using the NEX store and "questions were asked" which CCP responded to with "no comment". We responded with "really, are you going for gold ammo bullshit?" and CCP again went "no comment". Finally we went "dude, just tell us that you're not going to do that p2w ****, that's all we really want to hear" and CCP got a bit predictable and went "no comment". The result is obvious.... "are you ******* kidding me". The whole NEX store is strike two.


- By that time the forums were full or rage; some of it justified, some of it just trolling or idiocy but the overall theme was "are you ******* kidding me". Then an internal memo from CCP's head guy got leaked which effectively stated "yeah, they're posing and shouting real loud but as all customers they're just consumers, they'll riot and when they get tired of it they'll gobble that **** up anyway. Just watch, don't give in and we'll be fine". To which we responded with "are you ******* kidding me" and "watch us respond", they lost about 30% of total subs within 3 months. That was strike three.


On top of all that Incarna itself (the Walking in Stations bit) which they had been working on for at least 5 years and was controversial in the first place (why waste resources on stuff that isn't about spaceships) turned out do be a dud; completely useless and not even slightly interesting or even remotely like the demos and showcasing they had done over the years. It mostly just felt like a demo for WOD.


Welcome to the summer of rage, also called Incarnage.

All of the above +

The walking in stations part of the Incarna expansion, which was pretty much a dingy hotel room that IRL would be rented by the hour, also had a nasty habit of turning graphics cards into miniature radiant heaters. It was nowhere near what was initially demo'd and we'd had 18 months of little or no development while they screwed around.

I was there.

What they said. It was basically a situation that had been piling up for some time beforehand. The events described just brought all that to a quick boiling point. The existing issues meant, that good will towards CCP wasn't all that high. They had hyped up incarna for years and demoed all kinds of things like station interiors and bars with exotic dancers. We even got a new character creator beforehand to help bring expectations up. Then we got jack **** that ran so poorly it literally burned graphic cards to death, so people felt they had been lied to and development of FIS had been on slow burn for basically nothing. Then we got the "micro" transaction store and the reveals about CCP P2W plans for the store, plans they had previously promised would never happen I might add, so it just broke the camels back so to speak.

We kept shooting the statues because we honestly saw that the way EVE was going would end in the death of the game as we knew it and we thought it is a good enough and special enough of a game, that we weren't going to let it go down without a fight. Fight in this case being bringing the community together in visible protests to show we didn't want to go down that path. Mass canceling of subs was just another tool in all that to show CCP that it wasn't just some typical pointless posturing online communities do at times, but that we were ready to walk away, if CCP didn't alter their course. It also strengthened the CSM hand as they met with CCP to discuss how to get out of the situation we found ourselves in.

I was there.

The Incarna Expansion was just the catalyst which, combined with events occurring after implementation along with previous in-game problems, ignited the infamous Jita Riot's / 2011 Summer Of Rage.

Basically 'The straw that broke the Camel's back' was due to a lot of different things which are listed here in no particular order.

CCP failed to deliver WiS that was promised years ago known as Ambulation in Incarna Expansion.
The 1001 Papercuts thread - large list of various broken game mechanics and unfinished content - ignored since 2003.
CCP releasing half finished 'Bugged' content which constantly broke existing content in-game.
Massive amount of Lag in-game creating problems for everyone - large fleet battles impossible to conduct.
CCP introducing NEX Store and MT - selling overpriced items for real money bypassing in-game player production.
Threat of 'Gold Ammo' and 'Gold Ships' enabling 'Pay to Win' exploitation.
CCP ignoring Eve Online by investing development resources into 2 other projects.
The leaked 'Fearless Newsletter' memo - Greed is good.
CCP statement of viewing Eve Online Community as the Golden Goose.
Forcing 3rd party programs to pay real money for providing players with free Eve Online applications.
CCP failure to maintain their promise of 'Commitment to Excellence'.
Forcing player participation in Captains Quarters, later showing them 'The Door' - removing player's option of choice.
CCP attempt to diffuse situation in forums with excessive thread locking and banned accounts.
Poorly written unoptimized code released in Incarna resulting in major client side issues.
CCP lack of communication / poor Public Relations due to ignoring input from player base.
Hilmar's statement - "Watch what they do, not what they say."

Basically Hilmar's statement became the rally cry for the Jita Riot's which then led to mass unsubs. Having a large loan payment due at that time resulted in CCP downsizing the company, laying off employees and placing projects on back burner. CCP then released info on upcoming Cruicable Expansion which helped stop the loss of players. That expansion had a lot of 'Fixes' in it along with some content which was welcomed very much by a large portion of the player base.

stage 5 bitter vet syndrome, hairless.

I'm past that, I added the tinfoil hat.