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New dev blog: A letter to the followers of EVE

First post First post
Author
Silath Slyver Silverpine
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#441 - 2011-10-06 04:30:30 UTC
Way to man up Hilmar. Couldn't have been easy but I think you said your piece well this time. Hopefully this is the start of making EVE and CCP back into great things.Lol
OSGOD
Siren's calll
#442 - 2011-10-06 04:37:59 UTC
if yuo truly believe in eve ,then i expect yuo will resign effective 3 months ago ,and to quote another saying TALK IS CHEAP
progodlegend
Amok.
Goonswarm Federation
#443 - 2011-10-06 04:38:07 UTC
A genuine and sincere admittance of screw ups and losing touch is very refreshing to hear. Very impressive to hear. Definitely exactly what was needed to repair the company to customer relationships. Good ****.
Toshiro GreyHawk
#444 - 2011-10-06 04:40:10 UTC


Well ... recognition that you've screwed up is the first step towards solving the problem you created - but it's only the first step.

Still ... it's better than living in denial and letting things continue to go downhill. So congratulations on that ..



One of the problems with having really ambitious goals such as redefining your product ... is that they aren't easy to achieve and lend themselves to huge screw ups. I worked in software development for over 20 years - and I've seen fortunes go right down the shitter because of failed projects. You seriously need to have something more useful for these characters to do besides walking around stations and doing emotes for player made videos on YouTube. I'll spare all the links I usually post as examples of that.


One serious problem I will point out though - is that with the Character Creator - and such videos as the one linked to in the blog - you've created a level of expectation for character ambulation that is going to be extremely difficult to meet with the legacy hardware many of EVE's players are using. For those of us who have taken advantage of EVE's ability to run multiple clients on one system - and formed our gaming strategy around that capability - we aren't doing it on a bunch of Top End Systems.

The investment on our part has already been made. We've already got the accounts, we've already trained the characters, we have set ourselves up to operate in a manner that is somewhat dependent on multi boxing in it's design. So we don't have the option to just not do that.

Every time you obsolete a bunch of old systems - it makes it that much harder for those of us who have used the game as it was sold to us to continue doing so.

Sure - we've got top end systems but bringing all our systems up to a technical level capable of running characters as they appear in the character creator - isn't going to happen in any thing like a reasonable amount of time. Yes - our average level system will improve over time as we buy new top end systems and what was top end becomes lower tier - but that's something that takes place over years for the average person who is multi boxing.


Now ... we the people who are currently playing and paying according to a monthly subscription model - really don't need to see our avatars. Maybe these other people you want to recruit do - but we don't or we wouldn't be playing the game now. Some people may be looking forward to having avatars they can run about but most of them don't NEED that to continue playing the game.

So ... don't create some resource hog that will obsolete a bunch of our systems - just so we can do something we don't care about - and believe me - however much YOU may care about ambulation - many of us don't care at all (unless we can shoot each other).

If the space ship part of the game works fine on our older systems - but ambulation doesn't - then you need to design your ambulation implementation so that it doesn't screw the rest of the game on our older systems.

If you do obsolete our older systems - and we can no longer support as many clients as we have subscriptions for - then we are going to start canceling accounts. We may well continue to play the game ... but if we can't run it the way we have been ... then it doesn't make any sense to keep paying for something we can't use any more.


Anyway - Good Luck with it. As George W. said to Barack - "We want you to succeed."


.
Hienz Doofenshmirtz
Outsourced Manufacturing
#445 - 2011-10-06 04:43:00 UTC
To Hilmar Rock on, never lost faith

To everyone else, go play

www.dust514stats.com do you know?

Sylthi
Coreward Pan-Galactic
#446 - 2011-10-06 04:49:35 UTC
It took you how many MONTHS to finally apologize?

Funny how you can finally get some humility out of corporate fat cats when they are starring down the barrel of a multi-million dollar loan due at the end of the month and at the same time accounts leaving in droves.

Still, nice to see the CEO has some sanity and common sense left; because make no mistake, HUMILITY had NOTHING to do with that blog. CCP needed to do SOMETHING if they still wanted to have a game and/or a company in the next 6-12 months.

All that being said; I honestly don't believe a word that comes out of the mouths of CCP anymore; from Hellmar or anyone else. We've been lied to and marginalized so much and so often, I am not sure they CAN ever get that trust back; at least with me.

So, in DIRECT response to Hellmar's seeming apology I say:

"About damn time. Fix your freaking game and company while you still have one. Oh, and with all this "going back to your roots" crap, focusing on the PvP and whatnot, don't leave out new goodies for the industrialists. After all, the industrialists BUILD everything the rest of us like to blow up. If you loose the industrialists, you truly are screwed because you can ALWAYS find more PvPers......"

Peace all, and out.
OSGOD
Siren's calll
#447 - 2011-10-06 04:53:11 UTC  |  Edited by: OSGOD
Hienz Doofenshmirtz wrote:
To Hilmar Rock on, never lost faith

To everyone else, go play


becuase of this tosser (Hilmar) i can no longer with a adsl connection and a top teir machine run 2 clients at the same time as of CQ so in order to run both clients i have 2 option spend another 5,500 AUD on another pc and dual box which i doubt will work as i believe from investigating the problem it is bandwidth not, alt tabbing causing the problem or i spend 80 AUD a month on ADSL 2 which i dont know yet if it will fix my problem of only being able to have 1 client logged on at a time. Dec will let know and if i still cant run 2 clients on my top tier PC,if i cant then i will stop paying for eve and that pisses me as i have invested my time and a lot of it since jan 2007 in this game never had any problems running 2 clients on same machine until CQ so Hienz get a ******* a education or STFU.

my above quote still applies to Hilmar you wanna do good for eve resign effective 3 months ago and as talk in the past shows from CCP, TALK IS VERY CHEAP,

I AM NOT GETTING MY 260+ AUD worth out of eve at the mo and i am very pissed opf about it
Beltashazzah
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#448 - 2011-10-06 04:56:54 UTC
I read this while at work, and your sincerity was clearly felt even then. When I arrived home I logged in and was greeted with a photo of you linking to your letter. I have no idea when that photo was taken but it absolutely conveyed the same measure of sincerity that I felt when reading your letter.

I truly commend you for not only writing it, but articulating it in such a way as to really encourage me that you understand the issues this amazing game is facing. I have no doubt that thu future will indeed be more exciting now. You have my support CCP.

Regards


Belt
Shameless Shamus
Cherry Defense Systems
The Initiative.
#449 - 2011-10-06 05:02:53 UTC
Thank you CCP Hilmar. Thank you for being so frank about your experiences and shortcomings, and your realizations. Turns out you are human after all :)
Dynast
Room for Improvement
Good Sax
#450 - 2011-10-06 05:21:31 UTC
I very, very much hope that these words are followed up with sustained action. It's been disappointing to see so much of the work announced over the last couple years be stuff that.. well.. does nothing for me.

There are a hundred well-made MMOs where you run a little dude with a sword around, but only one first rate MMO where you fly a spaceship. Here's hoping EVE development really is re-focused on spaceships.
Nth Ares
Doomheim
#451 - 2011-10-06 05:22:15 UTC
Apology accepted and appreciated. Now please get to work and back it up with actions.

I feel more hopeful about the future of EVE, but you're in some tough competition for my subscription dollars this coming year.
Innerasvard
SSGS Mining Inc
#452 - 2011-10-06 05:25:42 UTC
I really really REALLY appreciate that CCP Hellmar...

I love EvE, it's an MMO that i never grow bored of, i mean its a true sandbox where we make our own story, own destiny...

I like the rest have been worried about the games future lately, all focus seems to be on griefers and everyone else is left in the dust and as you mentioned there are a few areas that need polishing and/or tweaking.

In a nutshell reading your post when i woke up this morning has encouraged me to continue investing time and money into EvE and i just hope that your words come to light in the near future.

Let us pray that our playerbase is not hurt too badly by Decembers release of SWTOR

Thanks again boss o7
Artamis Kane
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#453 - 2011-10-06 05:33:53 UTC
These words go a long way to restoring faith in the future of EVE. Actions will, of course, go the distance to keep it.

That being said, please, please listen to what the community is saying on the forums. I believe that to maintain a loyal player-base CCP will have to address many pre-existing issues with game-play before investing more time and energy into new 'shiny' elements that are clearly more geared to snagging new players.

Incarna, Dust and other CCP initiatives within EVE are fun and interesting, but simple things like clunky interfaces, boring and repetitions missions, broken Faction Warfare, broken COSMOS and the cluster**** that is modern-day lo-sec really need some serious looking after.

I am afraid that so much time will be invested into integrating DUST with EVE that EVE will suffer as a game. Some serious yet mundane fixes should be looked at and looked at hard.

EVE is a terrific game, but some parts of it are clearly stuck in 2005 and no matter how much DUST and Incarna might polish up parts of it and make it seem 'new' again, those parts will, in the end, drag the whole thing down.
Dark Sabre
Comply Or Die
Pandemic Horde
#454 - 2011-10-06 05:35:51 UTC
10-10 Hellmar,

Thankyou for your transperancy and humble appology. I applaud your courage and look forward to more great things from you and CCP.

Happy EvE player.
ArchenTheGreat
Interstellar Clone Transport
#455 - 2011-10-06 05:37:52 UTC
Wow, I am impressed. Thank you and good luck.
Remnantek
Quadranomicon Remnant
#456 - 2011-10-06 05:38:33 UTC
A sign of true leadership is taking the blame while you praise the work of those that work beside you.

Your words have not fallen on def ears, and i look forward to the visions of CCP.

I hope this MMO becomes the Alpha and Omega of MMO's.

PLEASE have fun building EvE, your joys in creation flow over into our playing. Big smile

Ztrain
Evolution
Northern Coalition.
#457 - 2011-10-06 05:39:59 UTC
This is evidence that you still have no idea what your doing lets break these down.

Hybrid weapons balancing (okay fine done know don't really care. Fix it.)

Factional warfare (Ummm did people ever do this? Seriously? Rly? Gonna waste more time on it?)

Assault ships (Okay.............)

Capital ship balancing (Ahh this is where you nurf super caps online because everyone has them so they need to be nurfed. Removing their value vs investment and removing the desire to achieve your end game.)

New T2 modules (See T2 section below)

Starbase logistics management (This is code for? Is this the ramp up and make your Jump Freighters juicier targets by having to lock on to their cyno's trick? Yes that's right make it even easier to loss the stuff people have worked towards. That sounds like a winner to the gaming masses coming from other games.)

New EWAR-Drones (STOP WITH NEW STUFF. The new stuff you've introduced over the past few years is what has made the game get worse and worse with every expansion since 07. But yep keep working on new stuff nobody needs. Same old CCP)

T2 Rigs manufacturing (And this is broken now how? It wasn't a year ago when I last stopped playing. Haven't looked at it in the two weeks been back. How have you screwed it up in the last year? Or is this another not broke but we need to tinker with it to break it?)

Ship spinning (So your programmers are unable to put something back in that they had for 8 or so years working fine? You need to wait months to put this back in? Did they loose the original or did they copy and past over it? Or does the developer that wrote the spinning ships environment no longer work there so you all have to go back to school to learn how to rotate a 3D object?)

New font (When there's so much game play and objectives broken and allocating more resources to fix these problems and you working on changing fonts? Rly? Like Rly?)

More captains quarters (You still don't have spinning ships back. You openly admit that your CQ was a problem and your dedicating resources to put more in?)

Time dilation (Okay we've all experienced fleet fights this has already been in the game for at least 6 years just through server performance you are not actually spending time on writing code to do this? Okay yeah that was a little sarcastic, Not much just a little. But that would have been nice 5-6 years ago.)



Anyways here's a list of problems that you need to be fixing

Capital ships (Address the issues that the community has brought up with capital ships and power blocks. I just came back after a year out of game so am not personally up to speed on all the particulars but this needs to be on your desk every day period. While at the same time that fix needs to not make them nurfed to the point as to negate the desire to fly or build them at all. For many flying a super is an end game ambition. If investment vs potential fun and risk of loss is not there you've effectively destroyed your end game. Why play to play a game if you don't have a goal to work towards. Ask yourself why play the game.)

Nullsec (Failure: Constellation sov. Failure: current sov system. It was kind of okay when came back last year. 0.0 was a chore trying to defend all these stations that nobody really wants other then to have just so someone else your not friends with can't have them. The proliferation of stations spawned from the incompetent design teams constellation sov idea and really screwed up 0.0 geography. Not to mention that at least you could get a small piece of 0.0 some place and build it up. Now you have the extra maintenance of maintaining all these station systems and don't even get the benefits from it. Again more work with no or little reward. 2nd hand information so may be wrong but heard the Mittani stated we have the caps to just go any take whatever we want from whomever we want. But nobody has anything worth taking. That's a major problem in a game if your main desirable space being Nullsec and people just plain don't want it.)

Production (T2 BPOs. Again last time I looked to buy a T2 BPO off someone you'd basically be giving up all the profits if you were to produce that item 24/7 for the next not kidding 5 years.................. Rly? So if you are a new player entering the game your are in effect locked out of a major part of production. Invention is a joke. Plain and simple. No really. Start up some method of making new T2 BPOs and make their distribution permanent or remove them and make everything invention. Those that have the money to just out right by the new ones will to try to hold the market. A steady stream of them need to be constantly being introduced. If a new player who is interested starts playing the game and realizes they have no chance to getting in to that area of production. It is another goal that just can not be achieved.)

Ztrain
Evolution
Northern Coalition.
#458 - 2011-10-06 05:43:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Ztrain

Back in the day when you would start playing the game you had goals:

I'd like to get out to 0.0
I'd like to help build a station.
I'd like to get a T2 BPO or two for production.
I'd like to fly a super cap!!!

Now we have:
I'd like to get out to 0.0 (easy to do just join a corp in an alliance with access but why bother? Lots of work for meh reward.)
I'd like to help build a station. (More then enough of those around already.)
I'd like to get a T2 BPO or two for production. (Can't be done. You can buy one for 5 years worth of it's payout.......why..........)
I'd like to fly a super cap!!! (Sounds cool but I could spend a year investing and building up for one just to have it nurfed even more then they have from their original design. Not saying it wasn't needed. However with every nurf diminishes their value vs investment.)

CCP needs to start making fun goals for people to work towards. Not waste time with adding new fonts, ECM drones, new T2 modules. You talk about how non in game related things were a mistake such and micro transaction and such and still fail to address in game play issues except for "fixing Nullsec" You still seem to have no idea as to what it takes to design a game. Game design is all about the goals and game play. Not about the fluff. Never mind the game client is still the buggiest piece of garbage I've ever seen. Laugh delete boot.ini amongst other things. Perhaps should hire some testers while your at it. Most game companies use them. But that's a whole other issue.

Z
BlinSky
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#459 - 2011-10-06 05:52:15 UTC
BlinSky wrote:
Ok So Basically you know and admit that me (in my emo raging posts) and some other loyal to eve followers are right and you are wrong... great... that should keep some of us paying for another 2 or 3 months of game time in the hope for some "player loven changes" to take place....

Super cool now that you know you screwed up and since you care so much about the players... (yeah right sucking every lil bit of money from them not so important) do the following:

- get back in the 90 day GTC's,
- seed eve with another 5k or so null sec systems,
- setup a real bounty hunter's office/profession (maybe npc corp for every faction)
- add motherships
- add a cap or sub cap that will help small corps (20 dudes or so) to live in null sec on their own roaming the 0.0's as nomads,
- reseed the moons,
- add more ships and weapon types,
- CHECK THE GM's FOR ABUSE.. I PERSONALLY KNOW 3 CASES IN WHICH THE GM's ACTED LIKE WHORES AND WITH ALL THE PETITIONING NOTHING HAPPEN LEADING TO A m8 OF MINE TO QUIT EVE. (Or formup a team that will be in charge of keeping the gm's in line)
- STOP ADDING SO MUCH **** IN EVE WITHOUT KEEPING PASSE WITH THE BUGS THAT COME WITH IT. (there so many bugs with the latest patches thats not even funny). Leme show you 3 of them:
1) after undocking even know the 1 min session timer is over sometimes i get more session change notifications when trying to jump a gate. longest one was 2min something.. This bug is old news now and yet nothing seems to be done about it.
2) windows... windows.... they jump arround the screen when clicking something, the stacking doesent work properly... they stack w/e they want to and when... again nothing been done about it...
3) speed indicator... still gets stuck yes.... been fixed so many times people stop bothering to report....

Those are just 3 bugs that you can see in like 5 min of playing eve... there's many more and more been added with every patch but you simply don't take 5min break from filling eve with **** to simply FIX SOME BUGS.

So yeah overall I think that the blog from "eve guy in charge" is nothing but a "please stay with us for another 6 months and you will see it's gonna get better I beg you" blog. For real I think CCP tasted money and for that reason eve will never be the way it once was.. fun.

Just to prove what I just said think of this: People been crying for ship paint jobs and corp logos for years... what did CCP said when those will be introduced??? They gonna be under the vanity products. That basically means if you wanna have some fun flying a black ship with a pirate skull on it, pay CCP a plex or 2 or w/e... more monety to CCP... whats todays plex price??? 400mill you say???....

That's what CCP is doing and they know it. This blog is just smoke in the eyeballs another attempt to make old guys think of eve the way it once was... remember I WAS THERE?? ... same deal only now they stick it from behind....


Just wanted to add this:

IF YOU LOVE THE EVE COMMUNITY SO MUCH YOU'D MAKE DUST514 FOR PC ALSO, NT JUST FOR CONSOLES...

THAT POST IS A HUGE BULLSHIT AND IT WORKS, JUST READ THE ******* REPLIES FROM THE PEOPLE:
"I'l stick arround for a while"... "now lets get to work"...

We have a saying here when it comes to voting on election day that sounds something like this: "YES THEY'R STUPID, BUT LOOK HOW MANY THEY ARE" That's exactly the people that the blog is aiming for.

Until they get actually back the 90day GTC's the way once was (so people don't worry about plex day and focus on actually having fun) or they say Yes We will launch dust 514 on pc at the same time as game consoles... I won't believe **** of what any CCP guys are saying may that be the ceo or the guy that's washing the toilets in that building.



Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#460 - 2011-10-06 05:52:51 UTC
Ztrain wrote:
This is evidence that you still have no idea what your doing lets break these down.

Hybrid weapons balancing (okay fine done know don't really care. Fix it.)

Factional warfare (Ummm did people ever do this? Seriously? Rly? Gonna waste more time on it?)

Assault ships (Okay.............)

Capital ship balancing (Ahh this is where you nurf super caps online because everyone has them so they need to be nurfed. Removing their value vs investment and removing the desire to achieve your end game.)

New T2 modules (See T2 section below)

Starbase logistics management (This is code for? Is this the ramp up and make your Jump Freighters juicier targets by having to lock on to their cyno's trick? Yes that's right make it even easier to loss the stuff people have worked towards. That sounds like a winner to the gaming masses coming from other games.)

New EWAR-Drones (STOP WITH NEW STUFF. The new stuff you've introduced over the past few years is what has made the game get worse and worse with every expansion since 07. But yep keep working on new stuff nobody needs. Same old CCP)

T2 Rigs manufacturing (And this is broken now how? It wasn't a year ago when I last stopped playing. Haven't looked at it in the two weeks been back. How have you screwed it up in the last year? Or is this another not broke but we need to tinker with it to break it?)

Ship spinning (So your programmers are unable to put something back in that they had for 8 or so years working fine? You need to wait months to put this back in? Did they loose the original or did they copy and past over it? Or does the developer that wrote the spinning ships environment no longer work there so you all have to go back to school to learn how to rotate a 3D object?)

New font (When there's so much game play and objectives broken and allocating more resources to fix these problems and you working on changing fonts? Rly? Like Rly?)

More captains quarters (You still don't have spinning ships back. You openly admit that your CQ was a problem and your dedicating resources to put more in?)

Time dilation (Okay we've all experienced fleet fights this has already been in the game for at least 6 years just through server performance you are not actually spending time on writing code to do this? Okay yeah that was a little sarcastic, Not much just a little. But that would have been nice 5-6 years ago.)



Anyways here's a list of problems that you need to be fixing

Capital ships (Address the issues that the community has brought up with capital ships and power blocks. I just came back after a year out of game so am not personally up to speed on all the particulars but this needs to be on your desk every day period. While at the same time that fix needs to not make them nurfed to the point as to negate the desire to fly or build them at all. For many flying a super is an end game ambition. If investment vs potential fun and risk of loss is not there you've effectively destroyed your end game. Why play to play a game if you don't have a goal to work towards. Ask yourself why play the game.)

Nullsec (Failure: Constellation sov. Failure: current sov system. It was kind of okay when came back last year. 0.0 was a chore trying to defend all these stations that nobody really wants other then to have just so someone else your not friends with can't have them. The proliferation of stations spawned from the incompetent design teams constellation sov idea and really screwed up 0.0 geography. Not to mention that at least you could get a small piece of 0.0 some place and build it up. Now you have the extra maintenance of maintaining all these station systems and don't even get the benefits from it. Again more work with no or little reward. 2nd hand information so may be wrong but heard the Mittani stated we have the caps to just go any take whatever we want from whomever we want. But nobody has anything worth taking. That's a major problem in a game if your main desirable space being Nullsec and people just plain don't want it.)

Production (T2 BPOs. Again last time I looked to buy a T2 BPO off someone you'd basically be giving up all the profits if you were to produce that item 24/7 for the next not kidding 5 years.................. Rly? So if you are a new player entering the game your are in effect locked out of a major part of production. Invention is a joke. Plain and simple. No really. Start up some method of making new T2 BPOs and make their distribution permanent or remove them and make everything invention. Those that have the money to just out right by the new ones will to try to hold the market. A steady stream of them need to be constantly being introduced. If a new player who is interested starts playing the game and realizes they have no chance to getting in to that area of production. It is another goal that just can not be achieved.)




Impressive. You've demonstrated your ignorance of literally every single major issue. To be as thoroughly, meticulously and consistently wrong as your post was must have taken considerable hard work and dedication.

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016