EVE General Discussion

If the truth is as heartfelt and on track as the words what more could you ask. I whined and rioted and unsubbed multiple accts but if Hilmar is willing to forgive me that i'm willing to forgive him Incarna. And start singing the praises of Eve again.

Yes, like I said somewhere else, my current relationship with EVE is like one you have (or lack) with an EX , a cheating one to boot, that you still love or at least care for.

This brings many troubled feelings to mind. I usually ask me, in an introspective way, why I get so worked up over this game, and then it hits me, EVE has been with me for a long time. It has seen me move between countries, marrying, establishing a foothold in hostile foreign territory as an exile due to political reasons, has seen me through a great chunk of my career as a psychologist, it has been there for quite a while. Even if all I did was log in and out to switch skills, it has been there, the Amarrian station environment, soothing me sometimes after hard days of work or feelings of alienation at having to flee my old country, the only stability being the game, that remained there looking back at me, giving me a small measure of sanity.

I could recall moments of my life just by looking at certain ships in my hangar or particular modules. When I see my standings I can recall so many hours playing in my former house, no longer existant, destroyed by nature. I remember friends, enemies, scammers and the people I managed to introduce to the game, most of them gone to greener pastures, some of them exiles looking for better places around the world.

I pay yearly, give my cold hard earned cash to CCP with glee, or used to anyway. I'm still waiting for 2011 to see how it all goes, see if they can rebuild the game I loved, the game that I jumped into without a clue that taught me many many things, and honed my inherent paranoia into a more narrowly focused set of tools.

This game has given me so much, and some of the losses I have had here I still remember with pain, and shared, with some friends outside, drinks to pass the pain of losing precious ships fitted with faction gear for instance.

I don't know where or how EVE lost somehow track of itself. Incarna being just the last drop into an already filled cup of bitter neglect and bad or poorly made decisions. I still am at a lost trying to understand what happened to this game. Like this comment left on Jester's latest report, I feel the same :

"Mara Abraham said...

I understand why a company wants to have multiple products and or services.

I also understand why there are times a company must lay off or otherwise terminate employment with its employees.

What I have trouble understanding is where CCP is getting its input for the direction it takes.

Just from an Eve perspective, if customers were actually treated with "the customer is always right" perspective (rather than the customer is wrong unless proven right, and by ___ I'm not going to let that happen) along with taking action from customer feedback -- fix fw, fix low sec, etc., then you would stabilize the Eve base.

In addition, rather than "invite a friend" being mainly used as a source of abuse by existing subscribers (that's its own story), you would get real fresh blood as people were just ecstatic that CCP valued their customer base.

A growing customer base of one product shows good business and customer service management skills that can translate in applying those same skills and model to other products and services.

From my point of view, given CCP's current stance of the customer is an idiot that lies and should just be grateful they can play Eve with what we give them... I would not recommend any product or service CCP delivers.

BTW, I don't consider myself anti-CCP in terms of I'm not telling people what to do, and actually share I'm grateful when someone I know biomassed comes back -- they changed their mind in time.

But on the same token, I admit I play Eve mainly because it sucks less than other things out there at the moment (not that it is a better product and certainly not due to the customer service).

Hopefully CCP can and will turn things around. But that will not start with hogwash apology letters from the CEO unless they are backed by actually change of direction with actions showing customers really matter.

Thank you.
October 20, 2011 2:14 PM "


This rings true with many of us, at least the people I have come to talk to about the game. What has happened to us and THEM (CCP)?

What happened to the OLD CCP, the one that sent a particular webcomic guy , upon hearing of his car accident, a "get well soon" note and free posters to this person's house. The Old CCP that CARED.

I have been here since 2005, and I don't know what happened! I might be a bitter vet, but until Incarna I was the kind of guy that praised EVE despite its flaws. That relationship is gone. I feel such a loss, on an emotional level that bothers me. It's like saying goodbye yet not wanting to really let go.

I fear for giving CCP hope, but as you say, yes, if Hillmar is TRUE and HONEST, then yes, we all can make amends and forget, turn the page , forget this chapter and begin writing one anew.

When I travel abroad, I still think in terms of how I might accommodate part of my time to be able to do a skill switch and if I could run the client in another pc, carrying my personal portable HDD with an up to date copy of the client.

I just want to really trust them again. I really do.

Only time will heal the rift, I will do my part, will try to not spew any more hate-driven drivel, I will work on my side, I will support CCP for a couple more months and WAIT and see what happens.

Only time will tell ...

All I want to know about this interview is how it was conducted?

Was it over phone or Skype? Where they had a direct contact with him. Or was this through and email where the PR people are able to put a spin on everything he says, making every response of his look as good as possible. Also I would like to know if the interviewer had to submit his article to CCP before releasing it so they had an option to cut anything that seemed like it would spin towards negative publicity. There are so many articles out there that have to be given the okay by the company/individual so nothing negative can come from the article.

As much as I would like to believe him and everything he says until they deliver on what they are saying I wont trust CCP. I will still keep subbing but I wont even bother to suggest the game to any one else.

As the CEO, Hilmar has failed to follow a key principle that applies to practically any business.

Keep your core business close.

So much is commoditised in today’s technology marketplace when you have a differentiator you treat it like the blood and treasure of a kingdom. You don’t farm it out, you don’t rule from afar.

Dust is an example of failing to heed this principle.

So much was done wrong here it’s amazing that it was ever considered let alone executed as a plan.

Time Zone differences and geographical distances are constraints unable to be changed from day one on this project. Every hour of work effort comes with baked in cost overheads of latency. Why Hilmar would approve an operating model with such obvious flaws as only a couple of core business hours overlapping between Reykjavík and Shanghai and an 8,000KM journey is a mystery.

Separating the key stakeholders in this project means that resolving every issue critical to success or failure is looked at through the lens of flight schedules. CCP Shanghai people are very talented, but are they talented enough to work without a net on the first attempt? It might have felt like good sense to have the Dust team near SOE, but it just sounds like a chance for them to go native.

Dust is well behind time and it is obviously well over budget. Conceptually the idea of Dust has been positively received. However, overall and to be honest the reception of the “first looks” has been fairly underwhelming.

CCP will save buckets of cash sacking one in five of its people. The cost to CCP’s culture and as an employer of choice remains to be seen. Now CCP have the expense of also keeping World of Dust at station keeping so you can keep a whole mess of software capitalised. It will be interesting to see if this game is the DNF for CCP.

The choice around the development platform is also related to this principle. As well as automatically excluding a chunk of existing customers by default CCP have no record of developing PS games. No company experience with SOE in the trenches and will essentially be competing with SOE own PS2. It would seem that CCP decided to take nothing from the well publicised experiences of Valve with Sierra Online.

Dust was supposed to be a paradigm defining entertainment experience. It may end up being good, very good. It is still a long way out though no matter how many have been sacked and redeployed. It has also meant that a wave of “new” EVE customers CCP has craved has now been disappointed as shiny including WiS and all that comes with it becomes pushed back several years.

Hilmar may have made some tough calls to overcome what is obviously a very precarious budget situation but the situation remains. He is still failing the principle of making Dust succeed.

Keep your core business close.

It sounded like incarna is being given up on and left as an expansion that is not even half way finished. I wanted incarna and the way it is at the moment (with just having captain quarters) is pretty pointless. Incarna could be so much and to give up on it is something I do not like. The talk about incarna a few years ago is actually what got me playing this game. Since then, i've been waiting and waiting. Guess I'll be waiting even longer....