Jita Park Speakers Corner

*poke*

CSM8 has had its first mini-crises: Launchergate 2013.

Maybe I am jumping the gun here, but am frustrated where things are heading at the moment and maybe some blunt feedback can help change that.

Here was an opportunity to establish excellent communication with the playerbase and with CCP.

I understand that CSM can't fix it themselves and that pressuring too hard on CCP during the events can be nonconstructive. But this is definitely part of a larger pattern. Rushed releases with known problems hanging that are being willfully ignored. DUST appears to have had a bit of this recently as well.

CCP needs to be able to back off a release or feature when it is not ready. CSM needs to help them identify when it's not ready (meaning actually listen to people and not just tell them to shut up) and help CCP have the will to step back and take a minute.

This is a perfect time to be talking to CPP about this. A time when they are likely to listen, and will be looking themselves to improve their processes. I don't see any indications that this is happening. If it is -- well, failing on that old communicating with the playerbase task then.

The Odyssey release is right around the corner and there are features there that people are raising red flags about. Is CSM going to stay out of it? Berate the "complainers"?

A closer look at CSM8 through these last couple of days:

First to quote our "activist CSM" Ripard Teg:



No follow up after that I can see, even after we learn that the problems were far from coincidental.

Hrmm not sure what activism means anymore.

Malcanis' remarkably tone deaf response to people upset about the problems, the "multi-box" login issues and loss of the login screen art comes down to basically: "You are afraid of change" and "nobody cares" (in spite the 100+ page threadnaught that the launcher release feedback has become).

Mangala Solaris, "Didn't affect me."

No comments from the Chair. The rest of the CSM apparently following his lead.

Add to that our Secretary at last report hadn't even signed the NDA. Seriously if you don't have the time to do the job why are you volunteering? Not impressive.

Luckily this is a stumble while getting your feet underneath you. But its time to get yourselves together. You can't coast on the "this was done on CSM7s watch" line for long.

*poke*

PS - For the record, I am not opposed to the new launcher. I think CCP has done some good work after the fact wising up to the issues they've caused (beyond the bugs even). Launcher and the opening screens are the first impression, they ought to actually impress. There are some nice features like the EVETV link and I like SSO in theory (although less so when I need to deal more with multiple accounts).

PPS - A bit of positive reinforcement: Ripard's largely kept up his blogging output and even been on Podside. I've been enjoying reading Mike's blogs and listening to the Podside appearances. Ali's Blogs and Hangouts have been entertaining and interesting. Mynnna's been active on the feedback threads. I do appreciate every post CSM8 makes to these forums as well, even the Malcanis snarks are better than silence.

For the record, this launcher stuff wasn't on CSM7's watch.

Also, EVE Electorate: how all these player communication candidates working out for you? No take backs either; I licked them all so it's too late.

He was vice chair last year and didn't see the need to "step up" when Seleene was on one of his absences. I wouldn't expect much outright from him unless there's a success for him to publicly take credit for.

For the record, CCP seems a bit surprised at the turnout for meetings we have had with them. We are discovering limits of the communication relays due to number of people in the conversation.

This mornings meeting had 11/14 csm members present to chat with one of the CCP dev teams

The nay-sayers among you will proclaim this the 'honeymoon period and cry that the attendence will drop soon. Maybe so. But for now we are making a good showing. Revel in the now.

m

(No I will not name and shame who did and did not make the meeting)

I'm not exactly sure what you're expecting the CSM to have done here.

I tested the launcher when it was on Sisi by installing it and firing up all three of my accounts and then swapping between them a bit as if I was doing market logistics. Everything worked fine for me, although I did note that the "logout" button missing was weird even though it functionally did nothing at this point.

When the launcher was released and causing all of the difficulties for people, I was at work. I therefore didn't participate in the threadnaught and tried to catch up on what was actually going on. From what I could tell, some of it was CCP's stuff (servers in particular) being broken. That is not something the CSM can fix and it's not something that will be fixed faster by angry CSMers on skype going WHAT HAPPEN THE SKY IS FALLING. If your servers are (metaphorically) on fire, you will be fixing them anyways. Ditto if there are critical bugs in the software.

When I got home and caught up, it looked like CCP had fixed the servers and the launcher was working for most people. The deleting settings thing was unfortunate, but from what I could see a thing that was not fixable or going to be fixed. The workaround (relaunching the client) was easy and functional. Areas of more long-term brokenness (the lack of a splash screen) were being taken into account from player feedback. I'm still unclear on some parts of the multiboxing difficulties, but the "launch EVE directly" workaround is still in until CCP can replace it with something that works. Some multiboxing difficulties come down to "my unsupported client workaround broke when the code changed!" to which I can only point back at the word "unsupported". CCP was in the thread responding to bug reports.

At that point, I as a CSM representative am not needed on this issue right now. CCP knows there's a problem. CCP is working on fixing the problem. CCP is talking to players and taking down bug reports to map out the scope of the problem. No amount of skype pings can make them code faster or turn back time to a pre-launchergate era. I've got "launchergate" on my list of CSM follow-ups and expect to ask CCP in a week or two how that's going. That's when I can actually be *useful*. I'm trying to understand all the multiboxing stuff so if we get a version of the launcher to test, I can test it on a setup that more clearly matches other players', as my own testing turned up nothing relevant.

@mynnna, @ali:



So I am hoping CSM can get ahead of problems by listening to people reporting early testing issues, without the "people are just afraid of change if they are waving warning flags" filters on. You can help figure out what problems are real. And coordinate with your additional access to schedules and plans that we mere mortals don't have. (Not that I think you know everything, I know you don't get everything in advance.)

During the event, there's not too much you can do. But it might be a good idea for CSM members not to pour gasoline on the fire. "We'll follow up after the dust settles and we know more" is probably the best thing to say. And try to get to the bottom of issues, as you've been doing, Mynnna. I do appreciate seeing you saying "I do not understand the issue, someone that does please explain?"

In addition, like I've said the door should be open to discuss (with CCP) improving release procedures with eye toward quality control.

Those are the things I would like you to do. The things I would hope I would be doing if I were in your place.

He is asking the right questions at least. And thanks for the write up. Much better than mine on that particular aspect.

Just want confirm the launcher thing not being a thing the CSM 7 was aware of. Sort of surprised to see it personally.

As for the player communications comment... sort of waiting to see that campaign issue promise "wall of awesome improvement" kick in...

To be fair, the behind the scenes during the hand off the CSM 8 was amazingly active and I left impressed, but I haven't seen that external change in public facing communication that many claimed needed to happen post CSM 7.

Issler

I'm not even attacking him really, just pointing out that he's not what you would call a vocal participant in external things. Largely inactive twitter, blog that is more or less neglected outside of election season, not all that active on the official forums either. That's how he's been before this CSM, not much of a reason to think that'll magically change.

Whether that's a problem to you or not depends who you are, I guess. Clearly wasn't a problem to either the people who voted for him despite it, or the CSM members who chose him to be chair. Only thing left to do is adjust your expectations accordingly, otherwise you'll find yourself disappointed more often than not.

I'm not so much dissapointed in the CSM as a whole, as I didn't vote for most of them, but Malcanis is a different story, as he actually got my vote on my very short ballot.
Some of his comments are of the type Mittens used to make, and they don't encourage players to voice their concerns.