EVE General Discussion

On a personal note, I wish I had carved more time out of my vacation to lend to communication on this, and I apologize for that. I spent several hours researching and answering media requests (TheMittani.com, Gameskinny and as the "CCP spokesperson" for Kotaku) and getting as caught up as I could remotely, but I should have at least blueposted that we were listening here and elsewhere and discussing things internally.

My job duties suggest that I'm the guy that responds to media when requested, but I should have made that a second stop in this case. We have since dissected things more and hope the newer update will put many a capsuleer heart that bleeds for the sanctity of New Eden at ease.

Someone at CCP cares.

Clarification....often times when this word is use in advance of a statement, it's a prelude to an unrepentant release typical of past responses such as "$1,000 jeans speech" or "Watch what they do, not what they say" in order to show a solidarity between the offending parties/actions.

But, good luck!

Well, thanks CCP Manifest.
For what it's worth, I hope the devblog answers many questions that many of us have.
It's good to know CCP are actually listening to us, and to the CSM, and any response to what's gone on should doubtless be carefully considered, as opposed to slapping a hastily thought up band-aid solution on a problem. Who knows, maybe you'll give us pandas?
I'm joking.

Good luck, I hope you can resolve this issue to everyone's satisfaction.

*Put's away pitchfork, for the moment*

--Spawning people billions of ISK is wrong
--Spawning people billions of ISK in the form of otherwise unobtainable ships is wrong
--Spawning people billions of ISK because they are already super rich is wrong
--Spawning people billions of ISK secretly is wrong
--Somer Blink is not a community website
--Somer Blink is not a charity
--Somer Blink is a business
--"We got away with it before" is not an acceptable reason to continue doing the wrong thing
--There were and are far more deserving people than Somer
--Said people do not deserve billions of ISK anymore than Somer did

I have a bad feeling that all this will result in is a blog saying "we're sorry, but not really", no corrective actions being taken, no lessons learned, and leaving the sandbox permanently broken...

CCP, please surprise me for once.

Let me first say "Thank You."

This is the kind of response that the community expected immediately upon this news coming out or at least within 12 calendar hours.

It is no secret the huge love I have for CCP. So please accept my criticism understanding that I still love you guys!

Surely there was at least one CCP employee perusing the forums or getting evemails on their anonymous alts from friends talking about this or talking about it in game. Surely one CCP employee saw this developing and thought to himself "this looks like a poo storm brewing, I should escalate through the proper channels." Surely there is a written policy in place for dealing with urgent issues when various employees are unavailable for a myriad of reasons. Surely every CCP employee knows what to do when various functional roles are not available by their respective parties. Surely there is some sort of "SOS" team that deals with unusual, complicated, or escalated issues on a regular basis. Surely such a team maintains staffing 24/7, even if it is a handful of people cross-trained from their primary jobs. Surely every CCP employee feels that he can freely email or call any employee in the company, even the CEO, to address an important issue when warranted. Surely every CCP employee does not feel such actions would put them in a negative spotlight with possible workplace retaliation or otherwise negative effects on reviews.

Stuff Happens. Whether CCP as a whole thought this was a problem and kept it secret, whether CCP collectively felt everything was a-ok and unaware of the problems with these actions, whether it was a rogue employee helping friends, whether it was a small group that authorized it without proper higher-level authorization or using the publicly available CCP employee as a scapegoat...

While we all want to know the answers to the questions so many subscribers are asking, the most important thing period is a proper response from CCP.

This initial response is exactly what we need. Please relay further details to us in the same transparent and compassionate voice as this initial communication. Please don't have the lawyers or "PR damage control specialists" write the response.

I ask, and suggest, that CCP's CEO personally lead this investigation and response to the community.

Let me share with you a recent CEO response from a company that also recently had a PR disaster. It is a model of how to respond. The following link includes the commentary by marketing expert Joe Polish on his blog:

http://geniusnetwork.com/blog/?p=1497

I implore every CCP employee to read this article and consider how to adapt it to CCP. Also, please consider how you can form an initiative to comb through the company to ensure that this type of thing does not get repeated. We do not need a "response" merely, we need ask for a change of behaviors. Let's not see a further "outrage" against CCP for something of this nature in the near future.

Those are my thoughts. I otherwise now reserve judgement until we have a quick, thorough, and candid response.

Let me also ask the community to try to cut CCP some slack. No matter how much you agree or disagree on this particular issue, I think most of us recognize that CCP is the most progressive game company out there that, more often than not, simply does "gaming" and "community" better than any other out there. This company had humble beginnings and grew by simply being awesome. Like any company, there have been setbacks and mistakes. But for every step back, CCP has always taken more steps forward.


Thank you CCP for all that you do, and I ask my fellow subscribers to at least give CCP a few days to respond and resolve this situation.

Thank you,

-Ero

Good to hear, thanks.

Would it be possible to have a list of groups that received IshScorps on a locked wiki page or someplace members of the community can use for reference that is regularly updated? It seems part of the concern and outcry over this "incident" was a lack of openness & transparency and from the general feedback I've seen this would be one step many people feel would be a start towards resolving the issues.

As time goes on would it also be possible to announce or at least say "Hey this site has been amazing at providing the community content/support for this (terrible) game we all love. We at CCP thank them for their hardwork and service and have awarded them IshScorps as a thank you."

I'm not certain is specific numbers are necessary, but at least explaining which groups, and why, would be a step many people would agree with.