Live Events Discussion

I read Ripard Teg's blog post about lore and events and it got me thinking about cat herding and how to drive story forward.

Before MMORPGs, I played pen and paper RPGs. Mostly I was player, but I was also gamemaster. The game I ran had about half a dozen players and I ran it in TV show style. That means each session was separate, but complete episode (multi-session episodes were rare) that had their own star, but were all connected and drove overall story forward. I did not railroad the story and kept my ears open for good ideas from the players. They had those in abundance and I weaved those ideas in as subtly as possible. After all, if I wanted to tell specific story, I'd be better off writing a novel, not running a game. This does not mean that I let players run the show, far from it. I knew the antagonists and modified their plans to match the players' to keep things interesting. I also avoided giving full expositions, relying instead on giving clues and hints. That had several advantages, as I got more ideas from players' discussions, got more time to think ahead and gave me backdoors in case things ran to directions that would lead to loss of fun. Fun over story was my motto there - that meant story was actually improved.

So, what does this have to do with EVE, you ask. Currently EVE's live events have problems like: 1) too many people attempting to join so people can't get in (like Luminaire), 2) all fun is given to select time zones (common complaint) 3) things get hurried and events gete ended before people get there (like the last event). If I were to arrange live events, I would use my previous experience and solve those problems as follows.

The events should mostly be run often and no warning. They should be small, apparently with small consequence and drives players to do something that does then affect things. The "events" could even be sending message to players on say US and AUS timezones asking them to do some action and report on it. If actors are needed, there could be say ISD Live Team, which would perform the task at the behest of CCP Live Coordinator (or something) and and report to him with full logs. The team should use lots of small brush strokes to paint picture, not few but huge. Makes for a better picture anyway.

Also CCP should accept that things do not always go to the direction they thought it would go. If that happens, so what? NPC decision makers would then just make new plans and try something else. Same thing that players do anyway. Besides, once you start accepting that and let players affect the stories in meaningful ways (by failing on missions you expected them to succees or vice versa), you start to get the thrill of seeing something unexpected. It's fun, trust me.

So, how this last event could have gone? All empire factions, one by one, start contacting their player contingent and asking them to dig information on pirate factions. Perhaps intel has found up some unexplained logistical movements, perhaps something else. Nevertheless hisec players start to think how to do that. Someone might try to infiltrate pirate faction, make friends there. Perhaps they get other ideas, tell of their intentions to live events team and they react. At same time pirate faction players are alerted on increased activity in the empire. Someone even might be let in on secret and asked to arrange security to certain systems 24/7 (alerts, batphones, stuff). Pirate faction players might try to do something else to divert empire players' attention elsewhere. They might succeed. Then, should empire players manage to learn of the ghost site(s) on their own, they could stage attack. If pirate side succeeds in keeping the sites secret, then things get delayed. For this eventuality I'd also have some NPC contact some null power early on to get them interested early on. So, empire might not be first on the spot, but nullsec power raids it. Secret is out and hisec players also join in. Perhaps one pirate faction raids site belongint to another. This is hardly foolproof idea, but I think it would have had better chance on success (funwise anyway). It also would have had more player to player interaction as its result.

So yeah, those are just my quick thoughts on this.

TLDR: CCP would be better off keeping events small and nudging people in small ways in order to create lore (and perhaps to drive it to some direction, though I am not sold on that one).

Very very very good.
If i could I would give 50 likes for this.

It would require some reasonable resources to achieve this, hopefully CCP could see just how much this would widen the appeal and increase the income. It should More than cover it's costs.
The other advantage which would be significant or even overriding, would be that by painting small brushstrokes,even a cockup would have a minimal impact, where as it is with their philosophy of big events with little or no support, is that when they go wrong, they really go wrong bigtime.

Excellent ideas, excellent direction.
I too agree that it is questionable that "driving people in the right direction" is a wise Idea. Make a mistake there and you have gambled your company on a single throw of the dice.

CCP Goliath,
Good to see you back on the forum,
I am sure the weekend has been stressful and this is not easy.
Before there is a great shout when the US timezone comes on,
Whist it is extremely likely that you are being very careful and there will be some official in depth response coming later,
Could you please reassure very many concerned players, that the concerns have been noticed and are being seriously considered?
You do not need to say more on the matter at the moment.

If you gained approval for this tiny gesture, it would be really really helpful.

First rule of crisis management. Issue a formal holding statement acknowledging concerns are noted and being investigated.
Second rule silence is toxic it creates a void you cannot control what fills that void.
Rule 3 NEVER forget rule 1

You kids with your twitters and facenovels.

Back in my day we only had penpals, and you had to wait 2 weeks to find out what someone had for breakfast!

Now that I recall, older and more enjoyable live events did not have any announcement nor buildup.

Last week's affair had a very short buildup, but still a huge turnout. Let's leave it at that.

Luminaire had huge buildup, and was a disaster for a majority who could not get in. Nice precedent though: everybody being suspect flagged.

Smaller unannounced incidents, like the Sansha incursions (incursions before incursions for you new kids) had turnouts at best (per my memory) between 600-700 "first responders"; players who were already logged in and doing something else. Usually the notice for those events was mainly via Live Events and SYNE Public.

In one of the smaller Sansha events, I recall a lowsec event where a fleet of responders did go into lowsec, and DID NOT have a blob camp waiting for it. We chased a few players around, some "local" of course. A good time was had by all (as the saying goes).

Is mega-blockbuster live events going to be the future of all live events? So far I would say they are flawed due to logistics and the old-school OP (ah those pen and paper RPGs - I still have my D20 from 1981) covers all of those bases well.


Either we have to face the reality that blockbuster pre-planned live events face too many constraints for logistics and game mechanics such that we better off ignore them, or find a way to break them down into a chain of smaller events.

But the latter appears to have further constraints on the time of CCP, staffing, etc. This was always apparent though, given the time zones, and why the smaller live events always had a follow-up of much gratitude for CCP as anybody who works in software knows that developers are already loaded up with "regular work".

Overall I'd say the smaller events were more memorable and had very little disappointment beyond some lag, not arriving in time, or totally finding out about it after it happened (always a bummer but that's life). I remember the "rumors" too - part of the live events, but not actually any event. This kept people on their toes for days. But prior to Luminaire, I never recall a "starting at XXXX time" and seeing what happened last week, scheduled built up live events might well be a bad idea.

Assuming again there is some kind of crisis.

You are absolutely right, It Was CCP Pann and it was an excellent communication.

The significant issue brought into the daylight by this is that certain parts of the community, have come to the conclusion that not only are you wrong if you disagree with them, you are against the concept of EvE

They have believed their own propaganda to the point where they believe CCP. only wants the game for them and Die Carebear go play WOW and everything that implies Is the official company line.
The fury exploded when the event mistakenly reinforced that view.

I believe that We are EvE, all of us.and Eve moves forward together.
I believe that CCP believes in the vision quoted in the fanfest "we are EvE" Video.
I believe we can come out of this better and stronger.

We need the company to remind us
We need the company to show that this toxic ideology is NOT their intention or wish.
We need EvE for all of us.


When that happens, this event might be the single best thing that ever happened in EvE.

This truly is a Rubicon moment.

EvE can cross together into the future and spread across the universe, with new pilots flocking to the dream.

The above post may have crossed with yours.

The issues are clearly there in one single post.


Hope that clears it up.

I am truly sorry that you cannot understand.

It is becoming apparent however that CCP does, and as such deserves my full and enthusiastic support.