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Dev Blog: Operation Spectre - Event Breakdown and FAQ

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Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#81 - 2013-11-14 18:08:05 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Watch seagull in the Twitch TV feed in 70 minutes.
Then all will become clear.

If CCP's actions during the live event, and this subsequent "explanation" does not let you know what CCP thinks of high sec players, then her vision of Eve in the near future certainly will.

…and what is it they think?
epicurus ataraxia
Illusion of Solitude.
Illusion of Solitude
#82 - 2013-11-14 18:08:27 UTC  |  Edited by: epicurus ataraxia
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Rekkr Nordgard wrote:
After reading the dev blog, I don't think that CCP actually read the criticism in the Live Events forum or understands what it did wrong.


Watch seagull in the Twitch TV feed in 70 minutes.
Then all will become clear.

If CCP's actions during the live event, and this subsequent "explanation" does not let you know what CCP thinks of high sec players, then her vision of Eve in the near future certainly will.

I know they say live but never sure how much has been prerecorded.

I am sure we will be watching every twitch and blink and smallest body language as well as words, in a more concentrated manner than the Regan administration watched the Politbureau at the May Day parades in Moscow..
Who is there, who is pulling away from who, who is in the front and who looks like they have had a bad day.

Should be interesting.

(Sorry CCP guys Being on tv is nerve-wracking enough now your every raised eyebrow and movement will be scanned for meaning)

We can certainly hope that things will be .... As we hope.
I do understand your pessimism, I hope otherwise, change can happen.

But have no doubt, we love this game and we want EvE's values to be supported. and we can dream to hope ....But we will be watching...... Closely

But if things are as we hope, we can all move forward together

There is one EvE. Many people. Many lifestyles. WE are EvE
Nicen Jehr
Subsidy H.R.S.
Xagenic Freymvork
#83 - 2013-11-14 18:19:10 UTC
Thanks for the devblog guys, sounds like you learned some useful lessons for future live events

i like the idea of stockpiling war supplies. it reminds me of oldschool vanilla World of Warcraft, when the Silithus region was opened. There was a game-wide competition where each server had to stockpile enough war supplies to open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, thus unlocking two new dungeons. It was cool to see the progress of each server as they raced to be the first to unlock the features.

Little Things to improve ≡⋁≡ | My Little Things posts
SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#84 - 2013-11-14 18:23:53 UTC
Nicen Jehr wrote:
Thanks for the devblog guys, sounds like you learned some useful lessons for future live events

i like the idea of stockpiling war supplies. it reminds me of oldschool vanilla World of Warcraft, when the Silithus region was opened. There was a game-wide competition where each server had to stockpile enough war supplies to open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, thus unlocking two new dungeons. It was cool to see the progress of each server as they raced to be the first to unlock the features.



+1.

If there's one cue Eve should take from WoW, it's that everyone loves massive farm grinds.

Everyone.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
epicurus ataraxia
Illusion of Solitude.
Illusion of Solitude
#85 - 2013-11-14 18:27:05 UTC  |  Edited by: epicurus ataraxia
SurrenderMonkey wrote:
Nicen Jehr wrote:
Thanks for the devblog guys, sounds like you learned some useful lessons for future live events

i like the idea of stockpiling war supplies. it reminds me of oldschool vanilla World of Warcraft, when the Silithus region was opened. There was a game-wide competition where each server had to stockpile enough war supplies to open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, thus unlocking two new dungeons. It was cool to see the progress of each server as they raced to be the first to unlock the features.



+1.

If there's one cue Eve should take from WoW, it's that everyone loves massive farm grinds.

Everyone.


Think somehow, they might find a different way, something where everyone can play a part in the War without being just a pointless and meaningless grind.
Something more like a whole nation supporting the military in a lot of different fields. in the real world people were still proud 70 years later (or for the rest of their lives)
And working towards more of a goal than just opening a door.

But he is right working together for a cause is more fun.

There is one EvE. Many people. Many lifestyles. WE are EvE
Sven Viko VIkolander
In space we are briefly free
#86 - 2013-11-14 18:30:48 UTC
I really appreciate CCP's effort in holding live events. Let me tell you, even with their mess-ups it is still miles ahead of where many other MMOs are at with "live events" (how do you think they go when other MMOs can't even hold a few dozen players in one area without crashing?).

Here's my suggestion for CCP, which is probably not anything new: Take a look at player run events that have worked successfully, and emulate those. For example, Marlona Sky's Flight of a Thousand Rifters last May. I still have her Nyx getting blown up by 3k players as my desktop background. A lot of people were involved and had a lot of fun, yet it was based simply on a bunch of people meeting in one stop to blow up a big ship and/or one another, and the main "actor" did not need to do too much work. The planned, localized nature allowed for time to reinforce the node, and the dangers of low sec kept some groups out. All CCP needs to do is add in some lore and they could make a very similar event. How about hide-and go-seek in wormholes next time???
Il Feytid
State War Academy
Caldari State
#87 - 2013-11-14 19:06:21 UTC
Q: What the process for finding the balance between maintaining the sandbox feel EVE prides itself on and controlling the event in order to have some structure to keep it fun and enjoyable for the participants?
Tas Nok
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#88 - 2013-11-14 19:32:17 UTC
I keep seeing the issue of time-zones pop up and it seems to really burn those (myself included) who could net even attempt to attend since we were at work/school/asleep.

here are a few thoughts along those lines:

* massive derelict ship/station drifts into LS, scans indicate its a loot pinata but it has timers (randomly set) so itd be a race among the various groups to kill/rep it so it comes out in a favorable TZ, the timers force the event to occur across at least 2 days catching as many folks as are willing to come. (ship could even be moving at say 800ms so that supers would have an issue keeping up, and no webs won't work) maybe it even jumps systems at DT and is moving along a route to somelplace?

* Scavenger hunt, 30 items needed, only 10 items to be spawned each 8-10 hours, you'd need HS-LS-Null-W-space cooperation, as well as full TZ coverage/cooperation to be first, encourages less fighting, more scanning, grabbing and running. clearly the WH items will be the hardest to find... but when, and where will they spawn??

* Themed events, Halloween/Xmas/New Years/Boxing Day (sorry I really have no idea what other holidays are except Chinese new year and they are on a diff server (well most of them)) say 2-3 a year based on the particular holidays in certain time zones. or based on EVE themes or events. Whether releasing a newly skinned frig for participants in a LS roam near DT for AUTZ, or a 1 v 1 pvp tourney where the winners get to re-name a system (or two) or a charity drive through null, x number of pledges for x isk based on how many gates you get into Null, noob ships only. These need not be tied to a TZ and if done right could work in all TZ, but national pride/culture could be rewarded here and there, even if its a bauble from the Aur-shop

Hopefully this and other posts will be enough to get folks thinking about not just how to do events but elicit desirable outcomes while coming up with even more ideas that might actually work.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#89 - 2013-11-14 20:47:30 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Watch seagull in the Twitch TV feed in 70 minutes.
Then all will become clear.
I'm sorry din-din. It didn't become clear.
epicurus ataraxia
Illusion of Solitude.
Illusion of Solitude
#90 - 2013-11-14 20:54:50 UTC  |  Edited by: epicurus ataraxia
Tippia wrote:
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Watch seagull in the Twitch TV feed in 70 minutes.
Then all will become clear.
I'm sorry din-din. It didn't become clear.

Yes that is interesting.
After the live event and the reaction, This TV feed was likely to be as much about what was NOT said as what was.
I wonder what would have been said if CCP had not become aware of player feelings?
Possibly Pirannha would have been right? I am grateful that we may now never know, as it is a path not travelled, and we can all enjoy the game.
We can hope.

There is one EvE. Many people. Many lifestyles. WE are EvE
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#91 - 2013-11-14 20:56:56 UTC
epicurus ataraxia wrote:
Possibly Pirannha would have been right?
Pretty much by definition of Dinsdale, no. It's not really a possibility.
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#92 - 2013-11-14 21:05:04 UTC
epicurus ataraxia wrote:
Tippia wrote:
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Watch seagull in the Twitch TV feed in 70 minutes.
Then all will become clear.
I'm sorry din-din. It didn't become clear.

Yes that is interesting.
After the live event and the reaction, This TV feed was likely to be as much about what was NOT said as what was.
I wonder what would have been said if CCP had not become aware of player feelings?
Possibly Pirannha would have been right? I am grateful that we may now never know, as it is a path not travelled, and we can all enjoy the game.
We can hope.



Yeah, I am stunned about now little seagull actually said.
I am also curious who this other lead design she is leaving the game in the hands of while she is off on mat leave.

It sounds like CCP is leaving further revelations until winter.
But all this talk of "putting more in the hands of capsuleers" = more control of income streams for the null sec cartels.
Janden Rynd
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#93 - 2013-11-14 21:10:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Janden Rynd
There's so much wrong with this Dev Blog response, I'm not sure where to start.

Quote:
This made sense as both CCP Affinity and CCP Abraxas were on the development team creating the feature, and the sites involved pirates--which gave us a chance to do something else that has been oft-requested of the events team – running an event in null sec.


I may be wrong, but I don't think most players would consider hauling a massive group of people all the way down from high sec a necessary part of "running an event in null sec." I'm pretty sure that when players talk about null sec events, they mean they want events easily accessible to and involving the null sec community (ironically, in a way, that's what this became, but not in the way you intended). Next time you want to do a null sec event, why not actually start it in null sec?

Quote:
We wanted to have the event story be more flexible and player driven, to act as something of a counterpoint to the more scripted story section of The Battle for Caldari Prime.


Can we take this as the long-overdue official admission that The Battle for Caldari Prime outcome was in fact scripted (we've known it all along, but there seems to have been some heavy public denial of that fact until now)?

And I'm really not convinced this event was any less scripted; the objective was to destroy the pirate bases. The players failed to do so, so you blew them up anyway. You can claim the outcome was different (pirates escaped), but the result was the same from the perspective of most capsuleers: were the space pixels exploded or unexploded?

Regarding the use of an out-of-game communication channel not used by/actively monitored by all participants (Twitter) to give out event instructions:
Quote:
Asking people to move using in game channels would have caused a mass move of players and that could have had impact on the health of the cluster. The safest approach to ensure a trickle rather than a flood of players was to use channels that would only reach certain amounts of players at once. For all intents and purposes, this worked well. That said, it would have been unnecessary if we had reinforced the staging systems correctly, which was an organizational mistake on my part.


"Worked well"? The result was chaos, confusion, and dissension as those not on twitter doubted the source and credibility of directions being given and relayed through others. If you're going to give instructions for a live event, it needs to be done clearly and in a manner that leaves no doubt as to the source of the instructions. This is EVE; we players inherently do not trust each other, the outcome should have been obvious.

From the last statement, can we conclude that the official policy at CCP is "one good screw-up (failing to do your prep work properly) deserves another (resorting to out-of-game communication channels and increasing player confusion)?" Good to know.

Quote:
We did not thoroughly research each system on the route, so we were unaware that Doril was a staging system until it was past the point of being able to do anything about it. That said, activity fluctuates and it’s reasonable to expect the space we want to use for events to also be getting used for other purposes, so whether these considerations should even be a part of event planning is a subject up for discussion.


"Up for discussion?" What is there to discuss? If you're going to hold a live event, do your homework and plan accordingly if you want to have any chance of the event being a success. The more that is revealed, the more this whole event feels like it was run by the kid who had two months to do a project for school, but waited until the night before it was due to get started. You got lazy, cut corners, failed to prepare properly, and then panicked when you realized it wasn't going to work the way you wanted.

In my experience, that kid always got a failing grade. In this case, you didn't do your homework, and the players paid the price.

Quote:
Also the longer travel time gives us exposition time for the story and casual RP while travelling tends to make the time go quicker. Unfortunately we did not account for time dilation in this calculation and they ended up being too long.


You didn't account for TiDi??? What did you think was going to happen?!? Thousands of ships were just going to sail through 20+ jumps without impacting the servers at all? Servers which you admit had not been properly reinforced? And you didn't expect TiDi? You've had too much experience with these events causing severe TiDi to plead ignorance; this could only be indolence and deliberate neglect.

Also, what exposition? You had all that extrat time thanks to TiDi, and still no one seemed to have a clue as to what was supposed to be going on! If the TiDi was so unexpected, the least you could have done was make use of the extra time and actually let the players in on the plot.

Bottom line, you screwed up, and should own up. Playing down and practically ignoring the colossal failure that this was (the word "mistake" only appeared once, and its placement was tacked on as an afterthought) is not doing justice to your players, nor is it instilling any confidence that future events will be any sort of improvement over this fiasco.

Whenever an issue with the players comes up, CCP seems to have a standing practice of giving half-hearted responses that cause more problems than they solve. As a company, that's a habit you need to break ASAP. At the very least, you owe everyone who participated in this event an admission and an apology. It's time to cut all the PR speak and talk to us like we're real people. Until we hear a sincere "we screwed up royally, we're sorry, and it won't happen again" (accompanied by evidence of improvement of course), I suggest every capsuleer steer clear of all live events.

I know I will.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#94 - 2013-11-14 21:11:23 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
But all this talk of "putting more in the hands of capsuleers" = more control of income streams for the null sec cartels.
Do you have anything to support this assertion?
epicurus ataraxia
Illusion of Solitude.
Illusion of Solitude
#95 - 2013-11-14 21:12:10 UTC  |  Edited by: epicurus ataraxia
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
epicurus ataraxia wrote:
Tippia wrote:
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Watch seagull in the Twitch TV feed in 70 minutes.
Then all will become clear.
I'm sorry din-din. It didn't become clear.

Yes that is interesting.
After the live event and the reaction, This TV feed was likely to be as much about what was NOT said as what was.
I wonder what would have been said if CCP had not become aware of player feelings?
Possibly Pirannha would have been right? I am grateful that we may now never know, as it is a path not travelled, and we can all enjoy the game.
We can hope.



Yeah, I am stunned about now little seagull actually said.
I am also curious who this other lead design she is leaving the game in the hands of while she is off on mat leave.

It sounds like CCP is leaving further revelations until winter.
But all this talk of "putting more in the hands of capsuleers" = more control of income streams for the null sec cartels.


That is a very good question.

Regarding rubicon = boon for nullsec cartels? It might have been, not sure if it will now, may be the path not taken after they clearly mentioned processes (now?) in place to prevent favouritism. I am pleased they said this.

They may have moved on, they will certainly never tell us if that would have happened otherwise.

We can certainly hope that this is now resolved, and move on but certainly it does not mean we should march forward with our eyes tightly closed.

There was a choice for everyone today, I think CCP made the right one. Time will tell.

Edit. Of course CCP still need to ensure that the mechanics of the live event are resolved, regarding method, equipment. Staffing preparation etc etc to ensure they do much better next time, as no one including themselves thinks it went well.

There is one EvE. Many people. Many lifestyles. WE are EvE
Marsan
#96 - 2013-11-14 21:12:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Marsan
CCP Eterne wrote:
The EVE Live Events team is putting on more live events. Last Thursday, we held an event code named "Operation Spectre", where players were tasked by the Empire navies to go and destroy some pirate research facilities. There were some successes in the event, some problems, and we learned a lot in the process. In order to catch players up on what happened, how the event progressed, how we in the Live Events team had planned it, and much more, CCP Goliath has put together this dev blog to break down what happened.


The last live event shows the typical issues that CCP has with live events.

1) The events are simply too big, which means TD or lock outs.

2) Large sections of the player base is locked out due to TZ. (Increasingly I suspect this is to avoid making #1 worse.)


Let's review why people are so mad with last event:

1) They spent a lot of time fly from place to place under TD.

2) Most people were unable to reach the event before it started.

3) The CCP fleet commanders led fleets, and then abandoned them.

4) The gate camp resulted in most people dying in a non fun manner.



How to do the Call for Arms Event right
1) Staging

- You needed at least 6 staging systems
= One for each Empire
= One for Leet PvPers
= One for BOPS/Bombers
- Be clear that people are most likely going to die gloriously.

2) Getting there

Empire staging systems use a titian, jump bridge, or wormhole* to get there.

- Leet PvP are encouraged to form up fleets and head out through LS/NS.
= There must be multiple routes to the target with reasonable number of jumps

- The bombers are provided with a number of covert cynos into the target area as well as a handful of CCP/Volunteer bridgers.
= Have backup plan using the same empire staging system method.

3)Target system(s) needs

- Multiple gates
- Good access from HS from multiple regions
- Cyno jamming
- Have multiple target systems to reduc TiDi

4) Hire good FCs

- Eve Uni, and numerous others have a lot of good FCs experienced with kitchen sink fleets.
- Keep details under wraps just tell them to be on at time X then have a GM move them to the right location.
- Be clear if they leak anything they lose their in game reward and get a ban of some number of days

5) Keep the fight going

-Have a stock of basic cruiser and frigate on contract in a nearby system(s) NPC station
-You could hire someone like Black Frog to supply the station in game.

6) Hire in game mercs to keep the gates clear.

- BL or PL to engage the various NS factions and break up gate camps.
- There are a number LS mercs which would work if people were coming through 3-4 paths to the target.
- Hire a bomber wing to distract any large groups.

7) Pay the volunteers

- Pay them with Concord issue blue prints for frigates, and cruisers
= Same ship model but a couple of great resist or damage stats, T2-T3 good
= Make it clear they are limited and irregularly issued for volunteer work at events.
- Have number of cool prizes for the best FC volunteer or other volunteer.
- Condord LP is also a good reward as it's impact is spread over a wider set of LPs.

8) TZ issues

- Stagger out the event have things spawn for a period of 24 hours
- Breakup the event into multiple systems
- For a change pace let the EU guys have to take time off work to join in every so often.

*I actually think HS to NS/LS wormholes would have been best. You spawn a couple of wormholes to various secondary stage systems leading into the target or even the target system. The upside of the WH idea is the WH mass limits the number of ships passing through and will reduce TD. Just check TD in the system if it's reasonable spawn another wormhole to that system. If not spawn to another system. With a little fake out by the devs changing the name and graphic the wormholes can easily be disguised as jump bridges or titian bridges.

Former forum cheerleader CCP, now just a grumpy small portion of the community.
Rammix
TheMurk
#97 - 2013-11-14 21:21:05 UTC
Marsan wrote:
I actually think HS to NS/LS wormholes would have been best. You spawn a couple of wormholes to various secondary stage systems leading into the target or even the target system. The upside of the WH idea is the WH mass limits the number of ships passing through and will reduce TD. Just check TD in the system if it's reasonable spawn another wormhole to that system. If not spawn to another system. With a little fake out by the devs changing the name and graphic the wormholes can easily be disguised as jump bridges or titian bridges.

Titan bridges and/or secret military gates would have been best - because most logical.

OpenSUSE Leap 42.1, wine >1.9

Covert cyno in highsec: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=296129&find=unread
DeMichael Crimson
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#98 - 2013-11-14 22:07:00 UTC
Wow, just wow.

I have to say that again, wow.

I'm sorry to say this but about this blog, if it looks, sounds and reads like political whitewash trying to save face, than that's what it is. Over the past couple of years I've been slowly loosing both respect and admiration for CCP. Gotta say this last fiasco definitely cut's to the bone.

Everyone knows over time people become complacent, careless and overconfident due to repeated actions and each time greed or laziness causes them to reach and take a little bit more or take shortcuts until eventually they show their hand, get exposed and or get caught in the act. Just so happens the issues and actions in this Live Event has done exactly that. Now more than ever it looks like CCP has been in bed with null sec powerblocks for quite a while now.

Now about future Live Events, there's been quite a few good ideas posted in this thread by players and CCP really needs to pay heed to them, like having the Live Event be active in various time zones over the course of a few days, having it split up into different sections, IE, resource gathering / production, scout / Cov ops Intel gathering, fleet make-up / assignment, actual warfare / combat, etc.

Each phase should be worked and coordinated by experienced player volunteers under NDA contract, all supervised by CCP GM's with CCP Dev's and ISD acting as storyline actors to drive the Live Event at different times.

Anyway, that's a topic for a different thread. Getting back to the subject at hand, I'm actually glad I missed this Live Event. The only thing worse than being led around on a wild goose chase is ending up as fish in a barrel.


DMC

'The Plan' | California Eve Players | Proposal - The Endless Battle
Lemming Alpha1dash1
Lemmings Online
#99 - 2013-11-14 22:29:50 UTC
Dear CCP,

by whelping me along with thousands of others in nullsec you demoralized me enough to make me log into WoW again since winter '08.

"We wanted to use social media to flesh out our event characters and allow people to obviously pick sides, though this goal ended up being put on the back burner due to time constraints."

https://twitter.com/EVE_LiveEvents

last post is 7 nov, second last post is EIGHTEENTH JUNE.


The basic premise was that pirates were reverse engineering and "jailbreaking“ certain new technologies.

This is why the 4 empires called the capsuleers to arms ? At least with Sansha Kuvakai we had space zombies.


In the aftermath, battle raged on. Pirate Dramiels and Daredevils sought their escape, many meeting their end on the journey, and their mysterious cargoes of Blue Boxes were lost to the pirates (though the purpose of the box is not yet known).

You do know that over 90% of the players involved in this failure of a live event don't even know about any Blue Boxes because TiDi prevented them from being in local in time to witness any of this.


Love the jov(e)ial tone of the devblog, glad you seem to think it was cool !

"The actual outcome was different - the pirates won and got away with their research, and although the destruction of the structure was inevitable, the story impact of the actual outcome takes things off in a different direction than we had initially expected, which is cool!"

Here is another view: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=293869

Probably the WORST event I've wasted my time on in my 10 years of EVE ...


Regards,

a Lemming

Information is Ammunition,

War does not tolerate Ambiguities.

May you live in an interesting Empyrean age !

http://eve-radio.com/
a newbie
Kenbishi Heavy Industries Inc.
#100 - 2013-11-14 22:33:08 UTC
Just another pilot throwing his 2 cents in..

I am a US player and as such I almost never am able to attend any player events or Singularity tests. A lot of players in many time zones have felt the cold shoulder due to hours in which CCP is available to run events, which isn't really your fault.

I would like to suggest that the live events tools be considered to have more open ended type missions? You could Incursions as a base, cut the number down to something you can small gang, and change the end goal for mission completion.

Kills
Rescues / Recovery / Capture
Probing
Tackle
Harvest

Use the mission mechanics with sleeper AI and generate a random spawner that includes an NPC Mission character out at a gate like there is currently. These are relatively new or recently updated scripts and should be able to create some generic templates for missions that would cut down big time on cost to modify the story or create unique goals.

This wouldnt be to replace special live events but it would give small gangs or even good soloers something to poke at. As the general EVE timeline progresses you modify it some. Tibus Heth not found yet? Well somewhere in Caldari Low-sec have some Provists spawn, players go in and kill them all, Heth not found but its relatively current dealings in the Universe. Basic stuff.

Just ideas, you know?

...um.. fire?