Jita Park Speakers Corner

from http://poeticstanziel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/csm7-their-sink-or-swim-issues.html

There's a fair amount happening right now with EVE Online. Winter Expansion, or as we now know it, Retribution, is always the first expansion that a new CSM has any direct and meaningful input on.

Based on some recent podcasts, mainly with Alekseyev, Hans and Seleene, we know that there are some issues and features they feel are critical to the success or failure of their tenure. Some are issues that CSM7 states are important, others are important by player standards (no matter what level of input CSM7 may or may not have had.)

Faction Warfare
This is Hans' territory. This is going to make or break him and will be the determining factor on whether he gets re-elected next year (assuming that he does run.)

Some argument could be made that he's somewhat to blame for the current state of faction warfare, since through CSM6, he gave CCP a tonne of feedback on how he envisioned faction warfare as a system. Granted, not all of his suggestions were implemented, but a big deal was made of the fact that he did give CCP a lot of feedback, which then helped guide their development of faction warfare in the Inferno expansion. Of course, CCP rarely gets anything right on their first try, so some slack has to be given.

Retribution will be the last major pass at faction warfare (there'll be some iterations leading into 2013, for sure), but this is the last chance we get to make it right. If faction warfare is a failure come Retribution, it won't be getting any developer love for quite some time. Hans has been instrumental in supplying feedback to CCP, and many of the changes to be expected are issues that Hans has brought up himself as all-important to the welfare and longevity of faction warfare. Hans has certainly played a big part in the faction warfare changes coming in Retribution.

If everything else CCP does until the CSM8 elections are bang on and stellar, but faction warfare is their one failure, then Hans goes down with that ship. Faction warfare was the entirety of his platform.

Transparency
This was a platform issue for most of the currently active CSM7 representatives. Being more communicative, and more often, with the playerbase. Being more candid about the issues they were working on (without breaking NDAs). Making themselves available and accessible to everyone.

Regarding the CSM Summit Report, I'd say they certainly delivered in this regard. The report was insightful and frustrating in equal measure. But I enjoyed it, all told. I appreciated the effort by those representatives that helped write it. I enjoyed getting a peek into the CCP/CSM process.

On the other hand, CSM7 fails miserably on the transparency issue. Of the thirteen members, only three are in regular communication with the playerbase, another two are occasionally in communication, and the rest are completely AWOL. That is simply not acceptable.

Three people, who are trying very hard, do not get to carry the other ten, and then call the transparency experiment a success. I certainly give kudos to those three for doing their very best, but if they cannot convince anyone else to join the crusade, then they fail overall at communicating the importance of their initiative.

POS Revamp
I would not be mentioning the POS revamp here, if Aleks hadn't blurted it out as a defining CSM7 issue during the Ripard podcast. But then, Aleks rarely thinks before blurting **** out. So, I suppose it's worth talking about if he feels it is that important.

This is still pie-in-the-sky ideaville. CCP has not begun any significant work on this, and most of what CCP has been saying has been their usual over-the-top bullshit. The case of CCP telling us what they would love something to be, but when finally delivered we instead get some pale reflection of those original flights-of-fancy Fanfest proclamations.

This won't get delivered until some time into the CSM8 mandate, at the earliest. It doesn't seem particularly prudent for CSM7 to be hanging any hats on a feature no one is going to see until well after their term is over. For all intents and purposes, the feature is vapourware until we see some definite progress from CCP.

Ship Balancing
The CSM has had limited input on this. About the only thing they can claim any credit on is convincing CCP to focus on logistic frigates rather than sniping frigates. (If CCP really wants sniping frigates in the future, they can design new class of T2 frigates for that purpose.)

The balancing process is as follows: CCP Fozzie balances a bunch of ships. He shows the CSM these re-balanced ships. They have about week to comment before the ships go public in a devblog.

About the only person who is truly capable of commenting smartly on Fozzie's work would be Elise Randolph. But that Fozzie only leaves the new numbers in the hands of the CSM for a week, preferring to get them to the players as quickly as possible, suggests that he sees more value in the threadnaughts of discussion that happen on the forums than the limited feedback that the CSM can give.

I would consider the input the CSM gives into ship balancing to be quite minimal. So, is success in ship balancing a success for CSM7? I would discount any claims the CSM might make in this regard. I would certainly give some credit to Elise Randolph, but he would be the only CSM7 representative that would have had any valuable input into the process.

(cont'd next reply)

A catch 22 perhaps.

You seem to want to put a bounty on the CSM, but if the bounty overhaul doesn't work well, they will exploit the bounty you put on them. But if the bounty system does work out well, you won't use it to put a bounty on CSM.

So the failure of the expansion is CSM's fault not CCP's?

Unpaid people, who are professionals in other jobs then this game, you are our only hope.

Well you made a good point, but I want to start off fun.

I first had the impression you are worried about a CSM greed issue, much like CCP with incarna. And soon CSM will have their own micro transactions to help support them achieving stakeholder status. Like, players we are so close to getting stakeholder, but with our little money we have, we don't impress CCP and we need to expand our coffers so we can finally achieve stakeholder status. ( I personally would also be willing to grind missions 6 hours a day, to finally afford a $80 dollar t-shirt with Han's face on it. )

As for good points, I suppose a question.

How do you see stakeholder status? It almost seems, you want CCP to hire CSM and if CCP doesn't hire them they are a failure. Of course stakeholder was suppose to be a a "real" part of the company or so. Or something like that, so expectations would be high.

With bounties, that is a large issue, from reading fonzies replies in the balancing threads, with him working with CSM, it sounds great, but that does seems like little league in a way compared to a bounty system. So it will be hard to really judge people well with just their bounty system designs and the flaws of it. (Also CCP didn't give any CSM people a hoody and get them to stand in their picture, so I think CCP gives more pressure to its workers then CSM.)

Last note is that, CCP never fired CCP Arrow over uni inv. so I highly doubt CSM will ever get fired. Plus CCP are F'ing cagey about letting CSM candidates get too close too easily.

If the CSM is involved in the process, from beginning to end, then they bear some (not all) responsibility for the result of the process.

You shouldn't use the word "we". Remember, you said your job was done a long time ago. Actually, before CSM7 was even elected.

So you have an intention to do some more work, but haven't quite got around to it yet. Good to hear.

I'll announce my CSM8 run when you resign from CSM7.

You know who cares if CSM7 sinks or swims? CSM7 and you. I think that's about it. Not even sure about all of CSM7.

CCP have continually come across as being the only ones that know how eve should be played. They have stated time and again that they almost entirely bypass any feedback given, because the players can't be trusted. Until CCP can actually learn from previous mistakes, instead of giving talking points about how they've learned from previous mistakes, the success or failure of features will be at the feet of CCP.