EVE General Discussion

I got the impression that instead of actively developing WoD, Dust and supporting Eve they've effectively mothballed WoD.

WoD is still an active project only in the sense that it's not been completely cancelled. The money that went towards it's active development and the salaries of most of the 20% is now being put into supporting Eve while a skeleton crew continues to work on it's core concepts.

Then when Dust is released and hopefully Eve is back in shape and growing nicely, they'll direct money back towards WoD and restart active development.

That's what I get from this anyway, that they've finally realised they were hugely overextended and relying on extremely over-optimistic growth projections for Eve to fund it all. Mothballing WoD, finishing Dust and concentrating on Eve seems like an attempt to stabilise their finances and then work on WoD later, rather than carry on and lose all three as they go bankrupt.

I really hate to hear that people are getting laid off. I know that song by heart. My EVE time is non existent due to underemployment right now.

I always did wonder just what they were doing down in ATL. Now I know. OTOH, the White Wolf IP is not going anywhere. If the success of Ann Rice, Twilight, Sookie Stackhouse et al is any indication of the market, it'll do just fine in a few years if and when they get it out.

All the nay-saying-bittervet forum warriors better hope DUST hits and hits big. If I were you, I'd do what I've been doing and sell all my little thumber buddies on it and say it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Hopefully CCP will deliver on DUST and it will make money. More money means increased resources for internet spaceships. Hopefully Hilmar & pals have gotten the message and realized that EVE still needs more work on the spaceship flying parts and the flying spaceships is why we play.

It was a bit over optimistic, to say the least, on CCP's part to try and float two games in development off the back of one moderately successful one. Diverting resources from EVE to fund two simultaneous dev projects was like eating your seed corn. Ain't gonna have much of a crop next year if you keep that up.

Sorry to hear about the job cuts. After reading this, I now want to resub one of my account but I receives this message:

We were unable to authorize your payment at this time. Please ensure you have sufficient funds and/or contact your bank/card issuer for further information.

I called my credit card bank and they say there was no transaction attempt and I have enough funds. Looks like a problem on CCP side.

CCP fix this if the problem is on your side so we can resub and help.

I refuse to believe anyone is this backward, seriously you have to be trolling, that or you have a glass stomach, because with your head that far up your own arse it's the only way you can see where you're going....

this will be bitter for some ppl, but i think for CCP its the right decision.
and regarding subscription you have to count the ALT's. i have 3 accounts, and probably have to let 1 go next year, not becaus of CCP, but because the 3 accs have a huge blow on my (real life) wallet. :)
i think ppl wont stop playing eve if they got "hooked", sometime there is a longer break, but stop subscription for main-char wont happened so oftern.

personally i cant understand the decision to build DUST exclusively for PS3. i would love to play it, but not on a console...

after all, you souldnt stop/reduce development for eve. its the greatest space-sim out there.
only thing is, you need time to do anything, and ppl. i would love to see some more fast paced action in the future, like a instanced dog-fight arena, freelance-style, like a FPS-minigame.

Ye, best of luck to the people loosing their jobs, hope you guys all land on your feet.

I don't know what happened there CCP... You clearly had the right idea at one point. The whole thing about players not being to identify with a ship is the right track... Ever since I started playing EVE, I kept hoping to have an actual character ingame and when all that talk about INCARNA started, I thought "yesssss, they finally got it". Yes, having an actual character, walking on stations, etc. I thought it was the right move and that it would bring a huge number of new players to EVE and was excited about getting more targets on my overview.

Somehow, it all slowed way the f*** down and all we've seen of INCARNA is what I sincerely consider a BETA. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to go along with this as long as it helps the devs iron out CARBON. I understood that it was a huge undertaking but apparently CCP didn't.

( T O C C P: )
So I'd like to reinforce this slowboat that is called carbon or walking on station or future vision. CCP, put on your mwd on and overheat if for god's sake; and when you get CARBON to work smoothly and load faster and reduce it's strain on our graphics cards, continue and give us the racial captain's quarters; and when you get all this sorted, don't stop. It's not enough to just see your character in a room. The point of having a character is to be in a crowd and to build on this social aspect of the game. Wouldn't have NEX worked better if you could show off your new coat or pair of boots to the other players? What good does it do now? You buy boots, you take a twirl in your lonely room and that's it... nothin' left to do then undock!

Sorry to get negative at the end there, but that's just how it is. Now focus on getting this stuff done and you will get a throng of new accounts. You know you will.

Eurogamer Interview with Hilmar:-

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-21-eurogamer-interviews-ccps-hilmar-petursson-interview

Pretty honest stuff...."I absolutely considered [resigning] but I think that frankly it would have been an easy way out."

At least the winter expansion plans seem good to me.

It's just a damned shame we had to twist their arm so hard that good people lost their jobs to just get these things done... things that should have been done years ago

I don't see us having twisted their arms "hard enough" that people lost their jobs.

Look at what the business model had been. "Ignore the EVE Online customers, our cash source, while simultaneously working on two new games, and still having a loan to repay with-in the coming months." How can anyone sit there and say it's because of the players that these people lost their jobs?

I made it clear: the bad business practices and the lack of clear thought processes led to Hilmar canning 100 people. Had he thought a little and realized all that was going on, this may not have happened, or maybe only a few people lost their jobs.

Then again, I don't think he anticipated his idiocy getting out to the "unwashed masses" in the form of the leaked e-mail.

A CCP Hilmar quote on the layoffs:

"How it relates to the community - that is part of the restructuring, our community division has been spread around the globe and has had a lot of good contact with the community. But we've not been as effective. By centralising customer support and community, we have more people doing community work than we did before. Being co-located with the developers allows the information within the community groups to have a much more direct effect on the development process."

from http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-21-eurogamer-interviews-ccps-hilmar-petursson-interview

Thoughts?