EVE General Discussion

Dear Forum Warriors,   TL:DR at bottom.

I'm in slight disbelief that some of you have decided to build up the rage again over the next patch. 

I was angry as the next player at what happened with incarna, I unsubbed both of my accounts, temporarily, shortly afterwards, tho I had found myself bored of eve in general probably due to under development.

But let's look at some back ground. I take one Devs comments as an example. I'll find the quote and add it in shortly but to paraphrase he said he stopped looking at the forums because of the rage at lack of development while feeling trapped in the corporate direction of Incarna etc. Put simply, these people are human beings, I think we forget that CCP is not some monolithic organisation. They are talented individuals, heck I couldn't do what they do and I wish I had learnt to do it so I could do, and we sometimes, quite frankly treat them like dirt. 

Post incarna, the management went through phases, denial, anger, crisis, acceptance, it was just financially motivated tho that was a big part of it. But by the time they had turned the big super tanker around it was September. Then lay offs followed Devs lost friends and colleagues, a lot of them. That's hard.

Then the race to fix things began, Devs said from the out set we are going for little things, there wasn't time for big changes, they wanted as many small things as possible. In every dev blog including the hybrid and custom office thread they have said this is a first step we will change anything that doesn't work right it's an ongoing process. 

And yet, you don't like it so you rage at CCP, say EVE is dying , and threaten to unsub. 

These guys are going to start hating us if we continue to be so up tight. 

What I propose to you is that we treat Crucible as a first step and we give CCP a full development run to fix the rest, 0.0, hybrids, FW, lowsec, any other priorities. One scrum team or more each, 6 months. This brings us to summer, exactly one year after the Jita riots. If your game is still broken and Not improved to your satisfaction by all means rage, shout, riot, unsub whatever eases your tortured soul. 

What say you?

TL:DR 

You can't expect miracles overnight, give CCP one more expansion to fix the game. Stop raging, keep calm and carry on.

don't care if CCP employees hate me.

I always tried to post constructive and (as much as possible) flame-free criticisms. Something that would actually explain what is good and what is wrong with suggested ideas and features. I agree, there are many who were not so patient and cool-headed. Rage and flames were inevitable.

Anyway, there are many features in Crucible that are simply great. I can already feel the power and creativity of the old CCP from back in the days when I started to play (RMR). There are, however, a couple of things that will have a bad impact on the game, most notably corporation owned Customs Offices and I tried to explain why in the relevant thread.

So, there are a lot of hits and just a couple of misses, as far as features go. Just like CCP in the old days when EVE was expanding rapidly - and hopefully, it will again if CCP keeps this course.

I understand that they are just people, but the company was on a wrong route for a long time threatening to endanger the existence of their only active product. Many players saw that, so a little slap on the face to wake up was needed. Thankfully, CCP's CEO woke the company up just in time.

I have very high hopes for Crucible and beyond. EVE is not dying - a part of it died due to all mistakes in the past and Crucible is bringing the game up from the ashes. That's how I see Crucible.

Thanks The Offerer, I agree that the company is at fault, but individual Devs are not, of anything blame management for overall failures in strategy.

Angry posts and unsubbing made them do a 180 degree turn. The game is improving because of the critics. Don't forget that very important fact.

I like then new direction they are taking the game, but the community is responsible for it.

While on the fast track to turn things around they are implementing without thinking.

POCO's are screwing a lot of players over and run a real risk of causing a lot of economy grief.

Oh please, there are like 3 people in total complaining about Crucible.

I will not chill out just because CCP is starting to do the job they should have been doing the last two ******* years.

that is the understatement of the day , i am furious about POCO, because low sec pi is one of my main sources of income for my industrial acount
89 pages of feedback overwhelming majority saying it is a stupid idea and a concept that will NEVER work and what does CCP do they jusy ignoring us and implement POCO s

CCP Greyscale made the following comments in his Dev Blog feedback thread:

“Second, yes, there was a huge angry forum thread for the first blog and I ignored it. That was also a mistake (obviously, in retrospect). This happened partly because I was too focused on looking for reasoned critiques to appreciate the significance of the huge outburst that it generated, but mainly because I've been increasingly withdrawn from the forums for the last year or two. It's a pretty draining experience reading page after page after page of angry posts, about all kinds of topics but all ultimately driven by the same core concerns of abandonment and neglect, and agreeing with those concerns, and not being able to do much of anything about it. As a result, I've been avoiding listening to the forums and focusing on doing the best work I can, but the former occasionally precludes the latter. On the bright side, it feels like the mood on the forums has been improving hugely in the last month or two, and I'm making an effort to read and post more as a result. Whether or not this is a good thing is of course a matter of personal opinion ;)”

I am not singling him out, but he has raised several very good points that I would like to address.

1. The player community will never provide uniformly reasoned responses. For every reasoned response there will be 50 unreasonable responses. Almost every single post made here is motivated by selfish concerns, self interest, ego, and spite. The number of posts where the poster is attempting to provide honest feedback and is able to maintain separation from their own narrow view of the game is miniscule. In this regard the EVE forum community is no different to any other.

2. CCP takes the unusual position (at least in the game development world) of engaging with their customers in a meaningful manner. Nowhere else will a game developer give their customers such an honest and open view of the workings of the game they are playing. I believe this stance is a consequence of CCP's (justifiable) pride in what they have built here, but it does have a downside. When talking to the community CCP devs don't have anywhere to hide. The community expects and demands specificity in their statements, and can't be fobbed off with generalisations and BS.

3. The kind of relationship CCP has built with their customers is hard work to maintain - especially when things are not going well. Nobody likes to be criticised, and some of the comments that have been leveled at CCP devs go way beyond just criticism, BUT it is unrealistic to expect the community to change. In order to maintain the relationship CCP need to keep posting, despite the criticism. In EVE terms they need to HTFU.

Again, I would like to state that I am not singling CCP Greyscale out here - he just happens to be the guy that has been open and honest enough to post about what is, I am sure, a very common attitude amongst CCP employees.

TL:DR CCP need to HTFU and never stop posting