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The Mittani Declares War

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Lens Thirring
#161 - 2011-09-08 21:42:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Lens Thirring
The May CSM minutes contain the following statement in the "Economics" section:
Quote:
The [subscriber count] pattern more recently has been steady growth, and the usually post-expansion "hangover" has been greatly delayed. They are also seeing the start of the expected jump in subscribers because of the upcoming Incarna expansion. The CSM felt that CCP’s subscription forecast was achievable.

What's the story here? The CSM seems to have been pretty happy with the population numbers in May, even though the PCU has been dropping throughout the spring (and faster before incarna than after). Also, they seem okay with the idea that Incarna would not fail. If they are accusing CCP of making a mistake in expecting Incarna to boost the population, it looks like the CSM were prone to the same mistake at the time.
Two step
Aperture Harmonics
#162 - 2011-09-08 21:44:24 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:
The Mittani wrote:


Yeah, I +repped a Jade Constantine post. What up.


Lol, just so they know we're serious I returned the favour.


Get a room!

Seriously, this is not a rogue mittens thing, the entire CSM is in agreement that CCP needs to make a change.

CSM 7 Secretary CSM 6 Alternate Delegate @two_step_eve on Twitter My Blog
Two step
Aperture Harmonics
#163 - 2011-09-08 21:46:21 UTC
Lens Thirring wrote:
The May CSM minutes contain the following statement in the "Economics" section:
Quote:
The [subscriber count] pattern more recently has been steady growth, and the usually post-expansion "hangover" has been greatly delayed. They are also seeing the start of the expected jump in subscribers because of the upcoming Incarna expansion. The CSM felt that CCP’s subscription forecast was achievable.

What's the story here? The CSM seems to have been pretty happy with the population numbers in May, even though the PCU has been dropping throughout the spring (and faster before incarna than after). Also, they seem okay with the idea that Incarna would not fail. If they are accusing CCP of making a mistake in expecting Incarna to boost the population, it looks like the CSM were prone to the same mistake at the time.


Note that we were looking at subscriber numbers, which were going up at the time. The recent fuss has been over the number of players that actually log in, which I would expect to show trends well before the subscriber numbers (people don't log in for a while, then they unsub).

CSM 7 Secretary CSM 6 Alternate Delegate @two_step_eve on Twitter My Blog
The Mittani
State War Academy
Caldari State
#164 - 2011-09-08 22:01:11 UTC
Lens Thirring wrote:
The May CSM minutes contain the following statement in the "Economics" section:
Quote:
The [subscriber count] pattern more recently has been steady growth, and the usually post-expansion "hangover" has been greatly delayed. They are also seeing the start of the expected jump in subscribers because of the upcoming Incarna expansion. The CSM felt that CCP’s subscription forecast was achievable.

What's the story here? The CSM seems to have been pretty happy with the population numbers in May, even though the PCU has been dropping throughout the spring (and faster before incarna than after). Also, they seem okay with the idea that Incarna would not fail. If they are accusing CCP of making a mistake in expecting Incarna to boost the population, it looks like the CSM were prone to the same mistake at the time.


That was before the NeX rollout, the riots, Monoclegate and the incredible delays of Incarna, all of which results in PCUs flatlining.

~hi~
Elyssa MacLeod
Doomheim
#165 - 2011-09-08 22:02:37 UTC
The Mittani wrote:
Lens Thirring wrote:
The May CSM minutes contain the following statement in the "Economics" section:
Quote:
The [subscriber count] pattern more recently has been steady growth, and the usually post-expansion "hangover" has been greatly delayed. They are also seeing the start of the expected jump in subscribers because of the upcoming Incarna expansion. The CSM felt that CCP’s subscription forecast was achievable.

What's the story here? The CSM seems to have been pretty happy with the population numbers in May, even though the PCU has been dropping throughout the spring (and faster before incarna than after). Also, they seem okay with the idea that Incarna would not fail. If they are accusing CCP of making a mistake in expecting Incarna to boost the population, it looks like the CSM were prone to the same mistake at the time.


That was before the NeX rollout, the riots, Monoclegate and the incredible delays of Incarna, all of which results in PCUs flatlining.


should be neat to see what happens afer this media frenzy thing

GM Homonoia: Suicide ganks are a valid and viable tactic in EVE.

Where is your God now carebear?
The Mittani
State War Academy
Caldari State
#166 - 2011-09-08 22:06:45 UTC
If CCP reallocates resources to FiS, the CSM will sing their praises loudly and in the press. We want to reward sensible behavior.

~hi~
Indy Rider
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#167 - 2011-09-08 22:14:17 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Zymurgist
The Mittani wrote:
We want to reward sensible behavior.


My memory is fuzzy, but did you guys even meet with any suits during the 'emergency' meetings?


Discussion of moderation removed. Zymurgist
Lens Thirring
#168 - 2011-09-08 22:16:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Lens Thirring
The Mittani wrote:
Lens Thirring wrote:
The May CSM minutes contain the following statement in the "Economics" section:
Quote:
The [subscriber count] pattern more recently has been steady growth, and the usually post-expansion "hangover" has been greatly delayed. They are also seeing the start of the expected jump in subscribers because of the upcoming Incarna expansion. The CSM felt that CCP’s subscription forecast was achievable.

What's the story here? The CSM seems to have been pretty happy with the population numbers in May, even though the PCU has been dropping throughout the spring (and faster before incarna than after). Also, they seem okay with the idea that Incarna would not fail. If they are accusing CCP of making a mistake in expecting Incarna to boost the population, it looks like the CSM were prone to the same mistake at the time.


That was before the NeX rollout, the riots, Monoclegate and the incredible delays of Incarna, all of which results in PCUs flatlining.

In Jester's plot, which you used in your kugu post, the PCUs go down more steeply before Incarna than after. The decline has been obvious in the Eve-Offline data through spring of this year, and posted on various forums and blogs over the last several months.

If in May it was plausible for subscriptions to go up (your claim) while PCU goes down, then why are you worried now -- that trend could be continuing, in fact improving, since the PCU decline has stabilized.

I've been concerned (along with many others) about the population for quite some time. Which is why I was surprised to find the claim about "steady growth" in the CSM minutes. Interpreting the PCU data as a healthy/unhealthy trend does depend somewhat on the correlation between PCU and subscribers, which in the past has been strong (based on QEN data). You are calling that correlation into question, in which case I don't understand your current argument which is based on PCU numbers exclusively.
Richard Hammond II
Doomheim
#169 - 2011-09-08 22:22:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Richard Hammond II
The Mittani wrote:
If CCP reallocates resources to FiS, the CSM will sing their praises loudly and in the press. We want to reward sensible behavior.


again though, they CANT do that. Partly out of pride, they have a lot of hubris, too much to not "stay the course" and admit theyre wrong, but also giving in to a move like this brings up the idea of negotiating with terrorists. Whats to stop you from applying this pressure every time hey make a decision you dont like?

If they give in, they set a dangerous precedent, the game direction is taken out of their hands. If they dont, the game dies. You havent given then a recourse of retreat.

Quote:
Sun Tzu:
31. To a surrounded enemy you must leave a way of escape.
32. Do not press an enemy at bay.

Tu Yu: Prince Fu Ch’ai said: ‘Wild beasts, when at bay, fight desperately. How much more is this true of men! If they know there is no alternative they will fight to the death.’

Goons; infiltration at its best - first bob... now ccp itself. They dont realize you guys dot take this as "just a game". Bring it down guys, we're rooting for you.
Luckytania
Bullets of Justice
#170 - 2011-09-08 22:27:20 UTC
Oglyn wrote:
So long as people are raging CCP are getting press coverage and are still raking in the subs.
They don't care about :words: unless it hits their bottom line.
The argument is that Eve has stagnated, so they aren't worried about missing out on new subs through bad press.

The only threat to them is if people leave, which takes us back to my first sentence.


And/or less new people sub.

I started playing Eve because in a *lot* of gaming press/sites the talk about it was interesting and definitely sounded fun. Since then I have encouraged others to join in, and about half of those I encouraged did.

With the current press ambiance I would not start playing. And I haven't encouraged anyone to start playing the game for months now.

Not all press is good press. These ":words:" are hurting their bottom line.
Lens Thirring
#171 - 2011-09-08 22:49:28 UTC
The May CSM minutes don't really highlight the CSM's concerns about resource allocation, which is unfortunate given how important it suddenly has become to them. But in the "Feature Abandonment" section, there is the following note:
Quote:

New members of the CSM opened by expressing the opinion that, after seeing first-hand some of the resource constraints CCP operates under, it would be unfair to simply shake fists and complain about feature abandonment; regarding issues like the infamous "18 months" incident (Zulu: "I pissed a lot of people off with that"), a lot of the concern was created by bad messaging, something CSM could perhaps help with. ... One CSM suggested that perhaps the pace of development could be slowed down a bit in order to permit more transparency.

Presumably this particular quote deals with abandoned features such as FW. But there seems to have been a change of attitude in the meantime: Was it really thought by the CSM that players' concerns after the "18-month" dev-blog merely came down to "bad messaging"?

This does not look like pressure to increase Eve's development resources. A lot has happened in the meantime, including Incarna, the protests and another CSM meeting. But if this is an example of the type of discussion about resources that was taking place 3 months ago, I'm not too surprised if the CSM's advice didn't inspire the company to rush out to hire a new dev team.

I understand that the May meeting is superceded by later events. But in any case, resources seem to be a fairly recent priority for the CSM. Is this concern new or unexpected to them? (The "18 month" dev-blog was July 2010.)
Crunchmeister
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#172 - 2011-09-08 23:08:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Crunchmeister
Jade Constantine wrote:
Don't get me wrong. I have never liked Mittani - but in this he is doing the job he was elected to do and fighting for much needed development resources for Eve Online.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This. Pay heed to this advice people.

This isn't the time to get petty and let personal feelings about someone get in the way. In game, I don't like the Goons, their style, or what they stand for. However, Mittens is the chair of the CSM, and I believe he's the right guy for the job. He's got the backing of the entire CSM on this issue. This isn't a solo effort on his part. He speaks not for himself, but for all of Eve's paying customers who are paying for crap that even the devs don't want, but have no choice because management is ignoring everyone and doing whatever they please to the great detriment of this great game.

It's become quite obvious in recent months that CCP are throwing their Eve player base scraps, and overall treating us like we're idiots in communications with us. They make grandiose promises that they never come close to delivering on. They just hope that we have really short memories and don't hold them to their promises. And when we do, they ignore the player base and CSM altogether and just do whatever they please. And they expect everyone to keep forking out $15 a month to fund their Dust / WoD development nonetheless.

The numbers are in folks. People just aren't logging in anymore. The graphs show that very clearly. That number of people logging in has been on a decline since Incursion and gone down even more since Incarna, whereas historically, any new expansion seems to at least raise interest for a while. The complete lack of new content and unwillingness on CCP's part to pay any attention to what it's paying customers - the ones keeping their company afloat - are asking for is killing this game. Their marketing and management eggheads are clueless and are running Eve into the ground.

The CSM is going to extreme measures to try to rectify that, and Mittens just happens to be the chair and public spokesman for the CSM. So put petty differences aside and give the CSM some support here, as they're fighting for something we all hold dearly - this game that love to play. Players, the CSM and to a good extent, the devs here are all on the same side. And we have to stand together in order to make CCP management pull their heads out of their collective asses and see what's really happening. With some work and a consolidated voice behind them, perhaps the CSM will be able to make them pay attention before it's too late.

People were constantly telling me I was crazy. For a long time I didn't believe them, but after a while, I started to think they might be right.

But it turns out that they were all wrong. One of the voices in my head is a psychiatrist and he says I'm perfectly sane.

Barbelo Valentinian
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#173 - 2011-09-08 23:17:48 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:


There is a serious danger that WOD and DUST become poisoned brands contamined by the noteriety of your treatment of the Eve player base. For those products to have a chance of success you need to trade on the goodwill and passion of Eve players. Lose that positive influence (and see it turn negative) and making a commercial success of those projects will become much harder.



Great posts, you're on a roll here. But this point in particular is worth emphasizing. SOE, Cryptic and Funcom have all suffered from bad vibes on the grapevine in recent times. Perhaps not serious damage, but the kind of headache I'm sure CCP doesn't need in the run up to its new games.

Hell hath no fury like an EVE player scorned Lol
Richard Hammond II
Doomheim
#174 - 2011-09-08 23:38:22 UTC
Barbelo Valentinian wrote:
Jade Constantine wrote:


There is a serious danger that WOD and DUST become poisoned brands contamined by the noteriety of your treatment of the Eve player base. For those products to have a chance of success you need to trade on the goodwill and passion of Eve players. Lose that positive influence (and see it turn negative) and making a commercial success of those projects will become much harder.



Great posts, you're on a roll here. But this point in particular is worth emphasizing. SOE, Cryptic and Funcom have all suffered from bad vibes on the grapevine in recent times. Perhaps not serious damage, but the kind of headache I'm sure CCP doesn't need in the run up to its new games.

Hell hath no fury like an EVE player scorned Lol


There seems to be a rather vocal number of ppl going "let them"
Which isnt good either

Goons; infiltration at its best - first bob... now ccp itself. They dont realize you guys dot take this as "just a game". Bring it down guys, we're rooting for you.
Cearain
Plus 10 NV
#175 - 2011-09-09 01:47:30 UTC
Lens Thirring wrote:
....
I understand that the May meeting is superceded by later events. But in any case, resources seem to be a fairly recent priority for the CSM. Is this concern new or unexpected to them? (The "18 month" dev-blog was July 2010.)




I agree they were late. I was creating threads that CCP was abandoning eve back in July of 2010. As soon as they came back I asked in Jita corner if they could let us know if more devs would be assigned to FIS. Lots of people are late to realize that nothing will get fixed, or even looked at until someone is actually assigned that job.


Look even in these threads this week you will still see people complaining about whether null sec, high sec, low sec or whs should get more attention. They *still* don't get it. None of them are getting sufficient attention until more devs are assigned to EVE gameplay.

But so what? So they were slow to the punch. I'm just very happy they are finally punching. Very few expected that incarna would be such a doozy. (myself included) It was a doozy and everytime I see another "ccp marketing piece" talking about incarna/mt I wince inside for the company.

I know some of this marketing was all prepared before the release and much of what we will see was planned in advance so they need to go ahead and run some of it. But the sooner they can spit out what they have coming and move past this embarrassing chapter the better.


The CCP admitted many things in eve as it existed then needed work (UI, Low sec, FW, Null sec, T3, wormholes .... I could go on.) in the csm minutes of July 2010. So anyone who claims there is nothing more they can do with space ships is just plain wrong.

Make faction war occupancy pvp instead of pve https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=53815&#post53815
Puppet Mas'ter
The Merchants of War
#176 - 2011-09-09 04:22:36 UTC
Indy Rider wrote:
The Mittani wrote:
We want to reward sensible behavior.


My memory is fuzzy, but did you guys even meet with any suits during the 'emergency' meetings?

Also - Whats all this then?


A thread that got locked cause CCP doesnt wanna talk about the Rule-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named

CCP: Madness!!! This is FiS Us: Fis? chuckle (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Us: THIS IS EVE
Rhaegor Stormborn
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#177 - 2011-09-09 04:32:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Rhaegor Stormborn
Mara Rinn wrote:
Gaming press says a lot of stuff, but what does it do? No publicity is bad publicity.


In this case you are wrong. People will not start playing Eve if everyone who plays and the gaming media says it sucks. Massive amounts of pissed of players on both official and non-official forums, and website news talking about how a developer is ruining a game are the two best way to discourage new players from ever buying your game.
Mr Kidd
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#178 - 2011-09-09 04:47:22 UTC
Othran wrote:
Unlikely but nobody in CCP management is listening to anyone here, so the only other option is to see if they listen to bad publicity and concerned "partners".


You should read up on how Iceland got itself in the financial crisis that it did. One way was by hiring world renowned experts to help guide their business decisions....as long as what those experts had to say was what the Icelanders wanted to hear. Otherwise, no, Icelanders are inclined to go forward with what they want regardless.

Don't ban me, bro!
El'Niaga
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#179 - 2011-09-09 05:03:32 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:
El'Niaga wrote:
He wasn't fired for his actions which warranted it. When you fail to hold employees to a reasonable expectation then you breed a culture of corruption which undermines your authority as an employer.


You have employment law to contend with and sometimes things are not as clear as they seem in hindsight. Say for example I had a guy stealing paperclips from my company in the UK and I decide to give him a formal warning for it. Thats me deciding not to immediately fire him and to give a chance for the warning to repair the guys behaviour. If I then come into the office the next day and decide "damn I want to fire the guy anyway" then I'd be in the wrong because I'm escalating the punishment I already handed out. We'll probably never know precisely what went on with T20 but its not hard to imagine this kind of scenario at play.

The real problem with the T20 scandal (in my opinion) is that I perceive a massive overreaction on ccp's part that ended up costing us as players far more than the discovery of an illicit sabre bpo did in the case of this rogue dev. We lost a degree of connection between developers and the game that comes from playing the thing you are developing. The rules and restrictions placed upon CCP employees post T20 were pretty strict and stern and I can certainly understand many of them choosing to just play something else to relax rather than live in fear of being found to be in breach of the laws in Eve now.

Combine that with the loss of the volunteer events team stuff, with the limitations and ultimate disappearance of aurora etc etc, and you had a single incident that led ultimately to a diminished game environment for everybody.

In retrospect the better option would probably not have been to knee jerk to restrictive internal affairs departments but simply ammend people's contracts of employment to ensure everyone realized future breach of trust would be terms for dismissal period with no wriggle room.

*shrugs*

Past history though.


Perhaps some truth they overreacted, had they actually just fired T20 to begin with making it absolutely clear that such would not be tolerated they wouldn't have needed all the rest of it. The fact CCP employees play other games on their breaks etc is truly what has killed EVE, same thing with SWG back in 2005. They were all playing WoW in their 'off' time rather than SWG, so they got a greater and greater disconnect to the playerbase. The whole incident stunk to high heaven though because they claimed no senior management could be reached. No one bought that in this age of cell phones, email etc. That's when they started losing credibility with the player base.

CCP would do well to learn from SOE, whatever happens in EVE will effect everything. If they **** to many folks off nerfing WH and High Sec then they really doom any future release by them. They can't be complacent and say the grass is greener on the other side, it never is. No business that has pissed off its customer base has ever really fully recovered.
Puppet Mas'ter
The Merchants of War
#180 - 2011-09-09 05:04:19 UTC
Rhaegor Stormborn wrote:
Mara Rinn wrote:
Gaming press says a lot of stuff, but what does it do? No publicity is bad publicity.


In this case you are wrong. People will not start playing Eve if everyone who plays and the gaming media says it sucks. Massive amounts of pissed of players on both official and non-official forums, and website news talking about how a developer is ruining a game are the two best way to discourage new players from ever buying your game.


Not really. Given the rep EVE already has in the non EVE playing world, ppl that WANT to come to EVE read about stuff like this and it draws them here

CCP: Madness!!! This is FiS Us: Fis? chuckle (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Us: THIS IS EVE