tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29332020618699222552024-03-05T14:55:59.835+00:00EVE is broken (AcD mix)Daily downtime filler.AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-9314087013499724382012-04-07T05:07:00.001+00:002012-04-07T05:09:29.803+00:00Yes… It's lupus !<br />
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So, I received a mail from an old e-friend, a few weeks ago, asking me:</div>
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<i>"Hey, what's up with you not posting on the cranky blog in months, is EVE not broken naymore ?"</i></blockquote>
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To which I replied:</div>
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<i>"I gather they're trying hard to fix it, and they seem to go at it more or less the right way, from what I'm told… just can't bring myself to get suckered in caring again, as I'd likely be just setting myself up for disappointment. ;)"</i></blockquote>
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Yeah, I use old-school smileys in email, gimme a break: I was trying to sound lighthearted about it all.</div>
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Because the truth is, it's kind of sad. It's like expecting your kid or brother to fail horribly at everything: you simply don't want to feel that way.</div>
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Nor do you want to feel smug or even vindicated: it's like being right about a close relative's cold really being lupus…<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhESl2OMebPS6e-bxRs4KhV7KgsKu17fyXQFGxa3Ut4WFxQMHcPy7r0SREa7jh-eUG5x2i_-_cocJe1E2xcYFhsvujhd-mm1VCULSo1zRi_HncFIs_k31XU3tj1JwhWOPIKyTzdjSd8L8OU/s1600/House-LoveSucks.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhESl2OMebPS6e-bxRs4KhV7KgsKu17fyXQFGxa3Ut4WFxQMHcPy7r0SREa7jh-eUG5x2i_-_cocJe1E2xcYFhsvujhd-mm1VCULSo1zRi_HncFIs_k31XU3tj1JwhWOPIKyTzdjSd8L8OU/s320/House-LoveSucks.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="text-align: justify;">And man, </span><a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/07/escape-from-black-hole.html" style="text-align: justify;">was I right</a><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span></i></div>
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After a <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=935">last-ditch attempt</a> at poor spin-fu, it took a full three months for CCP to take — but not before another <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2402">sorry burp</a> trying to sell us on space barbies — its true first step into <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/07/veni-vedi.html">the program</a>.</div>
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From that point on, it was pretty much <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/07/escape-from-black-hole.html">by the book</a>. Again, I can't really take credit for it, considering I was merely stating the obvious, but let's still recap because it's (almost) nothing but good news (at first).</div>
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1 • Come clean.</h4>
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A solid first step with <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2672">Hilmar's letter of apology</a> has been since followed by better, cleaner, and somewhat more candid communication with the players at large, and CSM especially.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizoqMX9bvlvmz-YQn8oCVHV7jNM4F1YvTY084HYqR41v0Wie6wOM1BjJlvLU61n9dNZ5dWsfiS2Kf-UZ_G9MEbf_vt-w5v1gQcchgX8xNh7Q-Cy-QX9dJqj4Jiut7dsrEc6ZuqRGCpOiSW/s1600/achoura2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizoqMX9bvlvmz-YQn8oCVHV7jNM4F1YvTY084HYqR41v0Wie6wOM1BjJlvLU61n9dNZ5dWsfiS2Kf-UZ_G9MEbf_vt-w5v1gQcchgX8xNh7Q-Cy-QX9dJqj4Jiut7dsrEc6ZuqRGCpOiSW/s320/achoura2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Vikings are wimps.</i></div>
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2 • Pay the price, in blood.</h4>
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That they did, an in more than one way. <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4769&tid=1">Twilight got all but canned</a>, as <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=3355">did Zulu</a>, and a few hundreds CCPers found themselves looking for new opportunities. Although one might quibble on who got the short straw vs who shoulda, there's no question it was flogging time @CCP.</div>
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3 • Shake hands. </h4>
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It started right after the apology, with <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2428">the announcement</a> for a massive <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/en/crucible/features/">Winter Expansion</a>, solely focused on spaceships, eased in by the highly-symbolic <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2402">return of the spinning ship</a>, and with just enough barbiedollery for <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2427">Torfi to save face</a> (hint: too late).</div>
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From there, CCP has been hard at work showing EVE players <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=3433">it's for realsies</a>, which after the generally positive reception given to Crucible, in the wake of a pretty good FanFest, and ramping up to the launches of DUST 514 and the very promising Crucible summer expansion sort of starts to sound convincing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZGtfa9K7mjq_djPPuNtE9sOQpmDmwURwgv61Mt4SM9NDVwJecmZVyihVCe1xxEjqTVg1Q0eTbjnhSMUQAS_P6zKvzbbSaMuixAMJOwgfhvr3-ppp2lBboMPfZ8Kr74v1IXuk3xHE7ISK/s1600/MinmatarTornado.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZGtfa9K7mjq_djPPuNtE9sOQpmDmwURwgv61Mt4SM9NDVwJecmZVyihVCe1xxEjqTVg1Q0eTbjnhSMUQAS_P6zKvzbbSaMuixAMJOwgfhvr3-ppp2lBboMPfZ8Kr74v1IXuk3xHE7ISK/s320/MinmatarTornado.jpg" width="302" /></a></div>
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<i>Doesn't look like a myrm, at all.</i></div>
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So why am I here, wasting perfectly serviceable electrons on wordz, when I could be zipping around in one of those new glass cannons, when CCP finally is seemingly cured from its <i>:awesome:</i> phase ?</div>
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Well, boys and girl, because I have a gnawing sense that our still-somewhat-Icelandic overlords are just about to screw the pooch deep and hard, once again.</div>
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It has to do with griefer culture, trying to please the wrong people, and pendulums, but that's for later, because right now, I'm overdue on more important stuff, like a toast of <i>foie gras</i>* and an episode of Community.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[*Which means no ducks were harmed during the making of this post, your soul is safe.]</span></div>
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<br /></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-21478881127863874162012-03-09T02:43:00.001+00:002012-03-09T02:45:29.891+00:00CSM 7 - It's not you, it's me.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://community.eveonline.com/council/voting/candidatesview.asp"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">Voting time, again.</span></a></div>
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From yesterday, and up to March 21st, you can vote for any of <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=9128">those people</a>.</div>
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In fairness, I can't give good advice as to whom thou shall throw thee ballot in for, considering I'm so far out of the loop of EVE things, it's not even wrong.</div>
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To wit, my personal voting bloc has been downscaled to 5 voices, counting one account that will lapse sometime later today, while the 4 other remaining ones are alive only thanks to administrative errors and the vague habit of keeping in touch with old spacenerd friends.</div>
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Still, I voted, and threw my barely above average weight behind <a href="http://www.animeigo.com/Trebor-CSM7">Trebor</a>, under the rationale he's been a solid workhorse for the past two CSMs, and the other people I know enough about to think they should be on the council certainly don't need my help to pass the alternate bar.</div>
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…nor does Trebor, for all I know, but considering I actually don't know much about the current political landscape and electoral warfare dynamics, it's a case of BSTS, plus he's the only serious candidate (that I've noticed) pushing for a reform of the electoral system towards something marginally less moronic than the current straight score rank.</div>
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Also, this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7lN0bVg1PBez9I1dCcNxzU4EjuTXUP7qzVjeov5EVJ-z0jecZwLa3PYYjqpMJB0noz1rua_CKuTbVP825Gk78XOaYu1RSM6sLDXu2eBHka1mm5HZt2ApScpk-XqQLMoI8yLBLbZq83oX/s1600/DontVoteDontComplain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7lN0bVg1PBez9I1dCcNxzU4EjuTXUP7qzVjeov5EVJ-z0jecZwLa3PYYjqpMJB0noz1rua_CKuTbVP825Gk78XOaYu1RSM6sLDXu2eBHka1mm5HZt2ApScpk-XqQLMoI8yLBLbZq83oX/s400/DontVoteDontComplain.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>PSA/</b></div>
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Since I just made clear I have little clue about the state of EVE, who's who in this CSM race, or what are the issues at hand, why do I even bother posting about it ?</div>
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Because the CSM does matter, insofar as EVE is worth caring about, and because my current disengagement from anything-EVE owes more to my personal history with the game and its parent company than to their current and potential future state(s).</div>
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Also my not playing EVE anymore doesn't mean I stopped believing EVE matters quite a bit in the big picture of the MMO genre. </div>
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In plain english, I left because I was burned out and tired of watching CCP playing with its sick, I'm nowhere near coming back until further notice, and thus can't be arsed to do the homework required to place my chips on anything smarter than a safe/reasonable bet.</div>
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On the other hand, everything I hear from people much more clued in than I am points in the same direction: both the game and the company are on a much less wrong track than they've been in years, while the competition is still nothing to write home about.</div>
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Unless you're in the exact same position I am, I have no candidate(s) to suggest to you, and deciding whom to vote for may require some research — <a href="http://match.eve-csm.com/index.php">here's a good starting point</a>.</div>
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The takeaway being: if you have the time and inclination for the kind of game EVE can/could be when it fails to entirely suck, you should care, and partake if you can<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]</span>.</div>
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<b>/PSA</b></div>
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***</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1: You need an account older than 30 days, and active for 24h+ at the time of your vote, so if you reactivate some sleeping account anytime before the 19th of March, you can have a say.]</span></div>
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<br /></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-49900981300903514992011-07-05T08:24:00.000+00:002011-07-05T08:24:00.079+00:00Just because.…it's worth remembering: a community manager should not be just a mouthpiece.<br />
<a href="http://eatingbees.brokentoys.org/2011/06/01/cleaning-out-the-think-twice-file/">Some actually have a clue</a> about 'non relevant stuff', like business, sensible balancing, and how they tie.AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-76111549301868224002011-07-03T05:13:00.005+00:002012-03-09T02:54:50.015+00:00Veni, vedi…Vici ?<br />
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So went the CSM to the land of melting glaciers and anti-airliners volcanoes, had a sit-down with <i>:teamawesome:</i>, smoked the peace calumet, and returned happy enough to tell their people <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=935">the sky is not falling</a>, after all.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifQdCiupQTOd58g22waarTFH99vH6TTjHu6NCwLlBx2xeeBOd8cQuWuWSGCbu4ZyLME1Nre8rLq6z9H4AU39FnBAw7r4zWvs_zX9nTZgbpzdGKCXPcFijlwcwYsxMEPil-mLYnzl4XKEEo/s1600/HookahHarold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifQdCiupQTOd58g22waarTFH99vH6TTjHu6NCwLlBx2xeeBOd8cQuWuWSGCbu4ZyLME1Nre8rLq6z9H4AU39FnBAw7r4zWvs_zX9nTZgbpzdGKCXPcFijlwcwYsxMEPil-mLYnzl4XKEEo/s1600/HookahHarold.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>"How do I tell Hilmar he looks like a fool in this costume ?"</i></div>
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Although CCP has both clarified and mollified their position relative to for-pay content, it's all very contrived and timid — we're a far cry from the kind of heart-to-heart rendezvous with the community that would have been required to turn the situation around.<br />
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I can't say for sure what the CSM agenda was, going in, but if they got what they hoped for, they missed the mark by a mile and a hair, imo.<br />
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The video they posted along with their joint Dev Blog / declaration illustrates perfectly why I believe the CSM is wrong not to push CCP to address the root of the issue. What's worse, they're allowing themselves to fall in line with the overly cautious, indecisive tone set by CCP.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7kat_uoAvnk" width="640"></iframe></div>
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It looks more like they're playing nice at a custody hearing, </div>
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rather than having a spirited debate about how to raise their kids…</div>
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From the CSM part of the <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=935">Dev Blog</a>:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The Fearless "Greed is Good?" Leak: We accept CCP's position that Fearless is a deliberately controversial internal publication and does not represent the policy of CCP Management or of CCP Zulu, the Senior Producer of EVE Online, nor the direction of game design. </span></blockquote>
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That's utter horsecrap, as anyone who's read the <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?ccl135embyb6c2v">reference material</a> can tell: you'd have to be a pushover or an idiot to fall for this poor spin.</div>
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Furthermore, endorsing the <i>"hypothetically…"</i> justification undermines the CSM credibility: expecting the players to buy it is not only insulting to their intelligence, it makes the CSM look like CCP's lapdog.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The Leaked Hilmar Global Email: We were appalled by the leaked Hilmar email and the atrocious and out-of-touch messaging it contained. We sympathize and agree with those players offended and disgusted by it.</span></blockquote>
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That's it ?</div>
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Seriously… you people had to take three days off, cross an ocean or two (probably in coach) in order to slap some sense into CCP and get answers to the "<i>why are you trying to commit corporate suicide ?" </i>question, and you end up <i>sympathetic</i> with the people who didn't like that the CEO of CCP is <a href="http://www.evenews24.com/2011/06/25/ccp-hilmar-global-email-shows-the-reasoning-behind-ccp-zulu-devblog/">channeling</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=Jack+Tretton+blunder">Jack 'Douchebag' Tretton</a> ? That's so far off, it hurts.</div>
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I understand that's a polite way to say <i>"we are offended and disgusted, too"</i>, but what's damning here is you didn't report on your efforts to get some sort of explication or apology from the guy who pissed in your soup. At least something like <i>"unfortunately, Hilmar locked himself in the ladies' for the duration of our stay at CCP HQ and wouldn't come out to talk to us…"</i> would have given us a hint.</div>
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And yes, I grok you don't want to make things worse, but while it may be your burden to give CCP pointers on how to not shoot themselves in the foot, it's not on you to save them from their own stupidity if they insist on doing so.</div>
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When in doubt about whether CCP's shafting its customers, the CSM loyalty should go to the players first, the game second, and CCP third.</div>
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<a href="http://treborofthecsm.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-stages-of-csming.html"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_2Olu1L8qDGzDq1Zq05u3o6DcEBYtafAVFQv7Tw7LRsFUz_wR2aY58p__4PDyX6kLGOQF1hzew49kXrwBJq_R5DgILjXFvpL0saVnA_aiGV2dktAgmLjJtrMcUl70G1UcJcLg_4hKY_g_/s1600/CSM+LOGO-White.png" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="http://treborofthecsm.blogspot.com/2011/07/potter-stuart-and-purchase-of-insurance.html">Don't drink Quafe ultra before writing on dual-currency economics.</a>* </i></div>
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The real issue here, beyond jeopardizing the CSM credibility with the community (which was hard enough to gain in first place) is that the players won't settle for <i>less spin</i> anymore, and demand a strict "<i>no bullshit !"</i> policy be established if any semblance of trust is to be restored between CCP and its patrons.</div>
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I usually enter a restaurant reasonably confident I'm not going to get food poisoning for my temerity of eating there, but if I'm nice enough to return after being sick once, I sure won't be cool with the cook cracking an uneasy smile and announcing <i>most</i> of their products are fresh, nowadays.</div>
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As pointed in <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/07/escape-from-black-hole.html">the first entry in this series</a>, CCP has to commit to end the spin-fu, and talk to their player community (also their only source of income) as trusted partners, ideally using the CSM as filter and relay. </div>
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Since they really, really suck at it, they should stop posting any public communique altogether at this stage, and just ring he CSM guys on skype whenever they want to talk to <i>the people</i>, then let the CSM write their copy, and just stamp the company logo on it once they're happy with it.</div>
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Not that this first joint dev blog was glorious, but if the CSM grows some nads, and CCP let them, I can see that working.</div>
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*</div>
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As parting words, let me give you an example of the kind of tone I'd expect from a reformed CCP.<br />
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Remember <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=934">this sorry excuse of an excuse</a>, that summoned the CSM to Iceland a few days ago ?<br />
Here's how it should have read, if CCP meant it:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">"We spat in your face, and we deserve everything that's been coming at us since for failing to apologize in a timely fashion. That we were intending to spit in the wind is immaterial.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Just know that we are deeply, truly sorry, and we're going to do everything we can to sort our mess, and show you that you can trust us with your playtime and monies.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We expect the CSM to arrive momentarily in our offices, with some meds and a clear head, because obviously something got into the water here at CCP HQ, that made us lose all common sense for a bit, and neither you nor us want that to happen again.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We'll keep our trap shut now, for everybody's sanity sake, talk to you after the pow wow."</span></blockquote>
<br />
That's how you apologize for broken family glassware without looking like a weasel.<br />
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[*No hard feelings, I love your logo. And I'll get back to that Plex=P2W misconception.]</span></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-27936635550589916062011-07-01T04:22:00.010+00:002011-07-03T06:10:35.339+00:00Escape from the black hole<div style="text-align: justify;">In recent entries I covered how CCP had little choice but to try and restore customer trust pronto, before the monetization <a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/71300">failure cascade</a> they've thrown themselves into proves terminal.<br />
<br />
We have to assume a week's worth of clue-by-four bashing by the community and media, then a bit of quiet time with the CSM drove that point home, or the whole discussion is moot, and it's time for a postmortem.<br />
<br />
Obviously, neither the CSM nor anybody (but possibly their major shareholders and creditors) can force CCP to do what is suggested below, and <i>:teamawesome:'s</i> reluctance to admit to any mistake or fault is the stuff of legends.<br />
<br />
Thus, the only question now is whether CCP prefers to die in a freakish gasoline accident, or surrender to reason, and live to fight another day.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SSbFjK_gnY"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-toIOMcH6mPW8e6dvSS-nsDcSiopnkgpWo7Iqq0AzN7C6VWrfST64oH-Mg7jYxjFs7lnlV114lRknvMiGod2VZqEcpoctFlBXCggypzG3fGxBKwlYlUPVNTv8uoNuMuts6SxnbgM_OWFF/s1600/zoolander6.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<i>"If there is anything that this horrible tragedy can teach us, it's that a male model's life is a precious, precious commodity. Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features, it doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight accident. "</i></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<blockquote><b>The first step into the program </b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">…is admitting you have a problem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Whatever is happening to CCP, they brought on themselves, not just by being spectacularly inept at strategizing and propaganda in the past few months, but by creating the initial conditions for those shortcomings to potentially prove fatal to the company.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once upon a time, CCP set out to build a game catering to a very hardcore, dedicated, confrontational and self-selecting species of players. Against all odds, they largely succeeded.<br />
As a result, EVE's user community shows a very strong sense of ownership of the playground, is prepared to act with purpose when it deems necessary, and routinely outwits and outguns CCP in the metagame of PR and crowd control. <i>[If you fail to see how that could backfire, please click the pic above.]</i><br />
At the end of the day, not only do EVE players pay for CCP's rent, they are in a position to dictate the agenda and expectations of investors and creditors about EVE's parent company.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Flash-forward to now, where CCP's single biggest problem is their being in denial about the very nature of their own product, and insisting on a mass-market makeover attempt that is entirely unrealistic, and from a business standpoint, self-destructive.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Everything points to CCP trying to turn EVE into an impulse-buyer addiction machine, in pursuit of the fabled riches of F2P, P2W, WGS and content-by-the-meter, and they're happy to trade their current niche customer base for a speculative crowd of ready-to-shear consumers.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">All vet bitterness and el33tism aside, this warrants the <i>'are you for real ?'</i> response of the players, who happen to know first-hand that EVE makes for a terribad ride on the <i>'displease no one'</i> route, because it's a bitch of a game, whose sole appeal lies in its spunk and quirkiness.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Mainstreaming EVE is, simply put, akin to force a racing sloop into the role of a ferryboat: you'd have to sit far inland and away from the docks to even contemplate the idea.</div></div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><blockquote><b>Bullets and points.</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Yesterday <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/06/biting-your-hand.html">I highlighted</a> what I reckon are <i>regretfully inevitable</i> steps to be taken asap, if CCP is to rebuild said trust, and I'd like to expand on that a bit. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>1 • Come clean.</b></div></div><br />
Over the past few years, CCP has been growing more defensive and wary of its own players. Being careful around rabid nerds is prudent, but CCP is way too nervous around their fans, which are trained (by EVE itself) to smell fear. Protip: it's not good.<br />
The only way out of that is to cut through the piles of botched damage control and insultingly clumsy spin attempts that have been the norm ever since the T20 incident, once and for all.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5rY3pICgVjdFrLqEyoluyo-F4O4fEQL2PjYVdAN4o9tvQUuYRtP_4fHGiGOqlyIHu7B9pYqREocvismvINzi6nFDFgQkoN76yMMRIXR49l_UzT2dHOuXLjr4-0xKTsQsVyaBUCl2mJxyW/s1600/Truth.jpg" /><br />
<i>The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.</i></div><br />
How CCP could ever dream this macrotransactions/P2W plan would work out is beyond me, but no matter how embarrassing or vexing the truth behind the monetization frenzy, CCP must lay it out on the table. Anything short of full disclosure will leave them vulnerable to more damning leaks and exposure (which <b>will</b> happen).<br />
<blockquote><b>Frox Niston</b> </blockquote><blockquote>The CSM is the perfect conduit to handle that. Call EVE TV in, sit the CSM and CCP brass in the lunch room, and stream a live Q&A for as long as takes, until the CSM and community are content they got all the answers they need, and believe what they hear.</blockquote>Will it butthurt ? Quite a bit, for sure. It will also make for insanely great PR, provided CCP manages to get out of bullshit mode — if just for a moment, even around the hour 5 mark, it will be worth it.<br />
Besides, it's not like CCP had anything to lose at this point: not to ham-fist it, but they have no face left to save by now, and they're down and bleeding out as it is.<br />
<br />
Catharsis is needed on both sides, I reckon. The players obviously need some sort of special gesture to mark a turning point in CCP's attitude, and I suspect once they start to unbottle, CCP staffers will feel a weight come off their shoulders, possibly allowing them to move past the unease and re-connect with their player base.<br />
It won't be all peaches and sparkly ponies after that (see <i>'Shake hands'</i>, below), but it will lay the groundwork for a healthy coexistence, which is worlds better than what they have now.<br />
<div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<b>2 • Pay the price, in blood.</b></div></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Unless everybody on the top floor of CCP HQ has been smoking crack, it seems likely the urge to introduce dubious income generating schemes without regard for general business sanity stems from a (perceived or real) urgent need for moar monies by CCP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There aren't ten possible causes for that:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<ul><li>CCP, at the behest of its major shareholders has been prodded into hyping growth and revenue potential in view of some cash-out scheme like an IPO or a sell-out to some major company.<br />
</li>
<li>CCP needs a cash infusion, and fast, to carry on with Dust/WoD development, and depends on making potential creditors or current investors hard for CCP by painting very optimistic figures of projected revenue for 2011-2012.<br />
</li>
<li>CCP has been cooking the books like crazy, and much less than 360k subscriptions are really paid for by actual customers, the rest being covered by CCP and hidden as Operating Expenses and R&D, meaning their burn rate is way worse than 10 million USD annual, and they can't keep the ponzi scheme going without an elephant-sized helping of cash.</li>
</ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At least that's the most sensible explanations for the recent <i>AtAllCostsByAnyMeansKillYourHorse</i> 'strategy'… Regardless, hype-based cash-injection plans are busted now, thanks to the PR shitstorm CCP just reaped.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The only hope of damage mitigation for CCP's investors and creditors is to bring the company in the black mom'n'pop style, lest they're prepared to cut their losses and sell for a song (if they can find a sucker to buy that melon).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>Looking at the bright side.</b> </blockquote><blockquote>Assuming CCP is not running a straight-on ponzi scheme (I'd give that a 74% vote of confidence and make it my working assumption for now), EVE on its own still looks like a nicely profitable operation, with enough earning capacity to fund projects like Carbon and possibly Incarna above and beyond EVE operations and <i>iterative development</i> expenses.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What can <b>not</b> be realistically funded from EVE ongoing revenues alone is two AAA games, one being a full-fledged MMORPG with a yet-to-figure income model. Once again, the options are limited, and something must give.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Based on <a href="http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Herschel/CCP_Financial_Statements_2010.pdf">2010 published figures</a>, CCP burns through about 63 million USD vs 53 million income, and shows a 6.5 million operating profit by filing 16.8 million in salaries as capitalization (sic). <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[Also of note is a whooping 9.8 million in marketing, a figure that's probably going up in 2011, like most other expenses, but we'll get back to that.]</span></i></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
At this writing, CCP has five major projects on the workbench, each of which costs money:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>EVE (ongoing development and operations)</li>
<li>Dust 514 (development)</li>
<li>WoD MMO (devlopment)</li>
<li>Carbon (core technology below EVE and presumably everything else to come)</li>
<li>Incarna (avatar/graphics engine for WoD, using EVE as testbed)</li>
</ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only one of those is generating income in the short term, to which the development costs associated with Dust 514, WoD and Incarna bring no added value as of yet, despite CCP attempts at shoehorning Incarna into EVE as a 'core feature' (which so far amounts to <i>creative</i> accounting, at best).</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_k65jgljTf5DbO1Wbl8L35SAxvqqv0hhsQRmHwHc3NzwRZwLSxcEW1whY1i7xPZ-hFqmmkugNVmCtmukZNToVHYnvHDHNFTMN7tRRhbj6c59sIZwayG8y7NH6qNPnZWOfmfwdkkn4aCwV/s640/YubitsumeMovie_1280.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><i>"Axe Twilight, Dust and Incarna tomorrow, and odds are we make money not just in the books but in the bank, too."</i></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: right;"><i>[Anonymous Coward — CCP employee]</i> </blockquote><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Without going that far, something has to be done to bring expenses in the ballpark of revenue, and it opens an opportunity to regain some level of credibility with the spacenerds crowd:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">At a time where EVE players have been given every reason to believe CCP is ready to <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?ccl135embyb6c2v">"suck their customers dry and leave their shriveled corpses by the side of the road"</a>, slaughtering one of the rival siblings may be the single best way for CCP to prove EVErs its commitment to the continued development and success of EVE.<br />
<br />
It goes beyond nerdrage-induced bloodlust, as CCP and the community will share both the memory and the responsibility for that sacrifice, which may very well be the price to pay to earn back the trust and loyalty CCP squandered over the last couple years.<br />
EVE players have learned by now that every time they've forgiven CCP for screwups and breaches of trust, they've only made the company bolder and more confident it could get away with <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5h3Gapocw_eI4LihmRdTJFfPRipDfS-7Wdgup7XGP5vMZNM9hgmsJuxpiM0RLzNpLWpSN9jARPNuNUn7cRGAGZtpxWTzpQCG7Oe9T4kmU7zvKdqwXOoJcYs8OpQ2vkqKBXFCs-vEZGvDJ/s1600/lie.jpg">anything</a>, and bullshit their way out of trouble with dev blogs about integrity, excellence and other e-honor nonsense.<br />
<br />
CCP was delusional in thinking their feeble spin-fu fooled the players, yet the players were fools, indeed, for thinking CCP would learn from simply being called out and admonested: not until it fears for its very existence will CCP learn not to bite the hand that feeds it.<br />
As an added bonus, the CCPers who care most for EVE and its community may get a chance to shine.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>One for the team… anyone ?</b></blockquote>All reliable indicators point in the same direction regarding Dust 514: CCP is too deep in already to back down without potentially fatal consequences. Not being privy to the details of their partnership with Sony, I can't say for sure, but I suspect SOE would have no qualms suing CCP into oblivion, were they to default on whatever Faustian pact they're bound by.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">White Wolf, though, sits at the other end of the spectrum, being wholly-owned by CCP (or 'merged' if you want to be nice about it), and while the WoD MMO can depend on an established and eager Vampire fanbase to help reach profitability (if it's even half-decent), it's also the easiest branch to trim to balance the books.<br />
<br />
EVE and Dust are designed to benefit from each other as they share IP and brand recognition. Dust has the potential to reach to a different and much larger audience than EVE, thanks to its (hopefully) pick up'n'play experience, while leveraging EVE's e-cred of hardcore-ness and extr3me sandboxery, the latter offering a natural <i>end game</i> option to the most eager of Dust players.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Whether axing/pinning WoD would be enough to keep both EVE and Dust on track financially, I obviously can't say, but the opportunity cost seems bearable, assuming Dust 514 starts making decent money fast enough after launch, and launch happens before 2014.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><b>3 • Shake hands.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
This is the tricky part, really — the rest is merely painful.<br />
Once CCP has repented and bled a pint of blood for the cause (see what I did here ?), time will come to carry on, and make the best of this second chance, both for CCP, EVE players, and the games.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFyf6exUFvjS59QsjTOGdtFoy_xwFKdZdTkMMHMIWvg9zSUdliYuNNw72OmR21y5QhmfBqR0-iVokNCPE4Y2H744aNP-81mbZHGlp0dIDHjkpiwSiG5V1x0avwaJ9LPJE5Qd1ndhYMvp0R/s1600/bush-and-king-abdullah.jpg" /></div><blockquote><i>"The situation between CCP and the EVE player base is so rotten… salvaging the relationship requires more than CCP getting their act together and catering to their base: they'll have to learn to actually speak the truth when they have unpopular news to break, and to ensure the buy-in of their stakeholders.<br />
When you have only one product on the market, and all your customers belong to a single, opinionated community, you don't alienate that community, and you recognize they are, indeed, stakeholders.<br />
The love story is over, there's no pretending otherwise: it's time to move on and learn how to be 'just friends'."</i></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"></div><br />
EVE doesn't need to grow to 5 million customers and treat them like braindead popcorn gobblers to be good bizns for CCP — exactly the opposite.<br />
<ul><li>EVE has a reputation for being hardcore, challenging, and epicly sandboxy.</li>
<li>It also has a reputation for cheating devs, haxploits, botched ergonomics, inconsistent design (and now, attempting to ransom its users).</li>
</ul>Only one of these sets is made of stuff that needs fixing.<br />
<br />
Were EVE the total sum of CCP's product line, its extreme aspects could be limiting, business wise, but as a mythos locomotive for a wider franchise, it's precisely what it should be: the narrow end of the wedge, making way for the softer, larger pieces. [Mixing metaphors to the power of <i>:awesome:</i> I am.]<br />
<div><br />
<blockquote><b>Figure the EVE out.</b></blockquote></div><div>With EVE's role clearly defined and followed through, CCP could save about 4 million bucks yearly on marketing alone. EVE is enough of a drama engine and media-magnet that it could keep growing its userbase by 15% yearly without a dime spent on advertising, provided the word-of-mouth was good more often than not.<br />
When Dust is ready to roll out, it can piggyback that fametrain to supercharge the bang for every advertising buck thrown at its promotion.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The way to achieve that is simple: focus on making what's already in game work as it should, and ban SCRUMM from the game design floor. …also get people on the <b>game design</b> floor.</div><div><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">As stated repeatedly (not just by me): rapid-iterative design and agile programming is good for balancing rockets, not sovereignty warfare. </div>EVE needs a holistic master plan, and this plan needs to be run by the community, the CSM, and re-drawn until it's deemed workable <b>and</b> beneficial to the game as a whole.<br />
Only then is it worth coding.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Tool up, work smart.</b></blockquote>Create (or buy) a decent and accessible way for players to report bugs with feedback, tracking and rewards for bughunters built-in. Commit HR to QA.<br />
Add a tiered 'crowd sourcing' toolset to figure what players need/want the most added next, have them pledge ISK to weigh the votes (you should put that to a vote, too).<br />
You don't want to design by committee, or rule the game through universal suffrage, but taking advice and co-opting ideas from people who know your game better than you do is not surrendering to the mob, or admitting incompetence: it's being a smart game designer.<br />
When you need a wheel, don't try to grind the angles off a square: get a wheelmaker aboard.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Integrate Dust and EVE at the design level.</b></blockquote>You know you want Dust players to fight on planets, and somehow tie that to EVE sovereignty system: great !<br />
Now iron out the precise game mechanics and rules <b>before</b> you code anything.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Let my people go.</b></blockquote>I understand CCP fancies itself a family, I understand you have an elder's circle "the magic nine" (or something). That's cute, but it's time to send some of them chase rabbits on the farm upstate. As much as I like quirky clubs, being ginger and having a name with a lot of consonants is not a good benchmark for aptitude: give them an associate producer plaque, pick up their pub tab and wipe out their access pass to the srs bzns floors at the HQ, you'll thank me later.<br />
Also, contrary to documentation and sex, bad economists are worse than no economists. Having statisticians, economists and academics on board is a GoodIdea™, but I suspect you'd be better off with gun-for-hire consults than your village idiot (hit me up for pointers if you don't know who to hire).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
In a few words: stop fearing your community, embrace the fact you depend on each other (but you more than they), and accept once and for all you do have mutual ownership of the playground, in different capacities.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifHN9cpLog0j9KlrlBEmDWswurq917WG48n_E8CBXwuQGrL65RNAu0JXK_FrE8diwlFTXIHku4u6jjGa9vCmY8JFua7HcCg5WsVnQCLqdZjAyHjkNZdqmzDQRvc8eAZvjnfsU_u22FZD3d/s1600/BanskyBombGirl.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifHN9cpLog0j9KlrlBEmDWswurq917WG48n_E8CBXwuQGrL65RNAu0JXK_FrE8diwlFTXIHku4u6jjGa9vCmY8JFua7HcCg5WsVnQCLqdZjAyHjkNZdqmzDQRvc8eAZvjnfsU_u22FZD3d/s1600/BanskyBombGirl.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">ttfn, but <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/07/veni-vedi.html">more to come</a>.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">***</div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[PSupdate: no, I have nothing against WoD, and I reckon it could make a great game, if done right, something CCP obviously can't manage in its present state of disarray.]</i></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-33232034482403453212011-06-30T01:22:00.008+00:002011-09-09T02:33:53.187+00:00Biting your hand.<div style="text-align: justify;">Working assumption: CCP needs more than they currently get from EVE to keep the freight load of WoD and Dust development rolling, and reckon just overheating a tad the old locomotive boiler won't do it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">In short, they need to borrow money, and they're fine with selling their coal-car to buy a new suit and enough bubbly, leather seats and drapes to impress the bankers — hoping EVE will be nice enough to keep running on its momentum and look the part until moar funds are secured.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The sad thing is they probably are going to drive their entire train off the rails and into the ground before even they run out of coal, when they could still save the entire operation by showing the least bit of common sense — although I'm not entirely sure to which extent it's still up to them by now.<br />
<br />
<div center;"="" text-align:=""><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ziGPeO1C8QGVWGW3JKml85XKqILJErHuwdqNaHi47xFYKOPjxo6AhO8gKwdFnuNYhAUYpUAKVhknOAeS9zrLdrnQ8_2tzMnhU7oaeeIts_lrQShu0rGLftxATsv5Yhox28peS7aMYPYW/s640/article-1390648-0C3E513200000578-234_634x388.jpg" width="634" /></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">I'm not privy to the secrets of the gods, and not even to those of Icelandic blowhards, so I obviously can't say for sure why CCP figured it was a good idea to slaughter their lone cash cow in the name of overpriced carpaccio.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On its face, it seems pretty clear they want to make more money like, yesterday, but it could be a tad more twisted, because CCP is far from a family shop nowadays, and the majority of shares in no longer in the hands of CCP founders or current directors and employees.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The garage studio that could now has to answer to VCs, like most startup with fuzzy business plan, and not much of a revenue model beyond IPO day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">At that could be the root of all ebil here, that CCP doesn't need money as much as it wants to look like it could make a lot of money, leading them to jump with two feet into 'it' stuff like VGS on dual currency and macrotransactions, because that's what's touted as the new Eldorado of games profitability.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It would go a long way toward explaining why they're going at it like they're chasing a bus, flailing their way into disaster and embarrassment: they've no clue how to retrofit those fancy monetization schemes onto their old locomotive, and try to compensate for their obvious insecurity with clingy assertiveness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>Local in Jita.</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Whether the entire monetization is sound business doesn't really concern CCP directorate, because what they're presumably going for is really a quick scam: leverage their exceptional track record for cheap and lasting customer acquisition and retention, and pretend it can mix nicely with overpriced handjobs for tourists.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">How does this make sense ? Because on paper, to a clueless banker, it would.</div><blockquote><b>Here's the elevator pitch:</b></blockquote><blockquote><i>"We've been growing our paying customer base non stop for 8 years, and we manage to retain more of them, longer than about anyone in the business, and now we want to take it to the next level !<br />
With VGS and microtransactions, we can basically print money… a lot of it, considering we own a devout fanbase that will pay anything to be part of the EVE experience."</i></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I want to believe they know it's bullshit, but hey, in a void it could look good enough to persuade a banker to hand over a few dozen million dollars to see it through.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>And then what ?</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm glad you asked, but I'm afraid you might be sorry I answered: brace yourselves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In CCP twisted analysis, it doesn't matter if they kill EVE in the process of securing funds to make Dust and WoD, because they believe it's their shot at making it big. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">CCP wants to go global, and somehow believe VGS, microtransactions and bazillion users are the one path to infinite profit, something EVE is terribly ill-suited to, with being too niche and full of an entrenched player base of annoying bittervets.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">From their perspective, either EVE adapts and reaches to a wider audience of more docile customers ready to gobble for-pay content, or it dies, taking down with it the annoying noises of its contrarian old user base. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">While CCP would obviously prefer the former, the relief of being rid of the naggy old wife would make it worth losing money in the divorce.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>We didn't want those subscriptions anyway.</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Unfortunately, financial and empirical reality sometimes intersect, and EVE is haemorrhaging susbscribers as we speak, making a mess of the place that will be hard to hide from the would-be loaners, bringing the very survival of CCP and EVE into question.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">After the two-day emergency session <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=934">starting in a few hours</a>, the CSM will be able to report on <i>:teamawesome:</i> mental state (I'm quite confident CCP lacked the foresight to include a provision in the NDA stopping CSM members from expressing honest opinions about CCP turning batshit insane), and judging from <a href="http://treborofthecsm.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-stages-of-csming.html">recent</a> <a href="http://seleenes-sandbox.blogspot.com/2011/06/good-morning-ccp.html">public</a> <a href="http://treborofthecsm.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-stages-of-csming.html">statements</a> from prominent members, the CSM is bringing more <a href="http://failheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2522">loaded briefcases</a> than hugs and strawberries to the reunion.</div><br />
And that's the healthiest thing that can happen to CCP directorate at this point, assuming they manage to get their heads out of the hákarl-stinking sand for a minute: connect with the reality that EVE is close to die on them, and that it means curtains for CCP, as nobody's coming to the rescue. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The only valuable assets CCP ever held were talent, vision, track record, a solid established user base and a crazy level of customer goodwill. That's quite a lot, come to think of it, yet CCP has gone out of its way to prove nothing (actionable) remains of the former, and to squander the latter through hubris, aloofness and incompetence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>Gnawing your leg off the steel-jaw.</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">CCP doesn't have any serious source of income but EVE until Dust and/or WoD hit the market, and nobody will trust the CCP-that-killed-EVE with the cash injection they'd need to complete either of their other projects, much less both.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Any way you look at it, if EVE doesn't pull through, CCP is done — even <i>:teamawesome:</i> must be starting to get the clue by now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The only way out for CCP starts with regaining the trust of the very customers they were looking forward to dump (and who know it too well by now).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yeah, that's a tall order but it can still be done, in just a few, however painful, steps.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Come clean.</li>
<li>Pay the price, in blood (preferably CCP's, the players have been sucked dry already).</li>
<li>Shake hands.</li>
</ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Short of that, EVE is very much likely to be a goner, or at least too weak to subsidize a 600-person company beyond 2011, by which time CCP may find itself circling too close to the drain to realistically hope regain escape velocity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>[To be <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/07/escape-from-black-hole.html">continued</a>.]</i></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-47759821213385927952011-06-29T15:53:00.004+00:002011-06-29T16:00:35.030+00:00A quick reminder.<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>We're shooting pixels at pixels. </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>At face value this is an activity devoid of both purpose and meaning.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The one reason it matters to us is because we agree to believe others care for the same thing(s) we do.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>In that sense we're sharing some essential values, and thusly create worth out of nothing.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://xkcd.com/904/"><br />
<img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFDsZrfDjw2Ryv8EKTs9AKSpcu5ngeTu8XGGWkBdw1pcFBEDs8j10bQHcsWXoZ70joGYWX6AAb6Z3zkUKUIa-4S6Ew2loX4wrrbE-D8Pii-zqkRdH0tDzQLvN6oN4FawL54d869FzeFPDN/s320/sports.png" width="240" /></a><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><br />
The divorce between CCP and its players is the consequence of the company making painfully clear they don't share any values but $$ with their make-believe world's denizens.<br />
This makes us feel silly, and therefore upset for being made fools of.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">In EVE parlance, it's a <i>fair scam</i>, and we're the suckers for falling for it.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">At the end of the day, CCP, I'm afraid we can't have each other's stuff anymore.</div><div style="text-align: right;">Good luck with your future endeavours.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Oh, and <a href="http://files.innomi.com/get.php/4e0962f3a3cb9/Comments%20on%20CCP%20hf%202010%20Financial%20Statements.pdf">this</a>.</div></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-28354376753577812182011-06-28T23:41:00.003+00:002011-06-29T04:20:07.655+00:00The Perpetuum temptation<div style="text-align: justify;">Time and time over I've had to justify to others (and occasionally to myself) my lasting involvement with EVE online, considering how frequently it may seem I scorn EVE, its parent company CCP and even the EVE player community, parts or whole. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I could write walls of text about the many things that make it all interesting to me (and I have the walls of text to prove it), but it can be boiled down to a simple choice of nothing vs something, however unsatisfying:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><blockquote><i>CCP may be a greedy, unfriendly, obnoxious shopkeeper with a bad temper and a family of inbreds for staff, and sure, they tend to drop cigar ash and the occasional gravel-for-capers on the pizza, and sure, you have to suffer redneck patrons chanting klu-klox anthems and puking in the dining dining room during happy hour, but New Eden's the only pizza place in this sad town, where you can't import a wood oven for under 60 million bucks.</i></blockquote><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once upon a time, CCP bottled lightning by creating a game that was going precisely against everything the MMO industry of then deemed sound business for anything bigger and costlier than a hobbyist-ran MU*.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not only did they consistently show the industry <i>'common wisdom'</i> for what it's worth by not going under, they endured for about 8 years while growing their user base and paying subs every single quarter.<br />
What is better is they managed to do so for a good long while without paying any significant tribute to the highway robbers of the online games industry (no-value-added retail chain and PR/ad noisemakers), instead relying on their players to promote, educate and support newcomers, thus creating the perfect soil for a niche game: a proselyte, self-selecting community of rabid fans, willing to cope with anything for the cause. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Until…</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">*</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">At some point in the last 3-5 years, CCP apparently lost sight of the fact most of the things that went right until then, they owed to their players handling for CCP most of everything not directly code-related (PR, advertising, CS, QA, community building), on top of paying the rent.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Increasingly, both in community management, marketing and game design, CCP came to shit on their fans' heads, betraying their trust too often and in too many ways to list here, thus squandering the biggest asset they'd built until then (and seemingly failed to fully grasp the value of): customer goodwill.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As it went on, players naturally started looking for a plan B: another game to pour their time, love and money in, rather than EVE, and they found there was none.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Seeing that, CCP throughly missed the point, and figured everything was peachy since the numbers were looking good, and the subs kept rising.<br />
Sure, the suckers were making weird noises once in a while, but apparently they were willing and able to take anything thrown at them, and presumably liked it rough.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What CCP failed to see is how their main accomplishment to date had been to raise the bar of expectations for their player niche, while consistently falling short of the goals they'd set for themselves (CCP, not the players).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a result, CCP now reigned over a quasi-captive market of people who certainly wouldn't settle for anything less than EVE in terms of core features (PvP, sandbox, territorial warfare, freeform competition, no power-leveling grind, etc.), but who found increasingly hard to cope with EVE and CCP's shortcomings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">* </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Flash forward to now, when CCP has managed to botch things so severely on so many fronts it's not certain they can come back from the edge of the cliff they're sliding toward — CCP legendary smooth handling on slippery grounds being in full play…</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the first time in EVE history, because things are worse than ever in EVE and because there is now a tentative alternative offer on the market, spacenerds are fleeing New Eden in droves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not just rage-quitting (or claiming to), but migrating en-masse to <a href="http://www.perpetuum-online.com/">another game</a> that boasts most of EVE's core features, minus the suck. Also it's a new game, from a debuting company (thus no bad history), so hope is permitted.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdHBRcS9xkGaPCAoDhhA3rdj_avM1jkcIoTNwDV53EIBb8o6Ncc7YmkDxmy6IiXbToT6qhM9t1uMGB-osk-UGbmF2fjHPz4-SKPQs7QSTzFH5rJMzKBYv0v_r6mbqQNyWG516tBv1TgwDf/s1600/perpetuum-online-pc-1101.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdHBRcS9xkGaPCAoDhhA3rdj_avM1jkcIoTNwDV53EIBb8o6Ncc7YmkDxmy6IiXbToT6qhM9t1uMGB-osk-UGbmF2fjHPz4-SKPQs7QSTzFH5rJMzKBYv0v_r6mbqQNyWG516tBv1TgwDf/s1600/perpetuum-online-pc-1101.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="http://www.perpetuum-online.com/News">Perpetuum</a>, the soon-to-be-imploded game that coulda.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I believe this will end in tears, due to the gap between what players coming from 6-year-old EVE (dismissing all the terribad design decisions of the last couple years) expect to be the bare minimum, and what a <i>just-outta-beta</i> game, presumably developed on the MMO equivalent a shoestring as a labour of love can realistically deliver.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also because just 10% of the EVE population moving into Perpetuum on short notice would out-demographic the pants off its existing player community, and that's never easy to deal with.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Is there something for the EVE player in Perpetuum ? Presumably yes, since it's essentially a reformulation of EVE, with mechas in place of spaceships, which retains most of the defining elements and a good chunk of the familiar UI/content features, and makes generally about as much (or as little) sense as its inspiration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course they hate it over there when you say <a href="http://www.perpetuum-online.com/Features">EVE with Mechas</a>, but it really is, in many ways, and I don't see a problem with that: I have the utmost respect for the work Blizzard has done with WoW, which design-wise is nothing but a better version of all PvE-centric pointy-eared theme park MMORPGs that came before it, all rolled into one and with better make-up and 'do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Will <i>I</i> take the plunge ? Probably not, because I don't play much (anymore) already due to RL reasons, and because Perpetuum design elements include a few personal deal-breakers that I couldn't get past from a pure gameplay perspective. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">…but I digress.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My point was/is: people who will stick with EVE in the next weeks and months won't do it out of love, they'll do it because of lack of alternative.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Perpetuum somehow survives the first mass invasion of EVEtards (which I hope they will, but doubt), I predict they'll make a killing, as long as they don't pull a CCP and expose their soft parts with blunders such as the T20 excursion, Titan Doomsdays, Dominion sovereignty, or FearlessGate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;">*</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To address that, CCP will probably adjust their platinum monocle, plug their ears with their fingers and chant:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>"We're awesome ! Fearless ! United ! Nobody can touch us !"</i> </div><br />
…until the repo men start pulling hardware from TQ… but just in case they want to salvage their relationship with the suckers who pay the rent, they should take stock of that.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><i>This girl isn't just being moody, the only reason she's still here is because she's chained to a cinderblock, in your hut, on a glacier.<br />
Also, the chain is getting rusty, and if climate change is not 'just a theory' she may be able to hike it out of here by the end of summer, and you'll have to learn to cook for yourself.</i></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[Come to think of it, since I'm nice that way, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I may give Perpetuum another try (it's been a while) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">if only to tell you what I think of the game in its present state.]</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-67136251237633099842011-06-27T04:14:00.004+00:002011-06-29T04:19:31.394+00:00Food, not filler.In case you feel like reading more about CCP's suicide attempt (still bleeding as we speak), here's <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/26/eve-evolved-the-day-that-eve-online-died/">a pretty decent write up</a> of the situation with some nice background from Brendan Brain, over at Massively.com.<br />
<br />
Don't be put off by the doomsayer title, because: 1) the content is better than the cover in this case, and 2) it could actually be spot on.AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-68715445050902404522011-06-26T11:00:00.008+00:002011-06-29T04:21:09.261+00:00Biting the hand.<div style="text-align: justify;">tl;dr</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">EVE is not a global brand, it's a niche game that gets a lot of media attention, as a result of which its parent company is suffering from delusions of grandeur.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">More accurately, EVE is a cult, meaning it matters quite a lot to a very small subset of the general population, everyone involved tends to suffers from chronic cognitive bias and the occasional hallucinatory excursion, and sane people either laugh at you, avoid you, or both — but you make great gossip material.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Words of wisdom for CCP: it's freakishly hard to transition from a barn-sized cult to a mainstream church: secret societies typically don't survive an open-door policy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My suggestion: keep EVE players happy as pigs in the mud, EVE is the PR machine that will give to any <a href="http://www.dust514.com/en/home/">'mainstream' spinoff</a> you churn that edgy shine kids love so much.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: center;">*</div><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b><br />
Army of ghosts:</b> how EVE is niche-er than CCP acknowledges.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A couple years ago, EVE online's subscriptions count crossed the 320k mark, and CCP and fans everywhere can't stop bragging since, about how EVE is now bigger than its home country. That's cute, and also a reminder that EVE is a very niche game, something CCP seems to have mixed feelings about, as they're now trying to go big with Dust 514, their next title and first attempt at the console market.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To be fair, EVE has been an undisputed success, possibly the only subscription based MMO to grow steadily since its launch, which happened eight full years ago. It also takes the lead among MMOs in terms of how much the gameplay has transformed over the years, with some now-core elements such as territorial warfare introduced years after launch and overhauled twice since (arguably for the worst, but what killed SWG, EVE survived). </div><div style="text-align: justify;">No other MMO has generated as much noise and commentary both in the gaming and mainstream media (results for "<a href="http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&q=eve+online#q=eve+online&hl=en&tbm=nws">EVE Online</a>" and "<a href="http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&q=world+of+warcraft#q=world+of+warcraft&hl=en&tbm=nws">World of Warcraft</a>" in Google News) ; even the once-media darling that is Second Life (despite Linden's protestations that SL is 'not a game') never came close to the slightly creepy fascination EVE can evoke in people who don't even play it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>You precious, unique snowflake…</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">EVE is very much of a homegrown species, created by a first-timer studio from Iceland, a locale that until then wasn't exactly known for its gaming industry might.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Numbers-wise, EVE is also an oddity: </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://mmodata.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">While its subscribers base puts it in the lowest bracket of the big-name MMOs, it's by a long shot the largest subs-based game in terms of how many players can be present at once and interact in one shard, with PCU routinely hovering between 25k and 45k depending on time of the day, and single 'rooms' (solar systems) hosting upwards of a thousand players shooting each other in the face.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So yeah, EVE is special, in more than one way, but it's all in the past, or at least some of it is. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Strong of about 600 staffers across offices in the UK, US and China in addition to Reykjavik, with a profitable franchise/joint-venture for distribution of EVE online on the Chinese market, and two new titles underway, CCP means srs bzns now, and won't take any shit from the fat nerds that got'em there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">CCP now fancies itself a global powerhouse, may very well be on its way to become one indeed, and its players' sense of entitlement and ownership of the game are starting to get on the company brass nerves, nevermind the fact it's those same fans devotion to the game that carried CCP and its flagship product through 8 years of sometimes rough terrain and oft-amateurish operations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Could it be that the whole drama is nothing but a classic case of early fans turning against their old flame as they feel betrayed, watching the band leave them behind them as it sells out ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sure, there's a bit of that, I suppose, but everyone involved could be in for a rude awakening, because today, CCP would be a sellout for nothing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The wannabe global empire rests on a single title, CCP's sole source of income to date: EVE Online, the spreadsheet simulator.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It takes a special kind of twisted nerd to play such a monster, and pay for the privilege.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>Familiarity breeds contempt…</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">In one shape or another, many among CCP senior staff have been around EVE for over half a decade, and are more excited about moving on to the new than sticking with the old and its community: bitter vets who know them all too well, and whiny noobs who don't know jack about how it was back then.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Worse even, due to CCP long-standing tradition of recruiting from within its fanbase, many staffers have been forced by the realities of business to distance themselves from the player community — which they slowly came to resent for it — all the while pretending they're still <i>one of them</i>, resulting in schizophrenic levels of doublespeak and perpetual stumbling from corporate dronetalk to unnatural brosef soundbites.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Again, part of that files under <i>growing pains</i>, a problem of corporate culture in the making faced by every boutique shop turning into a multi-offices, hundreds of employee mass-market company.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>Except here too, EVE is special. </b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">A rock band that gets its break and starts to make it big doesn't have to keep it close and personal with the fans from its garage days but for the few they bring along as roadies and pets. Those early groupies soon fade in the faceless stadium crowds, and become a non-quantity — but not so with EVE.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Old EVErs are now the movers and shakers of the player community, and talking with the fans is much trickier when they have a say about how you should tune your axe, and call you on it when you phone in a song.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On top of that, while EVE may have started making money around 40k subs, and the accounts may have increased tenfold since, the player base most likely hasn't grown in proportion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>This doesn't add up.</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">CCP doesn't publish such numbers, so it's all guesstimates, but from hanging-at-the-pub statistics, I'd expect the ratio of accounts to players to average circa 4 to 1, maybe even 5 to 1. Lots of people may have just the one lone account, yet while I don't exactly cultivate a social network of old timers in EVE, I still know more people with 10+ accounts than I have fingers, and fewer with less than 2 than I have nostrils.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Simple maths tell me, conservatively, that (10*fingers+1*nostril-1)/parts=9.19, but I should factor in a bunch of peeps I know with 3-5 accounts, and that gets me to 4.94 accts per player.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Whichever way I look at it, I doubt the total number of paid-for subs in EVE splits wider than 80k or 100k people, which goes a long way towards explaining why CCP doesn't release these numbers, as it doesn't look very impressive to fall in the same bracket as, say PotBS or AO (pre-F2P).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">This gets worse when you consider how many people pay their subs from PLEX bought with ISK and wouldn't dream of forking RL$ to play EVE: the final headcount of people who actually pick the tab for the whole may turn out to fit in the FanFest <i>big partey</i> venue (more on that in next episode).</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">CCP doesn't have the numbers, either, and that may be part of why they handle their customer loyalty with so little care, because they fail to realize the fate of the company may hinge on the goodwill of much fewer people than it looks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>How many tears before you can tell it's ruined ?</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">This is not the first time CCP and its players have gone at each other's throat in a dance of betrayal, mistrust and accusations of cheating and greed, mind you…</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The whole culture of EVE is one which encourages distrust, paranoia and selfishness, and the border between in-game evildoing and corporate or civil malfeasance (not to mention the occasional felony) is often crossed, at least in people's minds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">That some at CCP have come to nurture a cold hatred for their players is par for the course, considering the abuse and accusations thrown their way daily for years on end, yet players have every reason to doubt the word of a company which has proven more than once not to be above self-complacency, nepotism, gross negligence and generally lacking ethics as a game manager.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>From PvP to PvD</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">The original breach of trust, the Watergate of New Eden was probably the one incident where a CCP employee was publicly exposed by a third party as giving out free strategic resources to his 'former' in-game alliance (which happened to be the biggest powerbloc of the time and frequently accused of cheating and developer favoritism). </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some fishy stuff happened before, and since, but this one was as clear cut as murky businesses can come, and CCP botched their crisis management in <i>:awesome:</i> proportions, giving credit to every half-baked conspiracy theory of yore, and fueling those to come.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What damaged the relationship with the playerbase, more even than the event itself, was the proverbial coverup, with CCP handling the situation late, reluctantly, killing the messenger first thing (ie: permabanning) and starting a "committee" as only response (whether they should have sacked the employee is not for me to judge, but that they didn't certainly contributed to the appearance of his misconduct being endorsed by the company).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The T20 crisis, as it would come to be known, and a damage control which roughly amounted to "Sorry we got caught" marked a turning point in CCP-players relationship. Up until then, the players' working assumption in case of a cockup had been "shit happens", but after that shifted to "what are they hiding now ?". </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is in this light that other events that could have been attributed to reasonable incompetence have ever since been deemed outright malicious by the EVE player community — occasionally they were right, but mostly they weren't, and wrongful accusations encouraged CCP neither toward competence nor honesty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recent major examples include:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><ul><li>The end of ghost training.</li>
<li>Changes to T2 recipes making Techtenium the new pink and turning northern 0.0 from crap to goldmines (suspicions of favoritism and collusions with the northern political block).</li>
<li>Changes in sovereignty rules/mechanics right before or after the fall of some territorial power block (too many to count).</li>
<li>Nerfing/not nerfing supercapitals, jump bridges, sovereignty immunity (pick your consipracy).</li>
<li>The shuffling of 0.0 PVE resources (with truesec refactoring).</li>
<li>And now: pay2win and dry-bleeding of EVE…</li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;">…presumably to fund st00pid Dust 514, according to the tinfoil brigade — and can you blame them ?<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Next episode will show you why Dust, AUR and VGS are good for EVE — no kidding.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-55344770634595471402011-06-25T22:12:00.004+00:002011-06-29T05:03:01.655+00:00My name is Hilmar,<div style="text-align: justify;">…and I have no clue why people pay for EVE online.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I postponed my followup post about <i>'how to do virtual sales right'</i> (in the context of EVE online) because the proverbial feces scattered through the revolving contraption in the meantime, specifically as <a href="http://www.evenews24.com/2011/06/25/ccp-hilmar-global-email-shows-the-reasoning-behind-ccp-zulu-devblog/">this</a> went public.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Long story short, we're led to believe an internal email from CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson to "ccp global list" (which we have to assume is the general mailing list read by many to most employees — at least on the EVE front) has been leaked to <a href="http://www.evenews24.com/">EVEnews24</a>.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://eve-search.com/thread/1539480"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirsLd0zxDtQAxRiRmibbNqbMpyJvAeVRLGD7dq8emFc9qbpFYPeQ2A1mPmdCmW8FBFHP1hDCqebVlsF_J-kAzec0FxwIcn0NDDNrniL4U7n4rJuzvcipL8xTpP8sqTo93jYynICQ9eMHCF/s1600/distortionfield.png" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">There's no bulletproof certainty about the source, and EVEnews24 editor's confidence is not entirely reassuring considering their track record, but it looks solid enough for the community to have gone up in arms over it. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[Update: it has been confirmed since to really be Hilmar's.]</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm going to play along and comment the thing under the assumption it's the real deal, because while I'm not entirely sure the community outrage is as well-placed as it should, there is cause for concern, here.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">"We live in interesting times; in fact CCP is the kind of company that if things get repetitive we instinctively crank it up a notch. That, we certainly have done this week. First of we have Incarna, an amazing technological and artistic achievement. A vision from years ago realized to a point that no one could have imaged but a few months ago. It rolls out without a hitch, is in some cases faster than what we had before, this is the pinnacle of professional achievement. For all the noise in the channel we should all stand proud, years from now this is what people will remember.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">But we have done more, not only have we redefined the production quality one can apply to virtual worlds with the beautiful Incarna but we have also defined what it really means to make virtual reality more meaningful than real life when it comes to launching our new virtual goods currency, Aurum.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Naturally, we have caught the attention of the world. Only a few weeks ago we revealed more information about DUST 514 and now we have done it again by committing to our core purpose as a company by redefining assumptions. After 40 hours we have already sold 52 monocles, generating more revenue than any of the other items in the store.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This we have done after months of research by a group of highly competent professionals, soliciting input and perspective from thought leaders and experts in and around our industry. We have communicated our intention here internally in very wide circles through the Virtual Economy Summit presentation at the GSM, our Fearless newsletter, sprint reviews, email lists and multiple other channels. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Currently we are seeing _very predictable feedback_ on what we are doing. Having the perspective of having done this for a decade, I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say. Innovation takes time to set in and the predictable reaction is always to resist change.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We went out with a decisive strategy on pricing and we will stay the course and not flip flop around or knee jerk react to the predictable. That is not saying nothing will change, on the contrary, in fact we know that success in this space is through learning and adapting to _what is actually happening_ and new knowledge gained in addition to what we knew before and expected.</span> </blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">All that said, I couldn't be prouder of what we have accomplished as a company, changing the world is hard and we are doing it as so many times before! Stay the course, we have done this many times before."</span></blockquote><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Now, half of this is internal cheertalk and not worth commenting beyond calling it what it is: CCP has not "defined what it really means to make virtual reality more meaningful than real life", because 1) that sentence doesn't make any sense in any known language out of the Church of Scientology, and 2) if it did, they haven't.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dual currency has been done, <a href="http://www.puzzlepirates.com/">better</a> <a href="http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/using-dual-currency-systems-is-the-best-way-to-sell-virtual-goods/">before</a>, and Hilmar's just trying to claim <a href="http://scoopertino.com/apple-blasts-into-supermarkets-with-revolutionary-apple-water/">CCP invented drinking</a> as they're launching a line of glassware.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://scoopertino.com/apple-blasts-into-supermarkets-with-revolutionary-apple-water/"><img border="0" height="624" src="http://scoopertino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/apple_water_page.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Then there's the meat of the communication.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Where Hilmar is right:</b> actions speak louder than words.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Users don't know what they want until they get it, they also don't know what's good for them half the time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">More often than not, polling is an exercise in self-deception as people lie or misinterpret the questions and what's expected of them, and (mis)react accordingly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So yes, a threadnaught was to be expected, and yes, looking at sales figures in the NeX may tell a lot about how people really feel about the price point, and so would a close monitoring of actual cancellations of subs, to see how they match (or not) the public outrage expressed by EVE players.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Where Hilmar is wrong:</b> this duck is crossing the road, with a flamethrower.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">What's happening is not run'o'the mill stuff unfolding exactly as predicted by the "highly competent professionals, […] thought leaders and experts in and around our industry", in three different ways:</div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;">There have been a few twists since the battle plan was drawn, starting with the leakage of Fearless (which interestingly enough is not mentioned here), and, in alluring meta-fashion, in the release of this very email where Hilmar handwaves the issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Most so-called experts in the field are quacks. Seriously, anyone who claims they know what they're doing in this business is at least embellishing, or is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect">too dumb to rely on</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">There is no game on the market that compares to EVE from a business and social dynamics standpoint, making hardly transposable whatever expertise has been garnered in the field of tomato sauce consumer studies.</li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Whether Hilmar himself is suffering from severe confirmation bias or smoothtalking his readers is hard to tell, but when he dances a gig about selling 3 grand of virtual monocles in 40 hours, presumably expecting it to be only the beginning, or at least not the end, of the virtual items shop-a-looza, he's not so subtly circling the elephant in the room: how much customer goodwill CCP could be losing in this adventure.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Assuming more than 52 fools are willing to shell $60 for half a pair of virtual shades, or the same fools are repeat offenders, the launch sales are projecting into a whooping $ 56,160 monthly revenue for CCP, to put next to the roughly 6 million bucks brought home by subs every month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It takes only 3744 accounts less to offset completely this profit, and that's not even starting to factor whatever resources were spent creating the shop and virtual goods on sale there, which can't have been cheap — we're talking about a company that <a href="http://www.machine9.net/blog/?p=592">burned 72,000 developers hours to fail at skinning an open source forum package</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, will CCP lose three to four thousand subs to this debacle, and will monocles sales keep up or falter ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My bet is yes, eventually, and neither: they'll plummet just a bit from 31 to about 2-ish a day (because someone will have both a fetish, role-play twins, an a gift to get podded daily).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And that's the core of the issue: the pleb outrage will subside after a while, replaced by apathy, but what will be lost for the long haul is yet-another chunk of customer loyalty, something which CCP doesn't seem to understand is (or was) EVE's single most valuable asset, especially at a time when they're trying to leverage the EVE brand, universe and mythos to gain traction for their <a href="http://www.dust514.com/en/home/">next big thing</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What we're seeing right now is people up in arms because they feel betrayed by a company that <i>Surprise!</i> is in for the money after all, and sucks at hiding it, yet also because they fear this is only the beginning of a <i>pay2win</i> model which is heresy to the blood, sweat & tears mythos of EVE. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The suckers are only half wrong, in that the <i>pay2win</i> thing is a very real possibility (albeit more likely through incompetence than malice), while the heartbreak over CCP revealing themselves as greedy whores goes to show the reason people were happy to pay CCP's fees, once upon a time, rooted at least in part in the players' belief that CCP wasn't in <i>'just for the money'</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Coming back from this is gonna be tough, and worse the longer it takes to CCP to take the first step into the program.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">***</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-8049710818753824872011-06-25T20:00:00.001+00:002011-06-29T04:22:21.352+00:00Slight bump.<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Some stuff happened around the issue raised yesterday, and forced me to reconsider today's post.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Meanwhile, some people are getting a bit hissy about the whole mess.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><object bgcolor="#000000" data="http://de.justin.tv/widgets/live_embed_player.swf?channel=deamosseraph" height="300" id="live_embed_player_flash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="movie" value="http://de.justin.tv/widgets/live_embed_player.swf" /><param name="flashvars" value="hostname=de.justin.tv&channel=deamosseraph&auto_play=false&start_volume=25" /></object></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Livecam from Jita protest (people took to shoot the Jita Memorial en masse as a way of shouting their discontent).</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-52945471483854439622011-06-24T07:00:00.011+00:002011-07-01T21:34:53.912+00:00Greed is good, needy is bad.<div style="text-align: justify;">Hello all (three of you),</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">it's been a while, but this week's lineup of EVE things gone wrong is just too massive to let pass without comment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, there was the release of <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?patchlogID=230">Incarna 1.0</a>, soon followed by patches 1, 2 and 3 in as many days.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This went about as smoothly as any major patch does: extended-extended downtimes, black screens and melted graphic cards — business as usual, by CCP standards.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Things got a bit worse when people figured the conversion rates on vanity items in the new <a href="http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Aurum">'Noble' shop </a>expected them to burn more cash on their avatars wardrobe than the average EVE player spends to cover his XXL meatspace self.<br />
The most forgiving souls will want to believe somebody @CCP fubared a decimal separator… alas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAP0xPC7iiSsIMP1ulCVzPyd5PD-aXV5j3MobkVzdKDJBeQAUPlx3NLAykKlyBKcAguYIpGRcBcWLt6xndri6zzqbknMk2FkBNh5DD-CXauyTH1kgEJiNtsdVhQxwOy2qDJQERFcto0R2D/s1600/NobleStoreLaunch.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="547" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAP0xPC7iiSsIMP1ulCVzPyd5PD-aXV5j3MobkVzdKDJBeQAUPlx3NLAykKlyBKcAguYIpGRcBcWLt6xndri6zzqbknMk2FkBNh5DD-CXauyTH1kgEJiNtsdVhQxwOy2qDJQERFcto0R2D/s640/NobleStoreLaunch.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>1 AUR = half a U$D cent, do the math.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">My first response was to point'n'laugh, but for some reason, there was much outrage about that.</div><div><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">I came around shortly after my calendar informed me we were effectively not the first of April, at which point I had to acknowledge the obvious: CCP's marketing department is too far removed from Planet Reality to pick it with their onboard scanner, despite the <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?patchlogID=226">recent changes</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some of the hysteria at this stage became preciously ironic, considering it was expressed in large proportions by people who claimed they didn't care one bit for all the Incarna / barbie doll stuff, and therefore should not take issue with vanity items price gouging. Then again, it doesn't speak well of CCP's marketing acumen for them to run that far off the field.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So… I wasn't entirely surprised, although naturally a little worried this kind of crazy could eventually impact srs spaceship bzns, right before <a href="http://download1023.mediafire.com/4s4yth9syakg/ccl135embyb6c2v/Vol+1+-+Greed+is+good.pdf">this little gem</a> went viral.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then CCP spent two days procrastinating in the face of a threadnaught before they sent <a href="http://eve-search.com/thread/1536065">Valerie 'Pann' Massey into the meatgrinder</a> to (not even) answer… everything else about Incarna that people didn't care about anymore.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>Where to start ? </b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">How about a good glass of warm milk, for starters, because honestly it's kinda chilly for late June, and because "Fearless, Vol 1/2011" should be put in perspective. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's a corporate publication, meant for internal consumption only, which can mean either of two things:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">a) it's genuinely meant to encourage an open discussion inside CCP about microtransactions/payment and monetization of content ;</div><div style="text-align: justify;">b) it's an internal PR attempt at selling employees to the idea that milking this cow through the eyes is perfectly alright, get over it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">While b) seems more likely (I'll show why in a minute), it certainly wasn't meant to be made public and read by the cow's tits or eyes, which could explain why the breaking of bad news lacked in bedside manners.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What's worrying here, is that the same brainiacs who came up with the pricing plan for Noble store articles are probably involved in some decisive capacity. I'll let that sink in for a minute…</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Which brings me 10 seconds late to why b) above is more likely than a).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>But first, a disclaimer:</b></blockquote></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">DISCLAIMER: The views put forward in this magazine do not reflect general CCP company policies or decisions and are strictly individual opinions, written by CCPers or about CCPers who feel strongly about these issues. This is confidential internal information. Please respect that every company has its trade secrets and that you are privy to those at CCP.</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And I'm not being sarcastic here, the fluff about 'not reflecting CCP's policies' should not be dismissed outright.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the other hand, and still taken from page 1:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">However, as a subscription based golden goose, EVE needs to incorporate the virtual goods sales model to allow for further revenue – revenue to fund our other titles, revenue for its developer: you. […]<br />
So tell me what you think. As a CCPer, sharing an opinion is the least of your worries.</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yeah, I can't tell which it is, between poorly-worded encouragement and thinly veiled warning to dissenters. Maybe that's the answer: in classic CCP style they're boldly surging …in a random direction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The main feature "What does CCP sell ?" is penned by none other than Kjartan Emilsson, one of the <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4175/infinite_space_an_argument_for_.php?print=1">old-guard EVE wizards</a>, whom I do personally regard as a fairly sharp guy, considering what I know of his part in the early concepts behind EVE design and some other stuff.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, for the record, I have no prevention against virtual goods sales and other alternative sources of revenue (done right), and thus was eager to read his take on the issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>In fairness, it was a mixed bag.</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The four introduction paragraphs are embarrassingly fuzzy, as he's sweating to establish CCP is in the business of selling content, yet not quite, since players are making the best content in a sandbox, but still, value is in CCP-created content, eventually and painfully making his way to the core point that our beautifully crafted content has value and we shouldn't give it away for free.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Follows a clever, if broken, analogy with golfing, where KPE argues how only half the average golfer's 3k $ budget goes to access fees, while the rest is spent on shoes, clubs and other trinkets. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The bullet points and conclusion are much less terribad, and worth quoting:</div><blockquote><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">CCP is selling people experiences and identity</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In this, we are in competition with people’s limited time for other experiences and identities</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Consumerism can, up to a certain level, improve experience and strengthen identity, making us more competitive</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Too much consumerism will ruin the experience (think tourist traps)</span></li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">A balanced approach should acknowledge consumerism as a powerful game design tool (amongst others) that we need to get familiar with and that should be used carefully and with respect to create more enjoyable experiences and stronger identities for our players. If successful, this will result in their increased emotional attachment to our product and services for the benefit of all. If not, we run the risk of sucking our customers dry and leaving their shriveled corpses by the side of the road to the benefit of none.</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, what to take from that, except for the fact KPE is a terrible salesman ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, the intended readership (aka CCPer) should infer that CCP is currently missing out on about 65 million USD yearly* just because some cavemen are unwilling to get on with the program.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Second, virtual goods and for-pay content are open for discussion, for a "how" and possibly "how much" value of discussion, but not "if".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><ul><li>Hint #1: Golf courses typically aren't where people shop for their golfing gear, which don't see much of that business.<br />
</li>
<li>Hint #2: chances are EVE players already burn close to the yearly per capita $ 360 you seemingly hope to milk them for, just keeping up with hardware requirements for their gaming rig ; whether they're ready to up their budget 50% is highly debatable.</li>
</ul><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In short, I believe virtual goods sales should be part of the EVE business equation, and I'm confident CCP is on its way to prove <i>:awesome:</i> at botching it, possibly to the extent of killing the proverbial golden goose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why ? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>The three-feet-long ant problem.</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">MMOs are freakishly expensive to operate and costs scale up to revenue roughly like volume to surface, going cubic for every square, so every venue of profit that isn't hurting the core of the business is good news.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">CCP is in a slightly better than average position with EVE being a sandbox, as the content burn rate (and associated production costs) is not as huge a problem here than in theme park games, but they face other challenges because CCP can't scale up subscribers count (and revenue) by simply throwing more shards at the problem: coding for more players in a 'seamless' single server environment gets exponentially tricky as it grows, and every mistake carries the potential for epic disasters, driving costs up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>The toll booth problem.</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Getting people to pay for MMOs is getting more complicated by the minute, and CCP knows it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As KPE points out, EVE is in competition not just for $$, but primarily for time and attention with a variety of other experiences. The contenders for attention range from watching porn on youtube (seemingly free) to playing golf (seriously fringe for fat nerds), but include other, possibly F2P online games, some of which are freakishly accessible, such as the latest generation of 'client less' in-browser games.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>20 bucks for a 15 bucks bottle ?</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Classic MMOs such as EVE face a price point problem: the established price tag for subscription MMOs has been stuck around $ 15 for a decade, and upping that will make any marketing drone shriek in horror, shit his pants, and shriek some more.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many MMOs partly worked around the issue by billing people for massive releases of new content with for-pay expansions, but you can only force the idiots to pay sizeable amounts of money for fun every so often (by making them feel inadequate) before they figure out the kind of dirty whore of a girlfriend you are, and break up with you altogether.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a result, more and more MMOs are now flirting more or less openly with microtransactions, virtual goods sales and for-pay content.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>'spare a copper ?</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The issue then becomes, where to find more money ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite what the massively crass Scott Holden seems to believe (see P.8), some players do value the notion that they have something special going on with EVE, and she's not just a two-bit whore trying to milk them for every penny they got, while they also recognize a girl needs to make a living, and are willing to help her out, out of love.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For most of EVE's history, CCP has gone out of its way to position their game as a labor of love undertaken by a passion-fueled company, and it has informed business decisions such as never billing for expansions, which has proven to be a strong selling and PR point, and something the players are both well aware of and grateful for.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Starting now would be a mistake, not just because EVE players haven't been groomed for that, but because it could lead to a lot of embarrassment for CCP, depending on how many among existing players would opt to shell 10 or 25 $ for the typical expansion content.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hold a sec, while I wipe the drink I just sneezed all over myself at the thought of shelling RL$ for Captain Quarters or 'new turrets'.<br />
<br />
All better, let's move on.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>Trading an old one for two of half the age.</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">From CCP's perspective there are only so many ways to make more money from EVE, and the history between EVE and its playerbase seems to cockblock most venues.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br />
How I suspect CCP is about to run their boat ashore in explosive fashion is by attempting to solve what they increasingly seem to perceive at the root of all ebil: their installed player base.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Which puts them in the paradoxical state of both lacking imagination and living in fantasyland.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Simply put, EVE is an old, cranky and capricious mistress, but that's something its existing users are willing to cope with because she does really weird and kinky stuff they happen to be into.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Slapping lots of makeup on her and tying her to the bed won't fool anyone new into paying for a lay, it will just make CCP an old-person's molester and get everybody to leave in disgust before the cops arrive.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Want to make more money off the franchise with a slew of new johns ? Dust is the way to go: leverage the EVE mythos with a new demographic, in a decidedly different experience, with another business model, but don't abuse the old maid, because she's the iconic goddess of your cult, you dumb arses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><b>But then, what of EVE ?</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Assuming CCP isn't dumb enough to ignore the value of EVE as a PR/mythos generator, they'll want to keep EVE in business, growing at its own pace, and make it the flagship and endgame for all their products set in the same universe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dust has the potential to be a great cash cow, and having EVE around to provide both context and a second career for experienced Dust players would be great.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Planetary-based industry offers room to develop tycoon style games, and once EVE players start ferrying Dust players across space, the bridge will be thrown between planet-bound and space borne dimensions. Ship/POS/outpost commandeering and asteroid colonization are the next logical step to bind both sides of the gameplay together in the <i>'ultimate sci-fi experience'</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As for EVE Online, the game: yes, there is way to make more money off it, and yes, virtual goods sales and for-pay content can play a part in it, but CCP is going about it the wrong way.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because I'm nice like that, I'll tell you how in tomorrow's episode. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* [Back of the envelope: 360k paying subs averaging $15/m add up to $ 64,800,000 in yearly access fees, implicitly half of what EVErs would be expected to be willing to shell for their hobby if the golfing metaphor was apt.]</span></div><div><br />
</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-44246239699539993522011-04-15T13:25:00.001+00:002011-04-28T21:29:35.064+00:00New tires.Went faster than I expected, and nothing blew in my face.<br />
Feel free to trash the new look in comments and let me know if you find broken stuff I may have missed.<br />
<br />
Side note: I couldn't figure how to make the new, blogger-provided template scale gracefully in width (ie use % instead of pixel width for the main gadget), please let me know if you have a tip for that.AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-40751188243943891182011-04-15T12:10:00.002+00:002011-04-15T13:33:00.408+00:00Changing tires.<div style="text-align: center;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Redoing the layout/template to take advantage of a few new features of blogger/blogspot. </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Expect the site to be a tad messy for the next couple hours.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>No apologies, it should be for the better, eventually.</b></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-11761067709380207742011-04-12T14:37:00.006+00:002011-04-12T15:43:18.074+00:00Lucky me…<div style="text-align: justify;">…I'm sitting poolside, next to the sea, enjoying a good coffee on the terrace.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Oh, and also: I barely ever use EVE-O boards, thanks to the goodness that is <a href="http://eve-search.com/">eve-search</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">That doesn't make what happened with the new forum any less wrong, mind you — so much so that the words are failing me, but not <a href="http://www.machine9.net/blog/">this guy</a>, so <a href="http://www.machine9.net/blog/?p=592">go there</a> for a very good expose on the very bad things that CCP did to itself and its community, this time around.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Here's CCP <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=896">early public response</a>, which is not bad, considering. Timely, yet dev blog only: apparently not news headlines worthy.<br />
<br />
Then the news <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4518&tid=1"><i>iteration</i></a>, downplaying that trainwreck as a standard issue:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>"We're experiencing technical difficulties, please hold."</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div>And <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4523&tid=1">take two of the same</a>, this time reluctantly acknowledging the elephant-sized cat out of the bag…<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Then the inevitable <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=898">very sad dev blog</a>, dripping of the knee-jerk induced cold sweats we've come to expect from CCP in such situations, mixing signals, downplaying the actual threat, excusing massive failure under the <i>"that's a good lesson for the future, I'm sure"</i> umbrella, and attempting to both cajole and threaten the user base into sitting tight and holding hands while shit rains across their collective face.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To be fair, I'm not unsympathetic to CCP's situation, here: industrial accidents happens anywhere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, this one this one is especially egregious and embarrassing, reeks of olympic levels in carelessness and incompetence, and shines a very gloomy light on the apparent change of course from <i>Committing to Excellence</i> (by standards you plebeians can't relate to) and toward <i>Committing to Deliver</i> (regardless of condition).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If it wasn't for the half-assed attempt at blame-the-victim tactics, believe it or not, I'd actually been cool with their handling of the crisis — although obviously not with the meat of the issue: shipping without fixing critical faults that had been reported during testing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>In other news, <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?patchlogID=225">Incursion 1.4.2 just in</a>, and so is the <i>"Hey, it's we, the CSM6"</i> <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=897"> introductory letter</a> — I'll get back to this last bit, it sounds like fun.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
Update: Kudos to <a href="http://eve-search.com/search/author/CCP%20Sreegs">CCP Sreegs</a> for his awesome* tenacity in the dev blog comments <a href="http://eve-search.com/thread/1495140">threadnaught</a>.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[*No sarcasm, for once.]</i></span></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-27760123380985140582011-03-11T05:27:00.009+00:002011-04-17T22:05:41.919+00:00What's in a ballot ?<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/candidatesview.asp"><b>The booths are open</b></a>, and as usual, half the debate surrounding the election process is about the very purpose and usefulness of the CSM, and mainly the following two questions:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><ul><li>What can a CSM delegate (or the CSM as a whole) hope to achieve, really ?</li>
<li>What (if anything) will CCP listen to ?</li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">The CSM as an entity has been growing older and wiser, starting with CSM 3, and quite a few among this year candidates already have some first hand experience of the process, as full members or alternates in previous councils, or as ex-CCP employees now running as 'simple' denizens.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most of these seem in agreement about at least one thing: <i>"Be realistic, people !"</i>, and they make a case for both voters and prospective delegates to be lucid about what to expect from the CCP/CSM tandem.<br />
…convincingly so, for any hope roused by earnest (or manipulative) candidates during campaign will turn to tears and disappointment upon meeting CCP's <i>:awesomeness:</i> in the flesh.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course, this seems like a self-serving argument from those who can claim some prior experience, maybe an attempt to discourage new blood and fresh faces from joining the party, but I reckon it goes beyond that.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even current delegates who don't seek re-election and confess their personal mixed feelings about the whole process argue for a sanity check.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The facts of life about the CSM go like this:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>CSM members are not consultants/guests game designers.</b> </blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">No matter how bad anyone would want it, or delude themselves in believing, CCP expects the CSM to act as a relay to the player-base, a sounding board, a focus group, a marketing gadget, but certainly not peers or by any stretch of imagination the stakeholders they're advertised to be.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">CSM delegates who fail to wisen up to this reality will squander their energy and the trust of whoever voted them in trying to achieve something they can't.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/CCP-Games-Reviews-E159347.htm"><b>CCP is CCP.</b></a></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">…and has many faces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some among the devs welcome the input from the players in principle, and the CSM's especially, as it is a more civilized, constructive way to have a sit down with users than the usual brouhaha of the forums.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And then there's the rest, who see the CSM as a curse cast upon them by some PR demon, who trust the whole thing to be nothing but an act, and will begrudgingly waste a few hours of their time every other month making nice with the delegates of the pleb they not-so-secretly despise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">People who wing it oftentimes aren't so comfortable with being <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1478636">called on their shortcomings</a>, which is unfortunate for the CCP-CSM relationship, considering CCP tends to ride without a map, fueled only by beer and <i>:awesomess:</i> while the CSM is typically not in the bring-good-news business.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Short of killing the whole thing however, CCP will have to get smart about this, because the CSM is not waiting on them, and gains political weight with every cycle.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Either CCP finds a way to make productive use of the CSM by embracing the monster they've created, or it could end up biting them hard enough to cause serious bleeding, both on the PR front and internally.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><b>With that said…</b></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">If you don't know who to vote for this year, here are my suggestions (in alphabetical order):</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><ul><li><a href="http://themittani.org/">Alexander Gianturco</a>, a.k.a Mittens.<br />
Goonswarm <a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/mittani">spymaster</a>, retired lawyer and all-around weasel. If anyone can metagame CCP into <s>self-destruction</s> doing right by the players, he's your best bet — assuming he can put make the player-base interests his own.<br />
Will be good fun to watch if, as is his stated goal for the election, he manages to grab chairmanship of the 6th CSM.</li>
</ul><ul><li><a href="http://www.antipwn.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=7">Iain Compton</a>, a.k.a Helen Highwater.<br />
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/requiel">He's so perfect for the job</a> that the only reason CCP didn't hire him yet is because they feel queasy and inadequate around him — also possibly because he knows he wouldn't have half as much fun if he was working for them compared to being a free agent as CSM delegate.<br />
Iain was on CSM 4 and 5 as an (active) alternate where by all acounts he did a pretty good job, and he doesn't look like he's running for CSM as way to land a job in Reykjavik (see above).</li>
</ul><ul><li><a href="http://seleene4csm.blogspot.com/">Mark Heard</a>, a.k.a Seleene.<br />
(In)famous for his past as leader of <a href="http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Mercenary_Coalition_(Player_alliance)">Mercenary Coalition</a> (in game), and as <a href="http://eve-search.com/search/author/CCP%20Abathur">CCP Abathur</a> (out of game), Mark is a veteran of all things EVE on a grand scale. <br />
Although he suffers from an adorable crush on himself, he's been through enough to have a fairly good sense of what he can get away with in a position of CSM delegate, and he's on a first-name basis with most of the playas in <i>Team Awesome</i>, which can be decisive when playing in CCP's frat-house.<br />
Also, Mark and Mittens on the same team, comedy gold.</li>
</ul><ul><li><a href="http://www.animeigo.com/Trebor-CSM6">Robert Woodhead</a>, a.k.a Trebor Daehdoow.<br />
Suffice to say the guy fathered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry">Wizardry</a> and builds combat bots in his spare time, but in case that wasn't enough, he's proven himself through CSM 5 by picking battles he knew were worth the effort, and — as importantly — he figured the CSM could win.<br />
He's got the just the right amount of crazy and speaks the voice of reason. Also he's old enough to impose some measure of respect to the other nerds.</li>
</ul><ul><li><a href="http://www.rooksandkings.com/meissa/">Stephan Pirson</a> a.k.a Meissa Anunthiel.<br />
Stephan brings the longest CSM experience of the lot to the table with 4 terms behind him. Smart, knowledgeable and even tempered. Despite a stupid tolkienish character name, he could act as a voice of moderation amidst the highest-voltage types in CSM 6.</li>
</ul><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">If none of the above does it for you, if you still believe you should pick your candidate based on their announced pet issues with EVE, or just for the hell of it, may I suggest you go check <a href="https://gate.eveonline.com/Profile/Dierdra%20Vaal">Dierdra's</a> ever useful <a href="http://match.eve-csm.com/index.php">Vote Match</a> site.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As for me ? I more or less evenly split the two-dozen-or-so votes at my disposal between the 5 above candidates, so if you feel lazy, here are their names again, with direct links to their respective voting pages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><ul><li><a href="http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/Vote.asp?c=363">Helen Highwater (Iain Compton)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/Vote.asp?c=396">Meissa Anunthiel (Stephan Pirson)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/Vote.asp?c=361">Seleene (Mark Heard)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/Vote.asp?c=388">The Mittani (Alexander Gianturco)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/Vote.asp?c=358">Trebor Daehdoow (Robert Woodhead)</a></li>
</ul><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[Meta]</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">If you have lapsed accounts, you can take advantage of the <a href="http://links.mail.eveonline.com/ctt?kn=8&m=36369548&r=NzM5MzU5MDQ4MgS2&b=0&j=OTYzMzcxNDUS1&mt=1&rt=0">5 free days reactivation offer</a> to get back in just long enough to vote. </span></i><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Intentional ? Surely not, but I'm all in favor of bitter vets stuffing the boxes.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[/Meta]</span></i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></i></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-79539908384586200972011-02-11T11:00:00.081+00:002011-04-17T21:59:50.405+00:00CSM, the out of pod experience.<div style="text-align: justify;">As mentioned <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/02/csm-6-race-ze-application-period-it-is.html">yesterday</a>, I don't like much that the CSM members have to divulge their meatspace ID to the whole intarwebs, starting with the rabid EVE fanbase.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My argument is simple, CSM is not a job, you get in the seat on a part-time, extracurricular basis, and on the merits of your in-game persona (in the loosest meaning of in-game, including OOC/meta stuff, obviously).<br />
Furthermore, nobody expects you to shed your in-game affiliations for the duration of your CSM mandate (contrary to what CCP employees are supposed to do).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In short, you're elected as a player and mainly for who you are in (and around) the game.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thus, I don't see any benefits for the community or for the election process in divulging the CSM candidates/members out of game ID to the general public, and since the potential for trouble is obvious, it is a no-brainer that it should be up to the individual CSM delegates to decide whether they feel comfortable getting out of the closet in that way.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some may object that the CSM role is a public one, and it is likely that any CSM delegate's face (and other body parts) could end up plastered across the intarwebs as a result of partaking in meetings, fanfest events and other photo shoots or alcohol-fueled embarrassing tapes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maybe so, but then again, if all there is to tie to these images is a spacenerd nickname, and one is not a public figure in his/her non-EVE activities, the odds are pretty good some separation can be maintained (if one chooses to).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">CCP will still know who CSM delegates are, on account of their filling the plane and hotel tickets reservations, and they can therefore ensure nobody is entering under three different nicknames into the election.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As far as I can tell, the current rule only prevents people who are mildly wary of being stalked and harassed by mouthbreathers over in-game grudges from running for CSM, with no discernable upside for CCP, the CSM delegates or the community at large.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Am I missing something obvious ?</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-41724104128007997272011-02-10T11:00:00.005+00:002011-04-17T22:00:51.132+00:00CSM 6 race: ze application period, it is now !<a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=853">It's that time of the year.</a><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In the previous elections, I've more or less vocally endorsed a shortlist of candidates, among those who seemed to me like they both had a decent shot at getting elected, and at making a positive contribution, were they to be, but this year I've also toyed with the idea of running for a CSM seat myself, after a friend suggested I put my posterior where my mouth is, instead of the usual converse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some of the CSM application rules are giving me pause, however:<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The requirements to be able to run as a candidate in the CSM6 elections are as follows:</span><br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must have an active EVE Online account that is older than 30 days.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must be aged 21 years or older as of April 6, 2011.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must provide your address and an e-mail address where you can be reached, which will not be made public.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must provide a scan or reasonable quality photograph of a valid passport to verify your identity and that you can travel internationally to the CCP HQ in Reykjavik, Iceland.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must be willing and able to sign a non-disclosure agreement with CCP as the CSM are very often provided with information that is not for public release.</span></li>
</ul></blockquote>So far, so good, but there's more…<br />
<blockquote><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must be willing for your real name and country of residence to be made public alongside your character name on the EVE Online website. Other personal details required for candidacy will not be made public.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must provide a campaign message stating your reasons for running, in no more than 200 words.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You must have up to date and accurate account ownership information on all of your EVE Online accounts.</span></li>
</ul></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Summing up my reasons for running in less than 200 words is a bit tricky, but I can manage… as for the other two ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Is it worth the trouble of exposing my meatspace ID to the <s>spacetards</s> constituency ? I happen to like my privacy and, no disrespect to those who ran for CSM thus far, but the user base of EVE is not the most well-adjusted crowd I've met in my life, to which I'm not sure I want to expose my family.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of note: many a CCP employee seem to agree with me on this, and <i>they</i> are allowed to stick to their CCP handle and not put out their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name">TrueName™</a> out there for all the interweb crazies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Up to date and accurate account ownership information on all of your EVE Online accounts… </i>boy, I do I want to go there ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let's, for the lulz:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've been keeping accounts alive for friends, managing corporate drones herds, and generally playing fast and loose with the no-account-sharing part of the EULA from roughly day 20 of my stay in New Eden. …but then again, so have most of the CSM past and present to the best of my knowledge (which amounts to 100% certainty about several of them), so I shouldn't care, right ?</div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">So it's a case of starting off the wrong foot, and lie through my teeth, or boldly put myself out there as an ebil EULA defiler.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't like these odds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So this year, I'm going to offer suggestions about the best and worst candidates I can see on the ballot, and add to my lobby-your-CSM grocery list a suggestion to change the CSM election rules about ID divulgation by next session.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Woot, I have my next two posts cut out for me.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-21988282367962847822011-01-31T11:19:00.015+00:002011-04-17T22:16:06.232+00:00EVE Online: What are your reasons?I received a bunch of these recently, shortly after I celebrated the recent release of <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/en/incursion">Incursion</a> by letting another couple accounts lapse:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Dear Anonymous Coward</b>,</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We've noticed your account has not been active lately. If you stopped playing, we would like to learn what were your reasons for leaving. Please take this survey to help us to improve our service. It will take approximately 5 minutes to complete.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Your participation in this survey is completely voluntary, however, we'd be grateful if you could give us your feedback.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Your survey responses will remain confidential and data from this research will be reported only in the aggregate. If you have questions at any time about the survey, you may contact the research team at the email address <a href="mailto:survey@eveonline.com">survey@eveonline.com</a>.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Thank you very much for your time and support. And you are always welcome back.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Please <a href="http://eveexitsurvey.questionpro.com/">Start the survey now</a>.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">CCP Research Team</span></blockquote></blockquote><br />
Because I'm a peach, I took the survey, if only to copy-paste here what I wrote over there.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
[<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>I'll spare you the rest of the MCQ, I equally distributed the votes of the various accounts for which I received the exit survey email across the the highlighted selections below.] </i></span><br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Please choose the option that best fits your reason for leaving:</b></span></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[Man, do I wish you could choose more than one and weight your answers, there, but the wording and selection of choices offered will tell you a lot about the purpose and usefulness of this quizz, already.]</i></span></div><blockquote><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Lost a ship</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Player harassment</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #e69138; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Game imbalance</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Lag </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Lack of content </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">EVE client is not available in my language </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #e69138;">Lack of goals within the game</span> </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #e69138; color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Last patch </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The game is too difficult </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Slow character advancement </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Tired of the game </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Other, please specify: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #e69138; color: #444444;">CCP is an army of headless poultry ?</span></span></li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Please provide more information on your reason for leaving:</b></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I'm an old fart player, tried everything but mining and Planetary interaction.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The only interesting part remaining for me was 0.0 politics and PvP, from which everything else</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> (industry, empire noobie training, you name it) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">drew purpose — but no more.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Unfortunately, Dominion and beyond changed the sovereignty rules and the cost/benefits of holding space in 0.0 for the worst (and that's saying something considering how bad POS warfare used to be).</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Holding space is now a meaningless, losing proposition unless you already are in so large an entity that you can't contemplate forgoing your painfully acquired sovereign space.<br />
Meanwhile the changes to territorial warfare mechanics have reinforced the long established trend of blob-trumps-all, showing that either CCP doesn't understand how their own game plays out, or they're happy bullshitting about "giving a fair shake to the small guy" while enacting changes that foster the exact opposite — neither of which is really reassuring about what's to come next.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">NPC incursions look cute, but I did not get into to EVE to bash mobs: I want to play EVE with (and against) actual players, and see smarts, teamwork and (player)skills matter more than blob size and oober gear.</span></blockquote><br />
So, there…what about you ?AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-87427107404494360292011-01-31T10:05:00.006+00:002011-02-10T09:06:35.783+00:00New expansion: Granularity !Good news, for a change, <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=848">API keys overhaul</a>.<br />
This has been a long pet peeve of mine, and I wrote a bunch of stuff in the past, mostly on other venues, and never got around to populate the stub for it on this blog, dating back to <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2008/10/this-is-title-entry-for-betterapikeys.html">Oct '08</a>, because there was so much to rant about at the time I lost track of this particular item.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, the changes look good and, together with the other recent reworks, clearly show that CCP finally gets how much players care about better usability and user control over information services in and around EVE.<br />
<br />
A summary of promising (some of it already delivering somewhat) stuff:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>EVEgate is looking good.</li>
<ul><li>(much, much) better evemail that is actually useful.</li>
<li>Next logical step would be imap, which I don't see happening, unfortunately, but expect some community made API gadget to fill the gap soon enough, to enable at least evemail => realmail forwarding.</li>
</ul></ul><ul><li>Calendar is promising, too, and I can see how over time (once the contracts system is properly redone), it could eventually enable player-created missions. As for mail, one can only hope to see the thing tied through API gadgets with more popular third-party calendars, such as Google/iCal/yfoc.</li>
</ul><ul><li>EVE Voice in EVEgate: Woot woot !</li>
<ul><li>This is a big one, obviously.<br />
Ever since EVE voice got added to the game (<a href="http://www.eveonline.com/features/revelations/">back in 2006</a>), its adoption by the players has been hindered by a fatal flaw in its implementation: it's integrated into the EVE client.<br />
</li>
<ul><li>Integrated voice/fleet management is sweet, and comes with lots of side benefits, but none of it is worth the price of losing your voice comms at the worst possible time (ie: during a client lockup/crash/disco), so anyone using voice comms anything mission critical in the srs bzns of interweb spaceships is sticking to TS or Ventrilo or iChat conference call… anything but EVE voice.</li>
</ul><li>Now, if Vivox is running in your browser, and you still get the benefits of seamless user/channel management in-game (via the fleet interface)…</li>
</ul></ul><br />
<div>Generally speaking, the last crop of tools is already a tremendous improvement, especially for small corps/alliances that don't have their own IT department to manage private forum/TS/calendar, etc.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">This was a warm and fuzzy-feeling only post, so I'll wrap this one up, and return to the normal rant program in our next installment: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b><a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2011/01/eve-online-what-are-your-reasons.html">EVE Online: What are your reasons?</a></b></span> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-50742226552132302632010-09-01T17:48:00.013+00:002010-09-04T17:58:18.774+00:00No promises, but…<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am back in net-friendly parts of the world, presumably for a while, with a reasonably roaring computer at hand, and presumably a bit of time and inclination to look at games again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">What does it mean for EVEisBroken, then ?</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Although my interest in EVE as a player is not exactly peaking, it remains a one-of-a-kind animal in the MMO* market to date, and worth some time and attention, if only to learn from the spectacle of CCP's fumbling around.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of note, the recent boon of very much worth reading <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=782">DevBlogs</a>, a tad on the technical side, which are encouraging.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now if only they'd figure how to put the same energy in game design proper, I may have to rename this blog, but I don't see any tells of that happening anytime soon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still…</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-71726245004190877032010-04-01T11:00:00.000+00:002010-04-01T11:00:01.811+00:00Err…<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>[I was drunk earlier, and now I'm at a Takeshi Kitano expo, don't wait on me.]</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-37856046952816461972010-03-31T11:00:00.005+00:002011-04-17T22:24:11.332+00:00Wish granted !<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">…almost.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just two days ago, I posted about <a href="http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/2010/03/rest-insured-dear-players.html">what changes I thought the insurance system could benefit from</a>, and here's <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=746">what CCP released yesterday</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I, for once, can't complain: most of the changes outlined there seem healthy and sound, and largely match what I had in mind after a bit of pondering on the ISK and minerals in, outs and distribution relative to insurance and loot reprocessing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The changes on loot reprocessability and distribution as well as the drone alloys recipes balancing, I can certainly endorse. Increasing the mineral self-sufficiency of drone regions especially is in tune with this part of the map intended design and will not adversely affect the empire-bourne mineral market, although making the other 0.0 regions more self-sufficient on low-end minerals may be more of a mixed bag, yet not a bad move overall.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To be entirely fair, CCP is apparently committed to reach way beyond my expectations by including market value of materials even for T2 and T3 ships, which supposes they actually intend to write a new, all-encompassing insurance system — as opposed to merely tweak and hack onto the existing mechanics.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If they do it and don't get sidetracked: kudos.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A bit of a mystery to me is why CCP seems so shy to approach the issue of self-destruction and suicide ganks/Concordokkage… although I'm fine with suicide attacks remaining a viable tactic, I wouldn't expect my insurance to ever cover me ramming on purpose into a schoolbus with my moped.</div><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Checking the horse's dental work…</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">One thing I'm a bit more ambivalent, however, is the idea of weighting insurance payouts by the life expectancy of a ship's class. I can see the reasoning, and from a 'gamey' standpoint, it may seem sensible, but it's also totally nonsensical in the context of simulating an insurance system: no company in their right mind will ever consider giving their better payout on stuff that is most likely to go boom, unless the premiums are raised in proportion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A more sensible approach, in my opinion, could be to reduce the cost of Kleenex-class boats at the production recipe level. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Provided the insurance premiums and payouts are indeed marked on materials value, making cheap boats cheaper, yet with a poor insurance payout, achieves the same results from a player perspective in terms of usability, and isn't likely to imbalance the mineral or material market by much, although it would decrease the per-unit profitability of some ships. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">This could possibly be balanced by cutting a bit (2/3 of the materials reduction should do) on the base production time for said boats at the blueprint level.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why, oh why, do you ask ?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Assuming I read correctly into CCP's intentions, the general goal here is to phase out insurance from its current unwanted role of an artificial floor for minerals/materials prices (which marking insurance premiums and payouts should achieve neatly), without sending the mineral prices into a plummet fall (which is what would happen, were loot reprocessing to remain the major source of minerals that trumps mining low end ores).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">With that in mind, cutting on the material needs for the shorter-lived, die-a-lot ship classes would make the hulls themselves less expensive without devaluation of their materials' unitary price.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So what ?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among my last post's suggestions, one is not to be found in this devblog, and that's the idea of increasing premiums (or diminishing payouts) based on a pilot's track record in terms of losing ships — I can see how this reform could prove unpopular, but bear with me for a minute, please.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another angle, which I suggested in my original post would be to cut on the length of insurance policies: the most likely the ship class to die young, the shorter the policy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Make the insurance on a tackler last 2 weeks, a T1 BS last 4, and cut the premiums roughly in proportion, with the premium cost for that ship type adjusting up or down with every death or policy renewal that passes by without losing the boat, repsectively.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Starting at 100% payout (market adjusted) for a given T1 ship type, each loss would hit your premium and increase it, while each term passed without loss would bring your premium down by a few % (with a bottom, ofc).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pilots who die a lot in cheap ships typically keep replacements fitted and ready to roll in order to get back in battle quickly after a loss. Assuming all these boats are insured, the spares would contribute to keep the premium price in check until they're used, while encouraging pilots to have more disposable ships ready, which encourages impulsive returns to the battlefield after a spanking, hence more pew-pew, hence more bizness for shipmakers and miners.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
…and I still like the idea of making part of a killed ship minerals salvageable in the form of reprocessable debris: although it would typically benefit whoever holds the field at the end of a battle, it would also encourage the victors to linger a bit after the fight, in order to grab all those mins, thus giving the spankees a chance to come back for more.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What did I miss ?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2933202061869922255.post-7649420517340245842010-03-29T11:00:00.003+00:002011-04-17T22:25:42.446+00:00Rest insured, dear players…<div style="text-align: justify;">…wow, that was a nasty one ! Let's move on, quick.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There has been a bit of excitement lately about a possible <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1283806">insurance tweak/nerf to come</a> (maybe), and while I didn't bother go and check for myself on SiSi, it's not hard to believe and agree with <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1283806&page=1#9">this guy</a> when he claims to be appalled.</div><blockquote style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><div style="text-align: justify;">"I ran the numbers on this, and I must say I am appalled. Instead of refining the insurance formula, they simply reduced the base price of the ships by 31.7%. The net insurance rates are identical."</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">…told you he was — appalled.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Insurance has been a bone of contention for a while, and more so since CCP went out of its way to progressively phase out the sale of reprocess-able goods by NPC corporations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like almost everybody in EVE, I have an opinion on the matter, and you won't be surprised to find out I think insurance is broken.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">State-endorsed civilian sociopaths ?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">From a RP standpoint, the notion of a unique, worldwide insurance company seemingly running at a loss seriously lacks a justification in the pretend-Objectivist, dog-eats-dog setting of New Eden. Beyond RP, insurance Base Prices, computed from <a href="http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Mineral#NPC_Mineral_Value">NPC Mineral Values</a> constitute an artificial price-fixing device for minerals, which gets in the way of the much-hyped player-driven, hardcore capitalistic model of EVE's universe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">More importantly, the ability to repeatedly abuse insurance to lose ships at little or no cost in kamikaze attacks (regardless of high or lowsec) seems ludicrous and detracts from the tactical depth of the game - waging war and losing ships should always be expensive, if not prohibitively so.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm well-aware insurance typically covers only a fraction of a total ship's worth, once fitting and rigs are accounted for: most PvP kits and almost all PvE fittings pack way more ISK value in modules than in hull, with the notable exception of some fleet capitals and battleships, but speaking of ISK worth…<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: large;">Isn't currency getting in the way ?</span></div><br />
One interesting trait of insurance payouts is how they constitute the only entirely risk-free PvE ISK extracting source in EVE — making ISK usually involves exchanging with other players who have it, as the only direct sources of ISK from the CCP bank are NPC rewards (bounties, NPC trade or missions).<br />
<br />
Even while mining roids, hauling trade goods, or running lowbie missions in high sec, there's a chance to get attacked by NPC or players and lose a ship, but what is losing his ship within docking range of a station to a pilot who undocked for the sole purpose of self-destructing ?<br />
<br />
In extreme cases, self-destructing is the ATM of forlorn 0.0: need a few dozen millions real quick an no juicy NPC or player to ransom or scam in sight ? Just undock and crash a spare BS on the station's hull, and presto ! <i>You got ca$h !</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Play on <i>less-easy</i> mode ? </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">From a broader view, PvE resource distribution is in serious need of an overhaul, but just for starters, in the narrow perspective of insurance:</div><ul><li>Reduce the duration of insurance policies to 4 weeks, divide the cost of premiums by as much.<br />
</li>
<li>Make insurance premiums payment a regular, auto-payable bill.<br />
</li>
<li>Add a steep incremental % penalty on premiums for frequent-crashers (with a decay, ofc).<br />
</li>
<li>Deny or halve insurance payoff in the event of self-destruction or Concord-kills.<br />
</li>
<li>Make wrecks salvageable for 10% to 50% of the original materials of the ship (random)*.<br />
</li>
<li>Remove meta 0 drops from tables, nerf reprocessing yield/recipes on Meta 1+ (except T2-3). <br />
</li>
<li>Adjust Base Prices for the purposes of premiums and payoffs calculations every day during dt for the next 23h, based on NPC Mineral Values (see below).<br />
</li>
<li>Compute daily NPC Mineral Values on the universe-wide market history for this mineral/material, based on actual transactions average for the last 4 weeks.<br />
</li>
<li>Remove (or nerf by half) NPC insurance on capitals.</li>
</ul><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[* just make the salvaged debris bulky enough not to offer more than 1/20 compression ratio over raw minerals.]</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sounds harsh ?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, it should be: those who currently benefit most from the insurance nanny-state are the internet tough men, so let'em suck it up, and watch the market sort out the worthy from the meek. ;)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Seriously though, player-driven insurance is not only possible, it's already there, more or less: many corps and alliances have (in)formal replacement programs in place for ships lost during wars or corp ops.<br />
Taking the training wheels off is a chance for corps and new businesses to step up: EVE has player-driven banks precisely because CCP doesn't provide NPC ones, and look at all the cool drama they've supplied us with over the years… </div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">I can't wait to see player-operated insurance companies.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">***<br />
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</div>AcDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16533478098912963611noreply@blogger.com1