An Open Letter to CCP from Current and Former CSM Members on the "Prospector Pack"

[teddy_Gbyc]

He said we will have to wait to understand.

Expecting anything other than a canned presentation at FF is a pipe dream.
This is somthing that is comming regardless of player sentiment or feedback at any point.

[Xeux]

@Pook600

CCP is treating the game like a game in sunset mode/milking customers until it dies completely

No, Hillmar plans to save the game with NFTs!

[Gix_Firebrand]

@Cherti_Stardust

Good, you have learned something since the last time we talked.

LOL what are you blathering on about?

Still hiding in your dead end system?

@Cilla_Cybin

A lot of oldbies have zero idea just what a knife edge it all is between staying or leaving…people forget the part that sheer luck can play. And then they look back years later and assess everything with 20/20 hindsight.

That’s your opinion. I find it very far from the truth usually. Every vet became a vet due to stupid mistakes in game and learning from them.

Also its 2022 now, everything you need to know about EVE is a click away LOL. There is literally no excuse for sucking now.

[Zuccini_Vaselini]

@CCP_Swift

Capsuleers,
We hear your concerns about the Prospector Pack.

Nine days after release we’re getting a response vie the EVE Forums - really shows how much CCP cares.

As all EVE players know and remember, being a new pilot in New Eden has many challenges. Some players are lucky enough to make their way into player corporations quickly, where they are shown the ropes and supported by our veterans. For others, however, this path can be hard to find or feel intimidating, so they go it alone.

It’s not like theres at least a dozend sizeable and reputable corps specialising in helping new players CCP could put on a list or something.
Let’s instead put two thirds of our dev team towards writing NPE version 6395417 - if we can stretch the average first session length another minute that will shurely solve our problems with player retention.

We’ve spent much of 2020 and 2021 devoting resources to researching these players and trying to find ways to

milk them as much as possible, as fast as possible

Recently, we added

Expert systems and ingame pop up advertisements for this specific purpose.

Part of our experimentation in the new player journey has included the introduction of various packs and sales that give new players strong but limited options to jump forward and catch up with their peers

instead of things that would actually help like removal of the “magic 14”, automatic application of 1mil free SP to all new characters, Skill injectors on SiSi or easyer acess to finding new player friendly corporations.

The destroyer-themed starter packs showed that there is not only an appetite for this kind of option but that these pilots transition into bona fide EVE players; they have aspirations, desire to interact with others, and contribute to EVE’s thriving ecosystem – they become tenured and impactful citizens of New Eden.

It says so right here on my immaginary data sheet - right next to the latest prosperity report.

The prospector pack expands this concept to offer a more significant upgrade for young pilots in theme with our updated Mining NPE. While we hear your worries about the continued escalation of this kind of sale, our design is and will be, directed towards new players finding their footing in New Eden.

Teach them to use their credit card early and often!

Economic impact and the integrity of the player economy are a top priority. We have limited this pack to one per account and are closely monitoring its effect on the player market.

Artificial scarcitiy boosts sales.
We like money.

One of the topics for Fanfest is a new project that we’re in the middle of developing, that will transform these and any future packs - a paradigm where packs of this type will be supplied by players, ensuring that any ship we offer to new players through sales, will have origins from actual player work in New Eden: Made for new players, by veterans.

This will serve as the foundation to our upcomming play to earn platform with full NFT integration.

[Erik_Rebar]

Lol so they will source the ships from the markets or something like that.

[Shipwreck_Jones]

@Cilla_Cybin

What, exactly, is any newbie in danger of ‘winning’…given most of the oldbies can’t even decide what ‘winning’ even means.

You seem to be under the impression that for a monetization to classify as P2W, it must result in a win state. However, I, as well as most players, have a much broader definition of what constitutes P2W (namely, exchanging real world money for an in-game advantage in a PvP-focused game). In spite of this, however, I continue to use the term “P2W,” because most gamers know what I’m talking about when I use it.

[Osir1s]

@CCP_Swift

The prospector pack expands this concept to offer a more significant upgrade for young pilots in theme with our updated Mining NPE. While we hear your worries about the continued escalation of this kind of sale, our design is and will be, directed towards new players finding their footing in New Eden.

No, it’s not. You can spin this ■■■■ as new player stuff and try to demonize veteran players for opposing this, but the reality is it was nothing more the CCP trying to sink its ■■■■■■■ teeth into the player economy. If CCP truly ■■■■■■■ cared about new-players it would be a quest reward and not a ■■■■■■■ pay-pack. Furthermore it wouldn’t be the most GANKED ■■■■■■■ version of the barges either.

The most stupid part in ALL OF THIS, is that the pack already contains the money TO BUY THE ■■■■■■■ RETRIEVER AND FIT IT in PLEX alone. But no, we gotta get our ■■■■■■■ greedy hands into the player economy. Instead of making a ■■■■■■■ tutorial on how to buy and fit a Retriever no, we gotta usurp the player-base who builds the damn thing and spawn it FOR MONEY.

[Loki_Yamaguchi]

Man this is such a great thread…so much drama!

[Gix_Firebrand]

@Cilla_Cybin

It’s my direct experience. As you joined Eve not long after the dinosaurs became extinct…I suggest your recollection of noob-ness may be a little hazy.

Nope. Its pretty spot on to what the other guy said.

Even then there were online resources. But we had to train a lot longer to be relevant. Including the money to update clones.

It was a lot harder being a noob back then than now.

[Lesican]

@CCP_Swift

On that note, we have removed the Prospector pack from secure.eveonline.com until this program is in place, intending to introduce a career-entry level option for mining in the future.

did Gabe get the memo?

[Loki_Yamaguchi]

There are probably rules with Steam saying you must leave sales up for X amount of time hence why Swift didn’t mention Steam…

[Lesican]

So the correct thing to do would be to say
“btw we can’t pull it from steam due to contractual issues, but we won’t put new packs with free ships on steam after this one expires”

or we get another month of radio silence

[Pseudo_Fed]

CCP could also get into the CONCORD Police Auction Liquidation business and repackage seized goods for resale as an item collection pallet (blind or visible).

However, if they want to be extra greedy they could advertise the seized digital goods as ‘refurbished gems’ from which they could stick in the Mutaplasmid RNG system on to apply a buff/debuff to goods up for auction on the pallet for a simulation of damage or ‘rarity.’

[Loki_Yamaguchi]

No matter what they say, you will still complain so really, is there a point?

[Cilla_Cybin]

@Shipwreck_Jones

You seem to be under the impression that for a monetization to classify as P2W, it must result in a win state. However, I, as well as most players, have a much broader definition of what constitutes P2W (namely, exchanging real world money for an in-game advantage in a PvP-focused game). In spite of this, however, I continue to use the term “P2W,” because most gamers know what I’m talking about when I use it.

No…I am simply disputing the ‘advantage’ bit. Noob players are at 1000% disadvantage. They are tiny crill in a sea filled with killer whales, sharks, and giant squid. They enter a game in which people have long since become trillionaires and factions own half the galaxy. Most noobs never even make it beyond the first month.

Yet somehow there is all this absurd fuss…much ado about nothing…because noob crill can get an extra morcel of blue-green slime to eat. All the whales, sharks, and squid…all the most advantaged people in the universe…come on and chant how unfair it is that they’ve got 500 billion and now some noob is going to get a Retriever worth 1/10,000 of that…the horror !

It seems almost no-one on this thread has a sense of perspective. Probably the rarest commodity in Eve.

[Wes_Wyhunnan]

@Cilla_Cybin

Yet somehow there is all this absurd fuss…much ado about nothing…because noob crill can get an extra morcel of blue-green slime to eat. All the whales, sharks, and squid…all the most advantaged people in the universe…come on and chant how unfair it is that they’ve got 500 billion and now some noob is going to get a Retriever worth 1/10,000 of that…the horror !

Shouldn’t the real complaint be that for the price of the pack, after you account for the omega time and skills , it’s like a 450m isk retriever? Is that really what you want CCP selling a brand new player? That’s just a straight hustle right there, far in excess of what any mean old whale in the game would do to a tiny little krill.

[Draqolas_Windfury]

Holy crap CCP, you sound like Putin in a recent speech.
Full of crap.

PLEASE LEARN FROM OTHER GAMES SITUATIONS.

You rely on metrics just like Blizz did with wow and their numbers gradually decline.

While Square Enix genuinely listened to the player base, not some fake metrics, and dethroned the king of MMO.

How about taking lessons from history and not repeating Blizz failure??

I’m tired of trying to communicate with the madman for several years.
I requested a refund and my sub is off.
Not gonna get omega even with risk and will leave this titanic before it sink.
Nothing speaks louder than a wallet to CCP so here is my protest.

I’m hoping you will fire this asshat from the marketing team and start listening to players and not some crap metrics.

[Kenrailae]

tl;dr, you’re gonna keep selling ships. Got it.

You do realize that half the conversation in CAS channel anymore is how to run abyssals, right? Not how to go find player corporations and take part in the single shard universe in which all players are part of the same galaxy and can be interacted with by all players, but instead how to go play in pocket space where very few people can bother you.

Congrats CCP. I didn’t think you could sound anymore absolutely disconnected with your game.

[Mike_Azariah]

Look. the CSM worked hard and long to get the devs to say something, damn near anything, here. We (and they) knew that some of you would stay mad, complain if they didn’t say anything, complain if they did. But communication is always better than silence.

Some of us saw the skeleton for this a wee bit ago, tossed in our opinions but the MAIN thing that I said was ‘talk to the players’. So, in a way, I was successful.

@CCP_Swift

Additionally, the CSM will now have a quarterly meeting to discuss specifically these types of packs and other commerce topics.

This was a surprise to me. Not an unwelcome one. But before you hang you hopes on this? Discussing something does not mean that the CSM will be able to stop or turn the path of CCP, just tell them what is a bad idea and hope that they listen.

The other thing I wanted to mention is our (the players) tendency to ‘shoot the messenger’. In a word? Don’t.

@CCP_Swift has been upfront about things he does decide and things he does not. It is part of his job to relay info like the note above but that does not mean that he made all the decisions within or that he wrote it. He is the messenger. For that matter? So am I and the rest of the CSM. . . just we are YOUR messengers.

So I will go back to reading the forums, watching reddit, and carrying the concerns to CCP. Oh, and playing the game.

m

[Kenrailae]

Some tools in this thread are just jealous their CSM senpai’s don’t show them enough attention, sure. But most of us aren’t mad at you guys for what CCP did here.

The point is you shouldn’t have to work that hard and long to get a dev team to talk to their player base in a game that was once the shining star on the horizon of dedicated player bases that all other games hoped to one day achieve.

How the mighty hath fallen. I’ve actually run out of likes on the forum today trying to give hearts to all the posts correctly dumpstering Elise for this elitist, holier than thou BS he shoulda left in panfam and not taken to CCP.