No, that is wrong. Terrible communication is even worse than silence because it gives even better fuel to the (justified) rage of the customers. Actually helpful communication would have been that they tell us this was a mistake, especially how it’s being put forward to new players and coerces them into thinking this is a good deal when it’s really not at all for them, and that they don’t do that kind of crap again in this fashion.
The point that they want to provide these packs in the future with player made stuff is good but it remains to be seen how CCP implements this. Following the many years of screw ups they can’t expect people to think too highly of that announcement. One of the pain points of this pack was the price. It was ridiculously overpriced for the value it gives to new players.
PR said:
For others, however, this path can be hard to find or feel intimidating, so they go it alone. We’ve spent much of 2020 and 2021 devoting resources to researching these players and trying to find ways to help them through early content barriers.
Translation: We figured out that CCP can profit even more from the “misery” of these people. We can suggest packs to them that are completely overpriced, offer terribly fitted tools for game activities, and make it look like we help these already struggling people. However, in case of the ships, and this class of ships in particular, don’t even provide a benefit that could last long enough to recoup the cost. They could lose their 25 Euro Retreiver within minutes after undocking but they spent more than 2 months worth of game time equivalent money on it. That does not help anyone but CCP’s wallet.
Then say who the real perpetrators are. If they keep hiding behind the messengers, there’s nothing else to shoot. That’s another thing about communication. The messenger didn’t do anything wrong, but they are being used as scapegoats so that the real culprits for all this justified outrage don’t have to deal with the consequences of their toxic actions.
It would have been a better communication behavior if that person had released that post and not the spokes person. That way people would know who is responsible for these terrible decisions and could keep an eye on them as opposed to the wrong people or only the messenger.
If the conclusion that CCP came to to address the new-player intimidation factor was to further a pay2win ecosystem to make things easier for new players I think you should simply make things easier for new players in game.
That means making materials abundant for everyone, depress the cost of ships, remove the extra layer of complexity from industry that was recently added, but keep the mining changes the same. If you’re worried about bots, start banning bots. If you’re worried about the big nullblocs gaming the system then you need to let us easily fight each other. It absolutely astonishes me that in a video game about spaceships you make it difficult to make spaceships to fight other people in spaceships.
Also I think CCP should start running focus groups with members drawn from a pool of regular players and not the CSM. The amount of contempt that CCP seems to have for it’s player base is at an all-time high. Stop wasting people’s time with needless changes that make the game tedious. New players see the tedium (and I do mean the tedium that has been recently added) and start asking “is it worth my time?”.
I can see why you all think that adding a 25 dollar line-cut is attractive but ultimately it’s not going to create a system that keeps people around because they spend 10 hours a week mining in highsec with their ship and after a month maybe they have like a billion ISk which does not go far in this economy.
Get a grip because you’re circling the drain with this nonsense.
Starting a new char, would rather not go Omega at least until the skill cap is reached.
More so for a proper new pilot. See no much point in taking the wallet express rather than first acquiring some experience and wealth through actual interactions within the sandbox. At least to check and see if can handle it prior to getting more invested, if not anything else. That’s a matter of choice, though. Of course.
Second
It’s for the newbies! (A 25* dollar pack? Really?)
Third
We removed it anyway even though I attempted to justify it in the same post.
Why has the community been screaming for alliance level ship skins for years and we still don’t have it? The playerbase is literally telling the company how to take our money.
This is not true. Currency buys you skillpoints and T2 upgrades. If you disagree, we can 1v1, me in a bling marauder and you in a T1 battleship. If you can kill me, I will concede the point.
I dislike it but I can’t change it. That’s just how it is. I would prefer if people stopped pretending it’s not the case though.
When talking about “jumping forward” and “catching up”, I think it should be recognized that CCP is in control of the overall distance, jumping power and regular walking speed.
It is a problem you want to be there and selling a shortcut to.
I just want to point out that the option of removing skill points and waiting for skills to level is still there. You could just do the progression naturally with isk and players learning to farming it. It’s still a learning and growth curve and people will take time to accumulate the wealth necessary for bigger ships.
This is what Matteral brought up and … everyone thought he is 100% trolling, it’s like wtf… there will be so many issues with this. And there is no need for it, it’s going to be complete waste of time thinking about implementation of this and developing this.
Newbro can just buy the PLEX or get it in pack and buy it himself like normal capsuller, if selling PLEX and buying ship on market is soo hard for particular player that he just can’t do it… then like… that kinda guy won’t stay in EVE for long anyway.
You uh… you allright there, Swift? Can’t be comfortable having a post that big written by Hellmar with his hands up your muppethole.
I feel sorry for ya’ll, I really genuinely do. Having to be a middle-man between a truly rabid playerbase and the ludicrously disconnected crazies up top at Credit Card Plz, not a job I could be arsed with.
Since the only thing available to shoot at here is the messenger though, let’s see what we’ve got here.
Using newbies as the excuse for a thirty dollar pack that if anything removes any kind of feeling of progression or achievement. Absolute tosh and nonsense, no one’s buying that. If you wanted to smooth the NPE, you’d adjust/remove the magic 14 or otherwise made the starting progress more natural, not hidden behind a thirty dollar paywall. Shame on you for uttering something that blatantly ■■■■■■■■.
The fact that this lasted until the event was over before you pulled the pack, makes the whole “Oh we removed this pack until this program is in place” another pile of ■■■■■■■■. You were going to remove it anyway, and trying to make it out to be some sort of response to these concerns is disingenuous, dishonest and vile. You wonder where the trust went? Yeah, when the blatant lies became ever present, it kind of evaporated.
“Paradigm of packs of this type” oh Bob preserve us. Hellmar dangling from your uvula, frothing in tech dude blockchain cryptobro scammer horsecrap. Can someone quarantine that man already? The crypto and NFT scams are over. It’s too late. People know you’re just a greedy ass dickwad out to pad the wallet, they’re not going to bloody buy it. Hellmar, in general, just assume that if you think it’s a good idea, the world has already dealt with it and left you behind. You’re not a tech bro, you’re an aging greedy dunce with no concept of what your own damn game, much less the rest of the tech sphere, is about. Cease. Halt. GO AWAY.
This death spiral monetization - PCU count going down, more aggressive monetization of remaining playerbase, further reducing playerbase, monetization getting more aggressive etc etc - has historically not been good for any games you can see it happening in. Best case scenario, they shamble on with a skeleton crew of whales barely keeping it afloat, worst case the whole thing shutters.
Read the signs. Unfuck thyself, CCP.
And stop lying to us, ffs.
Would rather spend the scarce dev resourses on this, than adding more Mission/PVE in highsec, nerfing Highsec Alfa-gankers , reworking how Abussal space works, fixing Null ratting, ingame lore events… I mean you have so much things you can start working on, and literally eveyone will be happy and clap along.
Yet you make strange money moves.
Where’s Hilmar ?
You DEVS talk one thing on an interview, and then go ahead and something completely different.
Isn’t this what the ingame market and contracts ingame are for? Wouldn’t it be better to teach the newbies how to do that?
‘Teach a man how to fish’ versus ‘Give (sell lol) a man a fish’ and all that?
Or is it possible that your intention is not to help the newbies, but to monetize new players as soon as possible before some of them leave?
I mean, I can completely understand that. With the turnover rate of a niche game like EVE, it only makes sense to try also make money from players who aren’t the target audience of EVE. Monetizing those players would benefit us all, as it means non-EVE players would be paying to develop and maintain the game. What’s not to like?
What’s not to like is how this heavy monetization aimed at new players is deterring new players (and old players) to continue playing. I like new players. I like having players in my game. EVE requires players in the universe to be interesting. Don’t scare those players away with ingame monetization pop-ups.
That aside, some monetization is fine. Put more ship skins in the NES store for example. Give us more cosmetics!
(And stop selling ships. I’m glad you pulled the plug on that pack, but don’t do it again. And no, buying those ships ingame to sell to newbies is not an alternative, as the market forces would be disturbed by having CCP buy contracts all over the place. And who’s going to deliver those ships to the station the newbie redeems them in on time? An NPC hauler that can be shot and looted?)
Mike, I ain’t mad that he’s finally communicating. I’m actually pretty damned glad he is. I’m mad it took him this long—which, I’ll admit, may or may not be his fault in terms of ‘when CCP had an offical response’, but is his fault in not at least dropping a ‘hey, I’m here, I see this, I’m taking it to the guys who make the decisions’ post just to make sure we didn’t feel as absolutely ignored as we were.
Finally, I’m mad that he’s parroting incorrect crap that he knows is incorrect crap. And yeah, sometimes that’s his job: to tow the line and tell us what he gets told to tell us. And in those situations, it’s also his job to wear the big ol’ bullseye as the first target of ire.
He’s not the last, and he’s definitely not the biggest.
That said, Mike, I want to thank you and all of the CSM for your hard work, both so far, and ongoing.
Thank you for taking down the pack. That’s a pretty big deal. I have a follow up question:
So are these special NPC buy orders we sell ships and ammo to, that the NPCs turn around and create “special contracts” that cost fiat-money instead of ISK, to be sold to new players?
Or will there be an opportunity for players to assemble the goods and it is players who sell these “special contracts”? When CCP makes a fiat-money sale and a player’s special contract is sold, players get a percent of that fiat money as PLEX?
There’s still degrees of “players being involved”, and the details are important, I think.
Of course not. Would be a real shame if someone bought a thing for another 25 bucks and then it failed to appear in his hangar because some asshole shot an npc somewhere.
You what pisses me off the most is the botched opportunity to present a potentially reasonable development with the assistance of the CSM.
I have to say it; Epeen is right. Dump the CSM project. CCP is incapable of utilising it for anything other than covering its ass.
CSM: Prostitution is morally wrong. End this abusive relationship.
CCP: Find your foundations and seek redemption through humility.
@CCP_Swift Thanks for the response to @Brisc_Rubal/CSM’s open letter regarding the sale of the prospector pack, Enough has been said about this so i’m not going over old ground as I feel you will have been beat over the head with this for the last 9 days.
Whilst I’m happy for a response - what has certainly been clear for me is ‘whoever’ is making the decision on the things like these need to MTFU and come and post a response a) AS THEMSELVES and b) In A MORE TIMELY MANNER. If this hadn’t blown up in their faces and our CSM hadn’t piled on the pressure would you be here now putting your name to this statement??.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but offering up respected community devs/ex players who have good relationships with the community is a weak and pathetic choice by CCP as this devalues the message and unfortunately you guys get it both barrels from 90% of the player base when in reality you weren’t even at the table when the whiteboard warriors come up with the dross…
I know you may counter the above with ‘that’s my job’ but in my line of work (with30 years experience) a strong leader will have an idea (good or bad), explain the logic/methodology behind it and get buy in from them around but ultimately they will have a discussion, listen but they make a decision based on that. They then front up to the client/workforce and explain that decision on its merits and with their belief as to why they are implementing it, people might not like it but they, generally, respect them for the candor.
On the other had a bad manager, makes a decision in isolation, doesn’t discuss it, with the stakeholders, implements it by stealth and then when the client or workforce kick off he goes and gets Mr Smith out of the H&S department because he use to work with for the client and workforce love him so they hope this will calm the waters.
Get the ‘Marketing’ person or the ‘Monetization strategy guy’ to stand in front of the crowd baying for their blood and see if they may want to reflect on how they implement the decision making process and more importantly how they communicate it.
Then it’s working as intended. CSM was never a tool. From very, very begining it was just used for PR and nothing more. Even listening interviews with Hellmar on why and how he came up with ide of CSM. Purpose of CSM is very clear
You should probably include in that it would at least be very difficult to have a player driven economy with player to player trading without some kind of black market pay to win ecosystem developing on the side. Someone is going to be selling stuff for real money, and someone is going to be buying that stuff.
PLEX at least directs that income stream to the developers and gives players a safe means to perform those transactions without getting their payment details stolen. Sometimes (Usually, I think) the best solutions are not the ideal ones we envision they should be because the world is not in the ideal state to make those solutions workable. Compromise must be made for those less than perfect circumstances.
If they keep hiding behind the messengers, there’s nothing else to shoot. That’s another thing about communication. The messenger didn’t do anything wrong, but they are being used as scapegoats so that the real culprits for all this justified outrage don’t have to deal with the consequences of their toxic actions.