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

Communications Center General Discussion
1577

Well, ironically, I was happily mining away in the Procurer for 2 months…until they nerfed it and almost doubled the alignment time to 18 seconds. I hated that, and have not mined in a barge since. In fact I sold both my Procurers not long ago and will never mine in one again. So its not as if CCP’s changes don’t irk noobs too. So much for helping miners !

The irony…these days I buy PLEX, and top up my ISK now and then using a very cheap ( 300K ) gaussian laser Venture…which will never pay for my ever increasing ISK spending, but it helps a little.

In any case, I didn’t join Eve in the first place to be a miner…so the Proc nerfing probably did me a favour and finally got me into PvE, PvP.

1578

Didn’t he just say they will be selling fitted ships regularly once they roll out their new program… thats not good.

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1579

This was in the cards from the moment Hilmar sold out to the koreans.

Welcome to the new age.

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1580

Yes, this may inpact your current playerbase negatively, this might lose you money, but if you are desperate for money so badly, make a bigger effort on getting more players pouring into the game. You have a dedicated playerbase, we’re still here after so many years even, nothing wrong about the game. It’s a great experience. Diverse paths to take, real economics, great pvp experiences to be had. Surely you can keep players if they even get to see the game. @CCP_Swift

Only seen ads of eve ever just once and just recently, on youtube. But im already playing, i bet only ppl that have searched on the game will have seen that ad, ppl searching for any rpg games would want to see what eve has to offer.
So is the department of marketing putting the game out there enough?

Getting more players will increase your profits, not adding more microtransactions. The more i see deals of any kind the more i see how desperate you are, the less i feel this game has a future.

@CCP_Swift

Overhauling the intro looks good, but u could go way further on retaining newcommers, like overhauling mission descriptions. Expected firepower of the foes, giving a rough estimate on incoming dps? Prefered ships? Going through logs and see what other players used previously?

Meeting a wall for the first time going all in on a ship to increase the already shitty efficiency and then lose it unexpedely is harsh. I was there, i quit for years too.

Going more indepth in the career missions, make it easier to understand concepts and choices without leaving them hanging like “so what do u choose”. “Well i dont have any idea still” You dont get any wiser from them. Actual game trailers give more insight in the game and plant a seed of what a newbro want to do in eve. Speaking from experience, (this is eve) hearing chance ravinne speaking there sparked my fire. And i flew with WDS for years. More tips for the market department.

I saw a guy going through the new intro and went on to the career agents. Enough said, at one point he was stuck. Had no idea how proceed. Fix that.

For every edit to the intro and guided start for new capsuleers, pay a random grown up non-gamer to play through it, if he get stuck or if anything is bothersome/inconvenient, that should perhaps be looked into. And dealt with accordingly.

@CCP_Swift i hope u facking see this!

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1581

When its possible for players to buy a fitted ship on demand from any location the convenience alone would impact the player economy negatively. Selling fitted ships to any player with a credit card is the obvious path to max monetization. Looks like Iceland is not driving the bus these days. CSM don’t let them use you to push this pig down our throats.

1582

Did you even read the OP?

1583

The OP yes - the CCP response is to have the CSM meet with the monetization team on the new ship sales program. That sounds like they plan to use the CSM as cover. I’m pretty sure most of the CSM will not bite.

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1584

I’m assuming that, since 29 former and/or current CSM signed the OP, they’re probably against it.

Maybe CCP will bride them with LIMITED (lulz) Alliance Tournament Ships™…

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1585

I am very VERY spooked by their response,

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1586

He didn’t. The Venture Capitalists that owned CCP did.

Don’t get me wrong, this nonsense? This is all traceable to Hilmar. This is all his philosophy from the ‘Greed is Good’ days. But as much as people love to blame Pearl Abyss, the guy who wanted to sell you an in-game monocle for $70 real-world 11 years ago didn’t need their help pushing his company down this road.

New Age? Not even close.

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1587

eve players can really pat themselves on the back for stopping monetization through vanity items that impacted no one if they were purchases, to replace it with items that do minimally impact others each time they are purchased. Real triumph that was.

1588

Signed

Super late to this party, others have said it way better than I can.

But what the Hell CCP :roll_eyes:

1589

I don’t know man, but it looks more like your research was about how to monetize new players and not how to make the early game more inviting.

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1590

Because it’s always a binary choice, right? And you get to make that choice once and then declare it done, rather than having to keep vigilant against the same kind of nonsense over and over again throughout all of history?

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1591

yes, this was a binary choice. Don’t try to wiggle away from that.

1593

No, it wasn’t. Nobody said ‘we object to you guys trying to insanely overcharge for cosmetics, so put in monetization about things that aren’t just cosmetic’. It is more than possible to say ‘don’t overcharge on X, and don’t do stupid crap like Y’.

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1594

that’s what i also read in the response of @CCP_Swift . I’m shocked that he said we hear you and then tells us, they will do it again.

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1595

I agree 100% w/the sentiment, but sadly, ‘shocked’ is nowhere near how I feel. More like ‘of course you will…’

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1596

The thing is, from reading the majority of posts here, no-one objects to monetisation and very, very few are calling for a return to a subscription-only model because I think we all know that, in the modern world, it probably won’t work.

Whilst I don’t agree, many have even justified the selling of skillpoints as a way to even the playing field between newer and older players (I don’t know why you couldn’t just keep this in the in-game economy but hey…)

NFTs were and are a bad idea for a number of reasons but at least they were an idea that didn’t go against the key principle of the game.

The issue with selling fully fitted ships is there is no need for social interaction of any kind to play the game at that point. You know, the thing CCP has said for years is key to player retention? It’s an admission that they’re giving up and trying to squeeze every last penny out of the game as they slowly start packing up to go elsewhere.

So if they’re giving up, why shouldn’t we?

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1597

While I don’t think CCP should be selling ships, I also think people are kind of exaggerating how serious this is. Let’s be real here.

CCP is trying to offer an option which gives a new player the possibility to immediately undock and do something ingame. That’s it. They are trying to solve the problem of new players quitting the game because they aren’t sure what to do.

While I think CCP is going about this the wrong way, and they are free to hire me as a conslutant to solve their many issues, this really isn’t some evil cash grab conspiracy. It’s best that we all just calm down.