Hello everyone, I’m Itaer and I’m running for CSM 19. I’ve been playing Eve since 2007, through many different play styles in many different areas of space, but my main interest has always been small gang PvP. In real life I’m an astrophysicist, so I have a lot of experience with data science, and I hope to bring that perspective to my discussions with CCP.
I respect your time, so I’ll keep this relatively short. There are three main things that I would like to focus on as one of your CSM members.
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Communication. This is a tired subject (particularly when it comes to CSM campaigns), but that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. Nearly every player I talk to is frustrated with CCP’s communication. Let’s take a look at the recent, controversial, update to skyhooks. The blog post (Link) uses vague language, e.g. “taking some of the advantage away from attackers”, “bolster the attractiveness of the structures”, and “To address the imbalance in raid dynamics”. What we don’t get is why the structures need to be made more attractive; is adoption low? Are there not enough reagents in the economy? What advantage do the attackers have; is this a timezone problem? Are defenders often late due to a too short link timer? A reader can’t understand what CCP actually sees as the problem, and thus, is unable to really judge proposed changes as solutions. This does not create productive conversations, because it lacks a “problem:solution” framework. If, instead, the blog laid out the problem clearly, for example: “Our metrics show that skyhook thefts are happening too often for the average nullsec resident to respond to, and are often happening while people are asleep. We want to slightly tone down the frequency of thefts to reduce the burden of defending your space, and we’d like to add in vulnerability windows so that going to bed isn’t as detrimental.” Now it’s easy to have productive conversations - for example, a meaningful question might be “how much vulnerability is too much?” Instead, we are left to scratch our heads at decision making which often appears out of touch and arbitrary. Eve players are deeply invested in the game, and are universally interested in why decisions are being made. Treat them as such.
As an example of how communication should be done, let’s take a look at a time CCP got it right - the Surgical Strike devblog (Link). In this blog post, they lay out specific goals, for example: “[…] there is a desire to begin exploring new rewards and tools for those brave pilots who are willing to get up close and personal.”, as well as why specific changes are being made to achieve those goals: “As a first step in this direction, there will be an increase to the damage of all close range Tech II ammo (excluding exotic plasma) by 15%”. This kind of communication allows players to have specific and productive feedback.
As we have all learned, CSM members have very little control over the development direction at CCP. I do not claim, nor intend, to change the way that Eve Online is run. What I can do, however, is listen to how CCP justifies upcoming changes and explain that to you, the community, as much as allowed by the NDA.
TL;DR, often CCP does not sufficiently explain why changes are made. I want to communicate as much as possible with the community regarding why changes are made, and encourage CCP to do the same.
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Iteration As a long time Eve player, the lack of consistent iteration has long been the most frustrating part of CCP’s development style. There is an old player joke that “the ‘I’ in CCP stands for iteration”, and for good reason. Eve is a graveyard of half-finished ideas. Tiericide, mutaplasmids, proving grounds, incursions, the Drifter storyline, and many more. If there is any one thing that I would actually like to change as a CSM member, this is it. CCP needs to understand that even the most exciting new feature needs attention as the game ages.
Let’s once again focus on when CCP got it right. Last year we got two expansions which built on the same system. In Viridian, CCP finally took a serious look at faction warfare and added many changes that had been suggested by players for well over a decade. This rework shook up the systems, but the rework was so broad that it created many new issues with balance and gameplay. With the Havoc expansion, CCP took the time to iterate on those issues and expand the promise of the new systems created in Viridian. I want to see more of this. It is impossible for any team of developers to match the creativity and insight of the entire Eve community. Once a change is made or a feature added to the game, it is nearly guaranteed that the community will spot things that CCP did not - things to be changed, things which could be done better, and things which can be expanded. Once all the work has been done to build and polish and release a feature, iterating with community feedback is incredibly impactful. It is okay to make changes. In a game like Eve, stagnation is death. Please, just change things.
TL;DR I’d really like to push for more consistent iteration across older systems, and for a commitment to continuing iteration for new features. Tying into point 1, communication with the community is critical to successful iteration.
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The little things. CCP Karkur’s little things thread has been one of the most successful community-facing development conversations in the history of Eve. I want to make sure that CCP continues this as an ongoing commitment. Let’s iterate on bookmark folder limits. Let’s add notes to ships in hangars. Let’s tie ACLs to corp roles. Let’s iterate on the skill extraction UI. Let’s consider expanding this effort to include a community polling system - something that may not be suited for balance changes, but could be super impactful when it comes to prioritizing which quality of life changes see dev time. More than anything, let’s hear a commitment to this. Let us hear that this is understood as important.
TL;DR I want to see CCP make a commitment to expanding and continuing the focus on “the little things”, which has led to some of the best changes ever.
Thank you for hearing me out.
have mine