Replacing the CSM with another model?

You already admitted it was with snark. So, the good faith vanished right there. Now if you’d honestly like a reply, point by point, you could re-write. But from my perspective, discourse was not your first intention with it. But have a good day Sir.

Socialism has never worked.

You’re the villain in your own story.

Where were you in 2003 when I started this roller-coaster ride?

As was noted elsewhere, the CSM as it is currently constituted isn’t the real issue. The real issue is CCP and their willingness to listen and use the CSM as part of a functioning player feedback, stakeholder review and focus group process on veteran player sentiment.

Like any other body that is elected, regardless of how the elections work, it is going to cater to the popular and the populist, and those players who are well known and popular are going to beat out others who may serve well but can’t muster the voting support to win. This is a common issue in any representative form of government, and there is no real solution that works better. A purely appointed council will result in CCP sycophants beholden to them. Any other type of mixed council will be hamstrung by the dichotomy of player vs. CCP chosen status. I know, for instance, if I was serving with someone CCP had chosen, I’d treat them differently than someone who was elected.

One-person-one-vote is a good system for real life, but I prefer the system we have in EVE because those who have the most skin in the game have the greater voting power in choosing player reps. I think that’s a fair way to do it, honestly, because the greater the investment, the more likely it is those players care enough to pay attention to the things that matter in a CSM campaign in a way that the average EVE player doesn’t.

While I will not argue that in-game politics can spill over onto the CSM, it’s not as bad or as blatant as some folks seem to think it is. That being said, I think it’s unavoidable, honestly. Claims of self-dealing or self-promotion of positions beneficial to one’s group are always going to follow and there’s not much anybody can do about it, especially given the nature of the NDA and Code of Conduct. It’s not like I can call out somebody for pushing a position internally that benefits their group - the best I can do is call it out in private, but then nobody cares.

And I will say some of the things Uriel stated are things he can’t possibly know. "“Eve as a game did not make money in the last quarter. The IP, and how that was licensed and marketed did” is an unproveable statement.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing if Uriel has better luck than Matterall did at riding the “gold ammo is good” ticket in the next election.

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A hereditary autocracy would be better suited to governance.

This is EVE, we’re talking about. This requires a lot of procreation, and, well…

…you know.

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Brisc Rubal!

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I regret some of my more churlish responses.
Brisc and Mike have caused me to reconsider your motives.

Only, this isn’t representative government. This is a player feedback mechanism for CCP.

Again, if it were governing body. But the dynamics here aren’t that.

CCP makes a product, parts of that product’s success in a very competitive market, with tight margins, is revenue from sales to customers, i.e., the players. It makes no sense for CCP to be interested here in having blind ‘Yes Men.’ They can’t oppress or send the player base to jail for a matter of tax evasion, garnish their wages unjustly, etc, etc, to get subs and sales. It remains pure willing buyer and seller. They want to turn a profit, for their stakeholders, a balancing act between the player customer perceptions of value and many other groups expectation of return on investment. To frame the CSM as a shield against CCP for the player base is a bridge too far. The CSM is an attempt to effectively capture player feedback. In its current form, taking on protest and activism, and also directly working against CCP by taking things to the gaming ‘journalism’ sites to try and influence game design to their political ends, they have crossed a line which many can find more egregious than CCP carrying out a monetization experiment in their game to try and do right by all their stakeholders.

It is a complicated, multi-layer game, with many layers left to languish by some estimates due to the CSM feedback being far too narrow, or to a political bloc’s end. Eve is played as many differing ways as there are players, to an extent. Eve also may well be isolating itself from bringing in new players and expanding the interest in those layers by the CSM having become stagnate by only representing a particular style of play segment of an existing (but likely diminishing) base. We don’t know that, if CCP isn’t able to carry out things like monetization experiments and other entrepreneurial measures, for fear of enflaming the CSM’s purity test for Eve. The CSM fired a shot at the game by trying to impact broader public perception, not CCP, with their open letter and attempt to proliferate for political capital and leverage. I don’t feel it represents my interest as a player taking such actions, and I don’t see it as an effective or synergetic partner to CCP to develop a better game by having taken them.

CCP has vastly more skin in the game than anyone. So maybe they deserve a much larger bit of latitude than in determining what is the best way to try and develop monetization of Eve? Maybe to the point of not owing a thing to the CSM but, ‘Thank you for your feedback, we will take it under consideration.’

That said, how can it be a stand at one time to say there shouldn’t be the ‘pay to win’ of buying fitted ships, but that there should be the paid to be represented by swiping, and group milling to PLEX alphas, to get greater representation? At most that is just ‘pay to win’ here with extra steps. One vote, per player, will go much further toward representation of its base than per account. All you end up with otherwise is a game designed with grossly disproportionate feedback of botters and multi boxers.

And on that note, in terms of even needing elected by popular vote players to represent the base I am highly in doubt at this point. Especially if that representation can take action to hurt the game, or appear to threaten to, for the accumulation of political capital.

Last PA call, when discussing the rise of cost like labor, and business objectives related to revenue streams, associated with the IPs in their portfolio. A look over the provided PDF as well shows it.

Why, I’m not interested in serving on the CSM. I am interested in not feeling like a second class of player, and wants representation, or really just effective feedback to CCP, that has the chance for accounting for how I and others like to play this game.

Also, no, by the cold light of day outside of election speak, there was nothing wrong with the actual position Matterall has, and has continued to have, with regard to ‘Gold Ammo.’ And we both know it, just one of us can’t say that where their base would read it. That just goes back to the populism issues you yourself admit play a part here though.

@Brisc_Rubal While I agree with you analysis, I think one point overlooked is that CCP is a business and as such is profit oriented (regardless of it’s origins) . It’s not a charity or non-profit.

Respectfully, the CSM exists at the pleasure of the company, not the other way around. As such it is - as you mentioned on the latest Meta Show episode - like a focus group and not a formal governing body.

Though it is perplexing why the business doesn’t seem to listen much to the desires of the customer via the CSM… :thinking:

(ps-I am not making apologies for CCP!)

We could try adding political parties and lobbyists. Maybe that would help.

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FFS, Xeux! You owe me a cup of coffee. A little warning next time.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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It is a player feedback mechanism that CCP created with the intent of making it use a representation model. If you go back and read the original proposals for the CSM that they developed, you’ll see a ton of references to those kinds of things.

They called this a “deliberative, democratically elected council” from the beginning. They have been committed to this being an elected thing from its inception.

Here’s the PDF of the foundational document they published (via the New York Times): https://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/arts/PlayerCouncil.pdf

Except that it’s not, because this has been a traditional role the CSM has played, multiple times during its existence. If this were not true, there would have been no need, for example, for an emergency summit during the Summer of Rage in 2011. CCP has dealt with and expects the CSM to challenge them when they are doing something the player based doesn’t like. I know this from personal experience.

I’m not sure what you mean by “political ends” here. Are you talking in-game politics? Because I don’t know that anybody is doing that or has done that. If you mean “actively working to influence CCP on behalf of players” then yes, we do that. All the time. That’s literally what the job is.

Yes, yes, the CSM has so much power we are ensuring that some layers of the game are left to languish so they can focus all their work on the stuff we tell them to do. At the same time, we’re never told anything and we don’t have any say in anything, and we’re completely ineffective.

Schrodinger’s CSM. All powerful and completely useless, all at the samt time.

We were not trying to “impact broader public perception” with this letter - this letter was written to reflect EXISTING public perception, and to send a message to CCP that they had crossed a line and the player base wanted them to know it. We did not manufacture this outrage - CCP did. Our letter was a reflection of existing player concern.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but I don’t think CCP would agree with you.

They have 100% latitude. They can do whatever they want. We can’t stop them. What we can do, and what we have been doing, is advising them on what forms of monetization the players will accept, what will sell well and what won’t.

CCP created the CSM. CCP says they want the CSM. They repeatedly explain how valuable the CSM is to them and why they need a group like it. To claim that they owe us nothing but a pat on the head, especially given the amount of time and energy we give them compared to what we get out of serving, is insulting.

The issue isn’t “pay to win of buying fitted ships.” The issue is where the line is drawn at what is player acceptable monetization and what is not. Buying a ■■■■-fit retriever for $25 is not pay to win. But it does undermine the concept of a player driven economy, represents a lazy way forward when it comes to helping new players, and has a pretty scummy feel to it, which are all good reasons why they should have thought a bit longer about this before they pulled the trigger on it. Or shared what they were doing with the CSM to get feedback. Or simply not done it.

The idea that every player who has multiple accounts and gets multiple votes is a skill farmer with 200 plexed alts, or some kind of botting empire is just not true. Most folks with multiple votes use those accounts for a variety of reasons, and while I’m not going to argue that some people haven’t gotten elected through buying votes, real life isn’t considerably different when it comes to money and politics.

The CSM is not trying to hurt the game, or hurt the company. We didn’t call for people to quit, we didn’t call for people to unsub their accounts, we didn’t call for people to stop logging in. We told CCP they went too far, explained why, and asked them to take a step back.

I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that I or any of the other 29 CSM members who signed our letter are hoping CCP fails, the game fails or any of that nonsense. We’re trying to make it better.

Matterall, as I said to him the other day, is the king of bad takes, and his take on gold ammo (and on selling fitted ships for cash) is both dead wrong and completely the opposite of what the average player thinks is acceptable monetization. I don’t know what you think you’re going to get by kissing up to him, but I assure you it won’t be what you want.

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Right, well, going to address that with you and I both know that whenever the ‘golden ammo’ thing comes up, it is misrepresented for a cheap play to the crowd.

I for one am not going to go along with a cheap debate polemic. And it is. It’s not sucking up; it’s not being what Dirk would say a lot of the CSM were for not resigning over this issue that drove them to write and sign the open letter.

Please, rehash for me, his exact ‘bad’ take on it. As he ever said it be the greatest thing ever for the game? Did he ever say it be an essential addition to it? At most, was a rationalized position to the usual reactionist hysteria that populist stir up to get their base going.

Dirk has no idea what he’s talking about on this issue, and then idea that the CSM resigning would have any kind of impact ignores how little impact it has had when CSM members have resigned in protest in the past.

Matterall has argued in favor of them selling whatever they want, including fitted ships, and he’s argued that scarcity didn’t go far enough, that PvP players are a problem in the game and their perspective is over represented, and that the players themselves should largely be ignored by CCP because apparently the things players want are usually bad. That hasn’t been my experience, but hey.

Like I said, I’m not sure what you think you’re going to get out of agreeing with him, other than a lot of people thinking you don’t play the game.

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Right, well, fair enough take on how you see his perspective.

Now how is any of that, any of it so wrong?

Them selling whatever they want. Sure. No really, sure. I have more faith in CCP to sell items as a part of a marketing campaign, and monetization experiment, to try and discover an optimal point for those, in the best interest of the game stakeholders. Not just the players, but everyone tied to this game succeeding. Thats not going to happen wrecking the market, or industry aspects, nor is it destined to happen.

Did scarcity go far enough? My own view? No, I agree with that as well. Looking at the rush to stockpile, because CCP had to telegraph it coming, I think that scarcity did somewhat what it was intended to. But ultimately did not effect all playstyle demographics to the same extent. Turned out to be a lot harder of a nut to crack.

Regarding PvP play. If Eve is a choose your own path game, then why do all paths lead to moving to Null Sec to listen for an FCs call, as you ‘pull your weight’ in a virtual job you farm ISK to keep? Am I being a bit hyperbolic, okay. But that right there is why I am in Low Sec with the other non-conformist that hate blob battles to tears. Null Bears birthed asset protection, and all the horrors that follow as well. Great that we got all those headlines for ‘Million plus dollars lost in internet spaceship battle’ out of it. But actual down stream effect for everyone else seeking that ‘choose your own path’ play experience, hasn’t been so great.

I really don’t care as I have worked in product development too long not to say this, yeah curtailing to the endless list of end user gripes isn’t a way to go, which is where much of listening for the ‘voice of the people’ has gotten Eve. You have a vision, you stick to that vision, and you deliver on it. No great game was ever made on the wish lists of gamers. Just content island monstrosities like Warframe (No really, that is exactly what you get). They were made on delivering on a vision of something no one ever even realized they wanted to play till it was delivered.

As for wanting to try and insinuate I don’t play. No, I do, I just play my Eve. Something that the group of people who were looking to represent all of us have not, in my estimation been doing, to the point now they only see it being done the way that the largest, loudest, mob who will vote for them wants it. Even to the point of stirring up negative sentiment toward the game for the leverage it may provide.

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While the original story would not have made a good movie, current circumstances seems to lead to think it would have been more relevant.

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You have faith, and I don’t. Why don’t I? Because EVE is a unique product, it remains a unique, niche game that has had multiple attempts to replicate it’s success with none actually doing so. People who come from the greater gaming community to EVE don’t understand the norms and mores of the player culture here, and they assume that things that work in other games can translate to this game well, and that’s not the case. There are plenty of avenues for converting non-paying customers to customers, teaching new players and retaining them, and monetizing the game to make additional revenue that CCP continues to ignore, despite the overwhelming player desire for them.

Alliance skins, corp skins, structure skins, new player backgrounds, and a variety of other cosmetics that would sell well but would also require dev time are ignored, while something like this - a quick and easy thing they can throw up a marketing campaign around - is done. That doesn’t give me any faith that they know their community and what the community is willing to accept.

Scarcity caused a significant number of veteran players to leave the game, and we have not seen a commensurate, significant increase in the number of new players sticking around long enough to replace them. It is largely unpopular, has broken the economy in a variety of ways that have yet to be addressed, and just isn’t fun.

I don’t see how you can claim I’m trying to kill the game with my advocacy on this issue, while ignoring the actual damage scarcity has done to the game while advocating for it.

There is room in the game for every playstyle, and claiming one is better than the other is pointless. I will say that over and over and over again, CCP has chosen to drop the most lucrative isk-making opportunities into lowsec, despite it being the second smallest area in terms of player population. While I agree that lowsec hasn’t had as much development time as it should have, that’s not because those of us on the CSM haven’t been pushing for it.

Ah, I get it. Ignoring customer demands in a 19 year old game is exactly the same as designing a new one from the ground up. As amazing as it sounds, when you’re trying to retain customers, listening to them tends to be something you want to do, rather than assuming that you know what they want. This is why companies spend billions on market research and focus testing each year.

I didn’t insinuate you don’t play - I’m saying that sharing hot takes from the King of Bad Takes is going to make players think you don’t. Because too many of the folks he spends the most time listening to don’t play anymore. I don’t know anybody on the CSM who isn’t a daily player, including at least two who live your lifestyle, and I know half of them play while people watch nightly, so I think that’s kind of a goofy claim to make that we don’t play.

Again, if you think we are “stirring up negative sentiment toward the game for the leverage it may provide” then I think you both not paying attention, and you’re making a lot of pretty ignorant and insulting assumptions about the characters of the folks on the CSM, including me. I don’t really appreciate it. I am doing what I think is in the best interests of the game, just like CCP. If you can give them the benefit of the doubt, I’m sure you can give it to me as well.

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Actually, I adopted that outlook while working on a product that was older than me, and been going for sixty years now. And it did work there, as the people who had been there, taking it through incremental cycles of improvement, and outright re-invention when needed, proved it to me. Solving the customer’s problem, or entertainment need, doesn’t require being changed to their expectations and traditional ways.

Fair enough, as with regard to in game tutorials and learning, a lot of notable content creators for Eve have expressed such.

Then what? No really? Alright you open the doors on cosmetics, and everyone pays out a few real world currency for the PLEX to have them. Then what? Seems like an easy trade off, for little development time. Reality, all it will do is leave players feeling like they just spent real world money to change how they look in game, but development effort, even if minimal would have probably been best spent on developing the game to where the actual gameplay had been the experience they wanted, not the novelty of a new look in the same old game that would pass in a week or so.

Because I don’t see it that way. No one actually wants change, because all real change, real worthwhile types, come with pain and uncertainty. I say if changes were allowed to go further, to change the game even more fundamentally, it would bring those players back, along with others. But the tepid mood of the player base, the reluctance that seems to exist on the development side after past like the Summer of Rage, that all has created an inertia for a time that has come and past in Eve. Eve hasn’t had decline because it has tried new things, changed things. If it is in decline, it is because too much of the base wants to keep it clutching onto the past as it slips through fingers like sand. If experimenting with new monetization models gets the game to a new future, I’m for it. If taking more of a survivalist, and scarcity edge does it, I am for it. The only thing I am not for, keeping the game tied to purity test of another place and time.

Fine, I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt. That said, I’ve yet to see reason to not see the CSM as a body of lobbying first with how it is currently, and player feedback mechanism for CCP second. And it is something I have been paying attention to for quite a long time.

Oh, I could imagine a system where an organization with access to in-game data could select representatives based on measured in-game activities.

For example, let’s say it was possible to identify the top ten players involved in small gang combat, mining, research, industry, hauling, large scale combat, scanning, wormholes, and whatever I’m forgetting. Having identified these people, it would then be possible to reach out to them about small gang combat, mining, research, blah blah blah. Having taken feedback from the people who understand each segment best, it would then be possible for product directors to analyze where gameplay in the studied categories fell short and could be improved.

Yes, of course, this has the “disadvantage” (cough) of preventing players from manipulating how the game plays in areas outside their bubbles, and I fully recognize that nothing like this will ever ever happen.

You give players more of it. People will spend money for cosmetics. You expand on the things you can do with skins. You expand into other areas - you want to sell nostalgia, let people pay to get colored icons back. You want to sell the old game, let people pay for skins that use the old ship models. You keep innovating on that, and selling that. There will always be a market for new players to buy these skins, new groups coming and going to build skin packs for, and the like. There is an endless amount of cosmetic stuff they can monetize if they put their minds to it.

They do not need to go the route of competing with and undermining the in-game economy in order to try to retain new players or upsell existing players.

I think they can do that while operating within the limits as to what the player base has said they are willing to accept. I think there is a ton of wiggle room in there for monetization. What I don’t think they can afford to do is completely change the game, ala Star Wars Galaxies, and expect it to continue to survive. This game has lasted longer than almost any other MMO out there, and that’s because they DIDN’T try to reinvent the wheel. Games that have done that have not typically been successful.

Summer of Rage got us Crucible, one of the most well received expansions in the game’s history, and it led to the high water mark of EVE, which was around 2013. I don’t think the player base is demanding the game remain static - they’ve excepted and embraced a remarkable amount of change over the last few years.

Culture does not change overnight, and we can’t expect it to. Even when it comes to monetization, EVE’s culture has evolved and the amount of leeway for things like cosmetics, is lightyears beyond what it was a decade ago. I don’t think it’s fair to argue that the average player in EVE is some arch-conservative pining for the good old days - I think we tend to be pretty forward looking, if cynical because of the things we’ve seen the company do.

You’re never going to really see the CSM as a player feedback mechanism because the feedback we give is largely private and covered by the NDA. The lack of summits and meeting minutes has exacerbated this because people haven’t really seen what’s gone on behind the scenes. When you do see us publicly, it’s often because we are lobbying (or campaigning). That’s the tip of the iceberg on what we actually do and I think it’s led to a warped view of what we do.

That all being said, are you sure you’re not planning a CSM run? My experience has been the only people who suggest things like “replacing the CSM with another model” are the folks who don’t like the existing one because they don’t think they can participate in it.

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