I don’t know about the OP, but when a company creates a “Feedback on our latest event” thread, I don’t think that honest feedback is either complaining or whining or “not dealing with what EVE really is”.
I recall many events from the past where threads were made with lots of comments, lots of advice on how to do the events and builds for it. Always some complaints of course, but fairly positive feedback. I don’t recall, until very recently, threads on new events in which 90% of the replies are “Event is broken, does not work, cannot find, cannot complete, tasks do not update, tasks are next to impossible, rewards are not even worth 1/2 the effort of the event” etc. etc. This feedback is supported by clear examples, stats on rewards vs time, screen shots of broken mechanics, etc.
When a company almost completely ignores this feedback, even pre-event test server feedback, and then repeats all the same mistakes on the next event… I think it is valid for people to say “You guys are obviously headed in a bad direction here”.
While I agree that “Oh noes, EVE is dying”, “EVE is P2W!”, and similar threads have little benefit to anyone, I think “EVE is perfect the way it is” is just whistling in the dark. If CCP takes EVE in directions that cause considerable player discontent, it’s not going to do them or the players any good. And some other space game will be happy to take up the slack.
As a player who cares and “constantly complain’s” from an inside perspective the biggest reason we keep complaining is that we get 0 feed back from CCP, which only serves to increase frustration.
Eve is a game you have to invest in with many hour’s, to feel comfortable investing those hour’s its a basic human need to know in which direction eve online is heading, and we as players have no idea, CCP has not shared that with us.
Surprise is nice and all but that also carries a massive chance of being completely depressed after you find out that after 10 year’s of time investment, the game is slowly catering more to farming and less to pvping which the game is advertised as, and as a worry this may keep tilting in that direction.
I will agree to the silence but the PvP is what players make it.
For instance Null Sec, the tendency to blue everyone is pointless, Null Sec was designed to be a war zone and the days of BoB/FIX/ASCN/.5. it was, we had constant conflict all over null. The new age of null seccers is to “peace and prosperity”.
But yes i agree a bit more transparency would be nice, but the silence may not lead to bad things, all we can do, is wait and see and then respond as and when all fact are here.
It’s also one of the reasons why we play Think escapism, and thus we also tend to overcompensate for the unavoidable real world immersion
The irony is that CCP just left the room for exactly that to drive EVE to become an emergent dynamic, which is exactly what grew it. Unfortunately how CCP’s management handled figuring this out under the conditions at the time is what caused the hole in the ship.
As such, from room for overcompensating immersion to the more easily calculated and managed quick gratification fix. No surprise thus that CCP jumped on opiate economics to functionally guide customer behaviour in relation to economies of scale.
Maybe. There was a time where change like a functional model swap was not necessary, entirely avoidable even. Unfortunately, this was the time when critical parts of the old core CCP were caught in the traps of segregated organisation and personal desillusions on assumed exceptionalism meeting boundaries (which is what gave way to the drama’s of WW, more products and believing that looking good is better than being good and thus giving way to micromanagement drama and mutilation of design constructs).
I do not believe that people can be realistically expected to change along with change. Some people do anyway, others don’t. The problem here is that for such a long time EVE was like a virtual Iceland of 300k people being citizens among the pixels. EVE as an emergent dynamic meant that CCP had to take part in it and be governance and state alike. Something they had severe historic trauma with, not to forget. So it comes as no surprise that CCP’s overcompensating in this had effects as well.
Did EVE have to change? Always. Did it have to swap out its functional model? That could have been avoided. But those days are long over. As such change follows the model swap.
Can we expect people to just change along with that? Truly? Remember, even the new still arrive in what to a reasonable degree still is a virtual country, so to speak.
CCP isn’t managing growing pains, which would require them to take advice. They are managing change pains. Think of it as swapping out organs, one at a time. Immune system suppression prima requirement. And in the end you wake up to a body swap.
Humans are what they are But I do think that the fragmention of communication streams is a huge factor here (again, textbook). There has always been signal distortion, but there was interaction and a broad range of signals.
This is no longer the case. As such it follows from human communicative behaviour that signals with a high content of sentiment reinforce each other, making the situation worse.
For CCP both a complication and a required trend.
There’s one distinct dividing line developing. The first decade of EVE resulted in what one would call a generational segment. A segment of customers which grew up with EVE and which to a substantional degree will always have disproportionate accumulated weight. For example on the organisational level in terms of economies of scale and hypercapitalist advantage of first adoption.
Why do you think Hilmar was so deliberate in triggering representatives of such group / generation phenomena into stumbling forward? Removing the stakeholder concept from CSM, leaving room for organisations to reform feedback mechanisms, to splinter community messaging between forums and reddit (tons of examples)? Because he recognised that advice / input would have to become restricted first to detail level and then to null while removing the emerging risk of customers resorting to external pressure mechanisms.
CCP’s strategic course change of functional model swap had already been imposed on them at that time
Yeah, the demographics are being swapped out. By the time that is complete, the remaining proverbial first generation (pun intended) will be long conformist, it’s already caught in gratification stimuli which limit both their input and weight. Who where the consumer drivers running with CCP’s discretely and carefully introduced and timed extractor / injector / rorqual changes - to name just a single example.
I do not think that a different demographic is a bad thing, considering that the model will be a different one. It’s a basic dependancy really. It must become a different one, more so than becoming one with merely altered behaviour.
Keep in mind here, different model. No more emergent behaviour, guided behaviour. By this time the first decade segments will constitute less than 5% of demographics, and while still being much more constant in account ratio’s and continuity than other segments (which will be much more volatile for acquisition/retention) the new blood is simply different blood. Also keep in mind that CCP no longer measures demographics as humans first, but as accounts.
Different blood? Well, what happens when you put a different blood type in the same body? It kills the body. Here’s why Hilmar insists swapping it out
and at an incredible pace… some advanced AI is he even human? I remember having a lecturer like that he was delivering so much information in such a short amount of time everyone was left baffled at the end of the lecture literally took us day’s to unpack every bit of condensed theory which only spanned 30 minutes of talking.
There’s a few assumptions behind this line of thought. Keep in mind, EVE Online as it still is has no direct competitors, and CCP has good eyes inside the very few ventures which are putting a toe on that particular field.
Sure, there will be a loss of demographics, but it is a controlled swap of demographics. CCP knows exactly what it is doing. In spite of appearances, there’s no stumbling or quick fix pitfalls, it’s all consciously and deliberately executed in accordance with the venture roadmap. Sure, that leaves issues for the product level roadmaps and exections, but that is the kind of effect designed to have a so called dual impact. It’s managed effect, this includes negative effect.
CCP is taking risks in this regard, but they are taking calculated risks. And for the first time in their history I do believe that the venture deals with directives which punch through the cultural-organisational attributes to reinforce the guided management of impact scenario’s.
Look, this isn’t something of an 18 month typical cycle. This is boiling frogs, for starters. Customer discontent isn’t just manageable, it also serves purpose. I realise that this is a perhaps harsh statement, but it is what it is. Textbook venture management of a planned functional model swap of a digital services product.
The old correlation between player / studio good is one of the primary drivers of breaking that correlation. This is perhaps the harshest truth of all.
Worry less about me, worry about what happens when EVE’s cluster sentience emerges as an AI rooted in CCP’s math and a decade and more of cumulative human anti-social behaviour
Maybe CCP’s not in it for the money, but sacrificing themselves for damage control on that kind of AI arising
In any case I guess we have to wait till the beginning of april before we hear anything from CCP as they are only having their meeting at the end of March, which happens to co-inside with april fool’s so who know’s…
Thank you for the informative posts. I’ll consider myself a “swapped out organ” (hopefully I can find a new home)
As you have highlighted, community anger is completely expected, and intentionally ignored. CCP’s behavior as of late makes a lot of sense now…
For their sake I hope they can find enough “new organs”. But given their performance on gaming ventures outside of core EVE (damned assumed exceptionalism), I’m left lacking confidence.
Do you think this path of complete change (in game and player base), is itself an example of assumed exceptionalism? Why must a dedicated player base be abandoned to seek a new one?
Mwa, it doesn’t really matter. Product level doesn’t make strategy, it comes down to communication of detail level change to features.
Heh, look I can understand concern, frustration and personal decisions. But I will say this, EVE “as is” still is rooted in emergent behaviour and will be for a while, change is gradual, EVE as life is still huge and diverse.
Personal choice is always personal, but EVE isn’t dead or dying, merely slowly changing. That does leave room for living it until such a time where it’s no longer balanced for personal choice. It is also possible that you yourself may change along with it, or independant or even regardless of it.
As cold as it may sound, the shift was made years ago. Everything else is business. But, for the first time CCP’s management, considering personal stakes and changes in venture dependancies, also has the required incentives and pressure to be careful and professional with it.
It isn’t just EVE for CCP, there’s more to the venture as well. New organs isn’t that hard, it’s a matter of identifying and catering. See the reply above, careful and professional. It may feel not right, it may encroach on personal preference, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible. Truth be told, unlike CCP’s previous experiments, there’s stakes now.
I think the days of cultural-organisational exceptionalism (or awesomesauce, as one of the founders coined it) have been long over. In specific ways, CCP’s room for that kind of thing was taken away, it’s merely part of internal management now.
The path of functional model change has simply become unavoidable. Keep in mind, EVE is not just a virtual life, a product, a game. It is also a business, investor relations, people’s livelyhoods.
I can understand the sentiments, exactly because for such a long long time EVE wasn’t a game, but an entirely different beast. People live in it, people live it. So suddenly waking up to there too, as in the real world, having less than perceived control or role is not a pleasant experience.
It doesn’t mean that one must find a different home. It just means that one should consider not taking it as a home. Think of this by analogy of how people often overcompensate in forming social circles in work environments. The team becomes akin to a family. People share. And then something happens and the true nature of the relationships become painfully clear. It isn’t family, it’s business. It isn’t immersive, it’s simply exposure to high frequency / short distance interaction.
Doesn’t mean the office then sucks, doesn’t mean the company is rotten or that the people are bad. It just means that the reality is different than our assumed perception. Which doesn’t mean that there is no gratifying work to be done or fun to be had.
Decent post I think your main points are definitely debatable.
The most recent issue with the gala event did look bad on Eve. It’s a very broken event regardless of the loot boxes. Took days for a response that led to nothing. That does not look good. I don’t believe Eve is dying, but if this sort of thing continues then we may see it begin to slide.
Think escapism, and thus we also tend to overcompensate for the unavoidable real world immersion 