The White Papers Initiative

The purpose of this initiative is two-fold. The first is to give a more comprehensive and real time feedback to any developer or staff who are curious about how changes impact the game on a level that is rarely seen. That level is the silent middle-management directors, fleet commanders, diplomats, logistician and recruiting directors, the day-in-day-out cat herders of Eve Online. The second part is to give the player base an idea of what issues actually matter and those issues that have an actual chance of being looked at. This isn’t going to be an initiative that aspires to some individualistic perfect unrealistic vision that CCP has intention of ever bringing forth. If you are advocating for CCP to delete titans and supercarriers or getting rid of asset safety or skill injectors then I suggest finding a discord server to rant on because this won’t be it.

This isn’t anti-CSM, The Council for Stellar Management is a great aspiration for players. Being able to understand the concerns and problems of the playerbase at large and those percentages that play a more niche game and being able to sit down with that for a week in a room of CCP developers is an amazing skill set to learn and some that few ever do. Whatever shortcomings the CSM has it is not for want of players who understand the game. This is for them, if they choose, but it is aimed for people who want to have serious gameplay discussion without the trollish toxicity that tends to follow discussion spheres.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

The idea is to have a repository of high signal-to-noise observations and feedback. It is also important to educate the greater player base on what the actual issues are in a clear and concise manner. On his interview on the Less Than 10 podcast, CCP Rise expresses some of the frustrations developers have in making changes to the game because of the game’s deep interconnectedness. Players feel that some things should be easy fixes but they don’t see the changes across seemingly unrelated areas of the universe. Also, there are players that stuck in silos that are their own niche community and rarely explore outside to other gamestyles. While that is perfectly valid gameplay, they develop an isolationist mentality that is their own agenda is paramount to the desires and struggles of those who play other ways. This Initiative is designed to be the greatest Venn Diagram of dialog where players can not only share their feedback and ideas in a structured, moderated format but can receive the same in areas and playstyles in which they were not aware.

Whether they realize it or not, CCP developers have twenty thousand game testers every day. Players spent countless hours in thought and gameplay manipulating the game in ways they never intended. This Initiative is for them, it is a repository of the same feedback so the curtain is peeled back on emergent gameplay, and how the environment shapes the players and those player’s experiences with it.

HOW YOU CAN BE A PART OF THIS

I believe how that will come about is not an open roundtable but smaller, moderated, singular-focused groups. These groups will have the best possible people, not necessarily the ones that have a five digit voting bloc behind them. If you understand the topic, realize that you can be wrong and come to the table as peers then you’ll fit in perfectly. If you think this is the place for you to hold court and write a 10 page google doc on why everyone is wrong, then you won’t make it through the front door. Share this with your friends, your corporation and your alliance directors and XOs. Fill out the form at the bottom of this post. You must have a discord tag to participate.

WHO AM I

I love Eve Online more than most things and probably more than things that should have a higher priority in my life. Since I started playing being involved, Eve Online has affected more of my attribution than most experiences that have happened to me. It has allowed me to discover aspects of my personality and how I’m wired as a person and developed areas of my life that I had not the chance to develop in real life. There are few things in real life that I can be as passionate about as Eve. In real life, I love how systems work. Whether manufacturing systems, or the cyclic lifespan of stars to the ATP chain that is found in everything that breathes oxygen on Earth, I deeply enjoy understanding the complex and highly structured systems and cycles that underpin everything we know. To me, Eve Online provides that same pull and attraction because of how the complexity and intricacies mirror the real world. I’ve been playing since 2014 and basically failed upwards to where I am now. I am still younger and less experienced than most people I come into contact with. I don’t really believe in a right or wrong side of the meta but players playing out whatever role-play scenario that they’ve become attached to. I’ve been working on Talking in Stations every week building out the Sunday show, I sit in a production meeting as a student of The Meta Show behind the scenes production. These two organizations gave me an insight to Eve that I never thought possible and has helped me in the opportunity to listen to anyone who has unwittingly decided to engage with me. These organizations haven’t endorsed it to be upfront. This is my own initiative that is the culmination of several thoughts beginning last year. If they or any reputable group wants to endorse it down the road, I’ll be very appreciative.

I was born into the game universe at the end of 2014 and since then I’ve been involved in nullsec blocs, small gang roams, daytripping in wormholes, capital production and market trading.

WHAT IF THIS DOESN’T GO ANYWHERE

It will probably fail. In fact, I can’t tell you how much time I’ve put into exploring ideas or written shows to be told or known it wasn’t good enough or right for the occasion and I need to go back to the drawing board or been even told no. One of the greatest thing about Eve is that there is strength in trying and failing. Everyone who ever attempted anything knows this. There should be a joke about how Eve teaches someone to fail, because there is much truthful irony in it. I hope you all give this your best effort though because it is something I feel very strongly and you should as well. I hope that this becomes the go-to for new players, veterans, the CSM and CCP developers to find a clear and concise feedback loop that benefits everyone. If you have any questions or comments, you can find me on discord January Valentine#9887.

https://forms.gle/tUqEs6rAEqwFa3iSA

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tl;dr Special cliques to give special feedback to the developers.

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Not at all. What it won’t be is a random hodgepodge of players that are just thumping for their own idealized version of the game. Do you have something you can contribute, are you prepared to have an open mind when it comes to gameplay? If so, then sign up. This is more of place for other players that learn from each other than CCP.

Just so you know Sion proposed this to the CSM and CCP about 5 years back. The main worry then was how you choose who these white paper groups are and who gets to decide who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’.

Face it, IF they started to accrue traction with CCP the above mentioned 5 digit blocs WOULD take over. It is in their nature. Now if you want to make afocus group? More power to you, find a CSM member willing to take the results of that group through the CSM and CCP itself.

If/when the most recent minutes come out you will see that CSM members did make presentations to CCP devs on things they cared/know about. You could help build the next set of those sort of passion projects.

Me? I will probably be running for CSM (again) and so I will watch eagerly to see what you guys and gals produce.

m

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aka the customer base

It’s a good thing, everyone has a say, no one is special.

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  1. Yes, that is a super sensitive topic but I’m hoping my experience as a producer will help me out as my literal job is to find stories all over New Eden and filter out what is interesting and unique to the most diverse slice of players and what is not. I am hoping as someone who is working on both Talking in Stations and the Meta Show, I have the diplomacy to reach out to players no matter what their playstyle and background. We are all here because we love in Eve in some fashion and I believe that if you have the intelligence and diplomacy and able to act like an adult, then that should be all you need.

  2. The idea is to break down by topic, so people are rewarded by their intelligence not the ability to bandwagon. The more diverse players this Initiative gets, the less people are able to take over. I don’t really need a CSM person to take this to CCP, it will be available on the forums for anyone who wants to read it.

You must be new here. ANYTHING you post on the forum WILL get derailed and trolled to death. Usually by the groups in direct opposition to whatever is being proposed.

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" A person is smart . People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals…" as Agent K said. This is reason why autocracy works, because a group of people can make a decision, a whole mob won’t.

And now you’re back to a select group making decisions for everyone…

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That’s why it won’t be, only the results released at a determined time. The actual group discussion will take place on a private discord server.

You do know what an autocracy is, right? It’s absolute rule by one person or group…

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Decisions are the developers job. You weren’t thinking your clique would have actual power were you? :crazy_face:

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The game developers are going to do whatever they want. I’m pretty sure the number of players who wanted that annoying red dot was exactly zero…

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Dang thats me out

And Billy is taking out everyone sitting next to him by that rule.

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Where do I say anywhere about power? Players have no power except to unsubscribe. Even the CSM has no real power. You’re completely missing the point.

Making decisions is power.

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How about this, because you came up with the idea, you are permanently excluded from any group.

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Hey man, I feel you. I’m not particularly intelligent. I struggle at math, sometimes I have to read things a few times to get the point. But I do know enough to know where I’m wrong and the ability to dialogue with my peers and I feel like that should be the requirement of this group.

Idea sounds interesting. Not sure how much attention it will attract. It seems that nearly 50% of the activity on the forums is conducted by the same 50 trolls and frequent posters, most of whom are just looking for someone to argue with.

You might want to post the initiative on Reddit and any EVE Discord/whatever groups you can locate, to hit those members of the audience who gave up on the official EVE forums long ago.

Hi Mike, that’s great to hear.

If you do decide to run, you’ll definitely get my vote.

DMC

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