White Knighting CCP

Communications Center General Discussion
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You’re probably not going to agree with everything I have to say, but I consider this video relevant to everyone that loves Eve Online. Basically, Eve community morale seems to be down quite a bit right now, and I wanted to do something it. Now, I didn’t make a propaganda video, and I have no intention of letting CCP completely off the hook for their mistakes. But, I do strongly assert that (1) bad morale is contagious, (2) that it does have negative consequences, and (3) that a lot of the justification for why many players are so angry is straight up BS.

Fair warning, this is a beast of a video. It’s the same length as an hour long TV show, minus the commercials (about 42 minutes). However, I’ve been working on my narration, and I’ve come a long way since my What is Eve Online video. Moreover, this bad boy is filled to the brim with memes, and should give you at least a few chuckles. I tried to make it as entertaining as possible in an attempt to get this video in front of as many eyeballs as possible, and to encourage them to stay tuned in for as long as possible. I could probably spend another month adding jokes and polishing it, but I’ve already spent the better part of 4 months working on it. So, truth be told, I’m getting a little burnt out (and my isk wallet is running on fumes).

So, give it watch. If you like it, please give it a thumbs up, leave a comment, and share it with others.

Also, I’ll be monitoring comments on my channel and the Eve forums (at the very least), and welcome discussion.

Removed innapropriate image. -Buldath

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42 minutes eh? I suppose it would take that long to touch on every problem in the game. I think it’s a waste of time though. The game design has lead to a game not worth playing.

I think someone said that brevity is the soul of wit.

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Historically, telling people that their view is full of ■■■■ has been a great way to convince them.

So regardless of the content of your video, those that see problems with the game aren’t going to be convinved by someone else’s experience. They have their own to draw on, and they have formed their opinions because of that.

I agree that collectively, the mood of the community towards EVE is down compared to the past and the only people to accept responsibility for that is CCP. Development of the game has led to those opinions.

Personally, I’m ok with things, though also have to admit that my outlook towards the future isn’t all that rosy, where it used to be in the past.

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Yeah, and that’s something that I considered. I tried to say “we” throughout the video, instead of “you” -for that reason, and because I’ve honestly been guilty of some of this stuff myself. And, I did everything I could to make it not sound like a lecture.

Ultimately, however, I decided to not pussyfoot around when it came to calling it like I see it, because I doubted that even had I gone to extreme lengths to avoid insulting anyone, it still wouldn’t have made much difference. For one, it is the assertion that someone is wrong about something, and not the amount of tact used that pisses some people off (and I believe that a recent discussion that I’ve been having in the blackout thread is proof of that). And two, some people seem to be emotionally invested in being angry towards Eve. For those people, things like tact and reasonable arguments are inconsequential.

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Yeah, I’m not sure that it will make any difference. I posted an outrage video around this time last year, and it started to blow up. Within 24 hours it had become my second most viewed video, and would have likely performed quite well had I not pulled it (I was alarmed when I saw people saying they were quitting because of me).

Anyway, I pulled that video after 24 hours, it didn’t have any jokes, was all complaining, and I only promoted it on youtube and the forums, yet I still wouldn’t be surprised if outperforms this video white knighting CCP. People, and Eve players in particular, just seem more attracted to negativity. It’s why some gaming channels have turned from let’s plays and tutorials to outrage channels complaining about video games, devs, and publishers.

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:red_circle:

And by pulling that from the internet, you did EVE a massive disservice. This is exactly what EVE needs. It needs no whiteknighting CCP. CCP needs more negativity so that fewer players join EVE so that EVE either goes under thanks to CCP or CCP changes so that EVE can flourish again. Continued ignorance of real issues (titans, supers, rorquals, structures), completely wrong and frustrating fixes (ore removal from space which has not contributed to the issues at all), bogus fixes to non-problems (red item badge), repeated breaking of promises and ignorance towards feedback as well as blurring and abandoning of an amazing future for EVE in favor of cheap, short-term cash-grabs deserves nothing but negativity.

And in most cases rightfully so. You just need to look at EA, Ubisoft and other culprits why people are so angry at them and the industry at large. And then you just need to look at companies like CDPR to see how you could do it better and how doing it better works well for your games, your company and your community. There are no excuses to be like CCP or EA.

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Well, I agree that CCP has made mistakes, and I understand why players have gotten upset at them -after all, CCP has managed to get me riled up before. Where is disagree is in how things can be improved. More negativity and sabotaging player acquisition isn’t going to make Eve any better than me calling you ugly and pulling your underwear over your head will help you get chicks.

Moreover, CCP is quite aware of what players consider important issues. One of the biggest problems with that is deciding on how best to fix those issues. And, if you think the solutions are easy, feel free to post them on the forums and reddit. Most player suggestions receive a crap ton of negative feeback (and assertions that OP is a retard), and even the ones that manage to get a good amount of positive feedback still have plenty of people arguing vociferously against them.

Third, CCP is nothing like EA. That’s like lumping an itchy butt and explosive diarrhea running down your legs into the same category. I mean, there’s just no equivalency.

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Could I have a TL;DW?

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Wow… just… wow… you’re definition of ‘entertaining’ varies wildly from mine… but at least you’ve got that monetization going, the 5sec ad at the start was the best thing i saw, which i watched muted :expressionless:

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

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Basically, (1) bad morale is contagious, (2) bad morale has negative consequences (such as by sabotaging veteran retention), and (3) that a lot of the justification for why many players are so angry is straight up BS.

This is not to say that CCP hasn’t made mistakes, or that players don’t have any legitimate complaints, but a lot of the frequent arguments I see are ridiculous. For example, we all say that we want more content drivers and that we want Eve to be more dangerous, and everyone cheers at events when CCP gives stats on ships blowing up, but as soon as CCP makes Eve more dangerous for us, we throw a fit. Turns out, we don’t actually want Eve to be more dangerous, we want it to be more dangerous for the other guy.

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Further examples of ridiculous player complaining include late adopters who complain about nerfs and declaring content designed for play-styles other than one’s own as being a waste of dev resources.

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So you are complaining about forum whiners? Ok I get that.

But if anything, they improve my morale.

Like how the krabs are having a eppy because the price of minerals will rise.

See, even things CCP does tat are beneficial, they will complain about. The bad morale starts with people being stupid.

And theres no reason for me to sympatise with those entitled kulaks.

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I mean, I sometimes enjoy trolling forum whiners myself. But, I think community morale can negative consequences in much the same way that bad corp morale can lead to players jumping ship or stopping from logging in. Not only do I think that bad community morale lowers veteran retention, but I also think that all this complaining normalizes it. I know there are still plenty of players who call out forum whining, but there are also a lot who support it, and this creates a culture where some players think that the best response to adversity is to take to the forums and bitch, versus trying to adapt and grow as a player.

Anyway, I may not be able to change the minds of that many existing bitter vets, but perhaps I can stop others from following down that path.

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Age of character experience has nothing to do with it. Most of these whiners think they know things and they clearly dont, so not really veterans.

Do you have a plan on what to do about it though?

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And yeah, I guess the best TLDR is, “bitch less, fly more”. It was the last line in my video. Perhaps I should have led with it.

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Like I say, didnt watch it, but a video expounding what you DO like in the game and how its accessible could be good propaganda for your cause.

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EVE’s history is full of bad decisions, no decisions at all (which is arguably worse), neglect, removing player interactions, catering to the lazy and clueless, oopses, ouches, stupidity, ignorance, stubbornness, dumb design and addition choices we told them before hand would cause trouble, lack of understanding of the game, being influenced too much by the CSM null lobby who wants everything easy and catering to the low effort blob.

And most importantly of all: the unwillingness to finally focus and market EVE one way or another: mainstream PVE or niche PVP sandbox, as you can’t have it both ways.

The onslaught of SJW professional victim raging is terrible but is indirectly the result of no longer adhering to the “HTFU” concept that EVE once had. Simply put: If you open up the game to low effort softies (if only by not telling them upfront that’s going to hurt) then you get… low effort softies, who knew. And what do those do? Yup cry and whine to have their chosen low effort game play made easier and easier every time, all the time.

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:red_circle:

Positivity is not helping either. It has been tried and it has almost always failed to yield any meaningful results. Negativity, on the other hand, outrage, protests, unsubscribing in massive numbers, has yielded positive results.

The forums are full of suggestions, detailed explanations and feedback to changes suggested by CCP.

I have been for years, I will keep doing it and I will use this approach as justification to throw as much negativity at CCP as I like.

Let me see: CCP introduced micro-transaction money grabs just like EA. Check. CCP keeps introducing halfassed, badly developed, broken features into the game and lets them fester for years. Check. CCP is dismissive of feedback from players and instead posts memes (CCP Falcon, hello). Check. CCP halfheartedly introduces changes that are not going to fix things but make many things worse, all in the name of fixing things the community has asked for for years. Check. CCP introduced fun features despite better knowledge and feedback from the community against these features with examples on how they will turn the game into a frustrating mess, leaves them around for years, and then suddenly goes Pikachu-face on the community. Check. The Marketing department seems to dictate what the game development department ought to do (more skins instead of ship redesigns, more skins instead of actual game development, ad buttons for new players that ignore “Do not blink settings”, etc". Check. There are lots of parallels between EA and CCP.

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There’s a lot of truth in that. Well said that man.

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Oh snap, you’re that guy I was talking to in one of the patch feedback threads. Yeah, I was saying, “wait for it,” because I was going to reply with this video, but it kept taking me longer and longer to get it finished.

CCP had to lay off 20% of its staff after the summer of rage. It certainly got their attention, and made them realize that there were lines that they could not cross, but it also hurt their ability to continue to work on and improve the game. Moreover, well reasoned, well argued feedback has had a tremendous effect on game design. CCP has listened to such feedback on the forums, from focus groups, and from CSM members (I don’t care what you think about the CSM). Moreover, what kind of feedback are you likely to respond to, my tactful, reasoned response, or my assertion that you’re an idiot spewing brain vomit all over the forums.

Yeah, they’re full of suggestions, the problem is agreeing on the correct course of action. I mean, both dems and republicans have no shortage of suggestions on how to fix the U.S., but they certainly don’t agree. Naturally, in Eve different values, priorities, and playstyles lead people to coming up with radically different ideas on how to fix things. For example, some players want Eve to be more dangerous and hardcore, while others freak out over CCP’s attempts to increase danger and ask CCP to be made more cuddly. I know that Neeri Nori guy is an extreme example of this type, but he’s certainly not the only one advocating for a kinder, gentler Eve. Moreover, even subject matter experts with the same goals and values will vehemently disagree with each other. So, if you think it’s so easy to fix things, I suggest you get a job in game design or become an indie dev, so that you can watch the praise and profits roll in.

Also, have you read the average player suggestion?

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Yeah, some people really seem to enjoy being negative and discouraging -and not just towards CCP.

I think you greatly underestimate how hard it is to create, let alone create a video game.

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I think that there is some merit to that argument. You can make something that everyone likes a little bit. You can make something that some people like a lot. But, it’s pretty focking hard to make something that everyone likes a lot.

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