Exactly, so by even trying to do that (if only by not making any choices or marketing the game properly) you’re going to piss of both “sides”. So you shouldn’t even TRY to, only idiots do that.
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Totally agree with the sentiment that eve would be better off by picking either sandbox or themepark.
The more they continue down the path of watered down sandbox the more it looks like they are tyring to milk both player types as much as possible before going under. This is exacerbated by hypernet, skills injectors and the other monetisation ideas. Teasing with ‘chaos’ but really pulling their punches. And that pisses me off.
It’s hard to be positive about it when it seems we’ve gone so far down this road that we can’t turn back without suffering unsustainable losses (blackout). And even more frustrating that we’ve been there telling ccp for nearly 10 years, over and over again, taking the sand out the box is a bad idea.
They spend disproportionate amount of time trying to balance null, one of the lesser populated areas of the game. And neglect high-sec, the most populated area of the game (except to occasionally nerf content there). So the majority of eve’s players are playing a mind numbing grind fest.
Core players are repeatedly alienated by ccp and those looking for a themepark are never satisfied.
So yeah, ccp screwed the pooch and all they have to blame is their greed.
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TL:DR - The problem with Eve is “leadership” and “vision”.
I’ve worked on many projects in my career from bottom to top, many of those difficult with a userbase having conflicting needs. In all cases I’ve found those projects most likely to suceed were those where the project leadership had a strong vision of what they wanted to achieve and were prepared to push that vision through.
I therefore have some sympathy for CCP, users always complain, but would question what their “vision” is and their determination to push it.
Eve originated out of a project which was a 3D web browser, the intent was to connect people in an online world, to provide an interactive experience. Maybe CCP should look back at their original intent and remould based on that.
So, imagining what that original vision was … I freely admit it’s difficult to be sure but having read interviews etc then I would suggest the following principles:
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EVE stands for Everyone Versus Everyone, it is essentially a PvP sandbox, this does not mean solely PewPew interactions but all interactions are competetive.
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PvE content is essential so that players can earn and fuel the PvP content.
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Group play should always be rewarded over solo play.
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Risk/Reward should scale against security, all PvE risk should also include PvP risk.
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It should not be possible to plex from hisec activity alone.
That’s the basics, the hardest part of that is the risk/reward equation where groups of players will minimise risk to such an extent that the rewards are disproportional. Added to that is the issue of a solo player multiboxing the hell out of group play and taking all the benefits.
I don’t pretend to have the answers but that is the sort of “vision” I mean. It may well be that CCP have a gold plated plaque somewhere with something similar, but it would be interesting to hear from CCP what those principles are and in future promise to try and adhere to them with future changes.
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I made a thread about that back in 2008, predicting exactly that.
Disagree.
Smart planning should be rewarded over just Leroying into crap regardless of size.
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I agree, but it should not OP a solo player at the cost of group players.
But anyway, as users we will inevitably disagree, my point is that it is CCP’s viewpoint that matters and we just don’t know what that is.
Agreed there.
Id like an actual mission statement
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I mostly play solo these days, both pve as PVP. But to me intelligent teamwork and team play should always “win”.
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Exactly, so we don’t disagree 
I also mostly solo but within a group outside of the usual corp/alliance structure, works for us. We co-op when it makes sense to and otherwise are in freindly competition.
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Of course, like most arguments the OP is not wrong. There are Eve players that relish negativity and whose noise goes beyond constructive criticism or commentary and hurts the game, sometimes even intentionally.
But that said, you can’t ban any criticism of CCP because it might make CCP or the game look bad and hurt the game. In fact, the vast majority of the “anti-CCP” noise the CCP seems to be against comes from a constructive place. Some nerds may take it too far because they are passionate, but the number of people actively trying to hurt the game out of spite is minimal.
Whats far worse than players showing they care and providing criticism and risking some negative press, is for everyone to be a bunch of yes men and tell CCP everything they are doing is A-OK! Like the Star Citizen example - like really, that mess falls largely on the uncritical fan base who has thrown literally tens of millions of dollars at the developers enabling that ■■■■■■■■■■■.
As is usually the case, Daichi nails it. CCP has lacked vision and focus for the game for a decade and it is really showing now. Sure, there has been some poor execution over the years, but most of the current problems results from a lack of direction, and a lack of courage to create something grand. Instead of focusing on a vision, management has pandered to fickle players, adopted popular, but corrosive monetization schemes, watered down the game to broaden its appeal, and evolved the game based on making a profitable game, not a good game.
The reality is that unlike what some Eve players like to tell you, a profitable game is not necessary a good game, especially a good PvP game. In fact, I’ll go as far as asserting it is next-to-impossible to build a balanced open-world PvP game using most of the current industry-standard monetization models. Attempting to shoehorn your open-world, PvP-everywhere sandbox game into a pay-to-win micro-transaction model has hurt the quality of the core game of Eve immensely.
Maybe even worse was the attempt to devalue the core game by flooding it with wealth so that everyone feels like a winner. I guess it did juice player numbers for a few years as players turbokrabbed their way up the wealth ladder, but at the cost of devaluing huge swaths of the game, and increasing the power gap between the entrenched powers and new entrants to insurmountable levels. And now boredom. Terminal levels of boredom.
In short, CCP’s deliberate decisions, largely driven by short-term profit goals, directly resulted in the current mess. At least, to their credit, they are now trying to clean it up.
Should we not call CCP out on that? Should we not tell CCP their latest monetization scheme will impact negatively the game we came to play? Or their latest attempt to broaden the game at the cost of core gameplay will be less fun for us? Of course we should tell them. They may not listen, but they need to be aware of the potential costs of their decisions.
The alternative is to hook our teats up to the CCP milking machine and let them take our money without delivering the product that is implicit in the transaction - a good video game. And if you think CCP has made a mess of things, you just need to look over at the Star Citizen crowd, to see what can happen when you suspend real criticism and give unwavering support to a project.
So, sorry, not buying this argument. Pretending the game is only great to trick new players into trying it isn’t good for the game. They will quickly figure out the issues themselves.
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To be clear, I wasnt meaning in monetary isk rewards. Yes, a combined effort on a set task should, if suitable for group, yield more output.
I was meaning more the opportunity for fun and engaging play should not only revolve around either groups or soloable tasks.
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First, I applaud your intent to improve community morale and alter perspective on how things are viewed. I agree that morale is contagious and important, and bad morale among the community affects the developer. If the morale is bad enough, it places a mental burden on the dev team with thoughts like “The players hate us anyway, why bother?”, “Nothing we ever do is good enough”, “No matter how good our product is, we’ll take a crapstorm of complaints about it”. This tends to push them into an adversarial, “the player is the enemy” mindset which prevents them from truly designing for the player - instead they are in a mental design/production space where they are trying to engineer a “win” for CPP and EVE against the player.
Self-defense and self-justification are natural, unavoidable and powerful reactions to external criticism. If the criticism is persistent and not unfounded, it leads to denial as well: “Players don’t know anything, our game is great, it’s just the players that are bad at it. They’re a bunch of whiners always asking for more”.
Generally, if I had to take a team out of self-defense, self-justify, denial mode - I would present them with facts and trends showing how the current direction is not benefitting them. Then focus on the accomplishments they’ve achieved which are in line with the desired direction, institute rewards for further progress along those lines, set firm expectations on what constitutes “progress”, and also that “negative progress” would have consequences. Including replacement of people who weren’t a good match for the team goals.
I don’t believe you improve morale or the underlying causes by exaggeration, by blaming the consumer for being unhappy with poor service, or by blowing smoke up the butts of the devs and saying “No really, you guys are doing great”.
You may feel you put in ‘funny memes’. I stopped watching your video after I saw a couple things.
- “Star Citizen players are cool and chill with everything SC does. EVE players are crazy mad nutbars even when things are just a little bad.”
I feel this point was ridiculously exaggerated, and placing the blame on EVE players for having issues with poor service delivery on CCP’s part.
- “EVE vs SC comparison: EVE 16 years since full release, content rich, highly polished. SC: 6 years late and crappy (paraphrased)”
This feels not only like comparing apples and oranges based on size alone, but also like you’ve pulled the stem and leaf off the apple and stuck it on a watermelon to score an easy win.
I personally don’t consider the first release of EVE to be a “full release”, more of a work in progress. I confess that I do not follow SC development at all closely, but I don’t feel it’s useful to compare the two in that way. Different times, different products, different markets, different development process with different goals.
SC is being marketed as “a painstaking process of realizing a visionary’s goal of producing a quality game to high standards without intereference from anything but his own drive for excellence”. (It’s a load of crap, in my view, but that’s roughly how it’s being marketed.) Even being 6 years overdue, it’s still in the ‘hopeful’ stage where all the hopers and backers can at least pretend to themselves that it will all turn out well in the end.
EVE has already ‘turned out in the end’, and the players are less easily given to pretending it will all be fine. Compare what SC players are saying 12 years after release to what EVE players are saying now, and you’ll see a much closer comparison.
I also feel that marketing EVE for 16 years as “the game where you can go to be a douchebag and get away with it” has a direct correlation with the types of players/attitudes we end up with 16 years later. I don’t know how moderation gets done on SC forums, but I do know there isn’t a single game I’ve ever played that would consistently give the toxic trolls on this forum so much license to spew bile at CCP, EVE and other players without ever taking more than token efforts to rein it in. “You reap what you sow”, is the notion here.
As a future tip, if you want people to watch your video based on the humor and the memes, perhaps check first to ensure that some of the humor is front-loaded and works for the intended audience. For me at least, putting hyperbole and exaggerated comparisons up front, especially ones that basically call your audience a bunch of flakes, ended any chance that the rest of the video would be seen.
Nevertheless, thank you for the time and effort you put into it. I appreciate your input and willingness to work on that aspect of the community and wish you better luck with future efforts.
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While I agree with the theme of your impressive video "negativity begets negativity’ I also feel that you missed the opportunity to weigh the factors of the players’ disgruntlement against the decisions - or lack thereof - by the game developer.
In a game that is designed to be dark and uncomfortable negative emotions are quick to manifest themselves. And a game that also has the effect of connecting people facilitates the emotions to spread even faster and deeper. A communicated long term-vision for the game, even if it’s only a daydream because there is no concrete plan behind it, is a beacon that delivers calmness and trust. Currently the developer lacks in communication, which must be at its lowest point in a decade. “Age of Chaos” is not really a vision, even when delivered from a hot tub in Finland, it’s merely a sight.
Changes made to the game are primarily experienced as annoyances by the player base when there is no perspective, they don’t make enough sense and are therefore not accepted. Change management is a very tricky business requiring lots of direct communication and honest consultation. The smaller the changes the more difficult the people aspect becomes. Vision statements need to be repeated and confirmed (by progress) on a regular basis. While there are more than a few elephants in the room - capitals, wealth distribution, FW, retention, botting - none of the changes seem to directly or effectively address those perceived issues.
“We’re not telling you why” seems to be the norm now and that is very unfortunate.
However, that CCP, a small company after all, splits its work force across several efforts is certainly not inspiring more trust in what they are attempting for Eve. At least not without … communicating about their vision to the one game that matters to us. Game updates with more bugs in them than can usually be fixed between two updates indicates poor internal organization as well. And a loss of trust in CCP to be able to remove said elephants is a far more dangerous element than just ‘the usual negative feedback’. That and a barrage of ill-received small changes drives loyal customers away. What drives losing trust ? Is it too much negative feedback, prolonged negative feedback about always the same issues, lack of communication, lack of resolve on the side of the developer, sidetracking, timing, something else ?
Communication is a huge factor, we can all agree on that. While actions may speak louder, words do provide the necessary framework to create the mindset you want.
If I could make one suggestion to CCP it would be to go back to the root, the original vision, of the game in its infancy, and stick to it. The original concept is what made the game last this long, it inspired long-term player base loyalty. Catering to a so-called new generation of players with different tastes and expectations would be as much wrong now as it would have been back in 2003. Stick to the original vision !
We are not your usual gamers crowd any more than Eve is just your usual game or CCP is just your usual game developer. In that, I trust, we can find each other and get through any rough waters.
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I agree mostly with what you’ve written. I’ve worked on some long-term rolling projects and it is easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day issues, complaints, next rolling target. This induces a siege mentality sometimes and the only way to break this is to go back to the projects original intent and core principles. You can then ask very pertinent questions such as is that original vision still justified? Should we change direction? Has our userbase changed?
Once you have done that kind of review it is much easier to sift through the chaff and concentrate your resources and efforts where it matters most.
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Just going to toss a bunch of replies to specific points in here:
Incorrect. I know exactly why I’m frustrated with CCP, can give you specific examples, have the programming and game design experience to back those up, and they aren’t BS. Every single player who’s angry with CCP, whether his anger is valid/reasonable or not, believes his anger is justified. Else he wouldn’t have it. You win no points telling people “your feelings are not valid in my opinion”.
You mix too many things up here. “Everyone says X” when in reality “a minority percentage of loud, vocal and mostly annoying players want X”. “Everyone cheers” when again, it’s a minority. “Players throw a fit”, sure, because when you put in something that makes 20% of the players cheer, and 60% of the players (who are PvE focused) reduce playing, you’re going to get complaints.
“Players want EVE to be dangerous for the other guy”. You’re making the same mistakes here that CCP frequently does. Confusing ‘segments of the player base’ with ‘the whole player base’. Designing a feature because ‘players want this’ and not cluing in that your own stats show only 20% of your players ‘want this’ and 60% of your players will be angry about it, is exactly how CCP ended up where they are today.
Here’s a tip for you and CCP both: stop treating everything monolithically. If you want good ideas, you pick the good ideas. You listen to people with good arguments, well laid out concepts, experience with various aspects of the game. You get 3 volunteers and 1 paid organizer to comb the forums and pull out and summarize the best ideas for review. You especially do this if all your decent game design people bailed on the company 10 years ago and you’ve been flying by the seat of your pants ever since. Heck knows why you would pick ‘the average forum idea’ as your comparison point, since nothing but the best 10% should ever be considered anyway.
That’s what EVE lacks, and SC at least pretends to have. And it makes all the difference.
I don’t 100% agree with everything in Pedro’s post here, but like most of his posts it’s a breath of fresh, accurate, enriching air that CCP would do well to partake of.
Everything in this post is bang on. My only issue with it is the ‘stick to original vision’ part. For one, all the original visionaries departed long ago, leaving Hilmar to manage based on the ‘vision’ of “higher income per player per month”. Which has understandably backfired because ‘CCP milking players’ does not lead to ‘more players paying more money’, quite the opposite. Enough has been learned over the past 16 years that a ‘better-than-original’ vision could be crafted today, if only they had someone aboard who was capable of doing so. And if he could convince management to pay for it and then get the hell out of the way.
Note: Obviously a company needs cash to survive and grow. Perfectly understandable to make “income per player” a key focus. However making that the primary focus, over and above “designing a quality game that players want more of” and “connecting, communicating and interacting with our player base in a consistent and postive manner” is what drove the game and CCP down.
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I, for one, appreciate OP getting hisbullshit called out both here and on r/eve.
Would you like to know more?
Yes
[ ] No
Yeah…there was a massive paradigm shift before the ink was dry on the contract. PA bought ccp not for EvE, but for existing business permissions ccp already had.
All arguments pro and con regarding EvE are moot, really. Enjoy the game, don’t fret one way or the other.
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Who is “they”?
I propose that the left “they” are a different subset of the populace than the right “they”.
–They all know Gadget
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Yeah, I’m not advocating for that. In fact, I myself criticized CCP for stuff in the video, and said that I will criticize them when I think it’s appropriate.
I’m not sure what you mean by latest monetization scheme. Are you talking about hypernet relay, or selling SP in DLC’s? Personally, I think hypernet relay was brilliant (and I defended it in the video), and think that selling SP is to players is BS (and I criticized them for such).
Yeah, I see a lot of players have this sentiment, and I feared it was true myself for a while. However, I’m not so sure any more. I haven’t seen anyone provide any financial evidence supporting the assertion that Eve or CCP is going under, CCP is investing in new player retention, and I’ve heard devs specifically say that they are not going into maintenance mode; they are trying to grow.
Now, I know players have pointed to PCU numbers as evidence of Eve dying, and that it is worrisome to see, but low PCU numbers don’t mean that the game can’t remain profitable. Games with really small player bases (such as Everquest) still manage to make at least some money, otherwise they’d shut down the servers.
I know businesses aren’t above lying to their customers, and I may be a fool for trusting them, but I think they’re telling the truth. Moreover, that theory has been around for at least 1 year -I know, because I was saying that I was worried that this was the case a year ago. So, if they are going under, they appear to be doing it in slow motion. I guess we’ll find out though. Will people still be saying this next year, or the year after that, or will Eve be dead by then?