Blog Banter 28: "The Future of EVE Online, CCP and the CSM"

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #22

Today's topic is the courtesy of Seismic Stan and his blog, Freebooted. Whilst I admire his sense of humor and lightweight writing style, I want to reflect on the questions he puts up as the new organizer of the old Blog Banters.

The Question

In recent months, the relationship between CCP and it's customers has been the subject of some controversy. The player-elected Council of Stellar Management has played a key role in these events, but not for the first time they are finding CCP difficult to deal with. What effect will CCP's recent strategies have on the future of EVE Online and it's player-base? What part can and should the CSM play in shaping that future? How best can EVE Online's continued health and growth be assured?

The Re-cap

To better understand the question first,  let's recap what exactly happened here. Many people can think back until the release of Incarna, Monoclegate and such. But actually where it really began was the ambition on the side of CCP that they can manage running a healthy MMO (which requires tremendous effort and resources on behalf of the developer and exceptional persistence on behalf of the player-base by the way) and develop two revolutionary games at the same time. Impossible? No. "Fearless"? Rather insane, I'd wager. What see here unfold is very much like when one tries to ride not two but three horses at the same time, even though only one of them has a saddle. It is only expected that you try to keep over the other horses by clenching the saddle, which is infuriating to the horse wearing it.

More directly: the first wing flaps of the infamous butterfly were the decisions made at CCP that they take this path. Before embarking on the journey of becoming a multi-product company, they launched a last great effort that awarded EVE players with the much beloved Apochrypha expansion. When it was finished, most people went over to the other projects, namely Carbon and DUST. Incarna had working prototypes for over a year even back in 2009, but for some reason it didn't match the standards CCP set for themselves. Then came Dominion, which turned the sovereignity mechanics of the game upside down. A lot of players felt the impact of this, but it only hit months later, and people only get angry about a change when the negative impact on their situation and interests is apparent. Guess what did it coincide with? You bet, it was the :18months: scandal, or Summer of Rage if you will.

The gist of that situation was that it then became visible to the CSM that CCP no longer concentrated on EVE. No matter what they say, no matter how they praise the community, the reality of EVE development was that it received little attention within he company compared to the Carbon framework and other stuff. That alone would not be a problem, since as we learned later, EVE can benefit greatly from its development. What hit people square in the jaw was that the plethora of existing bugs and usability issues seemingly received little in the way of attention. To quell the fires, Team BFF and Team Gridlock were launched or rather more emphasis put on them in terms of communication. Regardless of their effort, rage in the playerbase started to cyclically build up. Tyrannis failed miserably and just like CCP, I don't want to mention that expansion more than it is necessary.

So, moving on, people seemed to calm into a steady frown, some looking at everything on the dark side, others shouting 'I want to believe'. Regardless, Fanfest did go in a positive tone, aside from the nVidia guys who didn't know when to STFU & GTFO. Everyone seemed to want to forget all the arguing that came out of Summer of Rage '10. Then, suddenly "Fearless". We all should know by now how this went from 'the most successful release eva' to 'this is the time when we look at what CCP does not what they say'.

The Answers

There is a resounding question hanging over most people's mind who followed the events that unfolded:

"What will happen to my EVE?"

I'll once again give you the now classical answer: it depends. It exactly depends on the actions CCP takes in order to:

1. Communicate intentions to the players. Most people can contend with being screwed over if they are warned upfront.
2. Understand that the tremendous content already existent in EVE allows every staying player to love something in the game. This they will care for, nothing else.
3. Strike a balance between FiS and WiS resources.

First, a company as transparent as CCP is (no matter how other people try to distort it, they do speak a lot about what they do), needs to get more serious about speaking to the dangerous lot EVE players are. 'It's going to be awesome' isn't an adequate communication, especially, when for a lot of people, it's not so awesome. Everyone, including developers and players have their own perception of reality, and CCP should at least try to affect that perception, not just dump their own on us. As an example, to some people, mining is boring. To others, it's great because they can do whatever besides it. Some people love solo and small gang PvP, some (*gasp*) don't. The vast majority of people will agree though that they don't like when CCP 'promises' something (if you are familiar with their style, the never truly do) and then break their promise.

Second, the astonishing variety compared to other games means that many people will have different expectations and different interests. Some of them will want life to be easier, some will want it made harder. In the end, nobody truly cares for the things he didn't ever touch, and chances are, that is a long list. They will, however, care for new types of features (such as CQ and Incarna) and if the content fails to fulfill its perceived purpose, they get angry. Now, what is the perceived purpose of Incarna as of yet? Humane way of interaction through lifelike pixel bodies.

The key word is interaction. INTERACTION. INTERACTION. INTERACTION...

Currently, there is no meaningful interaction out of your spaceships. You could argue contracts and market, but that is core gameplay, and not a feature. A feature is something that you can choose to use or disregard. Incarna and Captain's Quarters are empty features. You can use them but you get no real benefit. I can understand why CCP decided to roll it out to see what it messes up (it's an eight year-old game after all), but it got the hype from the wrong angle. This is not the way EVE's future lies at.

The third concern is balance. Just like Torfi described at Fanfest with expansion vs. iteration, CCP will need to strike a balance between WiS and FiS. The reason is simple. Some people will not use Incarna at all if they aren't forced (hell, they shouldn't be, more on that later). Those people will feel abandoned if you roll out just stuff related to Incarna. Other people though may be set off by the miniscule amount of content EVE currently provides outside the space game, so more needs to be developed ASAP.

The Verdict

I don't really feel entitled to say such an important thing as a verdict over a gem that's loved by more than a hundred thousand people, but I do feel entitled to my opinion, so I'll just go ahead and say it.

I think that the future of EVE depends greatly on the decisions that are made to patch up the current situation. The prospect of our favorite game losing its soul is unnerving. There clearly has been a change of direction, which can be perceived through the trailers as well. Up until now, CCP and EVE was all 'this is yours, play with it' and then it somehow went to 'we own your ass and you know it'. I don't like either the transition and the direction. Despite this, many positive things can come out of this.

There are things that CCP needs to return to in order to keep players satisfied. Some little game mechanics help with what they actually do can go a long way to please even new players. It's not the invitation part that's hard - keeping players is. So if EVE can keep its wonderful players while adding new ones, it will stay alive and dynamic - and that means better communication and more concentrated effort for improvement. CCP's growing pains affect both the players and the game greatly, and if the EVE society dies in them, so will CCP.

Sessym out.