Power to the Masses... What could possibly go wrong?

Bold Pilot Log, Entry 26#

After Hilmar's apology to the player base, I couldn't stop thinking. I believe there are a few things we must  consider carefully about this situation. Some blogger already took the letter apart, but as much as I try to avoid being redundant, I will need to examine it for the post's purpose.

The first part is taking responsibility. With this, Hilmar openly states that the driving force beyond the last two years' stumbling was him. A vision that still lives, but the road to that vision was misinterpreted. This 'I've bitten off more than I can chew spans a few paragraphs, detailing how he presumably got carried away. This part closes with the big admission. I applaud him for this, just as many people do, but this is one thing that got me thinking. More on that later.

The next section explains that he understands the error in trying to sell the present Incarna content as a full-fledged expansion, especially in a game that revolves around entirely different things. The letter also shows that they are aware of the way they always overestimate their capacity in regards of development. It is also made clear that beyond the little result we saw there were much technology development that should have been built upon much more.

Then he moves on to the virtual goods fiasco. After a short recap of how they have erred on that, he restates and confirms their current standpoint towards virtual goods. It should be a relief for many people, but there are things that never change. Let's move further.

The next part of the letter speaks again about Incarna, and how it ties into the CCP vision of EVE. The general principles are outlined with a promise that Incarna will not be prioritized over the crucial space improvements. This seems a good thing, too.

The last section is where the letter becomes almost cerebral in tone. Hilmar personifies EVE, and boldly goes where few dared to go before: he promises to listen more to the community, to have their voice taken to heart, and the will to mine the full potential of the EVE universe.

Now, this is all good and nice, but let's be a bit realistic here. The company that we knew as CCP has grown rapidly from a garage inc. to a 600-people company. The growing pains we all felt. They had to build a corporate culture, and probably they are still trying to find their way around being able to operate as a large entity. Their CEO seems to have comitted himself to the new culture, he (or the one helping him) writes:

 The greatest lesson for me is the realization that EVE belongs to you, and we at CCP are just the hosts of your experience. When we channel our passion for EVE constructively, we can make this vision a reality together.

So his vision of a corporate culture is where the whole corp works together with its customers, the capsuleer community to achieve its goals. As much as this is heartwarming,  it has some prospects we need to be aware of. Going from the back of the letter to the front, there are a few concerns that my thinking revolved around.

The last part of the letter remains to be taken as truth, but if it is, it means we, the players will be given the power to change the game. Depending on how they plan to achieve this, it has an interesting aspect. Greater power means greater responsibility. My bet is on the philosophy 'look at the way you use something, and try to help', which has worked great in the past and probably is the easiest to make a policy of. That said, it will be interesting to see if the very vocal players would really get a word in the development of the game.

Incarna is considered a failed thing by many players. There's a good chance CCP is monitoring the rate of clients that have it turned on. I don't think that rate is very high. Regardless, we mustn't forget about Incarna. It's rightly a part of EVE, only, it should be a working part, not the tick we knew it to be. And for that, ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers, it requires no less than development resources! I know many of you would happily play around in your fragile bodies out of their pods. The ideas need to be transformed into actual work, and for that , CCP needs us desperately. Incarna won't be real until we make it real, just as with everything else from EVE.

Virtual goods are one thing people tend to be very sensitive about. Basically, if you're already paying for a service, you shouldn't be forced to pay for another service to make the first one enjoyable. That's what Hilmar promises. I, just like many others resent the idea of purchasing game advantage with real money. It just feels dumb. You could argue that you already RMT with PLEX, but the truth is, with plex, you buy other people's playtime that he or she used to make ISK, nothing else! In this regard, we too have responsibility. If the players buy it, they will continue to sell it. It's not that it cost much to create...

The second section of the letter is about expectations. The hype, the way they got everything riled up and screaming we want it is only possible because the people en masse act like they usually do. So the lesson here is that we too should step back and do some soul searching. What can we do to prevent scandals to break out? Shouldn't we try and be more constructive? Shouldn't we HTFU? Hysterical responses have their use but they are effective only so many times. Let's stop being the screaming mass of idiots and start carrying ourselves as real stakeholders, shall we?

And this leads me to the heaviest sentiment. The apology. In that letter, the CEO of a corporation apologizes to a bunch of players calling a box a box, balls to the wall.

Will we, can we, as a community, admit when we are wrong, with the same honesty, the same sincerity?

Sessym out.

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.

The Wonderful Six - Connection Between Mirrors and Internet Spaceships

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #10

The rage is about to cease as I write this entry. Thousands of players have made clear to CCP what they don't want. In essence, there was no clear word on whether CCP decides to sell non-vanity items in its newly introduced cash shop.

But let us stop for a moment here. Vanity and non-vanity? What are we talking about?

To cite a classic EVE response: 'It depends.' So, everybody thinks it's clear but the nature of EVE is in fact very resistant to micortransactions. I say that because the complex mechanics that make up the game are depending on simple principles. Those are in short risk, trade-off and effort.

Risk means that whatever you have, your actions can and most of the time will result in losing it, whether you value it or not. Ships can pop, prices can shift, competition can drive you out of business any time.

Trade-off is the principle that your decisions have to have an impact. The best example is ship fitting. Do I armor tank my hurricane and sacrifice its speed and damage, or do I shield tank it and sacrifice slots that could have been used for tackle and EWAR? Or in industry - do I buy it and save the time required for production, or do I build it and take the risk of selling whatever I need it for later?

Effort is required to make the game meaningful and a value as entertainment. Essentially, everything you do takes time, ISK, skill training, faction standings, etc. This means that not just you, every other person who engages in the same activity, has to put at least the same energy and time into it as you to compete with you.

And that, ladies, gentlemen and capsuleers, is where we connect to the world of microtransactions. This is something all game developers will consider when they are thinking of ways to add the ability to buy ingame things with real money. The predicament we face is a simple question that is hard to answer well. How do we not break the game with it so people will still enjoy it? The answer seems as simple as keeping the cash shop vanity-only. But the how does it translate to EVE, is what I am trying to explain here.

When I say EVE is very resistant to breaking, I refer to the above introduced three principles that make up the bones and flesh of it. If you introduce something that bypasses any of them, you break the game. You still have to be carefulwith it. Let's look at a few examples.

Example 1: 'Aura' projectile ammunition

• Does all kinds of damage, evenly split but no more than Faction Ammo.
• Short-range Ammo, with all other stats the same as e.g. EMP S/M/L.
• Unique graphical effect when firing it.
• No material cost, just drop AUR and you get the shells.
• Can be put on contracts, sold on market

Example 2: 'Decimator' Gallente battleship

• A T2 Hyperion with increased power grid and same CPU and same slot layout as the T1 hull.
• Requires Marauders 3 and Gallente BS 5 to board
• Role bonus of increased Web range, velocity factor
• 125 m^3 drone bay and 125 bandwith
• Only the blueprint copy is handed out, requires the same materials as a marauder would.

Example 3: 'Divinitiy' Amarr Control Tower

• No standings required to anchor.
• Invulnerable in an online state.
• 50% reduction in fuel cost for all modules.
• Only the blueprint copy is handed out, requires materials to build.
• Cannot be sold, relocated to player hangar upon destruction of carrying ship.

So, here they are. Now, which one of the items listed above is vanity? It is example 2, the Decimator! It is a fairly overpowered ship, why the hell then, you may ask is it okay to put this in the cash shop? Let's see!

• Risk - check! You may have it "pimped out" as you want, but I land a black ops gang on it, and it's gone before you know it. It'll pop just like any other ship does.
• Effort - check! You need to train up to board it, you need to build it from materials that have been created by normal game mechanics.
• Trade-off - check! Since it does not bypass the fitting requirements, so you'll still have to think carefully what you put in its slots.

Now let's take a look at why the other two examples are non-vanity, in other words, gamebreaker stuff. Example 1, the ammunition is created out of thin air. It bypasses the effort rule. It also does all kinds of damage, which, if set too high, will bypass the trade-off rule. Example 3, the POS tower is bad because it most importantly bypasses risk - cannot be destroyed in normal circumstances and cannot be taken by killing the ship that carries it. Also, to a lesser extent, it bypasses effort, because anchoring in high security space would normally take months of standing grind. It also is unavailable for any other players who might be interested in it.

So, to sum things up, when a cash shop item enters EVE, there are quite a few requirements that should all be met in order to make it blend into the game. I'll call these the 'Wonderful Six':

1. Risk - All the risks that are associated to the same item group must also apply to the cash-shop item.
2. Effort - There must be an ingame effort associated with the item, preferably higher or the same as its group.
3. Trade-off - It must not eliminate trade-offs typical to its group.
4. Availability - It must be available to everyone, at least via purchase with ISK. (Most of the times the AUR cycle will provide this, but it's still a valid concern.)
5. Balance - It must be balanced against its own class of items, and must not give an arbitrary advantage.
6. Challenge - It must not eliminate or overly diminish the challenges a player might face during the game.

When purchasing cash shop items, please consider the following. Buying anything that does not meet the above criteria enters what I call the no-fun zone. It will sooner or later break the game experience for all parties involved.

Sessym out.