5 ms·

EveOnline CEO: a letter to the followers of eve

84 points by bjclark 15y ago

kloncks 15y ago
Anyone care to do a tldr;?
- e1ven 15y ago
  It's worth reading as an example of how to try to acknowledge you made massive mistakes, pissed away good will, and want the community to know that you've heard them, and you want to make things better.
- smtf 15y ago
  CCP's CEO is acknowledging that he was, in his words: I was impatient when I should have been cautious, defiant when I should have been conciliatory and arrogant when I should have been humble He aims to resolve all the nonsense of the last few months by: doing what we say and saying what we do He addresses and apologies for all the ways CCP seemed to have become EvilCorp™ over the last few months.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    What are some of the ways?
    - swdunlop 15y ago
      At the risk of sounding facetious: by continuing to work on the features they promised for the last version which they hope will cover the lack of development on the parts people actually enjoy. While it is still better than Netflix's outright rejection of customers, it still misses the point. CCP's development effort is squarely on Dust 514, which may acquire a new audience -- not Eve Online.
- biot 15y ago
  CEO mea culpa; vows fix.
mcantor 15y ago
This is well-written, candid and interesting, but I feel like I'm missing out on a lot because I've never played EVE. Can someone who is familiar with the issues (for example, what is "ship spinning"?) give an overview of what led to this?
- RickHull 15y ago
  Ship spinning is an incredibly trivial feature that corresponds to an utter lack of motivation to actually do things in Eve. Veteran players have a somewhat love/hate relationship with the game, warning new players that "Eve is a terrible game". Generally in the Eve universe you are never safe, except when "docked" in a space station. In previous versions, you were presented with a view of your ship floating in the space hangar, and due to the "camera" mechanics of the UI, you could spin around your ship at like 300+ RPM. An utterly pointless exercise in which millions of man-hours have been spent while simultaneously chatting on TeamSpeak or Jabber or doing market research, or whatever. But all players seem to share a tongue-in-cheek fondness for this feature.
  - norova 15y ago
    So, it seems like "ship spinning" is the equivalent of wandering around World of Warcraft capital cities only by way of spamming jump? Thank you for the details.
    - jswinghammer 15y ago
      It's worse than that since you do it out of reflex and it is less engaging than what you're describing (though I never played WoW).
      - bmac 15y ago
        In some ways 'ship spinning' in eve was the iphone equivalent of dragging a screen past its boundary and watching it snap back in place. Dragging the camera (with a mouse down, move and release) would cause it to rotate around the player's ship until some artificial 'drag' decided the spin should slow to a stop. It was one of those innocent and functionally useless UI features, that is surprisingly satisfying to preform.
v21 15y ago
The line that made this seem more than a PR move to me was this line: "...without disrupting the space combat simulator that many of you are, or at least were, very much in love with—and without delaying..." It's one thing for a CEO to say they were wrong. But for them to say that customers might have been right to fall out of love with their only product - that takes balls.
jswinghammer 15y ago
I stopped playing the game after my first child was born years ago but I still have an affection for the game. CCP is both brilliant for making it and foolish in their managing of the game. I recall during a war that had virtually every PvP player engaged that lasted years the side I was on felt like we were actually fighting the company itself since one of their employees was involved with cheating on the other side's behalf. As I recall the employee was never fired for acting in a way that managed to really piss off thousands of paying customers. Many left but many stayed just to not be whiners about it. I can't say I'm surprised that they made such poor choices in directing the game. They want it to not be a niche game but that's what they have and they should probably be happy that they have what they have. Unless you're engaged with other players it isn't even a game at all. It's actually more like playing a video game within a video game. Shallow doesn't even describe it-I've felt more engaged playing missile command. That said it sounds like they're going to try to fix things which is good. I hope the game does well. I enjoyed my time there-I just never want to go back to it for the sake of my daughters :)
- ohyes 15y ago
  >It's actually more like playing a video game within a video game I was in one of the larger player alliances before I quit; I'd compare it more to having a second job within a video game. By the end I spent more time working in excel and managing people (read: herding cats) to prepare for the game than I did playing the game.
powertower 15y ago
Captain's Quarters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5IOVRRV-Ow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5IOVRRV-Ow Ship Spinning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfY0-fbZOXc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfY0-fbZOXc
mwexler 15y ago
Can't help but to contrast it with the Netflix "apology" note, which basically said "we're sorry... that you're mad, suck it, we did nothing wrong". This one accepts full blame for mistakes, and that's a welcome thing. Time will tell if Netflix did the right business move or not... but way they communicated it will certainly go down as a bad approach.
malbs 15y ago
Are there any other persistant/mmo style space sims, but favouring action over the simulation? A friend once linked me some picture of the "eve learning curve" and it was a precipice, never inspired me to want to play it found the image http://dragsa.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/eve-online-learning-curve.jpg http://dragsa.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/eve-online-learnin...
- wladimir 15y ago
  I think the image is more supposed to show how harsh and unyielding Eve Online can be. The game offers many ways in which the players can work together or screw each other. It's not for the faint hearted :-) The penalties for dying are higher than in games like WoW, and you can everywhere be killed by players. There is no real safe haven (though you have dangerous and even more dangerous space) That does make it realistic and give to interesting game dynamics. I don't have time nor motivation to play time sink games any more these days, but I did enjoy it a lot more than, for example, WoW.
drivingmenuts 15y ago
I alway thought that the whole point of EveO was that you were locked permanently locked into your ship (like The Matrix meat batteries). I had no idea there was supposed to be a world beyond the ship.

84 points by bjclark 15y ago

kloncks 15y ago

Anyone care to do a tldr;?

e1ven 15y ago
It's worth reading as an example of how to try to acknowledge you made massive mistakes, pissed away good will, and want the community to know that you've heard them, and you want to make things better.
smtf 15y ago
CCP's CEO is acknowledging that he was, in his words: I was impatient when I should have been cautious, defiant when I should have been conciliatory and arrogant when I should have been humble He aims to resolve all the nonsense of the last few months by: doing what we say and saying what we do He addresses and apologies for all the ways CCP seemed to have become EvilCorp™ over the last few months.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  What are some of the ways?
  - swdunlop 15y ago
    At the risk of sounding facetious: by continuing to work on the features they promised for the last version which they hope will cover the lack of development on the parts people actually enjoy. While it is still better than Netflix's outright rejection of customers, it still misses the point. CCP's development effort is squarely on Dust 514, which may acquire a new audience -- not Eve Online.
biot 15y ago
CEO mea culpa; vows fix.

mcantor 15y ago

This is well-written, candid and interesting, but I feel like I'm missing out on a lot because I've never played EVE. Can someone who is familiar with the issues (for example, what is "ship spinning"?) give an overview of what led to this?

RickHull 15y ago
Ship spinning is an incredibly trivial feature that corresponds to an utter lack of motivation to actually do things in Eve. Veteran players have a somewhat love/hate relationship with the game, warning new players that "Eve is a terrible game". Generally in the Eve universe you are never safe, except when "docked" in a space station. In previous versions, you were presented with a view of your ship floating in the space hangar, and due to the "camera" mechanics of the UI, you could spin around your ship at like 300+ RPM. An utterly pointless exercise in which millions of man-hours have been spent while simultaneously chatting on TeamSpeak or Jabber or doing market research, or whatever. But all players seem to share a tongue-in-cheek fondness for this feature.
- norova 15y ago
  So, it seems like "ship spinning" is the equivalent of wandering around World of Warcraft capital cities only by way of spamming jump? Thank you for the details.
  - jswinghammer 15y ago
    It's worse than that since you do it out of reflex and it is less engaging than what you're describing (though I never played WoW).
    - bmac 15y ago
      In some ways 'ship spinning' in eve was the iphone equivalent of dragging a screen past its boundary and watching it snap back in place. Dragging the camera (with a mouse down, move and release) would cause it to rotate around the player's ship until some artificial 'drag' decided the spin should slow to a stop. It was one of those innocent and functionally useless UI features, that is surprisingly satisfying to preform.

v21 15y ago

The line that made this seem more than a PR move to me was this line: "...without disrupting the space combat simulator that many of you are, or at least were, very much in love with—and without delaying..." It's one thing for a CEO to say they were wrong. But for them to say that customers might have been right to fall out of love with their only product - that takes balls.

jswinghammer 15y ago

I stopped playing the game after my first child was born years ago but I still have an affection for the game. CCP is both brilliant for making it and foolish in their managing of the game. I recall during a war that had virtually every PvP player engaged that lasted years the side I was on felt like we were actually fighting the company itself since one of their employees was involved with cheating on the other side's behalf. As I recall the employee was never fired for acting in a way that managed to really piss off thousands of paying customers. Many left but many stayed just to not be whiners about it. I can't say I'm surprised that they made such poor choices in directing the game. They want it to not be a niche game but that's what they have and they should probably be happy that they have what they have. Unless you're engaged with other players it isn't even a game at all. It's actually more like playing a video game within a video game. Shallow doesn't even describe it-I've felt more engaged playing missile command. That said it sounds like they're going to try to fix things which is good. I hope the game does well. I enjoyed my time there-I just never want to go back to it for the sake of my daughters :)

ohyes 15y ago
>It's actually more like playing a video game within a video game I was in one of the larger player alliances before I quit; I'd compare it more to having a second job within a video game. By the end I spent more time working in excel and managing people (read: herding cats) to prepare for the game than I did playing the game.

powertower 15y ago

Captain's Quarters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5IOVRRV-Ow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5IOVRRV-Ow Ship Spinning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfY0-fbZOXc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfY0-fbZOXc

mwexler 15y ago

Can't help but to contrast it with the Netflix "apology" note, which basically said "we're sorry... that you're mad, suck it, we did nothing wrong". This one accepts full blame for mistakes, and that's a welcome thing. Time will tell if Netflix did the right business move or not... but way they communicated it will certainly go down as a bad approach.

malbs 15y ago

Are there any other persistant/mmo style space sims, but favouring action over the simulation? A friend once linked me some picture of the "eve learning curve" and it was a precipice, never inspired me to want to play it found the image http://dragsa.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/eve-online-learning-curve.jpg http://dragsa.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/eve-online-learnin...

wladimir 15y ago
I think the image is more supposed to show how harsh and unyielding Eve Online can be. The game offers many ways in which the players can work together or screw each other. It's not for the faint hearted :-) The penalties for dying are higher than in games like WoW, and you can everywhere be killed by players. There is no real safe haven (though you have dangerous and even more dangerous space) That does make it realistic and give to interesting game dynamics. I don't have time nor motivation to play time sink games any more these days, but I did enjoy it a lot more than, for example, WoW.

drivingmenuts 15y ago

I alway thought that the whole point of EveO was that you were locked permanently locked into your ship (like The Matrix meat batteries). I had no idea there was supposed to be a world beyond the ship.