Posted - 2008.10.19 12:21:00 - [3]

 

Edited by: Tusko Hopkins on 19/10/2008 12:22:58
Dear Jinx, here come my answers:

1) CSM being bunnies
As I have been receiving most of the communications between CCP and CSM, I can ensure you that the first CSM was not as evasive as your impression based on the forum might show. Unfortunately they were not allowed to disclose their complete communication with CCP (see EULA), but I can ensure you, they squeezed a lot more proper answers out of CCP than what CCP originally answered.
You also have to understand that CSM's options are limited. CSM in in no position to make CCP do anything, as CSM cannot fire CCP, nor take their money.
As for what I would be doing about it? Continue the modest pressure CSM has been putting on CCP (even that we did not communicate this very well) and hope that there will be a better turnup on the next election, as the CSMs power depends on community support, and community support can be best expressed with the participation on the elections.

2) Duplicate of the first question
See answer to first question. Apart from that, I would be working for the community, and if CCP tried "not to deal with it", I would re-request an answer and ask for a better explanation. If CCP "does not want to deal" with a topic, they can veto it so it does not get on the agenda at all... so if they already agreed on an item to be open for discussion, I feel that it is completely okay to push them as long as they say something acceptable. Definition of "acceptable" differs from person to person. As for me, I usually stop asking when I get the feeling that the peer is simply not able to provide a better answer in the time available for replying, but go back to the topic at a later time.

3) CSM and player communication
I agree with you, communication between the playerbase and the CSM could have been a lot better. If I get elected, I will try to improve it, as in the end, CSM-playerbase communication is the reason why CSMs achievements is not perceived at all by most of the players, leading to questions like most of yours.

4) Musical instruments and destroyers of eve
I personally like musical instruments. I think EVE deserves more musical instruments. I had the chance to step into a place of a CSM rep when the topic was on agenda, and I definitely supported it. As for the other part of the question, I trust individuals, not "groups of players". I do trust people by default, until they do something to lose my trust.

5) Fairness
There are nothing that's completely fair. EVE isn't an exception, it's not fair either. I do value fairness however it is not something that can be descibed easily. If EVE would strain for total fairness, then new players would have same chances as old players, and everyone was flying in the same ships, using the same modules, having the same skills, an there would be no thing like money and assets. Well, I definitely do not want EVE to become so fair. But I do think that players in similar situation, similar age, having invested similar amounts of time and money and effort into the game should have equal chances.

Posted - 2008.10.20 23:46:00 - [5]

 

Hi Tusko

Just a quick question my friend - will the CSM's be looking into trying to convince CCP making headway in improving Customer satisfaction and more ingame interaction with the playerbase?

I strongly feel this is a major issue for me as the divide between player and CCP staff is ever widening.

I know in your other issues you can be more than trusted in representing the player base on numerous issues but i hardly ever see customer satisfaction being on a agenda where there seems to be many people disatisfied with how they are treat and with no recourse to formally complain.

Good luck with the election anyway

Posted - 2008.10.21 12:41:00 - [7]

 

Hi Neresky,

I can ensure you, I will try to do something to get CCP closer to the community. I think the main problem is that CCP is doing an awful job communicating their decisions to the players. They are a company, they can make business decisions. Game time card changes and the ghost training issue are business decisions. Noone likes paying more and more for the same service, so it is evident that there is a customer dissatisfaction in these cases, however to make things even worse, CCP tries to mask these business decisions as something else... like "adaptation of industry standards" or "fix of an old bug". And people are outraged, no wonder.
I wish they had consulted us about the ghost training issue, because I think their improper explanation is more responsible for the drama than the actual plan to remove ghost training.

Lacking ingame interaction with CCP is an interesting concept of yours. I fully agree, there is no in-game interaction between CCP and the players nowadays. When think back to the early days of EVE, and I remember they had a "dev chat" time to time, usually on coldfront. It was out of game, but at least it was interactive. I wonder if something like that could be reinstated. I am not so sure if it would work, tho, back in those days there were a lot less trolls than nowadays, and I would be really sad if we managed to bring together a dev chat and some idiots would ruin it :( Anyways, I am open for your suggestions, how you think we could bring the devs and the community closer to each other.

As for the customer satisfaction part... most of the existing issues the CSM has forwarded to the CCP were to make customers happier. There have been very unpopular steps from CCP which have caused major customer unhappiness, but these were business decisions, outside of CSM's jurisdiction.

The other problem CSM is having is the lack of a metering tool to measure the actual customer satisfaction. The only measurable input we are getting from the community right now is the amount of whining on the forum. However I do not think that forum whining is a reliable way to measure the unhappiness of certain announced changes, as the data we get from the forums is not a representative sample of the entire player base.
To help this situation, CSM needs new information gathering tools. I'd favor if CCP developed these, because they are the ones who can put these to the most accessible places in game, but if they do not do it, CSM could develop its own tools as well.

So well... yes, I have some ideas how to improve the communication from the players to CCP. As for the other direction, from CCP to the players, well, all we can do there is giving advices to CCP, but it is not possible as long as CSM only learns about the upcoming changes the same time the community does, over the players news center.

Posted - 2008.10.22 19:06:00 - [9]

 

Tusko has done an excellent job as an alternate / then replacement full delegate on the inaugural CSM - and I definitely think he deserves a chance to serve again. He's an important voice for small unit pvp on the council and thats a direction we should definitely be encouraging.

Posted - 2008.10.22 21:09:00 - [11]

 

Hardin has resigned from his position on the 6th October. As first alternate, I took his office for the time remaining.

Posted - 2008.10.22 21:50:00 - [13]

 

Originally by: Herschel Yamamoto

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Originally by: Tusko Hopkins

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Hardin has resigned from his position on the 6th October. As first alternate, I took his office for the time remaining.

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Ah, okay. What happened with Hardin?

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Hardin is healthy. As regards his reasons for leaving I'd leave that for him to express if he felt he should.

Posted - 2008.10.22 21:56:00 - [15]

 

Originally by: Darius JOHNSON

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Originally by: Herschel Yamamoto

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Originally by: Tusko Hopkins

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Hardin has resigned from his position on the 6th October. As first alternate, I took his office for the time remaining.

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Ah, okay. What happened with Hardin?

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Hardin is healthy. As regards his reasons for leaving I'd leave that for him to express if he felt he should.

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That's good to hear, at least.

Also, Tusko, you might want to change your signature - you're not actually first alternate anymore

Posted - 2008.10.24 20:19:00 - [17]

 

Originally by: sembur

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Originally by: Tusko Hopkins

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If you check the list of issues on the assembly hall, you will find dozens of issues which are aimed for balancing of fairness in game, and another dozen which are aimed for imbalance (example: boost my ship because I fly it). If I was in CSM, I would definitely go for the issues which I feel are aimed for fairness. Looking at the list of issues during the first cycle issues, such topics were:
[...]
- precision heavy missiles (because they suck)
- crane and nighthawk powergrid increase

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Please explain how crane and nighthawk powergrid and precision heavy missiles are not "boost my ship" but rather a larger fairness issue. Because they sure look like the other "boost my ship" issues you left off of your list.

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In those cases, a lot of the support came from people who didn't fly the ship in question. That's not an unerring guide, but it's a sign that something may, in fact, be wrong.

Posted - 2008.10.25 15:56:00 - [19]

 

Quote:

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What do you believe CSM should achieve as an entity, do you believe the previous session did that?

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I think the CSM's main objective is to let CCP know which issues are the most important to the community. The existence reason of the council is that most player ideas dwell in the forums, surrounded by big piles of garbage and forum trolls. CCP does not have the manpower / intention to creep through all of it... so here we are, CSM, do the work for free, figure out what people want, and discuss it with them. Besides: it is possible to make a discussion with 9 people. It is impossible to make a discussion with 200.000 people.
CSM's job is also to filter out the garbage. As the council is an ongoing project, the goals outlined here are not something you can completely achieve. I think the council during the first cycle did however follow these goals. If you ask me if the council's operation had any actual effect on EVE, that is another question. The council sure did hell a lot of work. A few men-month for sure. But as far as I can see, none of the issues passed through have made it into patch notes yet, so we have no measurable achievements yet. I am curious myself when the fixes and features requested will hit the game. Unfortunately the CSM cannot control that.

Quote:

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How do you feel about the current speed-change and its effect on guerrilla warfare, specifically?

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Speed has been nerfed several times so far. The speed change that is about to be implemented is just one more in the line... remember the time when they changed the nanofibers? Or when they removed the possibility to fit multiple MWds on a ship? Those speed nerfs were hitting quite a lot of ships a lot harder than the upcoming one. All those nano-machs, nanophoons, nanodomis and nanoravens are gone. Thanks God.
Anyways, as you may have learned, I am a matar pilot. I am concerned about the speed nerf, as it not only affects the game style I am trying to represent, but it will literally transform most of my hangars into a collection of minmatar garbage. My corp is also full of minmatar pilots, I fly nothing but minmatar, so I have good reason to be anti-speed-nerf. But I am not. Why? Because I believe CCP does actually know quite a lot about what they its doing. I firmly believe that they want to make the game better, and not worse by introducting this change. CCP likes 0.0. And they must also like roaming and guerilla level warfare, as with all their employees together they still can't make a decent blob where they could test this stuff :) So they surely test it on smaller scale :)
Do you remember the gun nerf? Old times, when an 1400mm howi whacked your ceptor orbiting it at 500m, when signature radiusses did not matter at all? Or do you remember the missile nerf, where the missiles stopped doing full damage on whatever target they could catch? There was a big turmoil on the forums back then, but in the end the game got better, more balanced. I think the same will happen with the speed nerf. I think people will still keep flying nanoships. Why? Because right now, nano ships have two important abilities:
1) they can use their speed to tank stuff while they kill stuff
2) they can use their speed to get out of disadvantageous situations
Nanos are great in fleeing from battle! That's why roaming and guerilla gangs use them... to get quickly in and out of combat. Gank whatever comes, flee if reinforcements arrive. And I believe the nano nerf might kill point 1), solo pwnmobile. But point 2) will remain: nanoships will still be able to disengage. And as we are talking about nanogangs, we talk about multiple ships... so taking out gankable stuff will still not be a problem.
The guys however, who used to fly around alone in their vagas and kill whatever they find, no matter if BS, frig or command ship, well, they will be screwed screwed. They will need gangmates. Or another ship. I hope they will overcome this trauma somehow.

Posted - 2008.10.27 19:15:00 - [21]

 

Originally by: Herschel Yamamoto

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Originally by: sembur

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Originally by: Tusko Hopkins

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If you check the list of issues on the assembly hall, you will find dozens of issues which are aimed for balancing of fairness in game, and another dozen which are aimed for imbalance (example: boost my ship because I fly it). If I was in CSM, I would definitely go for the issues which I feel are aimed for fairness. Looking at the list of issues during the first cycle issues, such topics were:
[...]
- precision heavy missiles (because they suck)
- crane and nighthawk powergrid increase

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Please explain how crane and nighthawk powergrid and precision heavy missiles are not "boost my ship" but rather a larger fairness issue. Because they sure look like the other "boost my ship" issues you left off of your list.

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In those cases, a lot of the support came from people who didn't fly the ship in question. That's not an unerring guide, but it's a sign that something may, in fact, be wrong.

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Herschel, I appreciate the offer to help but my question remains unanswered.

Tusko would you mind chiming in on this? I'm specifically interested in why those two issues which look like imbalance issues are on your list of important first-cycle "fairness issues" but you suggest that other imbalance issues are not on your first cycle. Are they on the queue for the second cycle? Third? Is imbalance something the CSM should be involved with at all? You introduced a distinction and I don't understand where you chose to draw the line and would like to understand your thinking.

contrasting your comments with this:

Originally by: Tusko Hopkins

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CSM's job is also to filter out the garbage.

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and I hope you understand that it is important to me that I can trust your judgment on these issues.

Posted - 2008.10.27 22:21:00 - [23]

 

The nighthawk is a completely different question. I could fly one but I don't. Fitting it in EFT shows already sufficient problems, but that is not the reason that made me see that there is a problem with the nighthawk... the real figure that shows that something is wrong is the proportion of the nighthawk/drake proportion in pvp situations. I did a quick query for you on our killboard with the ship usage stats on these ships:

Nighthawk: 1023 Drake+Ferox: 9936+2287 Ratio:7.7%
Astarte: 1819 Myrmidon+Brutix: 2719+2762 Ratio: 24.9%
Sleipnir: 2626 Hurricane+Cyclone: 8088+968 Ratio: 22.5%
Absolution: 1470 Harbinger+Prophecy: 2139+802 Ratio: 33.3%

This is a multi-corp-multi-alliance killboard, sample size was 67.000 kills with 442.000 participations total.
This figure suggests that there is something really wrong with the nighthawk. It not only fails in PVE (compared to the popularity in drake), it is not being used for pvp either. So it's underused (compared to the other races), which indicates that there are problems with it.
Passing a nighthawk related issue to CCP serves 2 reasons: first, it tells them about the powergrid shortage of the nighthawk. Second, and more important, it tells them that they should take a look at the Nighthawk because the people are unhappy with it.
I personally would leave most of the balancing to CCP, they are better at it than a a few hundreds of players, as they are not driven by the desire to get their own stuff buffed. However to help the nighthawk getting balanced, its easiest to let issues like this pass.

I hope these answers satisfied your curiosity a little bit. I can understand if you wanna see some kind of proof that my sense of balance is right, but you have to trust me on this one. Optionally, you can go ask people who know me from longer ago, as someone stating that he is okay is not very convincing.

Posted - 2008.11.06 09:54:00 - [25]

 

Edited by: Plague Black on 07/11/2008 14:48:03
Where do you stand on detachment of people who work for CCP from the game? Are in favour of allowing CCP employees to play or should they be professionaly detached so their gameplay does not conflict with their tasks? For example GMs and developers being part of major alliances, should this still be allowed by CCP?

Posted - 2008.11.13 17:46:00 - [27]

 

Edited by: Limited Slip on 13/11/2008 17:46:21
I met Marcell through EVE and we have become RL friends as well. Beside his obvious experience and expertise in the game, I can also confirm his seriousness and dedication toward the CSM.

My best wishes and votes to him!

Posted - 2008.11.16 17:21:00 - [29]

 

BUMP, for a guy with some excellent ideas!