

EveOnline CEO: a letter to the followers of eve - bjclark
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2672&utm_source=newsletter66&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter66&sp_rid=MjgxNTYzNTE2NgS2&sp_mid=37163737

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jswinghammer
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
>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.

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mcantor
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
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
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
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
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.

~~~
Sundog
|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.|

...I'm not the only one? Oh thank god

------
v21
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.

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mwexler
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.

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malbs
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-
learnin...](http://dragsa.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/eve-online-learning-
curve.jpg)

~~~
wladimir
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.

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powertower
Captain's Quarters <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5IOVRRV-Ow>

Ship Spinning <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfY0-fbZOXc>

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drivingmenuts
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.

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kloncks
Anyone care to do a tldr;?

~~~
smtf
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
What are some of the ways?

~~~
swdunlop
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.

