CSM Meeting – July 26th

As always, there’s not any specific information to share due to the confidentiality of the discussions.



The push on the New Player Experience and player retention was the first thing to be brought up and CCP’s focus on this work.



The group discussed specifics about the now announced changes to market taxes.



Several specific changes in a variety of areas were brought up. These are still confidential, but do address some commonly heard concerns.



There was some open and frank discussion of what was presented in the “Blackout” podcast between the CSM and CCP.



The September Summit is approaching, and it is the optimal time to hear what players want so the CSM can prepare for the meetings. The summit meeting will have the most CSM impact with CCP on the next 6 months of the game.



If there is a topic you would like the CSM or myself to bring up with CCP, please feel free to contact me. In most cases, we cannot provide any followup other than saying we did convey the information. All members of the CSM have been doing this kind of work and there have been specific instances where the idea or issue from a single player is getting attention from the Design & Development teams.





Dunk’s Corner

Here’s where I’ll update with my personal views on recent changes and what I hear being discussed in the community. This reflects only my views and not the other CSM members.



The “Blackout” Podcast

Direct interaction with CCP and Hilmar is always a good thing. EVE is a community driven game, and directly tapping into the community is powerful way to make sure players know that the company is paying attention to the game and it’s direction.



My main takeaway from the podcast was that CCP wants to accelerate change and infuse the playerbase with a sense of “chaos” and “the unknown”. I am for chaos and in my campaign mentioned chaos being a good way to stir up the game and break up some of the patterns that have locked in some way.



However, without some sort of end goal or target, chaos in and of itself can be off-putting to a lot of players. Players want to understand the “rules of the game” and be able to plan and work within them. They don’t call it spreadsheets in space for nothing. Finding the balance to keep players that desire structure and catering to anarchists is a fine line to walk. New Eden is made up of all quadrants of the Bartle Types, not solely ‘killers’ and this needs to be considered.





Asset Safety

A specific mention on this topic. I’m not opposed to changes to Asset Safety. It’s a powerful tool that can be used to avoid confrontation and even abused to move industrial assets around. That said, I don’t believe is would be a useful conflict lever. It’s simply too easy for groups to evac assets, as we saw in the Glassing of Tribute. An entire coalition was able to pick up everything and move it to entirely new region without serious incident.



Secondarily, there are many reasons people take a break from the game. Work, military deployment, illness, vacation, children, accidents, etc. I personally broke both my arms & back in bicycle crash and would have probably quit EVE entirely if I came back to find all my stuff destroyed, simply because I was AFK. Just this week, a Brave member finally got out of hospital where he had been since a terrible car accident. People are out of the game for long periods and do come back. IMHO, people won’t come back if they are starting at zero due to events that happened when they weren’t even playing.

There is likely a good middle ground between the wormhole style loot pinata and the current asset safety system. I hope we find it.



Communication

Lastly, I write these posts to keep players informed as to what is happening with the CSM and to be as transparent as I can with the wider playerbase on my views and what I advocate to CCP. You deserve to know my thoughts, even if we disagree on issues and solutions.