Fanfest 2011 & CCP's 'Future Vision'

Pic Says it all, really.

As you can see from the header pic, this isn't going to be an attempt at spinning certain elements of CCP Presents in a purely positive light. I took a bit of extra time to write this and talked to a lot of people before deciding to write it all down. I'm going to talk about things from my perspective as a seven year EVE player and former employee.  While there were several good things shown at FanFest 2011, my focus for most of this blog post is going to be on the stuff that isn't being reported or talked much about in many of the online magazines. With that out of the way, let's at least start on a less serious note.

The People

This FanFest was a very different one for me as it was the first one I'd been to purely as a player since 2005. My old co-workers were smiles, hugs and handshakes. It was really cool to catch back up with many of them and talk about where things are and where they are going.

As always, the main reason most people come to FanFest in Iceland is to meet other EVE players and connect real names and faces with the virtual ones. For many players it is a game-changing experience as you learn about the people behind the online personalities. It can be a real eye-opener when that bastard you've hated for years ends up being the same guy you've just spent the last hour drinking with.

The best example of this had to be back in 2007 when my table of about 20+ MC members got blobbed by an equal number of Goons. After a short round of WTF, the two groups spent the better part of the next couple days hanging out with each other and swapping stories of the past year or more.  Oh, there was also... singing.

Suas singing to me - "I'm a loser, baby..."

One thing I noticed about this FanFest though was the number of first time attendees and 'younger' players (that had just started playing in the past 2-3 years).  Talking to guys about what it was like in EVE before jump bridges and Titans under every rock was really fun. I really enjoyed listening to the perspectives of these people and they were just as eager to ask questions as well.

NVIDIAFest?

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During the 'Main Event', which was Hilmar's 'CCP Presents' keynote, an interesting comment was made to me by one of the press in the back of the auditorium by a rather prominent online publication:"This just shows that CCP is still a small-ish company because a bigger developer would have never given a sponsor this much visibility in their KEYNOTE." I'll be curious to see if he's brave enough to publish that comment officially but I still found it telling with regard to the mood of the audience through much of the two hour presentation.

While I found it odd that he referred to a company with 600+ employees as 'small', honestly, the near hour long Nvidia "circle jerk", as one CCP Dev put it, had people groaning in the audience and quite a few devs even rolling their eyes. I get that they were a major(?) sponsor but it was just a bit much. The Nvidia reps were on stage too long and I found my attention drifting on more than one occasion.  That being said, this video demonstrating CCP's Carbon Character Technology was pretty impressive to those which had never seen it.

It's an older demo, which was a bit disappointing, as I'd like to have seen what kind of progress they've made in the last year or so.

As a side note, I have an ATI 5700 HD with 1GB of RAM that I bought about a year ago for about $160 and I haven't found anything it can't run just fine, including half a dozen EVE clients at once. I was an NVIDIA man for about 6-7 years prior to this card but I just refuse to pay $200+ for graphics anymore (and I'm not cheap when it comes to computers tbh).

Spaceships?

I'm not sure if the few, "Where are the spaceships??" shouts came through the EVE TV broadcast but the annoyance in the auditorium was palatable at times.  When CCP Zulu stated that basically his job is about FUCK YEAH SPACESHIPS, lots of us perked up... and waited to hear about the spaceships. What we got were a couple of cool videos about new nebulae effects and possibly, maybe new turret effects coming soon.  Maybe. Possibly. :)

The nebulae are beautiful and the turrets look very cool (music was kickass) but WTF were autocannons doing on Amarr ships and blasters on Ravens arrrrrgh!!!  LOL, I mean, it's the little shit like that which really makes you facepalm and wonder why the people making these vids don't at least pretend they play the game. :)

Of course, I have to mention the obligatory, "Where is my new cyno effect / engine trails?"  It may seem cliche and :bittervet:, but it's been... Two. Fucking. Years.  Seriously, guys, at this point the questions almost seems to be, "Why don't you WANT to make these effects?"  *sadface* 

It's obvious that CCP wants to pitch their latest efforts and show off what they consider to be the future of the game, but I don't think the presenters realize just how snubbed many of their customers felt.  Some people traveling to FanFest for the first time may find all of this stuff about dresses and hairstyles and tattoos interesting, but many of us kept waiting and waiting... and waiting for something about the core gameplay of EVE (spaceships) to be talked about.

At the end, during the open Q&A to the Dev Panel, one player summed it all up by asking, "This was all really interesting, but when are you going to throw the veteran players a bone?"

All about the Benjamins? 

As an addition to the above, I also found it odd that CCP did not take the opportunity of such a visible presentation to make a very brief but solid official statement about their stance on micro-transactions with regard to the three intellectual properties they are now developing. FanFest attendees did rectify this error by giving the Dev Panel an opportunity to publicly say that  they are only going to do MT's for vanity items and not for "anything that gives players an in-game advantage". 

This leads me to my next point: Currently CCP has exactly one intellectual property making them money - EVE Online. The profits from EVE currently fund three other projects that we know of:

• Dust 514
• World of Darkness
• Carbon

It stands to reason that CCP wants to maximize revenue flow from EVE in order to keep thier other developing projects moving forward so micro-transactions seem inevitable.  My concern on this point is what the allocation of resources will be toward developing vanity items versus developing the normal 'free' content we've grown to expect as part of EVE. I would hate to think that EVE would miss out on T3 Frigates or Sub-System Targeting because the money / resources needed had been diverted to making sure the Spring 2012 Caldari Fashion Collection was ready to sell.

Of course, I am cognizant of the fact that this is probably just CCP doing the same thing that every other company would do in this situation. I just hope that they have the manpower and financial ability to achieve all of the above without cutting corners and do it in a time span that doesn't have me getting grey hair before it becomes a reality.  This leads directly to the largest bit of hype so far...

:18 Years: ?

At the end of 'CCP Presents', Hilmar debuted what is undoubtedly the most ambitious and eye-popping teaser / trailer in the company's history: EVE Online - A Future Vision

After nearly two hours of looking at avatars and watching NVIDIA and CCP group hug, we finally got a 'vision' that appears to be about 3/4 Dust and Incarna, and maybe 1/4 of spaceships. I got a very large "this wasn't what I signed up for" vibe from that vision and I wasn't the only one.

I was there live in the auditorium in Iceland and, I don't know if it came over the HD stream, but among the FUCK YEAH shouting, there were a lot of people groaning as well.  At the end of the 'Future Vid' the first time it was played, when Hilmar asked, "Do you like it?", at least a few dozen people very loudly said, "NO!"  It was audible enough to cause a slight stir and several confused looks. It may not have been very 'polite', and I'd bet real money if you weren't there you will never hear it (or about it), but there was a lot of frustration in the room by that point.

Many EVE Players will remember the infamous :18 months: plan / misunderstanding from last year that was triggered by this dev blog which led to this emorage feedback thread. It didn't take long for people to start a new meme by looking at this vid and wondering if we were looking at CCP's :18 Years: plan. In many ways, this video has become a symbol for what many long time followers of CCP have come to expect - lots of hype, mostly about things we won't ever get, looking good but with relatively little in the way of probable reality.

No doubt about it - this is an :awesome: vid, even if it is about two games that don't exist yet and probably never will. I give CCP credit for having the balls to say this is where they want to go so blatantly, but it didn't take long after the initial wow factor wore off for both players and the attending press to comment on how high it sets the bar (nearly unobtainable).

This video certainly is a vision, but I'd much rather see something that I can get excited about because I know, "OMG, that's hitting the server this year!"  This is primarily "art" with just enough programmed elements involved to allow something that looks seamless. While I take nothing away from the people who produced this magnificent 'vision' and respect the incredible work done, there are so many contradictions in that video to what is:

• Possible
• Probable
• Stated Fact by CCP

Many long time EVE players consider it fluf, pure and simple. I'd much rather see the efforts of the people making EVE go toward another Dominion or Causality style trailer that highlights what EVE is actually about today. That's a personal desire and I understand why this trailer was made but it's not something I will show to my friends as a reason to play EVE.

The mythical "link" to Dust 514 from EVE is so nebulous and vague at this point that CCP still seems to have no idea what it will be. The round tables at FanFest made it clear that they either have no definitive answers or their theories are still to sketchy to share.  Of course, like any 'new' game, CCP has a right to keep things under their hat until it's more polished; maybe they have a perfect system ready to go that will amaze us all; I just don't think that is very likely to happen without further real iteration on the current EVE sovereignty system.

On Saturday, when CCP Presents was over, I found Noah Ward (CCP Hammerhead, EVE's Lead Designer) and had a chat with him about all of the :awesome: that we'd just witnessed and how little of it had to do with spaceships. When Torfi (CCP Torfi, EVE's Creative Director) came over to shake my hand about being elected to CSM 6, I didn't let him walk away without asking him why the only thing in his presentation about "Iterations" was stuff about turret art and some post it notes that got exactly one slide. I didn't get much in the way of replies, but I wasn't the only one who poked them about this. I didn't get a chance to corner Arnar (CCP Zulu, EVE's Senior Producer), but I did speak with him the day before and still feel pretty good about him.

As a side note, I just want to make clear that the majority of the devs standing at the back of the audience had no real idea what the main presentation was going to consist of either. This isn't unusual. Even when I worked there, the final presentation always had a few things in it that came as a small surprise.  After this one, quite a few of the people wearing black Dev shirts had similar reactions ("Okaaaaaay.....").

Looking forward

I've been to six Fanfests now and this was the first one where at the end I felt completely disillusioned and confused about the message CCP was trying to send. My cynicism isn't rooted in some sort of bitter vet syndrome or desire to see CCP as some sort of 'villian'.  I actually love the people at the company and what they've managed to accomplish but after over seven years of watching CCP do this sort of thing over and over, plus working on the inside, I've just come to be more realistic in my expectations of them and not drink thier particular flavor of kool-aid simply because they know how to make something look :awesome:.

While some of these things certainly spread doubt over a number of issues at CCP, I am still looking forward to working with the CSM to ensure that further iterations and developing their existing game is maintained as an urgent issue alongside future projects.  My next year on CSM 6 will certainly be interesting. Blog coming up on that tomorrow!