I'm Back

Blaaaraaagh n' stuff.

It's been a while since my last blog update so, before I launch into a new series of blogs covering the events of the past couple months, I thought I would take a moment to say hello again and explain my recent absence from the EVE scene.

My last blog was written at the very height of the crisis caused by CCP's actions concerning Incarna and the leaks of the 'Fearless' newsletter.  Later that Friday night I was on EVE Radio with Brendan from Massively, former CSM Chair Mynxee and current CSM Chair Mittani when the other infamous leak of Hilmar's CEO letter to the company came to light. It had been my full intention to keep up the pace of blogging / forum posting / tweeting and keep the information flowing but 'real life' reared up and smacked me from several directions that weekend.

I will not be going into any great detail about these events other than to say that it involved a family medical issue and required my full attention.  For several years now, my business and financial interests already had me splitting my time between Europe and the United States so I found myself juggling more issues than usual recently. Things are on the down slope to being good now though and I can turn my eye back toward imaginary spaceship land once again.

It is worth noting that these past seven weeks (feels like much longer) mark the first time in eight years of playing EVE that I've actually stepped back completely.  By that I mean I actually let four of my accounts lapse, I didn't even log in to change skills and I didn't participate in the day to day happenings of my corp or alliance. It felt... weird. I've been on summer breaks before from EVE but this was completely different and, I admit, a tad dangerous in terms of realizing just why so many people find it hard to return after an extended absence.

Inevitably, I started to feel the pull again and am getting back into things. While I wasn't actually in game, I did make it a point to keep up with forums, emails, etc... While the aforementioned issues prevented me from attending the CSM Emergency Summit, I was able to Skype into several of the meetings and have my say / listen in.  Additionally, all of the meetings were video recorded and I took the time to watch every session. My next blog is going to cover my thoughts on the Emergency Summit and what has and has not happened in the nearly two months since.

For now though, I just want everyone to know that I am back and will be making it a point to blog regularly and keep the information flowing as best I can.  I know that a lot of people voted for me to be on the CSM because they knew I would speak plainly about my experiences as their representative. In many ways, this little break has lent me a new perspective on certain issues and, in the coming months, I plan to use the time leading up to the December Summit as effectively as possible.  Stay tuned.

Black Friday

Amarr - Thousands of players gather at trade hubs all over EVE.

I woke up this morning to find the forums even more afire with rage about Incarna, the "Fearless" newsletter, and the Virtual Goods store. I could tell in a few minutes that I wasn't going to get anything else done today.

So, I've spent most of the last 12 hours answering player questions, trying to give CCP good feedback on the issues, trying to get them to see how bad things have gotten. My fellow CSMs were doing the same.

Late in the day, we were presented with a draft devblog, and asked to comment on it. With the exception of the removal of a rather unfortunate analogy, that draft was essentially identical to what was just published.

None of CSM's concerns -- the ones the players were asking about -- were addressed; in particular:

• Will non-vanity virtual goods be introduced?
• Will CCP change their virtual goods pricing strategy?
• Will the CQ remain optional, or will it eventually be forced on the players?

To say that CSM is disappointed in this devblog would be an understatement. Incredulous is more like it.

Based on the devblog, and my impressions from the conversations I have had in recent days, it is my opinion that CCP has decided upon a strategy with respect to virtual goods and Incarna, and that they are going to fearlessly implement it regardless of feedback from CSM or the players.

Our words, and yours, on this issue seem to be worthless. Only our actions have any weight.

I am carefully considering what to do next as I mull all this over.

Good Morning, CCP

Hobbits don't deserve the Precioussss!

Last night, CCP Pann started a new thread on the EVE General forums.  CCP Pann is CCP PR & Communications Director Valerie Massey.

An overdue apology and request for parley

The thread is about to pass 130 pages.  The actual number of CCP replies in the thread has been crushed by an avalanche of player response.  This morning, I've gone back to work trying to get CCP to engage.  

This was my Good Morning post to CCP on the CSM forums:

I saw this SO MANY times when I worked there - you seem so busy trying to come up with a 'strategy' to deal with the community that by the time you release something, it looks like exactly what it is - a strategy (not all the time, but a lot of it). Time after time when there was something I or another person in GD could have resolved with a couple sentences, we were told over and over to not say anything.  So while you are having meetings repeating the internal messaging to each other until you believe it, the community you should be just openly talking to feels more and more ignored.

You guys know you do this, as a company. There is no divide between strategic direction and internal messaging. The Fearless newsletter is internal 'kool-aid' that most people swallow without even a second thought. Because it's an official internal newsletter, large numbers of CCP employees assume that whatever in it is written by smart people that are in touch with the players.  If 'Fearless' says something, it's obviously backed up by lots of research and must be true, right?

I've worked here and many forget, all too often, that CCP is not an island. You are connected to many places and events where you are object of study through your actions and statements alike. What CCP has a tendency of presenting as "research" to validate decisions, is research which suffers just like everything else from the relentless quest to just affirm your own desires, wishes and wants. People CAN see that, because you go everywhere with it. Those who do not 'get' the messaging can punch through it and see the gaps between what you say, how you roll with it, and what you do with it often regardless of it.

CCP seems to forget that many of its customers are professionals in their own right. Bankers, lawyers, venture capital managers, CEO's, CFO's, and so forth. You're at a point where you are no longer validating any research or metrics whatsoever, even those outside this forum can see through the divide between what you say and what you are actually DOING. BTW, you guys should really read this as well:

Dierdra Vaal's post

Remember him?  Three time CSM member, past chairman?  He's also the guy that did the Excellence presentation that upset so many apple carts last year and woke people up.

There needs to be another wake up call.  We want to help, not make it worse, but as Stephan says, you guys have got to look outside of your own borders and accept the reality that nothing short of brutal honesty, and perhaps even taking a step back, is going to help.

Best Summary so far

I've also pointed CCP to Tippa's excellent summary and post:

Summary linkage

Original Post

Everyone should read those and post the links everywhere possible.

Other CSM Replies

My fellow CSM delegate,Meissa Anunthiel, has made a post on his own blog about this as well:

The recent CCP fuck-ups

I will keep you all updated as best I can.  It seems everyone at CCP is in meetings this morning.  :)

Pic of the Day

There is so much stuff going on right now that it's hard to pick out which subject to write about.  I'll probably throw something together later today.  For now, I just wanted to share what is probably the funniest picture of Incarna that I've seen yet:

I love that show!!

MegaTransactions & Incarna 1.0

This is how a lot of players feel today.

Well, it's here. I've written about Incarna in a couple of previous blog entries:

Incarna - Will history repeat itself?

Will Incarna be another NGE?

I think it's safe to say that CCP's messaging to the community has been a bit off lately, yet even past mis-steps pale in comparison to what has taken place in the past few weeks leading up to the Incarna release.

My last blog entry spoke about the :$99: fiasco, which is still floating about for someone to step in and resolve. During the finals of the Alliance Tournament, CCP Zulu was on EVE TV and was directly asked about this situation. To his credit he responded well but the thing most latched onto was his statement that CCP had to charge something for this program (Dev Blog linkage). His specific quote was, "Not $99, but a 'token' payment." I've since posted on the CSM internal forums:

"Arnar - I suggest that you call the next blog, "99 Cents!" and make that your token payment."

Whether or not my advice is heeded remains to be seen. I will be fair and say that it's been a pretty busy last week or two with the tournament wrapping up this weekend and then Incarna rolling out yesterday, but now CCP may be in real trouble for trying to possibly do too much at once.

Incarna 1.0 has a lot of new stuff in it but, and I'm being pretty gentle here, there's a lot of problems. It goes beyond the usual batch of big patch issues with many more players than usual having issues with things as simple as just getting the client to download or patch properly. There is also quite a lot of noise being made with regard to how hard your video card has to work with the new client, with CCP partner's NVIDIA getting dedicated instruction sets and ATI cards being left in the cold.  I'll write more about the performance issues in another day or two, but right now I want to hit the main point of this blog and what this release will forever be infamously remembered for - :monoclegate:.

Deal wif it!

So the servers go up last night and everyone rushes to click on the new in game store so they can, at long last, buy some new stuff for their space dolls. The excitement is quickly crushed by a quick browsing of the available items:

Exchange Rate: 3500 AUR = 1 PLEX = $17.50 = 400 mil isk in Jita:

• Looking Glass Ocular implant – 12k AUR = 3.5 PLEX = $61.25 = 1.4 Bil ISK
• Men’s ‘Sterling’ Dress Shirt – 3.6k AUR = 1.02 PLEX = $18.00 = 411 Mil ISK
• Women’s ‘Sterling’ Dress Blouse – 3.2K AUR = .91 PLEX = $16.00 -> 364 Mil ISK
• Men’s ‘Comando’ Pants – 3k AUR = .85 PLEX = $15 = 340 Mil ISK
• Women “Impress” Skirt – 3.6k AUR = 1.02 PLEX = $18.00 = 411 Mil ISK
• Women’s ‘Sterling’ Dress Blouse P – 4.4k AUR = 1.25 PLEX = $22.00 = 504 Mil ISK
• Men’s ‘Precision’ Boots – 1k AUR = 0.28 PLEX = $5.00 = 112 Mil ISK
• Women’s ‘Greave’ Knee-Boots – 2.4K AUR = 0.68 PLEX = $12.00 = 272 Mil ISK

Given that 1 PLEX converts to 3,500 AUR, the "monocle" is worth about 1,35 Billion ISK in PLEX prices.  That's a bit more than 3 months gametime  and anywhere from $50 - $70 in RL money depending on what conversion rate you are using. 


First off, none of this looks like it's aimed at new players.  Second, I've long wondered what the actual prices were going to be.  My joke was wondering if we'd end up paying for morphite sunglasses that cost as much as a battle cruiser.  It seems I wasn't thinking big enough!  The idea that a pair of BOOTS would cost as much as multiple, fully fit battleships is not just immersion breaking, it's just... how can this even make sense?


The word is out and it's already being picked up on around the web:

PC Gamer - Eve Online now selling $70 monocles

Kotaku - EVE Online is Selling Horse Armour. In Space.

Massively - Controversy brewing over EVE Online microtransactions
Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Eek: EVE’s Clothing And Cash Crisis

There's even a thread in the Steam Forums about it.

It's not surprising to see this popping up in the online trades and being discussed on various forums, but then Lead Game Designer Noah Ward sent this out on Twitter this morning:

"@ccphammer: I went over my bandwidth limit at home so I can't download the patch and buy a $70 monocle"

I'm... not really sure what to say about that other than it sure looks like he's trolling his own company! Then you have this thing:

The circle of lif-... wait, what?

I keep looking at this picture and am continually amazed at how overly complex it is.  It makes me think that the whole AUR concept was a bit off to begin with.


One thing I want to be crystal clear on though - the CSM was NOT asked or consulted on any of the prices in the Noble Exchange store.  We asked and were told that they were not finalized.  We floated a few thoughts at the summit, heads nodded a bit and that was the end of it.  So wherever this marketing scheme came from, the CSM did not play a part in it (even tho we wanted to).  As CSM Chairman Mittani just said on Twitter:

"NeX is insane. My Lowe costs less than a monocle and fires rape-bullets in WoT. They didn't ask for price advice. Oops!"

Not so good damage control

CCP Zinfendel, who is the head of Global Marketing, decided to hop into the help channel last night and I posted the relevant parts of the log here:

'Help channel' LINKAGE

The quote that got most people riled up was this one:

CCP Zinfandel > Some people treat EVE Online not as a video game but as a hobby. They enjoy investing in their hobby and find that it makes them feel more connected with their hobby. We want to support that for those players who want it.

I've taken my case to the CSM internal forums where I've asked how these kind of statemens are expected to win anyone over and if "veteran players" are supposed to see the logic therein. Personally, I'm not investing 40 dollars into fake clothes and I'm actually a player than can afford to do it. I know guys that have been playing for years and still have to grind for their PLEX's so they can actually PLAY the game. Where the hell are they supposed to come up with the money to participate in this?

Put plainly, the prices in the AUR store are RIDICULOUS.

As of a couple hours ago, Zinfandel has informed the CSM that he's working on a big forum post about pricing and will run it by us before it goes public. This is my current reply to CCP on this issue and I'm waiting to see what they have to say -

I'm honestly baffled at not only these prices but the seeming surprise with which it's been met by CCP. I cannot for the life of me understand why you didn't at least run the prices by the CSM considering the amount of other shit that WAS run by us. What really gets me is that there's only a couple reasons for this:

1.) You knew that you wanted to price things this high and intentionally did not run this by the CSM because you knew our reaction would be negative.

2.) You did not know / agree internally what the prices were going to be until literally the morning of deployment, thus could not share them.

Either one is "not good", but judging from the reactions I've seen on twitter these prices weren't exactly expected by a lot of CCPers either (I'm certain a lot of them didn't know). So now you are in a situation where you are having to explain it in public to both the community and a good number of people in the company you work for.

Other members of the CSM have chimed in in agreement and we're waiting to see how all of this is explained.

What happened to my face??

Another (minor?) thing that has folks all 'mad' is that their carefully sculpted avatars don't seem to look quite the same in the Captain's Closet as they do in their portraits.  Here's one of the better examples:

OMG please don't hurt me!

Lots of folks are complaining that their characters look really sad or upset, dubbing it 'the emo effect.'  Heh.

Turning it all off

Lastly, there are a lot of people that, due to the aforementioned performance problems or just plain not giving a damn, have elected to turn thier Captian's Closet... ummm, Quarters off.  There's even a massive thread on the official forums about it that keeps growing:

The first thing I did with the captains quarters was ....

When you decide to 'turn it off', then all of the Incarna content is replaced by this:

Halp! I am stuck in the ventilation shaft!!

Cripes, that's pretty depressing. So, the end result is that you get to stare at a static picture with no ship spinning.  It's a special irony that my main character remains trapped in her Nyx without having to worry about couches and big screen TV's lowering her frame rate. I'd planned to get her into a station so she could try on a proper skirt and heels, but now I think I'll just wait a bit.

I'll be focusing more on the performance aspects of this patch in my next blog as, despite all of the above, there are some serious patch-related issues that go beyond just how much $$$ guys are willing to spend to dress up their space dollies.

The $99 feedback loop

The Jessica Video Booth - Only $99!

I feel that the CSM has made some progress in helping CCP with messaging and it's been useful in a few cases already.  So here's a good example of what happens when the CSM is caught off guard (none of us really know what to say so we can't even help) and something pretty major gets tossed on the grill:

[Dev Blog] Monetizing 3rd Party Apps

This is the main comment thread. (33 pages in about 24 hours, up to 45 now)

Here is the thread on FHC.

A couple of interesting highlights:

Even Chribba is mad: LINKAGE

Decent summary post for lots of players: LINKAGE

I think it's fair to say that the message CCP is trying to put out there right now umm... isn't working. While there are plenty of posts and comments about what's going on, I thought I'd answer a question that seems to be on a lot of people's minds:

Does anyone know what goes on in CCP when one of the shitstorm threadnaughts of rage hit? Are they vOv,  "Yawn, trivial..." or are they, "Oh fuck, there go more subs!" ?

Well, generally it's directly proportional to the subject matter. In most cases (game balance, etc...), most folks don't even bother to concern themselves if it doesn't directly have something to do with THEIR job. The 'not my problem' syndrome is a common thing in most companies, but it doesn't really translate well when dealing with an online gaming community.  The day to day lack of familiarity with the people you work for (the subscribers) can lead people to make some pretty epic PR snafus.  This becomes quite amusing after a couple weeks of rage when a 'higher up' mentions that the community is upset about something. "Huh? What? But everything is going great I thought? Look at my new lines of code...."

This isn't just a ground level effect either. It goes all the way up in the sense that upper management doesn't (understandably) have time to read threadnaughts or do as much community interaction as they would like, so they are forced to rely on others for their information flow. More often than not, the community concerns / rage are glossed over so as to appear temporary or minimal. "Yeah, a vocal minority said some stuff but we're awesome and everything will be awesome."

Part of the disconnect is that as the company has grown, they have hired a lot more people that see their work as nothing more than a way to earn a below average salary. The average CCP employee does not follow the pulse of the community and does not log into TQ to do anything other than change skills or say, "I flew a bomber last night so I PVP'd this month." There are some very good people there that do their jobs as best they can but EVE is just that to them - a job. They do what their superiors tell them to do.

So when it comes time for actual messaging to the community, these same people are writing dev blogs about some thing that they are working on with no real concept of how it might affect the bigger picture or the community at large. No one that was actively engaged in this community could read some of the past few dev blogs and not walk away thinking .

Our never boring CSM Chairman, The Mittani, had this to day about it all:

"I think the island culture has to do with it. It's very easy to develop a consensus about how the world works when you're in a rinky-dink town like Reykjavik (which is lovely, but it's fucking tiny) and you drink with/hang out with/bump into your coworkers all the goddamned time.

Iceland also has a very charming culture of Just Not Giving A Fuck About Trivial Shit. 'Trivial Shit' in the Icelandic view seems to include smashing glasses in the street, pissing on walls like you just don't care in front of other people, parking your car in a way which blocks traffic/parking your car on a sidewalk, and just doing basically whatever the fuck you feel like because you're on an island full of fucking supermodels and there's nothing to do but drink, fuck, do drugs and party.

It's a great island, but there's a serious cultural disconnect between Reyk and the rest of reality."

Basically, the people at CCP who want to avoid PR disasters like this one have been using the CSM as a filter recently, but this latest batch of nonsense came completely out of the blue and it shows. Hopefully they will learn from this. I've raised this issue / blog on the internal CSM forums. If anything good comes of that, I'll let you all know. I hope after the weekend we'll see some better messaging emerge.

CSM 6 May Summit Reflections

I totally stole this from EN 24.  Deal with it.

It's been a few days and I'm finally starting to feel alive again, so I'm going to write a bit about how the first CSM 6 / CCP Summit went.  While I can't go into detailed specifics about the meetings, I can talk about what was discussed and my impressions of the meetings.  I'm also going to try to explain the 'CSM Experience' to those who might wonder just what the whole 'free trip to Iceland' is all about.

Pre-Summit Preparation

During my campaign I made mention many times that this CSM's approach to dealing with CCP would likely resemble something of a battle plan and this has held true, though not in a hostile sense.  The members of this CSM have simply committed to making sure that we work and coordinate together as much as possible so that we don't look like a bunch of random sperging idiots when we talk to the dudes making the game.

Within 24 hours of being elected, every CSM 6 member has been in a group Skype chat.  We've been using this medium in order to speak about issues and resolve potential problems in real time.  Along with day to day chatting, we periodically switch to voice comms in order to hash shit out faster.  Additionally, we've reached out to CCP and have created a separate channel that now counts several members of the dev team as it's participants. This simple communication mechanism has enabled CSM 6 to coordinate at a speed and efficiency surpassing any previous efforts.

The Setting

Not bad for an abandoned fish processing plant

The meetings for the CSM take place on the fourth floor of CCP HQ in a large room named 'Tranquility'. Everyone sits around a large table and talks about Eve for 8 to 10 hours a day.  It's a pretty unrelenting pace. There is a great view of the harbor from the fourth floor and a large video projector in the room to display charts and graphs or whatever else might be rolled in the theme of the discussion being had.  The setting is mostly informal and is designed to let people relax and just talk freely.

I'm going to walk through the meeting schedule now and try to give my impressions of how each one went without spilling too many beans or breaking NDA. There's fourteen pages of 'official' notes as well as video recordings of the meetings. I took about five pages of my own notes as well so you can probably expect the actual meeting minutes to be pretty informative.

Day One Meetings

Vanity Items = KITTY!

CSM - Introduction
This was just a bit of an intro of CCP to the newer members of the CSM. CCP talked a bit about their internal structure and stuff that might directly affect the CSM. We took the opportunity to talk about how we are organized as well. One specific point I remember is having a discussion about getting more real time communication established with CCP and getting more information so we don’t waste time on little things that could be resolved by simple explanations.

Team BFF (Thousand Little Things)
CCP Soundwave and CCP Greyscale walked us through how they went about figuring out what the 'little things' are.  We were shown the BFF backlog and the process they use to prioritize the stories in it. The CSM really went all out in this session to reinforce the fact that we believe this effort to be P.R. Gold and that we want to see it continue.  We also emphasized that more, smaller patches are a good thing as opposed to letting shit that is fixed linger for months until it goes out once every quarter or something.  A good session overall.

EVE - Flying in Space
This was basically just continued from the previous meeting with more focus on actual spaceship stuff.  Yours truly made sure to say the word ITERATION quite often and it does seem as if the idea has firmly taken hold. While there is more new and shiny stuff in the pipeline, CCP Zulu spoke up several times in this meeting to reassure us that CCP has gotten the message about polishing existing features. Many smiles were seen at the end of this one.

EVE: Future / Summer 2011 combined session
These meetings were headed by CCP Zulu and CCP Torfi. We got a very solid look at the direction EVE is headed and the thinking behind that direction.  The CSM asked some very blunt questions and received very forthcoming answers. CCP seemed intent on cutting through the bullshit and speaking plainly which was greatly appreciated.  There was a remarkable amount of back and forth in these sessions and the amount of ground covered was extensive.  I can't get into specifics too much without giving stuff away but I can say that there will be dev blogs in the near future about a lot of it.  Time flew by and we had to move on.

EVE Dust Link

I have no idea what the official minutes for this 'meeting' will say but I suspect CCP will :NDA: the hell out of it. I'll have to wait and see what shape the minutes take in order to elaborate more.

EVE Marketing

CCP Zinfandel spent a good few hours Tuesday night getting everyone good and sloshed so there was already good will towards the man.  It seems he felt the need to emphasize just how seriously he takes the CSM so just prior to this session he brought in two delicious cakes! Nom nom nom...

We were walked though a bit of CCP's future marketing ideas which was pretty cool.  The CSM took the opportunity to really hammer home how CCP has dropped the ball in the past with regard to player communication and how to improve it. This is going to be pretty important considering the number of changes to EVE (vanity items, etc...) that are inbound and the CSM felt pretty good about how things went in this session.  As it was the last meeting of the day it ran a bit long and we resolved to continue the discussions at various bars.

Day Two Meetings

Serious Business

EVE UI
Carbon Carbon Carbon, hell yeah.  There's no way to really talk about specifics in this session without breaking NDA but it was all pretty cool. Despite there being no shiny demos there was a lot of discussion and the information about how the UI affects lag and such was interesting.

Customer Support 
Reimbursement was the main discussion point in this one. Availability of information to the GM's to make better decisions was pushed.  I must note that the GMs present weren't the least bit dismissive and were pretty engaged throughout the meeting.  They really do care about this stuff and want to continue improving their processes.

The War on Bots / Security
This was a great session. CCP Screegs (aka Darius Johnson) always has a knack for presenting information in an engaging way and he didn't fail here. There was quite a bit of chart and graph porn and we got a good look at how CCP is working on hunting bots and RMT activity.  It was impressive and, at times, funny to see how all this works.  Screegs was not too subtly encouraged to put out a dev blog ASAP with as much of this meeting's info as can be made publicly available.

The War on Lag
Team Gridlock, how I love thee.  CCP Veritas showed us the tools that him and his team are using to record and analyze fleet battles and lag in general. This was fantastic stuff, destined for a dev blog in the near future.  Time Dilation was also discussed and detailed.  I guess the best thing I can say about this is that while I know CCP has always tried to do everything they could to fight the lag monster, Team Gridlock represents a big step forward. CCP needs to shower these guys with whatever resources they need.

EVE QA

Yes, EVE has a QA dept and we got to meet the head of it (who is an awesome dude).  This was a very blunt meeting, with hard questions and honest answers. Blah blah blah, some NDA type stuff that I'm sure will be in the official minutes.

POS Misery
This discussion went all over the place. We discussed the current POS system and why it sucks and what works. We talked about how it could evolve in the future (dead horse thread, etc...) It was encouraging to learn how engaged CCP is on this issue, it's just a matter of timing and resources.

Feature Abandonment
T3 Factional Sov War Wormholes?? Why introduce cool / unfinished stuff, don't you know you make the players very mad?!  Oh, you do?  BTW, CCP, you should do more video dev blogs because those are cool. This session got very NDA as it touched on how CCP plans to look at or iterate on these features so I'll shut up now until the meeting minutes come out.

Surprise Marketing Visit
CCP Zinfandel comes back to show us some of the vanity items that will be shipping with Incarna. They have actual fashion designers making the clothing and such.  Some of this stuff looked so cool that if CCP would sell it in their real world store, I think they'd make a ton of money. I cannot believe that I'm actually now excited about dressing up my space dollie. Hell, people are spending stupid amounts of RL money in World of Tanks for gold ammo and stuff so I can see why CCP wants to leverage the same mentality.

Day Three Meetings

I love any excuse to use this chart.

Nullsec Industrialization
Those of us that were awake and not hungover started doing a brainstorming session with lots of post it notes and stuff.  We ended up talking about pretty much everything nullsec related and it was good.  This session went long and probably went a long way toward convincing many CSM members that CCP Greyscale is actually a pretty cool dude.

Newbie Retention / NPE
CCP Flying Scottsman is actually very Scottish. We spent a lot of time going over what brought us originally to EVE and what kept us playing. Obviously things have changed since 2003 and CCP was very receptive to our ideas and experiences with getting new players into the game and also how many of us, as CEOs and alliance leaders, keep veterans from rage quitting.  There are some interesting plans for future development here.  Dev blogs and more community interaction recommended.

Aesthetics / Art Team
What started off as a bit of a, "Hmmm.. what do we talk to Art about?" meeting (that we requested) quickly turned into one of the most informative and interesting sessions of the summit.  We spoke with the Art Director, one of the lead artists and the 'Godfather' of the art department about anything and everything. How long does it take a new ship to enter the game from concept to on TQ?  UI stuff?  Incarna stuff?  Cyno effect and engine trails?!  The Art guys seemed surprised at how much we grilled them and were very engaged and happy to talk about what they do and how they do it. I think everyone on the CSM was happy we asked for this meeting and I hope the official minutes help inform people better.

EVE Economics
My brain literally melted at some point during this meeting.  So. Many. Graphs.  It was cool though because it touched on both in game and out of game metrics. There was so much potential NDA stuff in this one that you'll just have to wait on the minutes.  Good stuff though.

Chat with Hilmar
I think everyone pretty much expected by near the end of the third day that we'd have had a small list of things to bitch to the CEO about but it didn't turn out that way. Hilmar sat at the head of the table and went into a lot of detail about any questions asked and didn't seem in a rush to leave. We surprised him in that he expected a bit more of a hostile environment (he said as much) considering the make up of the CSM; we explained how CSM 6 was working together and asked that that CCP as a whole continue to be receptive to participating in more real time dialogue with us.  He fully supported this. There was one point where Hilmar explained his view on the evolution of the CSM which really should be transcribed to a dev blog as it was fascinating to listen to.  Handshakes at the end with everyone.

Ship Balance Iteration
Lots of NDA stuff but we discussed everything from Supercarriers to Hybrids. Obviously there's a lot of stuff that needs love and a few things that need a bit of hate. You'll have to wait for the minutes to get anything more specific but it was reassuring to hear that CCP wants to do balancing more often than once every 2-3 years. We spoke directly with the devs which will be doing the work. This session felt very productive.

CSM 6 Summit Member Composition

Sup?

One thing that this experience has reminded me about is that 'Space Politics' is absolutely meaningless when it comes to actually serving on the CSM. While it may help you get elected or color perceptions as to what you may or may not do if elected, the simple fact is that every member of CSM 6 is serving for the same reason - we love the game and want to help CCP make it better.  People that choose to dismiss or hate members of the CSM because of their in game alliance tag or space vendettas are missing the boat completely.

Rarely during the past weeks or the three days of the Summit have I seen a CSM member put their in game agenda before the health of the game itself, and when they did, it was mostly in jest.  Some of the positions taken would probably do more to harm their current in game situations with an eye to improving game play overall for the entire player base.

Love him or hate him, it would be criminal not to acknowledge the amount of work that Mittens has put into CSM 6 thus far. While he loves to remind people, "Hi, I'm famous in a bad game for literally being a giant douche bag!", the fact is that CSM 6 is much stronger with him than without him.

Vile Rat was someone that I've dealt with on and off for several years now in EVE and finally meeting him in person was a genuine pleasure. While it's true that he and Mittens make a formidable 'Goon Duo' of sorts, quite often he goes a different direction. He has his own views about EVE that he voices very clearly. Of all the candidates, I think he came to CCP prepared for a boxing match and walked away from the Summit pleasantly surprised by the number of battles that didn't have to be fought.

As the current CSM 'veterans', Trebor and Meissa have been invaluable in helping the rest of us steer the waters of what has worked in the past and what might work better in the future. Considering the rhetoric of the campaign trail, it's been especially funny to see how well Trebor and Mittens get along.

I didn't know what to expect from White Tree and, tbh, I've gotten more questions about him than any other CSM member.  I have to be honest and say that I've not read every post the guy has made or even really followed his campaign that closely beyond knowing that he was the TEST alliance candidate.  That being said, at multiple times during the summit he spoke up and articulated his points quite well.  He's got an interesting perspective on things and I don't really get all the sperging that goes on about this guy.

Killer 2 and Draco Llasa represent the Northern Coalition bloc and have done an excellent job. Draco was a bit of a surprise to me as I'd not really heard of him prior to the elections but I've found myself nodding along with him on many occasions, especially during the summit.

Since xxDeath (I'm not typing all those X's) couldn't make it to the summit, First Alternate Elise Randolph was flown in.  Commonly acknowledged as the nicest guy in Pandemic Legion, he had a hell of a time in Iceland, and not in a good way.  He arrived at 0600 local on the first morning of the summit and was taken directly to CCP HQ for the first day of meetings. Somehow he stayed awake all day and then went out to the bar afterwards.  However, the airlines had lost his luggage so he had to wear the same clothes (a fairly pimping suit and fedora) for three days until his suitcase finally arrived.

Overall, I believe we've managed, in a very short time, to achieve a remarkable degree of coordination and unity with regard to how we want to move forward. Everyone on this CSM, even the alternates, are constantly communicating and looking for ways to improve our ability to liaison between CCP and the players.

Visitor Pass 36

Yes, I'm supposed to be here! I have a badge and everything!

Outside of the meetings, the question I was bombarded with the most was, "So what does it feel like to be on the other side of the table?" It's been pretty fun, if a bit weird at times, but not at all awkward. I left because I couldn't move to Iceland, simple as that. I still have a lot of friends there and it was great to be able to see them again. There was no real tension that I could tell and everyone I spoke with seemed to think my getting on the CSM was a good thing overall.

I do feel like my experience at the company contributed to helping bridge a few gaps and move things forward, even if I expected it to be more difficult in some areas. While some things never change, CCP is not the same company I left a year ago.  Then again, in the three plus years I was there, the company went through so many changes that I lost count.  It was very interesting to have been away for a year and then come back as a CSM member to see how CCP continues to evolve.

Cool Stuff that CSM 6 has done so far

Totally Important Looking Announcement

• Published our first 'dev blog' / whatever to the players.
• Held the first of many live 'Fireside Chats' with the player base.
• Working with CCP in reviewing drafts of Dev Blogs so that they don't cause more Mob Rage.
• Successfully 'spotlighted' the Time Dilation feature.
• Avoided death by volcano at the first summit in Iceland.

I'm sure there's a lot more but I really need to get this thing published and get back to actually playing EVE.  I'll probably be renaming this blog in the next week or so and start blogging about more day to day EVE stuff in addition to the CSM blah blah. Hopefully this blog has given you a bit more insight into what happened in Iceland and CSM 6 in general.  I apoligize again that it's so short on details in some areas, but :NDA: and all that stuff.

Talk to you all again soon!