Kenreikko Valitonen
Guiding Hand Social Club
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Posted - 2011.06.25 17:32:00 -
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The basic gameplay experience is still the same on the 25th of June as it was on the 24th. What has changed, through the coincidence of several events that I probably need not recap in detail right here (just listen to the EVE Radio panel recording), was a significant change in the underpinnings of the play. Although I'm sure it's been true for a long time, this massive PR failure has laid bare in a striking way the relationship that exists between CCP and the players. The happy assumption that the players were invited to come and experience a thrilling, challenging sandbox game and that the people who shaped its rules ultimately agreed with the community's vision -- that they were, despite being devs, fundamentally our fellow players/enthusiasts in the sandbox (if not friends brought together by a shared love for a hobby) -- is rather rudely dashed by:
Quote: I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say.
That landed in our laps after the reversal on MT policies and disregard for the CSM, the wtf $99 idea, the flop that was AT9, the poorly-optimized CQ release (why not wait until you have a complete product to release anything?), being "shown the door" when opting out of CQ, the absurd NeX pricing, the Fearless leak, and Zulu's "have a nice weekend, jerks" non-devblog. In general, I'm not easy to offend, but after the fourth or fifth time a friend flips me off and tells me to go eat **** in one day, I start to wonder if they're not joking.
Some folks will argue the EVE is a product and as consumers we have a choice to purchase it or not. That's true, but it's not the way I think a lot of people look at it. It's not how I look at EVE. Rather than a product, many like myself see EVE as a shared project. EVE gameplay is about creation. It's about making what you will of the cluster--carving out a corner of the sandbox for yourself. What you do in the game, even what you say, matters. It is unlike any other MMO on the market and for a long time the dynamic that existed between the company and the customers felt more like a partnership than a transaction. The community and the devs were creating something unique together. CCP still has a chance to reclaim that image, but they've got a steep slope to climb to get back to the top of the hill.
Metaphorically, the rich kid who lives in a huge mansion with a fun park in the backyard invited us over to play, and for a while it seemed like he genuinely liked having us there and the fact that it was his house and his toys and his rules didn't matter because a sense of friendship trumped all that. Then one day, we overheard him telling his parents how he really felt about us and the opinions weren't very flattering. So, there's a choice to stay and keep playing because the toys are neat, but in doing so, you go on with the knowledge that your "friend" really isn't.
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