Originally by: Antibac

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This dev blog does not address the important question at all.

Will you be selling items for Aurum that affect gameplay?

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Originally by: Lynx Amurie

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Originally by: Harleen Frances Quinzel

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Quote:

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Are you moving beyond VANITY AUR items?

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How many times does this have to be reposted before one of you imbeciles gives us an answer?

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Originally by: Xenuria

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I don't need a LICENSE to take a photoshooped image and lay it on top of the game client and make pretend my character is naked.

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Originally by: Powdah

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You having trouble loading the page Zulu, or are we going to wait another 200 more before the concerns we've clearly and repeatedly stated are addressed?

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Originally by: The longer you stay the more it hurts

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Pros

The Reykjavik office is very family friendly and youÆll often find children running around the office. During lunch it is also acceptable to bring in spouses and children. If you have a family and want to spend additional time with them this could be a way.

ItÆs a place where anyone can get a start in the industry because turnover in departments like QA is still rather high. The way you talk matters more than your actual experience and you can take advantage of this during the interviews.

The Atlanta office is a different place and doesnÆt suffer from the serious unprofessionalism as much as the Reykjavik office. The sad thing is that they too pay the price by seeing their work halted for years at a time to jump ship and bandage EVE up.

Cons

The lack of professionalism is mind blowing. Procedures that are common in other companies are not used here and considered a waste of time. There is no solid vision for EVE which leaves employees with no other option than to start work and find out what is wanted by trial and error, this is what CCP means with Agile development.

Fun game play is not a priority, promises made to investors and aesthetics are. æIf it looks good then it is goodÆ is an often heard motto. CCP is committed to use technology in EVE as well as WoD and DUST, so certain features are made and used in EVE knowing they will not be fun, nor fit EVE and no one expects them to be appreciated by the playerbase. Alienating the playerbase of EVE further. Objections from employees who point this out are waved away.

CCP does not take criticism well and often ignores retrospectives. Criticism is considered to be a negative attitude and is severely frowned upon. A lot of effort goes into maintaining a good morale with a lot of internal PR. After all itÆs cheaper to print posters than pay an average salary to employees.

Several years now CCP has predicated insane subscriber goals that cannot be met. Naturally this is met with scepticism by the employees but it falls on deaf ears. The result is that the company is suffering because we cannot sustain the development of EVE, DUST and WOD. EVE is not creating enough revenue which means that solutions are sought, solutions that CCP was vehemently against a few years ago.

Career progression is nonexistent unless you become friends with the right clique of people and use the right corporate buzzwords. Hard work is not something that will set you apart, most people work hard until they become so disillusioned as they realise it makes no difference and slack off.

Combine this with the below average pay (CCP pays 30% to 50% less than other companies) and youÆll often hear a lot of frustration when work is discussed outside of the office by people who have been here for some time. The longer you stay the less you start to care about the game you develope, because no one else does.

Advice to Senior Management

Recruit very senior people from the games industry and actually listen to what they say. Stop believing your own hype.

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Originally by: CCP Manifest

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CCP Zulu speaks on the Fearless newsletter and Monocles in this dev blog.

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Originally by: Toanfoal

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Edited by: Toanfoal on 24/06/2011 21:27:45
Dear CCP Zulu,

The tone of your blog-post is 100% fail. The content of your blog-post is virtually worthless, but I will stubbornly respond, nonetheless.

1. No one cares about how smooth or not smooth Incarna's release was. Way to pat yourself on the back while Rome burns.

2. "Fearless" - 1st of all, most people are ticked off that you even felt the topic of 'more microtransactions' was worthy of discussion. We thought you were better than that, and our disappointment knows no bounds. "Everyone else is doing it" is the excuse of a 12 year old kid, not an A-list game developer. 2nd - perhaps CCP Soundwave was just following orders. Fine. Fire whoever told him to write that column. It's quite simple - if you want to keep making ANY money from us, someone needs to take responsibility.

3. Pricing structure... yawn. This is just a stupid issue. You chose to introduce CCP-spawned, permanent, indestructable objects into a player driven, 'everything-else-is-destructable' economy, so yeah - I understand that you either have to charge a ridiculous price for those objects or they will almost instantly saturate the system. Many other people don't understand this, but you know what - you did a crap job of explaining that to people.


You have done nothing to placate the masses. I strongly suggest that you and your co-workers look up two important events in MMO history:

1. The Star Wars NGE

2. The Blizzard RealID fiasco


In one case, SOE got greedy and wanted to broaden their playerbase by restructuring the game. Their players cried out, SOE did not listen, and now the game is dead. It's a joke. You should be glad they screwed up, cause SWG was your only other sandbox competition. But you should certainly not try to one-up their mistake.

In the other case, Blizzard got greedy and wanted to inject the Facebook craze into WoW. Their players cried out, Blizzard listened, and a disaster was averted.


You need to get conciliatory quickly, you need to take responsibility, and you need to prove to your community that you have learned your lesson and the direction of Eve has been re-aligned. Good luck.

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Originally by: Bloodpetal

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Does CCP Promise Vanity Items Only?

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Are you moving beyond VANITY AUR items?