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You're very careful not to say you're not dumbing it down; I think people get really wary of that kind of thing, and I think it probably goes extra for your audience.
NW: Well we've always been... I know I've just actually been reading a lot about these different user types lately, and the expert user type, we really cater to that, and we have for a long time. So, we've built up this community of expert user types,
And then the CSM is that type. As we listen and improve the game in directions that help the expert user type, we might be doing a disservice to the more mainstream people.
We feel like there is a way that we can cater to those mainstream people without alienating expert users. But it's a challenge. It's harder to build something that's nice and usable for mainstream and expert.
That's an interesting question. So is the implication that the CSM would be packed with people who have the biggest stake in the game and the highest, highest levels of knowledge and engagement with the game.
NW: Yeah, for sure. You don't run for... internet government spaceship thing... without being heavily invested into the whole thing. Or at least you don't win. Maybe you run, but you have to have this pretty big social network, and you've probably devoted a lot of time into EVE in order to win a seat on the CSM.
So it's up to us to really sort of listen to what they're saying and interpret what it is they need, rather than just doing exactly what they're asking for. I think that's just something that businesses have to do in general, to figure out what it is your customers need, not exactly...
Sometimes they're asking for one thing, but if you read into it deeper, it's really that they have a more fundamental concern that wasn't coming out. They're saying like "Why don't you move this button here?" when they're really saying like "Why don't you make this easier for me to do?"
You are totally at the forefront of this kind of interaction that potentially could become more and more relevant, as we all migrate online for a bulk of our interactions, in a lot of ways. How long has the CSM been going now? It's been several years.
NW: Yeah, so, in its current incarnation, it's been three or four years. But we had a CSM a long time ago that was just a chat channel that we invited people to, back... Almost at launch, there was a CSM. It wasn't the player-elected big thing that it is now, where people are flown to Iceland and talk to us, and we have these big long meetings, and every department prepares and gives presentations and talks. But, yeah, I mean, just talking to your customers is an important thing if you want to be in a service...
Absolutely. But this is sort of taking it to an extreme that I don't think really anybody else has.
NW: Yeah. I would agree. Not in the gaming industry anyway, no one's done this... Bringing your users in to try out your product and then monitor them is just... This is best practice in a lot of design-related industries. I've been reading about lately, they just say what you definitely have to do is sit people down, watch how they use, figure out where they stumble, fix it, talk to your users about what they're trying to accomplish.
So, we've been using the CSM. EyjoG, he's our doctor of economics, and he's got a research team, and they also research the users, not just the economy. We do surveys to the player base in the newsletter, and we get usually over 4,000 people responding to it, which means it's scientifically viable. And we're asking them, constantly, different things, and we've sort of built personas of our user base...
Based on behaviors?
NW: Yeah, based on behaviors, and based on answers to questions. So one of the personas is the "unwinding professional." There are about seven personas that we have, and the unwinding professional has a really hectic busy job, and he's the boss of everything. When he comes home to play EVE, he just wants to sit down and have some escapism and relax. He actually doesn't want to be like the leader of the fleet or anything because in his day job, he is the leader of whatever -- the thing. He just wants to kick back and shoot some stuff.
Then you've got this other persona of "the maven," and he's the guy who's been in every beta of every game ever, and he can tell you what the best printer is to buy because he's totally into like all the tech stuff, and maybe he's got a 3D TV already. And, you know, you ask him like "Is it time for me to buy a 3D TV?" "No, no, wait until the Sony blah blah comes out because that's going to be..." He's like one of these super nodes in the network that's just bringing everybody together. He's the expert user type that, you know, sort of the CSM is as well, these super nodes.
But looking at these different personas and seeing like what is their goal when they play EVE, what is it that they do, and what's the game loop that they're in when they sit down and play it, and trying to like optimize that for them. This is sort of just something we're starting to look at.
And for the longest time, EVE was built just on a hunch. You know, we were building a game for ourselves. Reynir [Harðarson] had the idea, and Hilmar [Pétursson] and the other guys who started CCP.
They were playing Elite back in the day. They played UO back in the day. They play a lot of Magic, and they just said, "Wouldn't it be cool if you had a game that was like the big procedurally-generated space thing of Elite, but the non-class based, you can do whatever you want PVP sort of thing that UO is, but you would fit your ships like a Magic the Gathering deck? That would be the ultimate game ever. Let's build that."
And, you know, they started building this thing, and everybody on the team just started building what they thought would be cool. But now we've got all these customers that aren't us. They're completely different people, and so we need to see what it is our customers are doing, and build something that's going to be nicer for them.
And also, you know, we've got 350,000 subscribers, because we've been growing from much smaller. It would probably be an order of magnitude more if we would build something that was a little bit easier to get into, if there wasn't that "learning cliff" that everybody jokes about.
And it's not because we shouldn't have complicated systems, and it's not like it shouldn't be a harsh world. It's just that people are presented with everything up front. Incarna is going to go to some way to like slowing it down and letting you feel a little like, "Okay, here's my captain's quarters, and I've got my little bit of the world, and then I go out and explore some, and then I come back."
It's not like the very first tutorial, and you were just sitting in your ship in space getting shot, and it was sink or swim, throwing people into the deep end of the pool. Some people really loved that, but probably most people didn't love that. "Oh God, I'm dying! I don't know what to do or press!"
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It's been nearly 4 years now for Incarna, from the path of Walking in Stations to what it was presented to be, to the limited fallback implementation now presented. With the first delivery of one room. These statements of "Come March, when we've done the first part of this release, we're going to be able to have a lot clearer picture on what we'll be able to do" worry me to no end. Sure, no plan survives contact with company or customers, but considering the hyped expectations we should all be thankful that CCP had the vision to be challenged by their Council of Stellar Management.
The Planetary Interaction case was vastly different from what is presented here, but at least for the first time customers were provided with an iteration on the feature - fortunately, as both deployment as well as adoption was a well demonstrated and absolute failure. I'm unsure how OLAB fits in with the voluntary state of documenting or knowledge management that has been reported by staff?
"But, I mean, at least we're getting in a stage where EVE trailers are played before Tron. I mean, that's a step in the right direction." I apologise should this be misunderstood as a personal engagement, but in light of the impending struggle between the environments of EVE known as spaceships and incarna, the enormous divide between message, presentation and effective deliveries, I'm not sure that is where the attention should be in this year.
Also, I am unsure where the link to http://www.eve-csm.com/ comes from, as that is also incorrect. That is an old customer site, neither accurate nor up to date, as these weeks the elections are taking place for the 6th Term of the Council Of Stellar Management. If one were to provide a link, it would be more suitable to provide a few for insight that are relevant and part of the EVE website. The Jita Park section of the EVE forums are probably the best in that regard.
On another note, I am sorry to notice another possible disconnect. "It's important to Ward to make sure he balances out relations with EVE's player government, the Council of Stellar Management, with the need to attract new users." The CSM as well as most of its members have been instrumental in efforts towards attracting new users, so if it were to be implied or misunderstood that the CSM goes against interests of existing new players and attracting them that should probably be clarified. It should be noted for example that members of the CSM even outside of their interactions with CCP are driving members behind many in game organisations which specifically cater to attracting and guiding new players, like EVE University.
I could understand it in a light of sales versus retention, but considering the impact of the June Summit between CSM and CCP it is safe to say that both were instrumentally served by the CSM more than by CCP, which acquired a better grasp of retention focus in the lessons learned of that summit.
Since CSM was established by CCP as a stakeholder, it has evolved from an experiment, via marketing instrument to now an effective business instrument. Introducing previously unknown concepts such as workflow, accountability, integration in communication, and even examples of collaboration by means of CSM driven crowdsourcing ventures resulting in what is known as "Team Best Friends Forever", a CCP team tasked with building on the fruits of that labour to engage on issues, polishing, minor but deep impact fixes, and more.
It is an interesting use of business instrumentation to follow I must admit, it speaks for CCP that they took the risk, but it is already visible among customers and customer prospects that it is very much worth it. As CCP's CEO Hilmar said "we want the CSM to challenge CCP". That is courage, but also vision, and trust in what CCP built and the potential of that and its customers combined.
Surprised there isn't a more publicly accessible and obvious "official" web presence.
As regards the intro on the CSM vs. new user issue, that was inelegant phrasing. The point was more about balancing the needs of experienced users with new users. Of course, attracting new users is a need of experienced users.. so they're not mutually exclusive concepts.
Inelegant phrasing, can happen. Is understood. Not mutually exclusive concepts indeed, yet unfortunately it is a bit of a convoluted topic in the CSM / CCP interaction. Suffice to say there is a misunderstanding present, within CCP in regards to both CSM interaction and argumentation on the matter.
Unfortunately the transitional membership and voluntary nature of CSM makes it unfeasible for individual CSM members to develop and maintain such sites. It is really CCP's responsibility to do this.
For example, in a lengthy dialog with EVE Online’s senior producer, Arnar Hrafn Gylfason, the CSM advocated strongly that Incursions be released in stages, despite initial reluctance by CCP to take that approach. When it proved to be successful and resulted in praise from both the CSM and the players, it was adopted for Incarna.
CSM5’s key message at the June Summit was “Commit to Excellence”. We implored CCP to focus on fixing existing content rather than continue pursuing “new, shiny.” The fact that they are showing more and more commitment to doing so is a direct result of the extreme dissatisfaction with CCP demonstrated by their customers in response to the June Minutes.
Related to having perspective on new players’ needs, new players have a voice on the CSM if they choose to vote for people who are committed to representing them. Two members of CSM5 held leadership positions in arguably two of EVE’s biggest “new player training” corporations: EVE University and Agony Unleashed. The potential impact on new players has always been part of game change discussions with CCP. Unfortunately, being a productive CSM member requires a lot of game knowledge. You can’t have insightful discussions about the impact of prospective game changes without it. There is simply no getting around that fact, and no way to realistically coach less experienced players through such discussions. This may be frustrating for new players, but it does not have to be isolationist because most CSM delegates would welcome the assistance and support of new players, and that is a good way for new players to integrate themselves into the CSM process.
Mr. Ward confusingly lumps the roles of focus groups, stakeholders and product/feature pilot tests into his response on page two of this article. The CSM is a stakeholder group which represents the interests and voice of the community. That is very different from a focus group brought together to … well … FOCUS on a single topic. It is also different from pilot tests conducted to stress test or user test features for playability, stability, or other reasons.
The CSM has evolved markedly in both approach and scope, particular during CSM5’s term. The CSM is the only stakeholder that works on behalf of the players, and it is commendable that CCP has been willing to continue to support the CSM “experiment” despite some CSM asking and insisting on answers to some very tough questions. There is no doubt that players are beginning to realize that the CSM is their voice. Roughly 40K votes were cast for CSM5 candidates. Already, three days into a two week voting period for CSM6, 25K+ votes have been cast. Whether this election’s vote totals exceed that of CSM5 remains to be seen and is of interest related to observing whether EVE customers have moved further away from EVE as an immersive environment and emerging dynamic or not. However, it is going to be interesting to watch how CSM6 continues the work as tasked by Hilmar (CCP’s CEO) and whether they will have better success in engaging certain sides of CCP. After all, we are all part of the same emerging dynamic.
For some idea of what CSM5 accomplished and did during their 10-month term, click the following link: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Reference:_CSM5_Activities_Quick_Update_%28CSM
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I agree, CCP should smooth out some things. Jita markets, jump lag, huge fleet battles, they all cause issues. I've had ships lost in completely empty systems because I apparently chose the wrong millisecond to click 'Jump'. There is a robust petition/grievance system in place, and it has yet to let me down(though it's anything but speedy).
I've been playing since 2004 and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. Can't wait for the DUST to settle!
In the case of EVE there is a requirement for the game to take action in giving the users a voice: commercial interests.
Not a goodwill gesture :P But smart business.
HTFU!
As long as CCP slows down and actually takes the time to listen to the people who pay their salaries Eve will continue to maintain it's steady hold on the "internet spaceship" market.
The main sticking point with CCP that I've run across in my 2 years in Eve is CCP's complete disregard for what the players are asking for. To show an example... the CSM and just everyday players have been asking for less lag in the large fleet battles (and they jump through hoops letting CCP know when the majority of these are going to happen) from my understanding CCP is working on it, but they haven't figured it out yet. In the meantime they persistently keep pushing this Incarna thing. I'm just one guy, just one player, and not a devoted 50 hour a week player, but before you continue to push the envelope with what you're game can be, why don't you make sure the existing seams of said envelope are still intact?
Which is a shame. Still, thanks to CSM5 CCP was able to understand that not only was their perception partially incorrect, it was also partially incomplete. Something which until that point was written off publicly as "doesn't matter, customers always whine, nobody quits anyway and if they do they are bitter anyway and we can replace them". It should be said that this was never stated by the company however, just by select devs "done" with EVE (and in some ways I can understand them, EVE does have a very tough customer crowd and you need to be pretty communicative and fearless to deal with that). The recent formation of a team specifically investigating lag issues from several angles was a direct consequence of that.
So that is good. It shows that not only is it helpful to engage with a CSM as customer and company, but also that CCP can listen. Yes, 4 years too late on the topic of Incarna, 3 years too late on the topic of abysmall performance perception, but they do listen. And that does say something about them. It takes something, to open yourself up as a company to outsiders looking in.
But, it's worth it.