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Incarna opens up the possibility of selling people virtual goods. They could be superficial or non-relevant from a pure gameplay perspective, but people can still enjoy them.
NW: So, one of the things we’re trying to have is really "realistic" or "lifelike", I don't know exactly... but the avatars feel real, and when you look at a scene, it just feels like something out of a movie. I really, really don't want to have quest givers standing there with a big exclamation above their head. I want it to just look like this really cool sci-fi dark setting, and everybody fits in.
Hellgate: London had these towns, and there were just quest givers all around. I was like, "They're just standing there. They don't even look like they fit into their thing at all. My immersion is just ruined." So, I don't want to have that sort of thing happen, and part of making the realism, making the illusion work, is gaze attraction and how the various avatars respond to their environment.
Something we've been talking about a whole bunch -- we haven't made it yet, but this is something we really want to do -- is have metadata on all the characters so, for instance, if a big alliance leader walks into the room, everybody goes, "Oh, that's that guy," and you can just see the scene change, and that sort of thing.
And maybe he's wearing some interesting clothing, you know. And it actually has an effect on the world in some sort of way that makes them feel... And this is an intrinsic sort of motivation, you know. This is like the relatedness...
The way it would be, say, if like Bill Gates walked into the room or something. Everyone would turn and look.
NW: Yeah. Exactly. Everyone would turn and look and maybe "Oh, that’s... Ooh, can you believe it? Wow. Hey, it's him!" So, we want that sort of thing. See, this helps the relatedness of the newer players, too.
It would be interesting for us if he walked in the room just as much as Bill Gates would be like, "Here I am in the room, and people are looking at me and I'm this rich guy," but he's probably used to it by now. But if you were like, just sitting at some bar, the most famous person in EVE walks in, that's a cool thing for everybody, especially if the scene makes it feel like it actually fit together.
And it would communicate to the new players that there's somewhere to go also, you know what I mean? It's not just atmosphere; it's also information.
NW: Yeah.
They'd say, "Look, this is like an achievable thing within the context of this game," right? That's kind of interesting.
NW: Yeah. Who knows how it's going to pan out? [laughs]
I'm really curious about this, but maybe I don't know if you're the person to ask. The thing that I find really fascinating about Dust is the way it's intended to play into EVE. That sounds really innovative but also scary.
NW: Yeah, it is scary. [laughs] I mean, I don't know, I don't think we should delve too much into Dust because we haven't really been talking about it much, but yeah, as the lead game designer of EVE, I'm very protective of the EVE players.
My whole goal when designing the EVE side of the link to Dust is, I want it to be something that the EVE players want in their game. It has to feel like this makes sense, and just basically, you know, "I fly a battleship, but of course there's marines on the ground, and of course if I would want to attack this installation, I would pay marines to do it, and they would just run and do it." And who cares if they're on a console or another PC somewhere? This is just the fighting that happens.
But, yeah, it's a challenge, but we're having a lot of wins lately in getting this link. I mean, we showed it off at last Fanfest, and I suppose we'll show something else off at the next coming Fanfest and have, like, whatever the next stage is, and how it is.
Yeah, it's cool. We've got a couple test kits around the office in Reykjavik, and we're able to play. Not that we're necessarily developing it, but we can hop in, run around, and shoot at stuff. It's mostly just vertical slices of various stuff. You wouldn't show it off to people, but it's definitely interesting times.
It seems like between that and sort of the stuff with Incarna, you're broadening the scope of what EVE represents. You're saying like to your users, "Look, EVE has had a very obviously robust gameplay system that's been very attractive to tens of thousands of people, but we're expanding their universe to include new perspectives."
NW: Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's our journey from being the ultimate space trading MMO to being like the ultimate sci-fi simulator. A while back, when somebody took Star Wars and Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 and put the EVE logo up next to it and said like, you know, "We want EVE to be one of these sci-fi household names at some point in the future that people just go, 'Yeah, EVE. That's that thing that has all this stuff in it.'"
Just like a lot of people know about The Force and Wookiees and things like that. You, know, same with people know about the guys with red shirts in Star Trek die. Eventually some day we want people to know little tidbits about EVE, and they don't necessarily play it, but some day we want that to be... And people to play it on a PS3 and a PC and on iPhone and just, you know, everywhere, a sort of pervasive thing.
The complicated thing to do is to do it with the intelligence and thoughtfulness that you're already known for. If you wanted to make bad Resident Evil-style movies, I'm sure you could.
NW: Yeah, yeah.
I'm sure you've been approached, right?
NW: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
But you don't because that's not the foundation of your success.
NW: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And we're like... I think we would do ourselves a disservice if we would do that. So, Star Wars is big enough that they can come out with crappy video game after crappy video game, and it's really not going to hurt...
Most Star Wars computer games, or games on consoles and stuff, are pretty bad. There's only a few Star Wars games that you can name that you can say were even good games. X-Wing, maybe, is one of them. But I don't think we could just come out with a whole bunch of bad EVE stuff, because we're not big enough yet to do that. 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.
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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.