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A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

Saul Bellow

Here's what I got in the mail for the latest blog banter:

This months topic comes to us from @evepress, who he asks(sic): The CSM: CCP's Meta Game? The CSM, an EVE players voice to CCP. Right? In the grand scheme of things yes, the players bring up issues and the CSM presents them to CCP. But in its current iteration the CSM was supposed to be given small authority to assign CCP assets to projects that the CSM thought needed work on. As it has come out, this was not the case. So fellow bloggers, is the CSM worth it, has the CSM improved the game in any way, or is it just a well thought out scam by CCP to give us players a false sense of input in the game? What's your take?


Say it with me guys: The CSM is a stakeholder in the development process. Convinced? Yeah... me neither. Apparently CCP's development process is a game of musical chairs, and the CSM was told told about the game after the music had stopped.

How many ways can someone say, "That's a great idea, but we're already booked up on great ideas,"? Take a look and you tell me.

I accept that developing new ideas is time consuming. I understand they aren't going to bend to every whim the CSM comes up with. That is not what is happening here. The CSM is coming up with very good ideas that've been championed by the playerbase. Some of it is invariably fluff. Some of it is goddamned important, and CCP can't tell the difference.

Let me say that I've nothing at all personal against the liaison mentioned in the meeting minutes. I imagine he's a nice guy and every thought in his head involves trying to do what's best for everyone. This is not sarcasm: I don't know him, so I won't impugn his motives. However, and this must be stated clearly: Someone on the CSM should be the liaison to CCP. Giving them a middleman can only muzzle them. It can only limit their ability to get things heard, and get things done. It's a built in limitation on their abilities.



Other departments in CCP almost certainly have department heads, and those guys handle the job that the liaison is handling for the CSM. That puts the CSM on uneven ground with the rest of the stakeholders in the development process.

Also, CCP: I don't give a shit that you're developing new and fantastic content. Fix the old stuff. Factional warfare, treaties, the bounty system, cosmos missions, and for god sakes the lag.

Incarna is not so important that we're going to forget about all the problems that are here now. We won't forget that 150 people managed to lag out a low sec system when you were warned with more than 24 hours that they'd be there. We won't forget that factional warfare is not fun at all. We won't forget that you need to fix the bounty system so it doesn't reward money to the guy that's been bountied. We won't forget the corp interface is as atrocious as it is. We won't forget that the POS interface makes the corp one look sophisticated. These are longstanding problems that you've ignored. Consistently. My issue is that they aren't problems that should be ignored. It's important.



If they just came up in the last few months, or the last year... alright fine. I could see you saying "well we're working on some new stuff, so let us finish that and we'll get back to the stuff you want fixed." But that isn't the case, these have been problems for multiple years, and you've consistently moved on to new content before fixing them. Please forgive us if your promise to return to it in 18-24 months leaves us wondering about your sincerity. Stop what you're doing and make a good faith effort to fix something. Anything. Be conscious of public perception instead of corporate culture for gods sake.

But hey, when you do introduce this new and fantastic content, assuming you want me to care: do it right. There were a number of very easily avoidable problems with the release of PI, and you didn't avoid them. You ran at top speed into them with a full tank of gas. Please learn your lessons and avoid the serious ones in the future. We won't thank you for not screwing up, but you'll hear from us when you do. If that's a problem, tough shit. Man up.

For gods sake try to pay attention to the winds of player opinion. We pay for the game because we want it improved.



Is anyone left wondering why I picked the title I did? The CSM has been told explicitly that the wants and needs of the playerbase are on hold for the next year and a half. Can you imagine how pissed off you'd be after being on hold for anywhere between year and a half to two years?