Eve gets greedy

[Cyborg]

http://www.evenews24.com/2011/06/22/greed-is-good-purportedly-leaked-internal-bulletin-shows-ccps-refreshing-new-direction/

Download and enter the password "dominixevenews24" for the allegedly leaked internal bulletin. It's fairly damning.

[BobTheJanitor]

I haven't played eve for a year or more, but I still know generally about it. What am I reading here? I seem to be missing something. I see a guy saying 'yay we sold a bunch of monocles' which I assume has to do with their new in game clothing store. So... yay?

Edit: I assume something is missing because the site said it was down and was just showing one single email. And now even that is down. So... can I get the Reader's Digest version of what sort of drama is going on? I may not really care about EVE any more, but I did hope that CCP would one day get around to making that Vampire MMO, although I'm not holding out much hope that it will be a good game... so anyway, yeah, what's up?

[Nalgas]

I guess this might be what it's talking about.

Edit: Or I could've just linked straight to RPS, but I happened to find it on there first.  Oh well.

[BobTheJanitor]

Ahh, at the bottom of that:

Update: Things are rapidly going downhill for CCP. A leaked internal bulletin titled "Greed is Good" indicates that the developer will be extending its microtransactions to less-than-cosmetic items like spaceships and weaponry - things which would provide a tangible in-game advantage.

An apology from EVE community manager Pann indicated that CCP was aware of the outrage, but that doesn't seem to have calmed players any.

Now I understand the rage.

[Nalgas]

Now I understand the rage.

Yeah, paying for non-cosmetic stuff?  Who could've possibly thought that had any chance at all of going over in any way other than incredibly badly?  It works in some kinds of games, but not so much when you've already established a world and economy and playerbase like they have.  I see people being almost as happy about this as about the devs cheating.  Heh.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

It is such a mess....I'm so glad I haven't played for a while.  Sorry, I don't have a link but its basically CCP looking like they are giving the finger to the community.  The forums and game is awash in rage and anger over it.  


King

[Orelius]

I'm fairly sure it would have gone over slightly better if they made said purchasable non-decorative items completely untradeable and bound to said player, like how tf2 does it.  Though I guess that would make it less attractive to a potential purchaser.

[Nalgas]

I'm fairly sure it would have gone over slightly better if they made said purchasable non-decorative items completely untradeable and bound to said player, like how tf2 does it.

I was under the impression that pretty much everything in TF2 could be traded, even the non-tradable stuff, but for the stuff that's normally locked to your character you had to gift it, which requires spending even more money on gift wrapping supplies from the in-game store.  I'm not entirely clear on that, though, as I haven't really played much for the past couple years.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I'm fairly sure it would have gone over slightly better if they made said purchasable non-decorative items completely untradeable and bound to said player, like how tf2 does it.  Though I guess that would make it less attractive to a potential purchaser.

It would have gone over better had the developers not been so shady about it and just up front about it.  Icarna feels like a money grab to pretty much everyone, they want to charge the 3rd party developers and the players $$ for very little and thus the community reacted badly, especially after a poorly thought out dev blog that told them to tough it out and having been lied to that in-game micro transactions would never come to Eve.  Plus, CCP is known for working with their players, so this change of attitude also hurts very deeply. 

The rage is not unjustified and CCP's response only makes it worse (which is a lack of response)

King

[quickstix]

Funky Bacon on Eve-radio hosted a very interesting show today, taking place a bit after the email link was posted on en24. Podcast of it is worth listening to, as there are a few csm members there (Mittens included).

Went down to Jita today to help out with the market hub protests. Was nothing like the 2100+ they had earlier, but was still pretty laggy with 1300ish in system and plenty of them shooting at the statue at 4-4.

And here I was thinking ccp couldn't top their previous efforts last year of nominating themselves for an award and asking the community to vote for them.

[BobTheJanitor]

What's 'csm' and who's 'Mittens'? Is it just me or does it seem like conversations about Eve turn into jargon and references faster than conversations about other games? Maybe it's just that I've been out of touch with the game for a while, but I see people talking about this and even when I try to follow along, I quickly get lost.

[chemical_art]

What's 'csm' and who's 'Mittens'? Is it just me or does it seem like conversations about Eve turn into jargon and references faster than conversations about other games? Maybe it's just that I've been out of touch with the game for a while, but I see people talking about this and even when I try to follow along, I quickly get lost.

CSM: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/What_is_the_CSM


"Since the opening of Tranquility, EVE players have had an indirect say in how their virtual society is run. While player feedback has been central to the game’s evolution, this enabler relied upon the discretion of CCP to derive generalizations about society issues and player concerns. With the population of EVE exceeding 220.000 individuals, the time has come to empower players with a formal communications channel to directly impact the development of their society. The means of accomplishing this goal will be through the implementation of a modified version of “deliberative representative democracy” in EVE. "


I have heard hundreds of anecdotal accounts though that the higher ups only nominate / select / retain memebers who do not disrupt the status quo. I don't know their offical stance is on this latest whole mess but according to previous history they are not going to express the outrage of the players, and will do nothing meaningful to address it.

CSM is sometimes viewed with scorn by players who think they are just figureheads to placate the masses.

[Mánagarmr]

The CSM heavily protested to CCP during the development of the micro transactions system and wrenched a promise from CCP that these micro transactions would only ever involve vanity items and never affect the balance of the game. Then the above newsletter is leaked, CCP responds with silence and mass bans, the late reply is terrible ("chill and shut up, it's here to stay") and then someone leaks an email from CCP CEO that claims Incarna to be the most successful expansion yet and not to listen to the raging naysayers since they're just blowing smoke anyway.

See why the community is in such flaming rage?

[Cyborg]

Just makes me view current subscribers as foolish. Even after reading this, people that have put in an incredible amount of investment in this game will dump even more dollars into it, feeding such a contemptible business. $68 for a monocle on your avatar.. it's just taking advantage of people that aren't able to control themselves. If they implement micro-transactions for items that give you an advantage in the game, no doubt it will be much worse. Reading some of the defenses of micro-transactions in that newsletter is incredibly enlightening as to how they plan to capitalize on folks that don't have self-control. And then reading the e-mail congratulating themselves on selling some monocles; it's so out of touch with reality that it's beyond apology at this point. People just need to start leaving. I refuse to play any game where you can buy your advantage.

[Orelius]

Correct me if I am wrong, but can't one already buy an advantage by buying lots of PLEX with real money and then selling it?  I think that now, it's just a bit more direct.

I'm fairly sure a rather large number of people don't pay to play the game anymore, but just buy lots of PLEX to extend their subscription.