It's Crunch Time!

Welcome to the nineteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This months topic comes to us from @evepress, and he asks:

The CSM: CCP's Meta Game?

'The CSM, an Eve player's 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 not 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?'


For anybody that is in the dark about the reasons for the CSM being the focus of this Blog Banter, let me bring you up to speed with recent events:

- The election results for the 5th Council of Stellar Management were released at the end of May.

- The CSM members were invited to a three day summit meeting with CCP in their Iceland offices, in order to discuss Eve player's recommendations and look at what CCP have planned for the development of the game. This took place at the end of June.

- On the 12th of July CCP published the documented minutes of the summit meetings. These minutes were approved as a correct record by both CCP and the CSM.

- After reading through the minutes the majority of the Eve playerbase couldn't help but notice that many of Eve's issues or areas of Eve that were considered broken are not likely to be fixed by CCP any time soon. In fact there were hardly any issues brought up by the CSM that CCP committed to working on in the current development cycle. The overwhelming view was that CCP were focusing on new Eve features, rather than fixing and refining existing ones.

- The discussion has raged on ever since then, aided by the release of CCP Zulu's Dev Blog and the ongoing comments by Devs in the accompanying thread.

So there we have it. As Eve players we are concerned that CCP is neglecting already existing features of the game in favour of new shinies, and also that they are ignoring the CSM's calls for issues to be fixed. Thus, many people are wondering whether the CSM is really worth it.

Now I've posted before on this blog at length about my enthusiasm for the CSM. Despite current events my views on this remain unchanged. The CSM still remains an excellent opportunity for Eve players to take advantage of and get their opinions heard. In fact, if it wasn't for the hard work and dedication of the CSM, we would be in the dark concerning CCP's plans.

The reality is that this furore is a product of the developing CSM process. It has taken 5 consecutive CSMs to reach a point where the current CSM has the power and leverage to take CCP to task for not acting on issues that have been raised consistently by all of the CSMs.

There is now no excuse for CCP. They have had ample time to react to some of the major player concerns, and enough of the playerbase have bought in to the concept of the CSM to force CCP to take note. Thousands of people voted for the CSM and hundreds of proposals have been raised. What we are seeing is the culmination of 5 CSMs worth of work, both raising support and forwarding proposals.

In short, this is crunch time.

This is the crossroads for the CSM, and it's the reason I can't answer the question as to whether the CSM is worth it or not. Because ultimately that answer lies with CCP. If they listen to the CSM speaking on behalf of the players, and if they show us proof that they are acting upon player's recommendations, then every single CSM will have been worth it. If they don't, then it's been one gigantic waste of time and money.

I'm a realistic person. I'm not expecting a multitude of game changes. I'm not even expecting game changes anytime soon. All I want to see from CCP is that you're acting as a result of listening to the CSM.

I voted for the CSM. I read the Dev Blogs. I read the CSM meeting minutes. I read the summit meeting minutes. I even tried to read most of that Dev Blog threadnaught (44 pages and counting)!

I've bought into this whole CSM thing. CCP, please can you too?

Do We Need More Sand?

Eve prides itself on being a game that allows the players to create content and story themselves rather than being led by the developers along a pre-conceived narrative.

This is the famous 'sandbox' idea. The player is given an non-linear game environment and they are left to interact with it. There is no definite end to the game and there is no progression other than the goals which players set for themselves. Eve players are free to do what they like.

The only limitations of Eve are the environments and tools that we are given by the developers to play with. Or, sticking to the analogy, how much 'sand' we have. The 'sand' we have been given is geography, such as Empire space, Lowsec, Nullsec and wormholes. We also have infrastructure like open markets, stations, planets and stargates. Finally we have the ships, the modules, the enemies and so on. All this 'sand' is of course hugely important to the game. The players can only develop emergent behaviour and innovative gameplay if they have the materials to work with. The big question I want to ask is, do we need more sand?

The most obvious way to give players more 'sand' is to create new environments. New environments spawn the most distinctive differences in gameplay. For example, life as a player in Empire is totally different from Lowsec, which in turn is also nothing like Nullsec and living in wormholes is different from them all! These are the four very distinct environments that Eve players adapt to fit into. CCP has created these environments and the laws that govern them. The players and corporations have created play-styles and professions that function well in those environments.

Getting to grips with new environments is also something that Eve players find very enjoyable. The most sucessful Eve expansion so far has been Apocrypha, which tempted people to play by the lure of both a whole new environment, wormholes, and a new way to exploit them, T3 ships. Apocrypha attracted many new players to the game, and also rekindled the interest of players who had become slightly bored.

So back to my big question. Do we need more sand? Does Eve need to continue to create new and unique environments? Or do we already have enough? Will the current environments be able to satisfy you for a long time to come? Or will you need a constant stream of new material to keep you interested? Maybe you are more concerned with balancing and tweaking the environments we already have?

What do you think?

Sorry, No Pink Spaceships Here Please

Welcome to a special installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always good fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's Blog Banter is on the subject of women, who at present make up only 5% of Eve's playerbase. The big question is:

What could CCP Games do to attract and maintain a higher percentage of women to the game. Will Incarna do the trick? Can anything else be done in the mean time? Can we the players do our part to share the game we love with our counterparts, with our sisters or daughters, with the Ladies in our lives? What could be added to the game to make it more attractive to them? Should anything be changed? Is the game at fault, or its player base to blame?

My personal Eve experience doesn't qualify me to speak on this subject at all. The corp I belong to has one female that I know of, and she is the sum total of my interaction with females in Eve so far. But if you were hoping for a short blog post, then I'm afraid I am going to disappoint you. Here then are my views, backed up with zero evidence or experience.

To me, this whole question hinges around a key game design issue. What is the motive behind creating a game? Do you design a game to appeal to a certain group of people, or do you design a game because you think the core idea is good? When Eve was dreamed up, was the initial motive to create a game that would appeal to sci-fi loving, space-hooked, young males? Or was it not the case that Eve was created because a huge, massively mutiplayer, open-market, harsh, cooperative, spaceship simulator was just an amazing, bold and daring idea?

You see, when you decide to make a game, it should be based on the merits of the idea itself. It should have nothing to do with needing to fill a gap in market, or trying to appeal to a specific type of person.

A demographic should be created for a game! Not a game for a demographic!

So what has this got to do with females in Eve?

My point is this. Don't change Eve purely to appeal to some demographic, whether it be females or pre-adolescent kids or grandparents. Instead, change Eve to make it a better game! This is surely the only variable we should consider when making a game change. Now sometimes making the game better will induce a change in the demographic. For example the inclusion of tutorial missions made the game more accesible to younger players. That's brilliant! But making all ships have 100% insurance might also have the same demographic affect, that doesn't make it a good game change!

The truth is that I'm not a huge sci-fi fan. I have only a cursory interest in spaceships and space travel. If Eve was created to appeal to a demographic, then it definitely wasn't aimed at me. Instead I play Eve because it is a fantastic game, full of innovative ideas and creative game design.

So, I'm really sorry females but I'm not going to start suggesting game changes purely so I can see more of you play Eve. That's not a sacrifice I am willing to make. But before you label me as a cold-hearted and a close-minded individual; changing the game to suit a demographic is only half the story.

The other half is you, or me - all of us. The community.

Eve is a game that requires player interaction if you want to get the most out of it. The game is great, but would it be even half as good without the community we are part of and the interaction we enjoy? This is a key part of Eve, just as important as the game itself. So although I've ruled out changing the gameplay purely for the sake of attracting females, I have no objection to the community doing all it can to increase and boost the female playerbase.

None of us play this game just because we are sci-fi loving spaceship nerds - most of us probably aren't. We play the game because it is fun and it has an active and vibrant community that gives us both camaraderie and friendship. There is no reason why any female shouldn't be attracted to this.

So my advice is keep interacting. Keep blogging. Keep chatting. Keep twittering. Keep showing that there is more to this game than spaceships.

The strength of our community will attract female players, and hopefully some of the changes to make Eve better will also do the same. I'll leave you with one last thought:

Any gaming community that has the strength and cohesion to even begin to address this subject sensibly and at length is surely on the right track.

Other Banters:

1. Ombeve - The Ladies of New Eden
2. Astral's Eve Trial by Fire - Is Eve a Man's World?
3. Evoganda - Chicks 'N Ships
4. The Ghosts Report - The Girls Who Fly Spaceships
5. Eve SOB - It's Not About Fluffy Bloody Kittens People!
6. Max Torps - Space Boobies Are Bad, m'kay?
7. Learning To Fly - I like Girls
8. Garhead - Making Eve More Casual
9. Prano's Journey - What Women Want...
10. Rantuket - I Wish My Wife Played Eve
11. Eve's Parity Bit - Is There Something Special About Women?
12. La Vie d'une Capsuliere - Banter
13. Linked Dreams - CK's Blog Banter
14. Mandrill - The Female of the Species
15. Diary of a Garbageman - The Ladies
16. Record of Alva Dyson - Women Who Want Eve
17. The Hydrostatic Capsule - Tech 2 Stilettos
18. The Nomadic Gamer - New Eden Doesn't Need to Change for Eve - Adam Needs to Get Over Himself
19. Errant Thoughts - Eve Online and ... women (sorta)
20. Life in Low Sec - Think Outside the Spaceship
21. WfSeg - Women, Women, Women
22. Depths Unknown - Girls Just Wanna Have... Guns!
23. Where the Frack is my Ship? - It's a Woman's World (They Just Don't Know it Yet)
24. Draco Horizons - Notebook Banter (click Blog)
25. A Little Bit of Blue - Don't Change Eve for Me!
26. Vikings of Eve - Getting in Touch With Our Feminine Side
27. Vive Virtual - Women in Eve
28. Talk Nerdy to Me - Where are Teh Laydeez of Eve?