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CSM - Post #15

As announced, we had CCP Larrikin tied down for about an hour and a half to discuss the fleet warp changes with a wormhole focused community. There was a lot said. I took a stack of notes as well as the recording. Link: A lot was said. We've discussed it and discussed it again with CCP after these talks. We can't have solutions come after problems are created. If things are to change the tools to help people navigate those changes need to come at the same time, not later. Partial and incomplete features are something CCP needs to avoid. There is thin and often absent belief and trust from the players about features still. To change a feature and leave a broken, dangling piece for a promised few months is the wrong direction.

The UI battle is ongoing. A dev blog was released that has started to address some of the UI feedback issues that the players and CSM have been bringing up since the Carnyx release. Thank you to everyone that participated with your feedback. I know that the time between feedback and response stretches out until one starts to wonder if anything is ever going to happen. I can't speed that process up for you. Thank you for trusting that we were saying things and that some of it was being heard. It isn't where it needs to be yet but this is a step.

We check in with the PvE team a good bit. The CSM is not being told the story and I'm okay with that. Instead, it is more a supply of feedback on how the story is being received. I take back what people tell me about what they do and do not like and what they do and do not know. This has been change of direction for the PvE team having the story developing in the world as they are instead of holding live events. I greatly approve of and support this more organic method but it is going to take time to get people into the habit of it. This dev blog is a nice recap of the last nine months of storyline starting with Caroline's Star (which has lost some of its lurid pea-green color and is fleshing out into a nice looking nebula) and coming into current times. This is a living story and I gain a great deal of pleasure out of watching people explore it.

I do not want the Thrasher model design idea. I know the Thrasher looks like a fish and CCP has been moving away from more of the fantastical, whimsical designs. But the new thrasher looks like an obese, accidental mutant confessor with none of the good stuff. Its a block with some solar panels to illuminate the street sign I guess it is going to hold up.  I love the subtle beauty of the dragonfly that is the Slasher and don't think it needs to be flattened. Its delicate but agile appearance speaks volumes about what it is like to fly. I do like the Dominix model. It is holding true to the potato that it is while incorporating the heavy look of these type ships that moves from the Vexor to the Erebus. That central wheel. The archs and general lines.

I'm not sure what CCP having a new art director will mean for our interactions with them. Hopefully, good! The art team is very nice adn we've been trying to lure them out into sunshine and player exposure. I have some questions for this summit about Eve and its art direction. I have some questions about things like the alliance logos that are approved and what the look of the universe is supposed to be. I have a lot of questions about this and I'm looking for some answers.

And to cap things off, CCP Rise tossed out a missile package. Missile users are very passionate about their missiles. I'm going to take some credit. If you like the torpedo volume changes, thank Sard Caid. He brought that to me at Eve Vegas 2014 and I've been chasing CPC Rise around with it ever since then and throwing it into every missile conversation. If you don't like it, yell at Sard Caid on his next stream.

And on that note, I sat down with DeCuban Deninard to work through some of the story line blueprint item spawn issues I mentioned the other week. He helped me do a thorough write up about what is and what is not spawning between the exploration sites that are producing these blueprints now. I think this one is fairly interesting because the rebalance passes are rebalancing story-line modules. It'd be nice i they could be built and used in a more normal manner.

My goal, even though I am no closer to get my eve-uni forum login corrected, is to steal their mumble (I still have permission) next weekend with Corbexx if anyone wants to chat with us. I've been working through my mails. Some of the ideas brought forward are quite large and deep and I don't like jotting down a one line answer that looks like I am really ignoring you.


  1. This update encapsulates why I voted for you. Thanks, Sugar. o7

    1. +1

      (I usually elaborate but sometimes there's little more to be said.)

  2. Well, if the PvE team is taking feedback, may you give them this piece?

    I enjoyed the Drifter storyline for as long as it happened in highsec. My interaction to them ended deeply in the reds from the ISK point of view but I had quite an amount of fun figuring ways to kill Seekers and escaping Drifters, and then figuring a way to "dig" for Antikythera elements from Jove Observatories (which I nicknamed "Jove tickling"). Anyway, that content has been removed with Carnyx and my bittervet fear that CCP was again trying to lure the highsec crowd away from highsec materialized as the Drifter wormholes opened and content shifted from the highsec PvE crowd to the wormhole PvP "elite".

    So now I am waiting for some actual highsec PvE content once the Drifter story is done. Also I wonder what happens to players who get a terrible standing with Drifters without a way to improve it.

    1. Don't take this the wrong way, but have you, you know, considered going *outside* Highsec? You'd be surprised by how safe the drifter wormholes are.

      On a more general note, We knew the Drifters were using wormhole to get around. We knew that they had some kind of WH generating technology. Didn't you think that we might go and discover those things?

      My final question is, why does it have to be 'luring' people? Why does attempting to get people to experience more of New Eden become something that is bad/negative/evil? This wasn't some kind of bait-and-switch. The Structures appeared *everywhere*, not just highsec. This wasn't your monopoly to enjoy.

      So yeah, why all of the above?

      Rob K

    2. I'd not fret on accessibility. The story-line is fluid and it will continue to move and change. It isn't about luring people anywhere. Its just the story happening.


      Well, that would be more likely if there wasn't Mr. and Ms. "Move outside of your comfort zone" in charge.

    4. Don't worry about Drifter-standings, the devs in the last O7 show said Drifters don't want to be your friends. They only want to kill you. :V

  3. My goodness, writing falling asleep is pretty spectacular. I'll go back and clean up some of the typos.

  4. I wasn't able to make the round table, but I should say on behalf of my old wormhole corp that the fleet change hardly made any of us blink. The change that really sucked for us (as in, about -20 accounts sucked) was the mass:spawn distance change.

    It's been an eye opener to discover how many people in WHs don't use scouts.


    1. Fevric... Seriously on the scouts thing huh?? I been in holes 4 years and my very first EVER hole jump back in the day was only AFTER the scout went in... and that was into an Alliance owned C1 FFS!!

      Some people just don't learn. =\

    2. I don't generally use scouts. Most of the time, I'm on alone, and while, yes, I could fire up my second account and dual box, I just can't be bothered. It isn't fun dual boxing on one monitor.

      I also rarely used scouts when I was in null, either, though that's a bit different, as one can do a map recce, which isn't perfect, but better than nothing,

      I play Eve wrong. Oh dear.


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