Eve Online dev responds to player furore

By John Bedford Published 24 June, 2011

"An overdue apology and request for parley."

After a day of player discontent, CCP has responded to player concerns surrounding the launch of the Incarna expansion, the high price of vanity items and the future of micro-transactions in EVE Online.

PR and community team overseer CCP Pann posted on the official forums late last night:

"While most of what I do happens behind the curtains, I am still aware of what's going on front and center. I would be lying if I said that what's happening now didn't make me sad, but I'm not here to ask for your sympathy. To be perfectly honest, I'm here to buy time while we try to sort things out. No sense in lying about it so I'll call a spade a spade.

"It's clear that many of you are <understatement alert> angry </alert>. There's a lot happening, things are changing quickly and we haven't been as forthcoming as you were used to in the past. I'm willing to step out front and take a lot of heat for that since I was the one who made the decision to hold off on responding for a while to see if things cooled down once the new wore off.

"I was wrong to do that and I apologize. We should have said something much sooner. We should have done more to address your concerns and be forthcoming, even if we weren't going to be able to immediately give you all of the answers you were looking for or the answer your questions in ways that will instantly turn those frowns upside down.

"To be even more candid, I cannot answer all of your questions, either, but I am working with the people who can to start getting those answers for you. Again, I know we're doing this past the expiration date of your patience but I hope you'll bear with me.

"I know that, with very few exceptions, most of you don't know me from Adam. I haven't earned your trust or respect; therefore I have no right to ask anything of you – but I am going to try, anyway. Can I please count on at least some of you to help bring the pitchforks and torches down a few notches?

"Like I said, I won't be able to answer all of your questions tonight, but I promise we'll start getting some info out tomorrow. As I see it, the chief complaint is regarding the high cost of goods in the Noble Market. Second, many people are unhappy about the Captain's Quarters. Third, there are some performance issues with Incarna. I would appreciate it if you would confirm my observations or tell me what I'm missing, but I do ask that you do it in a productive way. I will remove posts without prejudice if they are counterproductive to the conversation I hope to have with you.

"If you've read this much, thanks for staying with me. If you have something to say, I'd like very much to hear it."

The appeal for dialogue comes a day after an internal CCP newsletter, titled 'Greed is Good?', surfaced on the internet. Its authenticity was last night confirmed.

The developer had already been broadly criticized for introducing avatar monocles at an eye-watering cost of $70. With the leaked document hinting at a broader use of micro-transactions - including gameplay enhancements - players vented at length on the official forums.

Picture of John.

About John Bedford

John is an MMO specialist with a particular passion for Eve Online. He once nearly went paragliding.

Read more articles from John by visiting the John Bedford archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Erinan #1 11 months ago

    "The developer had already been broadly criticized for introducing avatar monocles at an eye-watering cost of $70."

    (ಠ_ృ;)
    Edited by Erinan at 24/06/11 @ 10:10

  • overcorpse #2 11 months ago

    Good old CCP,they never learn.

  • Spekingur #3 11 months ago

    "Its authenticity was last night confirmed."

    Shouldn't it be "...was confirmed last night."

  • President_Weasel #4 11 months ago

    No amount of "listening exercises" are going to make a difference. Allowing players to pay for game enhancements breaks the game. The "greed is good" memo shows a staggering lack of concern for or understanding of their player base.

  • Dizzy #5 11 months ago

    The end of EVE

  • Galf #6 11 months ago

    It's a freaking PAY TO PLAY mmorpg. If they intend to push this bullsh1t on us, they should AT THE VERY LEAST make the game free to play or cut down the price of the subscription to 5€/month or less. Which would still be bad for the game, but at least they wouldn't be ripping off the players so badly.

    This is seriously unexpected and incredible, what the hell they had in mind.
    And no, I'm not talking about the clothes, I'm talking about how they want to introduce ship fittings and faction standings on the AUR market. The idea alone of a new currency obtainable through PLEX is completely retarded and will send the price of said items through the roof, screwing the whole balance of the economy.

  • Vortextk #7 11 months ago

    70? Like REAL money 70? For a monocle?

  • Chaser #8 11 months ago

    CCP can go jump IMHO... cancelled my subscriptions yesterday.

  • ResidentKnievel #9 11 months ago

    Haha, no mention of the newsletter.

  • ResidentKnievel #10 11 months ago

    Ok, here's the mention:

    [link url=http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1536065&page=5#126
    ]http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp...[/link]

    "The newsletter was not fake. I guess this is how it feels when someone reads your diary, something you hadn't intended anyone else to see. Not to deflect the heat but to explain why what I'm about to say, I wasn't involved with writing it. The only reason I mention that is because I am not going to presume to know the minds of the people who did have comments in there. I am not going to throw people I love under the bus or to the lions or whatever. I can't/won't answer questions about what they said or why they said it.

    Our newsletters are written as a means to bring about discussion (that sometimes can even become heated debate) among our coworkers. That's really all I can say about it. I am not a game designer. I'm a mouthpiece. I'll admit it. By the time I get involved, the decisions have been made. Not making excuses for myself, just explaining."

  • ResidentKnievel #11 11 months ago

    To use an EVE term, this has failure cascade written all over it.

  • telboy007 #12 11 months ago

    Be interesting to see what kind of interview Mr Bedford gets with the CCP dude, if its still happens!

  • DefendoCroc #13 11 months ago

    @ResidentKnievel "failure cascade" ...... lol i like that :)

  • Arsecake_Baker #14 11 months ago

    Isn't the whole point of EVE to do with scams?

  • telboy007 #15 11 months ago

    "Isn't the whole point of EVE to do with scams?"

    When its player v corp or player v player, thats all perfectly fine and usually hilarious. But this, this is something on a whole new level.

  • Laserbream #16 11 months ago

    Can we get an EVE monocle meme going, a la Oblivion Horse Armor?

  • levitate #17 11 months ago

    Another MMO storm in a waterglass. This time the community is right though, $60 for a virtual item is daylight robbery.

  • pinchofsalt #18 11 months ago

    The $70 item is optional, right?
    So what's the problem?
    Just don't buy it. Outrage solved.

  • Halo.Jones #19 11 months ago

    I've not logged in to EVE for several weeks but I still follow what is going on. The problem CCP have is the ones who sit at the top of the food chain, they believe that they are always right and will continue to do their own thing regardless of the impact it will have on the game and its customers. Its time for those at the top to walk or make permanent changes to stop shit like this happening again.

    $70 for a monocle, fucking hell! What next? $120 for a twirly moustache?

    As for CCP Pann, I was surprised to see that name again. I Did not realise Pann was still around considering the last time I saw Pann's name anywhere was in 2003.

  • Cosquae #20 11 months ago

    Always a pleasure to see you again, Jim. Space just isn't the same without you ;)

  • DodgyPast #21 11 months ago

    ^^

    The problem is Hilmar locking hiself in a room with the Zynga guys at E3 and snorting coke with them while they discuss how the only way to be the very coolest of gaming devs is by fleecing your customers dry while spending less than 5% of your income on making the game better for them.

    This may be a slight over exaggeration, but Hilmar was ranting on EveTV about how all the cool kids were doing MT and they had to be part of this.

  • dfinit #22 11 months ago

    what a surprise! People are greedy? nooooooo way, not in my perfect world. I forfeited RL for a sandbox 'cause I just can't stand the roughness of it. And now the RL flaw insidiously sneaks in... Help, not my world, my devs, my gods, good gods... why??

    I'll say greed is not good, greed is human. Thin ice for them. Must be stupid though to shoot yourself in the foot like that, I hope they'll get what they deserve, not less nor more.

    For quite a while it seemed that CCP was one of the last to care for something beyond green. But eventually if you're not following your ecosystem, be it good or bad, you'll become alienated to the point of exclusion.

    Dommage. I hope they’ll still launch the Dust514 experiment. I’m really curious about the future of it; it seems like a nice idea.

  • Puppaz #23 11 months ago

    Was just thinking of getting into EVE. Thanks to this I don't think I'll bother.

  • TexMurphy01 #24 11 months ago

    It boggles the mind. "Well we get ten million per month from subscriptions. You know, just two solid gold cars? What am I, a hobo?"

  • TDXUK #25 11 months ago

    Very sad to see, most games are going down this route and i personally don't like it. I've said it before many times but micro-transactions suck in games. I can just about cope with astetic items being sold but even then that leads down the path of evil. They are gradually splitting games up from the start in order to milk the the customer slowly, well in this case quickly.

    The cost of micro-transaction items is just getting beyond a joke, how do they justify the sort of prices that they are charging. Take APB:Reloaded for instance, yes it went "free2play" but there asking like $50-$70 for 1(Yes one)permanent gun. Then you have the customisations on-top of that, boosts, more guns and then theres also subscription which i admit drops the price of items but not enough to be worth it.

    All these games that use points are just trying to pull the wool over peoples eyes, MSpoints, G1 credits,facebook credits just to name a few. In my opinion, trying to mask the true cost of each point and then hoping that people won't realise how much they have spent until its to late.

    Sad, just very sad :(

  • Lemming81 #26 11 months ago

    $70! *monocle pops out*