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EVE Online: AGC Interview
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
News Editor Jon Wood sat down with Nathan Richardsson, the Senior Producer at CCP to talk about the present and future of EVE Online:
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Moving on to what exactly our friends at CCP have planned for the games future, Richardsson gave me a long list of things that they are working on or thinking about:
He said that they were looking to make additions that wont disrupt the existing gameplay too much, taking smaller steps to improve the game, saying that You give the tools, and its amazing what people do with them. |
You can read the article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
It is their very long term goal. Most likely it is going to take at least 4-8 years. Before they are going to add real character avatars, they are more likely going to add planetary control methods, planetary flight and other fixes to current gameplay.
Server capacity is not problem, curvy character doesn't need more server processing than simple space ship. For server curvy character and space ships are very similar: they just are objects that have x,y,z coordinates, 3 angles and other simulation data. It is player (client) side problem: player's computer need to draw and animate those curvy characters and store their polygons to memory. However, most likely when they are ready to publish character avatars, average player's computer is at least twice more powerful than these days. Certainly there is going to be limit how many curvy characters average player's computer is able to show same time, but similar problem is in all games.
Currently EvE-online "server" (cluster) is consisted from multiple servers that are cooperating with each other. There is no single computer serving all players - there is about 70-100 computers that are working together in the cluster. Servers in the cluster have different functions: there is for example server that is handling market trading and Jita system simulation (Jita is one most populated systems). In quiet areas of galaxy, single server might run simulation for multiple systems. They could easily allocate own servers for busy environments like Jita's space station. (Scaling EvE-Online)
"I know I said this was my last post, but you my friend are a idiotic moron." -Shadow4482
I have been playing EVE for almost 2 1/2 years.
The evolutionof the game has made it so that there is always something to do. Carebears and PvP'ers can always find something interesting, from blowing up the Macro Miners's to defending my home and building items in my own station.
Man, I love this game
Thank you CCP for the continued excellant work.
I have played this game for a number of years.
Its a great game with excellent content that has kept me hooked throughout.
I look forward to Kali, my only hope is that the current server can cope with an ever increasing player base.
At the moment you can get together in gangs of 10/20 without any major issues, however once you have more than 50 players in an area at the same time the lag begins.
Should CCP be expanding the content and increasing the player base? The answer is yes...lets make it bigger better etc etc...I just hope it doesnt cripple an already 'exhausted' server.
Eve 14 day free trial
I know though some nights a lot of people are getting disconnected which really needs to be looked before they can advance any further. Also with the station movement, this has been planned for a while along with planetary flight, it just isn't a major priority for the team at CCP to do just yet. I am looking forward to the Kali expansion and I am hoping for a lot of gang problems to be fixed and improved upon.
HQ - Aedald VIII - Moon 5 - Republic Military School
Office - Lustrevik III - Moon 2 - Quafe Company
Warehouse
CCP has always stated that if they are going to add something into the game, it has to do something to enhance gameplay. Adding controllable avatars and stations to walk around in would add nothing to the game if they are added just to have them, but if you add in gameplay elements to enhance the game then it is worthwhile. The next expansion they have planned is going to add in planetary interaction, since the expansion is focusing on mostly that they may be able to add in avatars, but who knows.
Let's see how Kali turns out first.
Interesting times ahead for the SF genre in MMOs.
Nathan "Oveur" Richardsson has to be one of the most savvy MMORPG producers in the history of the genre, and CCP has to be one of the most impressive game companies in the MMO business today.
There. I said it. Now let me explain what I mean by that.
Oveur and CCP are very savvy "to thank the fans of EVE Online for sticking with us through all of our blunders." I think they should be thankful, and very grateful that they have subscribers that will put up with the failure to sustain a stable code, the bugs, missing content, nerfs to popular activities like missions, and spending developer time and subscriber dollars for a cash grab in China, a card game, a magazine, and a bar at E3. If it were any other game that makes over 1.5 million US dollars in revenue monthly on subs alone, the fans would not be as forgiving of such blunders.
Perhaps its because we are under the impression that CCP and Oveur are "amatures," in the sense that they are not businessmen as much as they are fellow players. That may have been true at one time, but friends don't charge money, and amatures shouldn't get a professional rate. Therefore, there is simply no reason not to hold CCP to account for its blunders, such as putting off a promised upgrade to the subscribers in an effort to generate revenue in petty merchandising, and silly gimicks: publishing magazines, publishing card games, making a cash grab in China.
If it were any other game, any other producer, and any other company, such things would cause great resentment and accusations of neglect, and they would be fully justified in feeling so. So therefore, I think it is only appropriate that Oveur thank the EVE fans. Any other gamer would abandon the game, and many have, for far less problematic blunders that the management created.
However, please Mr. Richardsson, don't flatter the people who play by saying that this loyalty to EVE is "very admirable." There is nothing admirable about paying despite delaying their upgrade to pay for a brand new cluster they'll never see (the China Server), a card game they did not ask for, a voice system they do not need, a codebase that broke what they had, a live broadcast they did not watch, and lag on the only shard you see fit to give them. That to me is gulliability, impracticality, foolishness, and folly, when they can be playing a professional, high quality offering that doesn't rely on the goodwill of the subscribers to carry it through.
CCP may have been a small, up and coming indie developer who deserves a little bit of slack, but those days ended the moment we saw full page ads, and big displays at conventions. If they want to think of themselves as "big time" developers, they need to quit with the beer, quit with the excuses, and quit with the "chummy chummy" relationship with the fans, and act like professional developers. For the amount of revenue they are generating monthly, and for the amount they spend on things outside of the service, subscribers should expect more than what CCP has done.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
First of all, they didn't pay for the shard in china, their partner did and their partner ALSO paid to liscence the EVE game world. Yes developing for the China server slowed down development on the
main server, but it also allowed them to add 60+ new employees to the
company to work on more stuff faster. They hired a separate dev to create the card game, which beyond the EO devs getting to playtest it had absolutely no impact on game development. Also FYI the magazine is IMO worth every penny and again, as it's developed outside takes absolutely no resources away from CCP while giving something entertaining back to the community. How does having the bar at E3 have anything to do with the game, it was for PR and advertising and from the looks of it, it worked.
The reason CCP gets cut so much slack is because the damn company is run by gamers, not marketting people. They do hang out with their players and they do listen to them. Most MMO companies put up a great big wall of PR BS and form letter responses between the devs and their community and hardly anything passes between them.
Everything I've read and heard about the voice system looks awesome. It is going to be a great addition to the game, and since it's optional and your such a cheapass, you can just not sign up for it and everything is fine. As for the championship event, no one watched eh? Is that why they had to add 2 or 3 more streams to handle all of the people that tried to watch, even those outside the community. Either way, it really didn't take anything away from the development of the game, and what other MMO has ever done anything for an in-game to that level of sophistication.
You sound like you expect game devs to be uptight, bespectacled cubicle workers that toil away every day to make a game. In truth they are just normal people who work in an entertainment industry makings games for people to enjoy. CCP at least lets some sign of being normal slip through with their attitude and how they treat the players, and the players cut them some slack in return.
They have not done anything as yet that to me would signify they are not still trying to make the best game they can. The day they lose the 'chummy chummy' feel with the community is the day that the game is over IMO.
I generally don't care to rip apart people, but you deserve it.
"Oveur and CCP are very savvy "to thank the fans of EVE Online for sticking with us through all of our blunders." I think they should be thankful, and very grateful that they have subscribers that will put up with the failure to sustain a stable code, the bugs, missing content, nerfs to popular activities like missions, and spending developer time and subscriber dollars for a cash grab in China, a card game, a magazine, and a bar at E3. If it were any other game that makes over 1.5 million US dollars in revenue monthly on subs alone, the fans would not be as forgiving of such blunders."
Every major gaming company out there always ships a game with bugs, always! Most games have patches ready for them before you can even buy the original from the stores, so fail to see why you even comment here. CCP doesn't ship boxes anymore. You get to download from their website the most up-todate version of the game the first time you play. Thats nice, very nice.
Perhaps its because we are under the impression that CCP and Oveur are "amatures," in the sense that they are not businessmen as much as they are fellow players. That may have been true at one time, but friends don't charge money, and amatures shouldn't get a professional rate. Therefore, there is simply no reason not to hold CCP to account for its blunders, such as putting off a promised upgrade to the subscribers in an effort to generate revenue in petty merchandising, and silly gimicks: publishing magazines, publishing card games, making a cash grab in China.
Again I ask you to get a clue, perhaps read the Devblogs and understand how a company is actually run. Here is your first clue, not everyone who works for EVE does the same job. They have grown and added more departments covering different factors of the game. The content, upgrades, and bug fixes are ALWAYS being addressed, by the team that works on them not the marketing, community and other teams that know nothing about code. Every company has swag and gimmicks and what not its how they make money, fans want it. Lets look at Blizzard who has.. books, an up-coming Movie, clothing of all sorts, collectible figurines, autographed original concept art and a ton more. Why.. well because they can, and with 6 Million + subscribers wanting some of that crap its very very profitable to do it.
However, please Mr. Richardsson, don't flatter the people who play by saying that this loyalty to EVE is "very admirable." There is nothing admirable about paying despite delaying their upgrade to pay for a brand new cluster they'll never see (the China Server), a card game they did not ask for, a voice system they do not need, a codebase that broke what they had, a live broadcast they did not watch, and lag on the only shard you see fit to give them. That to me is gulliability, impracticality, foolishness, and folly, when they can be playing a professional, high quality offering that doesn't rely on the goodwill of the subscribers to carry it through.
That brand new cluster.... is the OLD cluster from London. In fact the China server has been very helpful in testing out the power of the new 64 bit code on a brand new server, before porting it over to the extremely large and crowded server in London. The additional revenue from China is paying for these hardware and software upgrades to the London server as well as the additional staff to run it all. Did you not see the mention of double the staff? I'll admit that I've no interest in the card game, but you know what? ALOT of players wanted it, begged for it and whined about it untill they finally got it. Thats called developers listening to their fans, something I still consider a great asset to any game community.
CCP may have been a small, up and coming indie developer who deserves a little bit of slack, but those days ended the moment we saw full page ads, and big displays at conventions. If they want to think of themselves as "big time" developers, they need to quit with the beer, quit with the excuses, and quit with the "chummy chummy" relationship with the fans, and act like professional developers. For the amount of revenue they are generating monthly, and for the amount they spend on things outside of the service, subscribers should expect more than what CCP has done.
All I can say to this is keep it! CCP is still a growing company, and they have earned the respect of thousands of players and non-players alike because they don't act like a large company only wanting to add conent just for money. I like the fact they still take time to chat with the users talk on the forums and listen to what people are saying. You can keep your "professional developers" in their offices thinking about how to get more money. I'd rather go to fanfest, have a beer with the team lead and talk about idea's on how to make the game better together.
Please continue paying for expansions, waiting for your "professional developpers" to spoon-feed you content and enjoy the huge void between you and the companies you pay for entertainment. Eve fans love their game because of its community, we're all involved in it players and developers together.
And besides, fanfest without beer and friendly devs would be insanely dull. Well not counting the PvP contests, but they are alot more fun if your under the influence.
As for your assanine ravings. The CCG will pay for itself, especially with the interest generated at gencon. Same goes for the Chinese server, once its running it will pay for itself. But these projects need CAPITAL to get started. And to say the magazine is unwanted is plain wrong, it would be dead in the water if no-one was buying it. The voice system would have been more succesful at launch but it will still allow smaller groups without TS/vent servers to have the ability to talk to each other.
CCP is an independant with the balls to aim high, and a lot of people believe in them. Thats why the subscriber base is growing, not shrinking (well that and the fact they make a really good game for those not into fantasy repetition)
I'll play EVE long after all of the other mmos die, especially since after they upgrade the graphics it'll be back on top visually. An amazing game and the most in-depth, complex game to date.
Thank you CCP for caring about the game and the players.
---------------------------------------------
I live to fight, and fight to live.
I have played EvE since Beta CCP is the only MMO developer that has gotten what a Online world should be right. This isn't some lame me too cookie cutter farm game, it is a living breathing universe full of politics betrayals and intrigue. If Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, or Isaac Asimov were alive today they would play EvE. Asimov would probably edit EoN magazine.
Thank you CCP, I will be playing EvE for many years to come.
If Orwell subscribed to EVE, he would leave. He'd probably leave WoW too. I never even played WoW, because I don't like that game either. He wouldn't leave EVE because its a bad MMO. He would leave because problems aren't addressed, priorities are out of whack, and the truth is obscured due to a clever manipulation of sentiment.
CCP says it cares, but all I see are broken promises, misplaced priorities, a ton of spin and hype, and no accountability to be truthful.
Let me ask you all a simple question. If CCP said today that 32,000 people were online, what is stopping them from simply making it seem like there are 32,000 people online, when in fact, only 15,000 people were?
After all, they don't have to answer to a publisher, or a distributor. Nor do they have to worry about having such manipulations of the truth cause retail chains to tell the truth to their cuistomers. They collect a non-refundable $20 for no additional cost to them, as the very things that maintain the game also distribute it. There is no reason for them to even want to make the game better, because they know that even if subscribers become pissed, they keep the money, and the roving pack of EVEangelizers like the ones here will just do free damage control.
If China got the old cluster, then they got the good cluster, which had much less trouble than this one, and I have played on both.
If this company is run by gamers instead of marketing folk, then I see an awful amount of marketing, and not much improvement to the game. Not that they have to pay for much. Many will just do it for free for some gratis timecodes for their staff. Which costs CCP nothing more than what they ordinaraly would do.
I'm sure if you are from Beta, or you attend fanfests, or you subscribe to EON, or evangelize for EVE on sites like this one, they'll give you CS attention. But you and I both know that the average subscriber is just a $15 check, and they get no CS, or if they are lucky, a form letter. Maybe even a banning for no reason, like many I have seen here. You can get the pirates out of the greysharding business, but you can't get the greyshard mindset out of the game, at least where CCP is concerned.
I just think its interesting to see how much these EVE fans will put up with before they see the game for what it is today. After all, Oveur knows that he can lie to the subscribers, cheat the subscribers, and steal from the subscribers. All he has to do is post a blog saying how hard they are working to fix the problem, joke about beers and nordic stuff, proclaim how much they love the fans, keep on saying how they are still a small, indie developer despite the millions of dollars they get monthly, and he knows you'll fall for it every time.
Since its so easy to placate you all, there is no reason to even work on making the game better. They know they don't have to with you all as fans, since you'll just take whatever they decide to hand to you. After all, they know that if they act like your friend, you'll keep on forgiving them, because that's what friends do.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Come and get your free T2 Tinfoil Hats. Don't worry, there is enough for everyone!
Besides the avatar-based interaction, all of those features should start to make an appearance in Kali. We have only been offered a slight glimpse of what will be release in the coming months, so who's to say what state it will be in, but I for one am rather excited about it.
As for that avatar stuff, I don't see CCP attempting to implement it any time in the near future. There will probably be planetary conquest and flight, Jove, and Tech5 before then.
Well, they didnt get the old cluster, CCP stated that every time, they got a complete new cluster very similar to the currently running one.
I dont know how long you play yet, but have you seen the weeks of crashes after Exodus hit, they sorted them
out, the week full of crashes after RMR hit, they sorted that out, too, after blood, after the new Cluster and so on...
They will fix it out yet, too, it make take its time, but i think they will fix.
In case of CS, i am not subsricibing to any extra service in EVE, no EON, no Trade Card Game or anything,
just my lonely account, and what i became till now was very fast, very friendly and every time i got what i wanted. i cant really blame them, but i wont file as others a petition for every bit i could lose, and so i dont fill any Queue up with 1500 petitons per Crash.
I think CCP takes a lot care of their customers and their game, and thats why they are like so much...
They arent some impersonal part of some Large Developer Company, but real humans
where you know that they feel and see the problems to a good degree like you see them....
That wasnt the first nor the last problem they have with the cluster and i will still stick onto this game,
cause even with heavy lag, node crashes, DB issues its more fun to me then a lot others of MMOs
Edit : No Avatar thingis in Kali, may be very much later, but thats not a feature for me, that i need fast, not really
If Orwell subscribed to EVE, he would leave. He'd probably leave WoW too. I never even played WoW, because I don't like that game either. He wouldn't leave EVE because its a bad MMO. He would leave because problems aren't addressed, priorities are out of whack, and the truth is obscured due to a clever manipulation of sentiment.
CCP says it cares, but all I see are broken promises, misplaced priorities, a ton of spin and hype, and no accountability to be truthful.
Let me ask you all a simple question. If CCP said today that 32,000 people were online, what is stopping them from simply making it seem like there are 32,000 people online, when in fact, only 15,000 people were?
After all, they don't have to answer to a publisher, or a distributor. Nor do they have to worry about having such manipulations of the truth cause retail chains to tell the truth to their cuistomers. They collect a non-refundable $20 for no additional cost to them, as the very things that maintain the game also distribute it. There is no reason for them to even want to make the game better, because they know that even if subscribers become pissed, they keep the money, and the roving pack of EVEangelizers like the ones here will just do free damage control.
If China got the old cluster, then they got the good cluster, which had much less trouble than this one, and I have played on both.
If this company is run by gamers instead of marketing folk, then I see an awful amount of marketing, and not much improvement to the game. Not that they have to pay for much. Many will just do it for free for some gratis timecodes for their staff. Which costs CCP nothing more than what they ordinaraly would do.
I'm sure if you are from Beta, or you attend fanfests, or you subscribe to EON, or evangelize for EVE on sites like this one, they'll give you CS attention. But you and I both know that the average subscriber is just a $15 check, and they get no CS, or if they are lucky, a form letter. Maybe even a banning for no reason, like many I have seen here. You can get the pirates out of the greysharding business, but you can't get the greyshard mindset out of the game, at least where CCP is concerned.
I just think its interesting to see how much these EVE fans will put up with before they see the game for what it is today. After all, Oveur knows that he can lie to the subscribers, cheat the subscribers, and steal from the subscribers. All he has to do is post a blog saying how hard they are working to fix the problem, joke about beers and nordic stuff, proclaim how much they love the fans, keep on saying how they are still a small, indie developer despite the millions of dollars they get monthly, and he knows you'll fall for it every time.
Since its so easy to placate you all, there is no reason to even work on making the game better. They know they don't have to with you all as fans, since you'll just take whatever they decide to hand to you. After all, they know that if they act like your friend, you'll keep on forgiving them, because that's what friends do.
Honestly man, check yourself into a f'ing psyche ward, cause your a schizo. Where do you get that they are lying and stealing from players? I have never felt during my entire 3+ year sub to the game that they were ever lying or stealing from me. They have constantly improved the game over that time. The old server was better than the new? WTF ever. Maybe when there WAS only 10K people logging on during Sunday night peak time, but that's because the server wasn't near capacity then. It sure as hell puked when the server hit 15K and that went on up until they upgraded the server. Now I don't spend much time in hub systems so I don't experience much in the way of lag in game ever, but I have little simpathy for those who CHOOSE to stay in those systems when they know that the high population causes large amounts of lag.
Why do you always try and seem like there is some big conspiracy out there by CCP to screw over their revenue stream? FFS it got old about 6 months ago.
I'm seriously considering investing in tin foil, cause with the amount of crazy you spew I'd make a killing.
CCP conitnues to impress me with their additions and direction. Really glad that I came back to EVE, and I'm looking forward to where EVE is headed!
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Tons of spin and hype: yep - they are doing that, like all other software companies. Carrot on stick is oldest marketing trick in the software industry. Some players believe all that hype and some don't. Like those zillions Dark and Light fan boys and girls who believed to hype some time ago. Personally I find it interesting to information, but I know that some of them are not going to be here soon - if ever. It seems to take forever before they actually implement current expansion "Kali" to server - and they have talked it about very long time already. I am bit disappointed to this and anxious to wait new "promised" and hyped features.
However, I don't think that using so much time to implement new features is reason to believe that CCP is just group of beer drinking liars. I believe that telling about incoming features, that might take years to implement, is pretty good way to communicate for the community that: "these features might come someday and this is their vision - what you think about them?" Developers are showing for the community that they have direction where they want to go and they want to get some feedback from you. They are not like SOE developers who used to rework over same features 3 years, release each year 3 new expansions packs with uber loot, new levels and map - without any grand development vision at all.
"Think of the Titanic. Doesn't matter what processes were driving that ship through the water. If nobody's keeping track of getting you to your destination, you're going down, and it doesn't really matter.", Todd Fiala, SOE, director of development for the Austin studio (Gamasutra)
CCP developers are unprofessional: I am thinking totally differently. CCP is one of few MMORPG companies that have realised - or accidentally found - good way to communicate with their customers. Instead of being highly trained "PR persons", they are humans like their customers are. They are drinking beer, they are using political incorrect words like "boobies" in their forums, they are joking, they are posting crazy pictures like this and they have pretty openly discussed about their hardware and software changes. They are connected with their community and they have been able to create trust relationship with their customers. However, I agree that they could have handled communication better after latest patch - customers waited too long explanation why game suddenly changed so laggy.
I agree with you that sometimes their priorities seem to be messed up. Like collectible card game, EvE-TV, fanfests and E-ON. However, did it actually cause more delay for new Kali features? Unlikely - I don't think that many coders or developers used their work time for those. What about if they would have hired more developers instead of using money to those "pointless things"? There is old software project book called "The mythical man month", its central theme is "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". In practice, if you add more developers to project that has been running months or years - like EvE-online's Kali expansion, you most likely cause that project is going to take longer to finish. Developers already inside project need to teach for newcomers project's practices, internal works and other undocumented tacit knowledge. This communication overhead is actually causing that project is taking longer time to finish.
I don't know where you are getting idea that old cluster was better. This month lagfest and other problems are not caused by hardware (cluster) changes - at least they haven't announced any. They are caused by new server side code - Dragon. When hardware changed to new processors 64bit Opteron and RAMSAN last February it caused huge performance boost for EvE.
So far I have mildy agreed with you that you are right in some points:
Unfortunately I can't agree with you issues like these - they are just going beyond intelligence discussion:
... and hereby I grant for you official troller badge!
Troller is looking for a response...ANY response, and he will chum the waters with complaints, insults, compliments, and inflammatory tidbits hoping that someone...ANYONE, will take the bait. Generally quite harmless - practices a form of catch and release. Nonetheless, he can upset the delicate ecology of a discussion forum. Once a forum becomes aware of his presence, however, all feeding activity ceases and Troller must move on to more promising waters. Flame Warriors by Mike Reed.
Hold it proudly!
Sorry to hear that you or your friends were banned, but maybe there was reason after all?"I know I said this was my last post, but you my friend are a idiotic moron." -Shadow4482
I don't think that CCP is different from anybody else in this business. That's what I am trying to get across. They deserve to be treated by the same standards as anybody else in this business, and not get special treatment simply because they mention "boobies" in forum posts.
I mean come on. You actually believe that CCP doesn't put in that stuff about beer, vikings, and boobies for a reason? Its all a scripted gimmick to get people to believe exactly what these EVEangelists claim, that they are some sort of countercultural, irreverant heroes that want to "stick it to the man," so to say.
The problem is, they are "the man." The charge the same rate as "the man." They spin the spin like "the man." When they go home from fanfest, and they get off the boards, and they meet in their offices, we are just consumers to them. Not friends. Not partners. Not anything other than a source of revenue, someone you have to flatter on occasion, and a baseless complainer when they bring up something they don't want to hear.
They may seem like they are listening. Sometimes, they might actually listen, if they think the changes will bring in more $$$. Its the same with SOE, and CCP.
Other times, they really don't care what the consumers want, and complaining isn't going to change their perspective on what their vision tells them, or their target audience. Its the same with SOE, and CCP, both of which have or had "grand long term visions" that were not open to debate. Either way, they'll court feedback, and say they are listening. Whether or not they do though is up to them, and they have made it quite clear that it is their game, and subscribers either need to take it or leave it.
You know, its really hard to make a claim as to what CCP, NCSoft, or SOE are about using just their press releases and blogs. I'm sure all of them want to do right by the subscribers as best as they can, but only two of them say "thank you" to those who pay the subscription fees, and let me give you a hint, its not CCP.
I cancelled my sub to Everquest II, because I was playing CoV at the time. Later, I cancelled my subscription to CoV to play EVE. Both Everquest II and CoV asked me to come back, free of charge, to see the game again, play my characters, check out the changes, and maybe come back and resubscribe. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. But you know, it is good to know that they do not forget about me when I don't pay them anymore.
You won't ever see that in EVE though. As soon as you stop paying them, you don't matter anymore. No "thank you" gifts for being a long term subscriber. No "vet trials." Nothing except a lot of condecending remarks about those who were good enough to take a chance on CCP and EVE, subscribe, and subsequently leave for various reasons.
The $150 I payed them means nothing now that I'm unsubscribed. I can't say the same for SOE. I may not agree with them all the time, but at least they haven't forgotten about me.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Now first of all I have heard no condecending remarks towards me, Have had great customer support (note I doubt any of the devs know who I am as I'm not a vocal person on the forums/whatever), and when CCP has messed up royally its not uncommon for them to say who screwed the pooch. Frankly its never happened during my time in WoW, CoH, EQ, and RF-Online, Do I still get pissed yes I do, Do I really care that I missed a day of playing... nope(real-time training 4tw). And in EVE I have had a Dev respond to a post I made, I've had a conversation with a GM(not a bot as he actually showed up in a polaris frig to watch a exploit test I was doing), Only other game this had happened was CoH and that was during Beta test.
You want long term subscriber gifts... you need them to send you a christmas card too? Crap I hear people bitching taht you can't even train to fly the capital ships unless you area long term subscriber. And even if they gave you a mega deathray for subscirbing for a year you'd never undock with it cause I'd just shoot you and take it and save how long I have to subscribe. Frankly I haven't seen many things in life give you a bonus for being a Long time customer, at least nothing in the short time scale MMO's deal with.
Personnally I find that if you need to give me a item for staying in the game for a time, and its a MAJOR reason for me playing or not playing it. Then I need to get away from that game faster than I can click on cancel. And I don't really know what you want for a "Vet trial" from a company that only has one game.
I had spoken to live GMs out in SWG too. I had good customer service there for awhile. Yes, things started to get bad in that department, just like they got bad in EVE in terms of CS.
I'll agree with you that they probably sent out the veteran "second look" trials for EQ2 via form mail. Then again, that didn't change the fact that they gave me something free of charge, when they didn't have to. They let me come back for a whole month free of charge, play my old characters, allowed me to level, and have some fun on their dime for a change, and I didn't pay half as much for my short time in EQ2 as I did in EVE (just the box price and two months sub, no expansions).
In EVE, they didn't even honor my last day on my sub (they cut me off right after the dragon patch). And you know, they send me junk mail about fanfest, and the card game, but nothing like what SOE did with EQ2. I don't even have a nice glossy map or rulebook for the $150 I gave them over the course of this year. I can't even access a lot of the website without paying them. It made me realize that CCP only cares if you keep putting money into EVE, and could care less how much you already put into it, once you leave.
In short, for as much as I don't like SOE (and there are big things I have against them), I have to admit that the free month of EQ2 was a nice gesture, and shows they want to earn the repeat business, or at the very least, say "thank you Beatnik for supporting us back then. How about coming back on our dime for a change?"
Can't say the same about CCP. For them its like, "screw you Beatnik for not being a part of our quest for World Domination™, go back with the rest of the WoW trash."
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE