Friday, August 3, 2012

The CSM Minutes - The Short(er) Version

Seriously?

165 pages of text!

Sorry guys, but the new format is too much. We don't need THAT much detail. We don't need to know which jokes got a laugh and which didn't. I know it is hard to get right with many wanting to know who said what and which camp various people were in.... but seriously.... 165 pages???


Here is my cut down version. Obviously this is my personal take on what is being said and what I feel is important, others might not agree with my interpretation of the minutes. If you want to make your own decision, read the one hundred and sixty five pages! If that is TL;DR, read on....

Introduction and White Paper

This section had a nice bullet pointed summary. All boring CSM stuffz.
  • What to do if someone's not working or being a troublemaker (hard to quantify, process could be 
  • gamed)
  • Doing full transcripts of CSM meetings (an experiment is planned).
  • Importance of broad representation on CSM.
  • Bringing in the bubble-boy (#15) if someone resigns (probably not going to happen because it provides gaming opportunities)
  • Should candidates be able to scam for votes? (yes)
  • Should voters be able to retract and revote? (no)
  • Changes to the voting system (lots of research and public discussion needed)
  • Possible change to CSM's position in the organizational chart (to the Community division) may put 
  • CSM more "in the loop".
  • Possible removal of the Assembly Hall (up in the air)
  • Making it easier for players to EVE-mail the CSM (good idea)
  • Discussion of roles of CSM officers.
  • Discussion of making Chairman elected by the CSM (will be done, mechanics need to be worked out)


What is a Stakeholder?
It is a thing that holds stakes. Next!

Winter 2012 Expansion.
Righto! This is more like it! Theme is still "War" or more specifically the simulation of blowing stuff up and there are to be no ‘Jesus features’ (large new shiny features). Releases will be June, August and December. Player to player contracts, iterations on the war system, continued work on Faction War, ship balancing with the smaller ships getting the work this year, little things (improving the life of the newer and average players), the front end of Crimewatch and the effects bar and HUD.


Eve Future
Need to smooth the New Player Experience. May be scrap the current tutorial altogether. Avatar based things are on the future map, but on a slow burn due to small dev team on it. Ship customisation is there, but there are a lot of issues (such as 200 custom paint jobs being loaded in a fleet fight). Moon goo - possibly remove mining altogether and move it to ring mining as the "plant POS, receive money" mechanic is "awful". However before this they want to revamp POS'. May be some form of moon-goo change in 2012?

CCP are looking at medical clone costs. Also general revamp of clones. CSM raised arena's. CCP suggest some form of player-run alliance tournament style thing?

Finally a discussion of PvE missions and possible group missions. Raids in MY Eve?


State of Incarna
Incarna prototype team working on "meaningful avatar gameplay".

[[“Sorry”, declares CCP Manifest, “it’s hot-drop NDA o’clock on this prototype!”]]

Whatever it is "the CSM was pleased with the progress on the prototype, and agreed with CCP's approach to developing Incarna content as long as CCP doesn’t ignore “Flying in Space”."

There are almost 200 clothing items done, just not turned on.

Apparently a "staggering number" of players haven't touched any of the free Aurum that was given out (I'm one of them).


Live Events
Suggest three to four live dev events a year as not to be viewed as an intrusion into the sandbox. Example being the live Sansha events or the Christmas caravans.

Suggestion of more roleplay events - "Seleene recalled a memory of a Serpentis live event in the early years of EVE when CCP event staff “stole a Gallente Federation Titan”".

Generally CCP are worried about showing favouritism in live events, both CCP and player events.


Industry and Mining
Less clicks and more batch style industry is planned. e.g. build a carrier in one job rather than having to build all the components first then the ship itself. Feeding minerals throughout a job was brought up, start a run of 100 but you only have materials for 10 and as long as you keep feeding the minerals in during the run its OK.

"CCP Arrow said they hoped they could make industry easier to manage and cooler to look at."

Industry in faction war systems should receive a speed bonus.

Discussions on that it should be faster/cheaper to build things further away from Jita.

Mining stuff mentioned. Mostly CSM throwing ideas out. Some I like -

Hans added “Put the best rings in low sec :) It needs a boost.”


Trebor added that you need to take damage if you are moving too fast and that his favorite Sci-Fi scene was from Wrath of Khan when the two starships appear out of the gas clouds and all hell  breaks loose. If ring mining could provide that kind of experience, it would be great.



CCP Xhagen asked when we could expect ring mining. CCP Soundwave said after the POS work because it would most likely use the same team - best case scenario would be winter expansion 2013.


Starbase (POS) Rework
Warning - this is all in a very early stage and likely to change massively.
POS should be space housing. Scalable from an individual players base to an alliance base. POS shield bubble to go!!!! A single structure, not anchored modules. Current POS' to be eventually retired.

New starbases to be modular and customisable. Players should be able to see a screenshot and say "That is MY starbase!". Modules to generate heat, layout of the starbase will effect cooling costs.

Starbases to be anchored ANYWHERE (exclusion zone around gates and stations) and not restricted to one per grid. You can build a city of these!


"basic modules and then we have a lot of shit you can put on them, like accessories, like solar panels and satellite dishes and heat radiators."

Turrets will have firing arcs so won't be able to fire through structures.

Ships should be able to dock but CCP wants to limit numbers and make it expensive. Mooring modules?

Possible cloaked starbases and CCP Greyscale even said "I really, really, really want to let you put a jump drive on them.". Then dsicussed limitations (48 hour counter before it jumps, the world's slowest hot-drop).

Death ray that required a ton of power and a possible module option.

Removal of POS shield bubble will effect large fleet deployments and fights.

Mooring of supercaps will be possible (only owner or corp director can undock them).

Larger bases would be harder to defend. Take down the starbase, steal moored supers!

CQ in starbases...... but what happens if it is destroyed when someone is sat on their sofa?


Eve/Dust Link
First release will Dust tying up with factional warfare. 0.0 in the future, 2013?

Beta is a bit rough and is many months behind the actual game. Beta is basically Fanfest build.

DUST battles will effect FW warzone control. Same sort of dashboard as Eve players see.

Discussions on how DUST and Eve corps should be. One entity? A DUST division of an existing Eve Corp etc.

Worry over ISK value between DUST and Eve. Eve players will have huge amounts of ISK compared to DUST players. CCP looking to control the flow of ISK.

PI modules in a district will have to pay tax to the DUST bunnies owning the district.


Eve UI

CCP Arrows current work includes-

  • A new notification UI
  • A new station services UI
  • A ship viewer, including a bubble pop-up
  • "Fitting Fantasies"

New faction war notifications.

No official date for these new projects.

Some great ideas for ship hanger and ship fitting to make things easier. Example ", enabling things like being able to test modules in your fitting window that you didn't even own". So basically a first step to EFT in game.

Need to make mass fitting of ships easier, especially for people who buy and assemble corp/alliance ships.

A graphical representation of the scan "cone" was requested but is not as easy to do as you would think apparently.

CSM suggested the ability to broadcast your overview so the FC could see what the scout was seeing. Aslo suggested a way of seeing if your target was in optimum range of your weapons.

Drones to be turned into the "orb like buttons" used for modules. Can be "reloaded" and colour and flash would tell you what your drones were doing/not doing.


Null Sec
Currently the team is focusing on faction warfare for the coming months. Null sec is not the current focus.... but will be.

Destructible outposts raised.... again..... still concerns about peoples stuff when it goes pop.

So much money in game now super losses mean nothing. They just get replaced.


Soundwave: “I can, with virtual certainty, say that this December we’re going do something about cap and supercap presence in anomalies. That is the biggest faucet we have right now.”

Went off topic onto ISK fountains/faucets.


Syndicate was hailed as an example of how NPC 0.0 should be; bordering lowsec/empire and sov 0.0 but without the ability to launch a major attack/defense against player controlled space. Venal was raised as exactly what NPC 0.0 shouldn’t be, or more specifically where it shouldn’t be.


Corp Management
The CEO should be able to insta kick any corp member at any time. However a concern over griefing tactics in hi-sec wars.

CREST tools are apparently awesome. Dev Blog being worked on.

Discussions on corp UI and roles, especially in industry.


War Decs and Crimewatch
Neutral logistics still a concern. Neutral repping will give a aggression timer in the future. If the person firing stops firing, then the logi agression will also start counting down too.

Orca swapping was mentioned. CCP worried about people losing Orca's when they don't understand the rules.

Two step: "Innocent people don't fly Orcas, man." (Room laughs)

Sentry guns will fire on suspects and start with low damage but ramp up with time. At 4.5 minutes triage carriers will be taken down by gate guns.

Interceptors will be able to tackle on gates providing they get out within the first few hits.

CCP Soundwave: "It is looking like a December release."

Potential fleet to fleet aggression making it possible to have a fleet battle in hi-sec like a 15 minute war-dec.

Discussions on wardecs and contracts, forced peace etc.

Allies need looking at as war decs are inviting the whole of Eve to shoot you.

War bill must be based on active accounts, not un-subbed accounts.


Player Experience - Launcher
Login to be moved to launcher. Mutliboxing to be made easier. EULA in launcher so it's one hit for multiple accounts.

Factional Warfare.
Plex spawning bug still and issue even after CCP thought it had been fixed. Unbalanced minor plex's - Destroyers vs Frigates. Issues with eWar on NPC's.

Possible nerf to FW mission payouts. PvP not PvE. Blitzing of missions needs to be removed.

Possible boost to industry speed tied to control.

Station lock-out should be a tier 3/4 reward to allow aggressing factions to get a foothold in the system.

Cyno jammers. Wanted by FW players, tears from others. Started off discussions on an elected militia leadership. Cap warfare in FW is limited by the threat of the super hotdrop from a board 0.0 alliance/PL. Perhaps use cyno jammers as a short term thing for the duration of a fight.

FW interface being looked at. LP earnings move from Journal to FW window?

New FW notifications.


Art Sessions
Amarr V3 are dull but this will be fixed when nebula bounce-light is implemented. CCP "not done" with Amarr appearance.

Salvage drone, Ore frigate and new destroyers previewed. New NEX items that are ready to go.

Battle recorder raised. A tool allowing video makers to replay the battle but with better camera work and zoomed in. On the long-term roadmap.


Ship Balance and Iteration
Destroyers next up to be balanced. New destroyers with Amarr and Gallente getting drone boats and Caldari and Matari getting missile boats.

New Ore frigate will give newbie friendly mining frigate.

Barges and Exhumer's to be balanced.

Rookie ships to be boosted.

Cruisers to be rebalanced to Attack, Combat and Support. Logi bonus?

Lots of discussion on the pros and cons of lots and lots of ships.

CCP - “off grid boosting should not exist”


‘Player to Player Contracts’
Very early stages in this. Suggestions - escort, training, POS/POCO take-downs and POS/POCO
defense operations, wormhole eviction/protection.

Setting up a re-occurring bill between players.

Renters and pay-for-blue. POS save contracts. Kill X number of ships contracts.

Content
Some NPE stuff and issues with current tutorials.

Incursion drop-off after the Escalation nerf. Over-nerfed?

Drone and loot changes had pleased miners and not made a massive difference to market prices.

Null sec needs more PvE.

Reverent super carrier is crap. Only two in game. Needs a buff.


Security
Botting is being wiped out slowly. Was 1400 accounts identified every 10 days, now it is less than 10.

Banned and confiscated assets - Total: 5,188,167,296,594 ISK!

  • Authenticators are very much still on the table
  • Anti-hacking improvements (client and account)
  • A lot of internal policy and infrastructures stuff
  • A lot of communication



NPE
Team Pony Express is a new team whose task is to "make players enjoy EVE more".

Short and long term goals to remove the tutorials as they are today and replace with something better.

Talk of newbie friendly corps (RvB and Eve Uni). CCP worried about being seen to give favouritism to particular corps.

Eve Economy
Inflation has been high but is dropping and following the speculation in April spiking inflation, we are now in a period of deflation.

PLEX monetary committee monitors and controls PLEX prices from "short-term disruptions, such as those caused by players attempting to manipulate the market". It uses confiscated assets to do this. No interventions needed so far in 2012.

Some players in Eve have wallets in the "low single-digit trillions".

This concludes the meeting minutes.
Thanks for making it this far. You are a true warrior.


Next time guys can we have a simple summary for each section. Not just a transcript only. Please.







3 comments:

  1. Thanks for doing this. I only read the mining and pos stuff so far ;). Now I know about the other stuff as well !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanx for that TLDR. You just saved me a couple of hours of reading.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Login to be moved to launcher. "
    and this is the day i quit eve. they shouldnt have made the launcher to begin with, now at least it does nto show up. why does it have to copy other games where the launcher clearly is a failure and everyone avoids it?

    ReplyDelete