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[Andreus Ixiris]

It's been indicated to us that actors are at this point prohibited from communicating via a player-run channel for any reason, including player-run events. To say this is a less-than-optimal situation is an understatement.

I will reiterate that the current state of affairs was how it was meant to be from the beginning.

Furthermore it occurs to me that it's a frankly startling coincidence that the people most upset by CCP suddenly deciding to consistently enforce their own internal rules on this subject are the people who benefited most from them not doing so.

[Victoria Stecker]

It's been indicated to us that actors are at this point prohibited from communicating via a player-run channel for any reason, including player-run events. To say this is a less-than-optimal situation is an understatement.

I will reiterate that the current state of affairs was how it was meant to be from the beginning.

Furthermore it occurs to me that it's a frankly startling coincidence that the people most upset by CCP suddenly deciding to consistently enforce their own internal rules on this subject are the people who benefited most from them not doing so.

CCP having their own channels makes plenty of sense. CCP actors being banned from player channels really doesn't. This is what their policy was supposed to be all along? Fucking DERP.

And yes, of course the people who have enjoyed direct interaction with actors are bothered by it being outlawed. It was a part of the game they enjoyed, and it's been removed.

[Andreus Ixiris]

CCP having their own channels makes plenty of sense. CCP actors being banned from player channels really doesn't. This is what their policy was supposed to be all along? Fucking DERP.

The entire point of the rule was so that CCP would not be seen as showing favouritism, because the EVE Illuminati simply do not have enough staff to consistently provide event actors whenever a player event or channel happens to need one. There is a very specific pattern to the breakage of this rule which indicates why it was a good idea to have it in the first place, and why it was an excellent decision on behalf of CCP to begin enforcing it properly.

And yes, of course the people who have enjoyed direct interaction with actors are bothered by it being outlawed. It was a part of the game they enjoyed, and it's been removed.

"Benefited from," Victoria, not merely "enjoyed." There is a difference.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

I have grown tired of reading between the lines. Could someone here cut through the red tape and actually tell me WHO the Dev Actors have been rewarding and how?

[Esna Pitoojee]

Within the context of what most of us are discussing, it's in terms of Dev actors appearing at or helping with a player's event/channel/project. These are varying degrees of interaction, obviously (appearance at specific event, lurking in channel, and in-space activity, etc) but they all are perceived to lend a degree of reward to the player who hosts or initiates whatever the devs are attending. "Hey, look - I did something, and I got a response from the game universe."

Complete list, that I can think of, and the group that were nominally "rewarded" by those actions:
- Amarr actor appearance at PIE ball - rewards PIE.
- Gal Navy (earlier) and SoE (later) actor appearances at Federation day events - rewards whoever was organizing those, not sure.
- Minmatar actors providing freighters for transport of EM's slaves - rewards EM.
- BRC actors appearing at Silas' event a while back - rewards Silas and the Blooder/Sani Sabik bloc.
- Various mail or channel conversations in private or semi-private between actors and loyalist RPers - rewards many, but I can say that I know communications have occured for Amarr, Minmatar, Blood Raider/Sani Sabik, Angel Cartel, Sansha's Nation, and even non-aligned (i.e., nullsec) capsuleers. Rewards all of the above.

Reaching a bit farther back...
- The Arek'Jalaan project relied heavily on the ability of players to stand up and take specific roles, in return for which they were allowed to run channels or branches which were declared "official" for that project and treated as such. It is important to note that not all of these were "traditional RPers." Many were only light or even non-RPers, but were interested enough to play by the RP rules and get rewarded all the same.

- The Nation War of Resurgence events relied heavily on players being able to communicate with their sides in the war, with individual players coming to be recognized as leaders or points of contact for their (player) factions. Biggest single "winner" here was probably TS-F, but several of the anti-Nation folks got recognition from CCP as well. This included actors agreeing to include certain player ideas at later events.

[Ollie]

I will reiterate that the current state of affairs was how it was meant to be from the beginning.

Furthermore it occurs to me that it's a frankly startling coincidence that the people most upset by CCP suddenly deciding to consistently enforce their own internal rules on this subject are the people who benefited most from them not doing so.

That's quite a generalisation. It's also bordering on a logical fallacy if it hasn't already crossed that line.

Esna, for one, seems to be quite vocal in his stance against this and doesn't strike me as someone whose in game activities - RP-based or otherwise - are dependent on CCP showing him any favouritism. Likewise with Victoria, who summed it up quite nicely I think.

No offence Andreus, but if anyone's allowing an emotive argument to drive their position it seems to be you - at least by comparison to the  people mentioned. As Pieter prompted, perhaps instead of hinting enigmatically at the obvious pattern you see it would be more informative to just state it outright and provide the evidence you believe backs your position.

[Victoria Stecker]

Is there a way to avoid that that doesn't remove some of the most awesome moments from the lore of the game (or, I suppose, prevent such awesome moments from ever happening again)? I see these events (the ones Esna listed, and more) as good things, things that help make EVE awesome. Making EVE less awesome (worse) in the name of fairness strikes me as... short-sighted. Or just stupid.

[Louella Dougans]

There is a very specific pattern to the breakage of this rule which indicates why it was a good idea to have it in the first place, and why it was an excellent decision on behalf of CCP to begin enforcing it properly.

And yes, of course the people who have enjoyed direct interaction with actors are bothered by it being outlawed. It was a part of the game they enjoyed, and it's been removed.

"Benefited from," Victoria, not merely "enjoyed." There is a difference.

People are insinuating there has been "unacceptably heavy" endorsement of "certain factions", i.e. event actors turning up in X faction player-run events.

Evidence of this? Any evidence at all ?

Or is it just an imagined bias, by people with grudges against the operator teams of "the summit" and other places?

Convince me.

Convince me.

Why bother?

Nearly a month, no evidence to back any of these statements up. Show your working.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Going to have to echo the sentiment. Start backing up your claims, or stop trolling.

[Andreus Ixiris]

Alright, fuck it.

If you know your devs, you'll know that one of the devs in the EVE Illuminati is in charge of "Amarrian" event actors and PF - which is a wide net which also includes Khanid, Ammatar, SoE and the Blood Raiders.

Did anyone think to ask why PIE's event got an actual Amarrian actor visiting it, but the Federation Day event only got an SoE actor? Esna's suggestion that we got a FedNav actor is misinformed - I was there for the entire length of Federation Day (I had to be - I was DJing) and the only reason we got a visit from an event actor at all is because we began making noise in various channels about the fact that PIE had got a visit from an event actor and we hadn't. You could call this "manufactured outrage" on our part, and to be fair it probably was, but it worked - yellow text appeared in Dodixie local for all of, what, five minutes, if that? The funny thing was, when the event actor turned up, it was SoE, which are a group which has basically nothing to do with the Federation. This makes absolutely no sense unless you consider that the event actors for SoE are controlled by the same dev who does the event actors for Amarr and the Blood Raiders. The dev who does the event actors for the Federation is an entirely different person.

When you look at event actor attendance at player-run events, a distinct pattern emerges.

So I'm just going to come right out and say it - Amarrians were the ones benefiting almost exclusively off event actors attending their events and hanging out in their channels. Why are Minmatar, Caldari and in particular Gallente roleplayers collectively less upset about the event actors not coming to our events or channels anymore? Well shit, how would we even know something had changed? It'll basically be exactly the same for us as it was before. The only visible change that's occured from our perspective is that players are no longer able to gate access to the channels where the event actors usually hang out, which is a benefit to everyone equally.

Well, of course, except for the gatekeepers. But you don't know any of them, do you?

[Samira Kernher]

It should be noted that for the PIE anniversary event we had sent out direct invites to the developer actors in advance. I don't know if the Federation Day crew did the same, but if they hadn't then this would be a factor to consider.

I also find it interesting for you to say that Amarr get more. We haven't had a single Amarr live event for 2013; the actors we got at the anniversary was pretty much the only bone we've had from the live events team this year. Now, I can't speak for past years, mind, since I've only started playing this year, but for 2013 we've certainly been on the backburner compared to everyone else (especially Caldari, who have gotten the most focus).

[Andreus Ixiris]

It should be noted that for the PIE anniversary event we had sent out direct invites to the developer actors at least a month in advance. I don't know if the Federation Day crew did the same, but if they hadn't then this would be a factor to consider.

We did. The dev running the Federation event actors apparently follows the rules a bit more closely than the one running the Amarrian event actors, because we got a polite "sorry, appreciate the invite, but can't." This is precisely the same response that the PIE ball and its attendees should have received. In point of fact, the surprise to me was not that the PIE ball got an event actor and we initially didn't, it was that our campaign of somewhat-phony outrage actually managed to cause the dev enough concern that they actually bothered to send us an actor at all.

I also find it interesting for you to say that Amarr get more. We haven't even had a single Amarr live event this year

Live events aren't relevant to this discussion. Those are not player events. This entire conversation we're having revolves around event actor attendance at player events, which to the (thankfully) limited extent that it happened favoured Amarrians. The entire reason for the rule about not showing up at player events or in player channels to begin with was CCP's desire to not appear to show favouritism. It should not have happened and no longer will.

and the actors we got at the anniversary was pretty much the only bone we've had from the live events team this year.

That's unfortunate, but you'd have to take that up with the live events team.

Now, I can't speak for past years, mind, but for this one we've certainly been on the backburner compared to everyone else.

In past years? In past years there was a live events team called AURORA, which was infamously shut down for disproportionately favouring Amarrians - it was to the point where it was actually discouraging roleplayers in other factions. If you want to know why there was an almost year-long period where I was literally the only active Federal roleplayer in the entire game, this was one of many contributing factors.

I would wager good money that the AURORA debacle is a major contributing factor in - if not the sole reason for - the "don't involve live event actors in player channels or events" rule.

[Samira Kernher]

I was rather surprised they turned up, actually. CCP Falcon had mentioned in OOC chat a few weeks before that they weren't allowed to attend player-run events.

Personally I don't really agree with a complete ban of attending player events, but I do think that if they are going to attend player-run events then they absolutely need to handle it in a responsible and equal manner. SWG's live events team managed it well by requiring players to reserve them ahead of time--they wouldn't attend events spontaneously, nor would they refuse some events while accepting others (short of date/time conflicts with other reservations, in which case the player organizers could still reserve for a different date/time). They could even be reserved for purely OOC events. Something like that would work fine I believe.

[Lyn Farel]

They will always have people complaining about fairness and favouritism. That's probably why they decided to make zero concession.

A shame, but well. As long as factional contacts are still up and running at least...

Another question : will live events always involve "stuff happening in space" ? No official RP events in CCP owned channels, to replace the player ones ?

[Andreus Ixiris]

I was rather surprised they turned up, actually. CCP Falcon had mentioned in OOC chat a few weeks before that they weren't allowed to attend player-run events.

Which is why, purely for the purposes of sarcasm, I'm going to pretend that I'm surprised that people are pretending to be surprised about this.

Personally I don't really agree with a complete ban of attending player events, but I do think that if they are going to attend player-run events then they absolutely need to handle it in a responsible and equal manner.

They don't have the resources to do this. It's between three and twelve guys (depending on who you ask and what time of day/time of year it is) who have to manage essentially the entirety of the EVE universe's canon. They don't have the time or the money to dedicate to the RP community on this serious a basis and given the current state of it I'm not sure we'd deserve it even if they did.