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[Jev North]

EVE is about as likely to get walking in stations because of these developments as Black Desert is likely to get spaceships.

[Silas Vitalia]

Agree with Jev, they aren't touching that again with a 100m pole.

You'll get whatever Dust fps sequel/whatever they are going to vomit up, and you'll pay for super hardcore space merc armor but CCP has 0 interest in capsuleers hanging out with snazzy clothes playing checkers in station. 

Which is ridiculous because all 100 of us RPers would have kept the company funded for 30 years if they were charging for fancy dresses and space hats to hang out with other avatars 

[Mizhara]

Doesn't sound like much of a cash cow to me, compared to the far lower effort requirement of just releasing various Hello Kitty PUNK STYLE skins etc to us current whales. I'll fork over the dosh, just don't waste all that time and money on space leg bullshit. Real RP happens in space.

[Ursa Dropsus]

A few points:

The old guard are majority shareholders. My impression is many of them have been waiting a long time for this day. To them, this is like a payday decades in the making, and it's hard to imagine they'd refuse out of concerns for the health of the game post-acquisition. I've no idea about exact numbers, but fairly confident many if not all majority shareholders will be made millionaires after this. If you'd been working on EVE since 1999, you'd probably feel entitled to sell out, too. I don't really blame them.

Although I read about performance-based incentives and the like to retain that old guard guard and studio talent more generally, it's still possible some will move on once the acquisition completes, which could have its own implications. The idea of performance-based incentives is potentially problematic in its own way, too.

Even for some regular employees this same dynamic is true. After a certain amount of time at CCP you can start buying shares, and many employees have bought as much as possible, as often as possible. They may care more about getting a return on that money than they do about the health of the game, and/or may move on after the acquisition having made a tidy sum.

For my own part I only stand to profit off the 50 shares they gave all employees as part of a Christmas gift one year. Many of the reasons I became disillusioned with CCP stem from their long-term shift towards a more corporate approach - a move I believe was ultimately driven by a desire to cash out someday, as they have here. I'd feel guilty about taking that money, given all that, but I'm going to use it to fund an environment/sustainability project here at uni, so meh! 

[Silas Vitalia]

A few points:

The old guard are majority shareholders. My impression is many of them have been waiting a long time for this day. To them, this is like a payday decades in the making, and it's hard to imagine they'd refuse out of concerns for the health of the game post-acquisition. I've no idea about exact numbers, but fairly confident many if not all majority shareholders will be made millionaires after this. If you'd been working on EVE since 1999, you'd probably feel entitled to sell out, too. I don't really blame them.

Although I read about performance-based incentives and the like to retain that old guard guard and studio talent more generally, it's still possible some will move on once the acquisition completes, which could have its own implications. The idea of performance-based incentives is potentially problematic in its own way, too.

Even for some regular employees this same dynamic is true. After a certain amount of time at CCP you can start buying shares, and many employees have bought as much as possible, as often as possible. They may care more about getting a return on that money than they do about the health of the game, and/or may move on after the acquisition having made a tidy sum.

For my own part I only stand to profit off the 50 shares they gave all employees as part of a Christmas gift one year. Many of the reasons I became disillusioned with CCP stem from their long-term shift towards a more corporate approach - a move I believe was ultimately driven by a desire to cash out someday, as they have here. I'd feel guilty about taking that money, given all that, but I'm going to use it to fund an environment/sustainability project here at uni, so meh! 

Don't feel guilty in the slightest, cash the fuck out and set sail

We should just all be realistic about what's going on is all. Painting this as some sort of great positive thing for the game going forward and anything other than them getting paid and hitting the eject button would be silly    

If it's going to sink, better to make some $$ on the way out the door yea? 

[Ursa Dropsus]

Are the details of the Sale and Purchase Agreement public knowledge? I got around to reading the performance incentives and they're quite spicy, essentially attaching big time monetary reward to some very short term financial milestones. Not sure how congruous a "quarterly capitalism" approach is going to be.

[kalaratiri]

The effectively 'half now, half later' nature of the performance incentives is known, but the actual qualifying milestones themselves are not as far as I am aware.

[Ursa Dropsus]

Take this with a grain of salt coz I dunno legalese, but it looks like it's split into 3 payments: one upfront, two in consecutive years. Each roughly the same size (upfront is slightly larger). Each of the two performance-based payouts are tied to annual profits through to 2020 (if profits don't exceed X amount then no payout is given). So you may have ~2 years of some of the majority shareholders (arguably the most powerful people in the company) relentlessly pushing profit above other considerations, in orer to almost triple the value of their stocks.

[Silas Vitalia]

Take this with a grain of salt coz I dunno legalese, but it looks like it's split into 3 payments: one upfront, two in consecutive years. Each roughly the same size (upfront is slightly larger). Each of the two performance-based payouts are tied to annual profits through to 2020 (if profits don't exceed X amount then no payout is given). So you may have ~2 years of some of the majority shareholders (arguably the most powerful people in the company) relentlessly pushing profit above other considerations, in orer to almost triple the value of their stocks.

So how much PLEX do they have to buy? 

[Mizhara]

Devblog detailing the next step in desperately trying to up temporary sub numbers by appealing to the cowards and whiny bears. Now highsec is to be perfectly safe and the majority of the RP community can run and hide from the consequences of their choices.

Fuck CCP, the fuckin' pussies. HTFU my entire ass.

[kalaratiri]

Not really sure this is the thread for it, but...

The wardecs system needed changing drastically. As a self-professed stopgap measure by CCP, I am ok with this. I say this as someone who quite often uses wars for content.

I forget the exact numbers, but something like 70% of all wars are declared by three alliances. The player retention numbers on corps that get wardecced are horrible. To quote the last CSM minutes, "These numbers would justify removing wardecs entirely, today."

In terms of day-to-day operations in highsec, more or less nothing has changed. Highsec is not perfectly safe. Suicide ganking is still an option. Any corp owning so much as a POCO can be decced.

The kind of RPer who "runs and hides from consequences" was already doing that, either by corp hopping or just not undocking. The only difference now is they can't be locked into a perma-war which makes it even more unlikely they would undock.

Obviously we'll have to wait and see, but I actually hope this will lead to an increase in fights during wars, as "defenders" will be able to go hunting for "attackers" structures in hope of ending the war, as well as providing a set end to a war once an attacker has killed all the defender's structures.

I know I won't be able to convince you that this is anything but CCP pandering to "carebears and cowards", but I do believe this will be a positive change. I've been a part of a new-player corp that got stuck under a perma-dec by a small but high sp group with lots of alts, and I cannot overstate just how much it sucks. That situation has likely done more damage to new player retention over the last decade and a half than any other factor. Just remember that this is not a personal attack on you or your playstyle, things always change and players always adapt.

On a personal note, I really, honestly suggest taking a break from Eve for a while Miz. Maybe till new year or something. I haven't seen a positive comment from you about the game, its Devs, its players, or really anything else Eve related since I can't even remember when. You're clearly not enjoying it. In fact it seems to be actively harmful to your emotional state. I know we haven't always got on, but I hope you'll take what I'm saying as sincere and consider it.

[Mizhara]

I chose this thread because it's getting pretty clear CCP isn't doing fuck all anymore that isn't a desperate attempt to push subcounts for Korean Bonus Money.

Yes, the wardec system desperately needed changes, there can be absolutely no doubt about that. The problem is that CCP has quite literally never introduced a "stopgap measure" that didn't end up being the final, abandoned and permanent fixture while they fucked off to do something else in the most half-arsed way possible. This isn't just being negative, this is objective fuckin' fact about their development of damn near anything for a very long time now.

And yes, we're all aware that player retention in highsec was a serious issue but I have yet to see even the slightest proof that wardecs were the actual cause. There has been no data gathered on the causes for it. Say it with me now: Correlation is not causation. Want to know where my money is on this subject? The wardec isn't the cause, it's the catalyst. It's what makes the actual issue come to the fore: Highsec gameplay just isn't actually fun. If it was, then people'd stick their heads back out when the wardecs were over. The only reason why they'd stay away once it's over is if there's no real reason to return. A week not playing turning permanent is something that happens if it just makes them realize they don't actually miss it enough to come back to it. They're free of it now. Distance is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, not duller. When it grows duller... yeah, maybe they should stay away. They weren't having fun to begin with.

Which means, this doesn't solve the wardec issue at all. Quite the contrary, it will just hide the real problem further by reducing the mechanics which can peel back the illusions crafted by Investment Fallacies and Progress Addiction, which hides that the real problem and solution is that highsec gameplay needs drastic revamps and changes.

You want to fix the wardecs? Make undocking and playing during them something desirable. Something you'll want to do. Incentivize taking a little risk to end the wars faster, incentivize activity and incentivize engaging in gameplay to achieve goals (whether the goal is ending the dec or not) etc etc. There's been page up and page down written on actual workable solutions to this and none of the viable ones have something as fucking mindblowingly retarded as tying it to fucking structures in them. I'm not going to sit down and rewrite it all yet again, but I can tell you that the solutions that were viable weren't about fucking over content, they were about creating more gameplay and giving wardec victims counterplay options.

Highsec is now perfectly safe for anyone with a brainstem. "But but suicide ganking" is nonsense, because it'll never be sustainable. You can't impose any kind of worthwhile consequence for action through suicide ganking, and if it was... do you really think the bears in question would be any less cryin' if someone decided to keep hunting their miners, missioners and haulers with neutral alt suiciders? This is an improvement over having flashy wartargets blatantly visible in all the shared RP channels and local whenever they're active? I mean, I can easily run eight constantly cycling suicider characters. It wouldn't even be difficult, just more work. I can afford permarunning a whole lot of wars, so funding highly insurable Tornados and Gankalysts, especially with neutral looter/salvagers in my back pocket wouldn't exactly be onerous. It isn't good RP though, is it? It's not consequences for actions, or IC conflicts. It's just ganking. Ganking that can't be countered either, unlike WTs.

As for trying to marginalize my views with concern trolling, I don't particularly appreciate it much, no. I am in all likelihood on a break as we speak, especially since now RP has basically been turned completely fucking worthless since there's no way left to impose consequences for actions, and thus effectively there aren't any consequences for any choices or actions, and thus RP is fuckin' worthless.

As for you not having seen positive comments... well, that's on you. The fact that you choose to ignore them and only focus on the negative is not my problem.

[kalaratiri]

I'm sorry if you think I'm "concern trolling", because I'm genuinely not. I'm glad to hear you're taking a break, I think it will honestly be something positive for you, and I wish you the best.

[Silas Vitalia]

Do we know a few numbers for CCP?
What % of their playerbase lives/works/dies in Highsec
What % of their playerbase does the low/null pew pew
Which of these groups provide more income to CCP? Is it an army of casual high sec folks that dont pvp or is it a bunch of null folks buying plex and the like?

If they are getting most of their money and subs from high sec carebear types this will explain things, and if their korean bonus money is based on pure sub numbers then them taking the most direct possible action to boost those also makes sense.

At one point early on for me I too ran a revolving door wardec farm on carebear corps for ransom purposes, it was good income and you'd honestly get most of your isk without having to fire a shot, or maybe after exploding a few ships.  I do not think it was healthy for CCP retention, that's certainly true.

There's got to be a balance somewhere between 'you are immune from wardecs' and 'no one is ever going to help you, even on day one, even vs someone many times your experience level'

Their proposed solution seems overly draconian and Miz's suspicions ring a bit true to me as well, but I'm pretty far removed from feeling heated about any of it either way, not being subbed and all. 

The problem is CCP's image and marketing is often built around 'you will get fucked up and you have the freedom to fuck other people up and we won't get in the way' versus the reality that that is a scary pool for new players to jump into.

I might do something like, newer players and corps are perhaps restricted from certain activities, mods, fits, missions, whatever, until they -choose- to activate full vulnerability and join the rest of the capsuleers.  Maybe they face some huge tax burden or frankly can't get standings increased or -whatever- that would eliminate it being financially useful to use them as alts, until they feel they are ready to become vulnerable and step into the pool.

A 'tiered' system with 2 or 3 steps versus all or nothing might be useful.

[kalaratiri]

Last time the numbers were mentioned, something like 65% of all characters are in highsec. How that translates to accounts/players I am not sure.
Then nullsec, then lowsec, then wormholes. Although these days the balance may have shifted slightly between low/wormholes.