CCP heading for hotter water

[Fordel]

Which side is the Russian Mob on in this Mitt vs CCP fight. 

[Simond]

Or Hasbro, and we can play My Little Pony: Internet Spaceships editon.

You just want me to post that picture again. 

[tmp]

You just want me to post that picture again. 

It's the best thing that came out of EVE.

[Endie]

I'm just going to leave this here post as a placeholder for now and I've saved my reply in c:\Documents and Settings\[my name]\My Documents\Eve\smugpost.txt for later enjoyment.

Anyhoo... you guys are probably right that you have a better read on this.  I'm just off to keep being the head of the GIA and to read the in- and out-of-game, indiscreet and very private correspondence of an eye-watering range of unaware but very highly placed individuals: later!

[Endie]

Holy shit double-posting like an amateur!

[tgr]

Endie, being a tease as always.

[Elaen Todir]

I'm just going to leave this here post as a placeholder for now and I've saved my reply in c:\Documents and Settings\[my name]\My Documents\Eve\smugpost.txt for later enjoyment.

Anyhoo... off to be the head of the GIA and read the in- and out-of-game, indiscreet and very private correspondence of an eye-watering range of unaware but very highly placed individuals: later!

I will literally kill you for doing this

[Numtini]

I agree with everyone who says there's no way this can work, but I'd put my money on Mittani. I've seen him pull too many rabbits out of his hat.

[amiable]

I agree with everyone who says there's no way this can work, but I'd put my money on Mittani. I've seen him pull too many rabbits out of his hat.

Betting against Mittani is a losing proposition.  Also all the folks who are strategizing what CCP will do in response to his posts as if they are remotely competent is cute.

[palmer_eldritch]

We need to define victory, so we can decide whether Endie will ever be allowed to post smugpost.txt or whether he must post SHAMEPOST.txt, which I will happily ghost-write for him if need be.

Obviously at some point in the future CCP is going to announce some sort of new features involving flying in space, because they do this on a regular basis anyway. Attempts to portray this unremarkable event as a victory for Mittani and his followers must be resisted.

Mittani is demanding that CCP stop spending money developing Dust and World of Darkness and ambulation technology in general, and instead concentrate resources on Eve Online, and specifically on the bit of Eve that involves spaceships.

If he fails to achieve this goal then his campaign must be judged a failure.

Note that I would not be surprised if CCP announces that it intends to continue investing in Eve while developing new products at the same time. But this would not be a victory for Mittens. Rather, it would be a repudiation of his entire thesis, which is that CCP's resources are not sufficient to do both these things at once.

Remember that CCP has never admitted that it has stopped investment in Eve anyway, so a statement insisting that such investment will continue would only be a restatement of the position that exists today.

I suggest we look back in a year's time and consider this question - did CCP end development of Dust, WoD and ambulation technology or not? If the answer is not, as I predict it will be, then SHAMEPOST should follow.

[Endie]

Yes because what I suggested was definitely that they would write off several million pounds of the company value that is on their books (since they have been putting work on the new products as R&D on their books and asset valuation.  That stuff is here to stay and I expect to see the other Captain's Quarters and more rolled out.

No, what I am saying is that at the very least CCP will recognise the central position of Eve in their corporate strategy and start a greatly enhanced program of expenditure on Flying In Space features.  Funding and substantial numbers of team members will be shifted into key Eve Online functionality. The content covered in the last two devblogs will start to be implemented, although God knows that it amounted to a complete revision of the game so it won't be finished in a year by any means.

In short, Eve will be shifted from being in maintenance to seeing substantial investment and a conveyor belt of new, core functionality of the sort that was the case until Dominion hit.  That's my bet.  But i have to keep stressing that it is just based on interpolation and a degree of surreptitious analysis.

[Endie]

Also Mittens has been very careful not to say that CCP should stop spending money on Dust and the rest.  He is a realist and asking a company to throw away years of work isn't going to happen.  I'm not sure iof that is an intentional straw man or just misreading, but it's not the case.

What he and the rest of the CSM have demanded is that Eve Flying in Space gets attention, money, and developer time lavished on it: something which the last few releases have signally failed to involve, and which is currently scheduled to continue to be the case.

[palmer_eldritch]

Oh dear, the goalposts are shifting. "CCP has a small number of feature teams, and before the WoD and DUST follies those teams would be allocated to Flying in Space" says Mittani. "Funding and substantial numbers of team members will be shifted into key Eve Online functionality", says Endie. But at the same time, "Mittens has been very careful not to say that CCP should stop spending money on Dust and the rest." Isn't the whole basis of the Mittani thesis that CCP doesn't have the resources to do everything at once - that it can't afford to keep up development of WoD and DUST while giving spaceships the resources they deserve at the same time? Otherwise, why would there be any need to "shift" resources?

Rather than trying to explain this muddle, which I suspect will prove futile, I suppose we must agree on a new definition of victory.

Of course CCP will tell anyone who asks that Eve is very important to them, that they have lots of exciting things planned, that they do of course have more than sufficient resources going in to the game to continue providing exciting new features, and that while ambulation is important they certainly aren't neglecting flying in space. We can surely agree that a statement like this will signify nothing.

I suppose, then, that we need to look at the numbers - to consider just how many staff get shifted to key Eve Online functionality, and how much funding gets shifted to it too. Endie, I do not wish to be unfair, so why don't you set down the marker and tell us how many people and how much cash would constitute a win? Think carefully, because there can be no smugpost.txt without victory.

[amiable]

Oh dear, the goalposts are shifting. "CCP has a small number of feature teams, and before the WoD and DUST follies those teams would be allocated to Flying in Space" says Mittani. "Funding and substantial numbers of team members will be shifted into key Eve Online functionality", says Endie. But at the same time, "Mittens has been very careful not to say that CCP should stop spending money on Dust and the rest." Isn't the whole basis of the Mittani thesis that CCP doesn't have the resources to do everything at once - that it can't afford to keep up development of WoD and DUST while giving spaceships the resources they deserve at the same time? Otherwise, why would there be any need to "shift" resources?

Rather than trying to explain this muddle, which I suspect will prove futile, I suppose we must agree on a new definition of victory.

Of course CCP will tell anyone who asks that Eve is very important to them, that they have lots of exciting things planned, that they do of course have more than sufficient resources going in to the game to continue providing exciting new features, and that while ambulation is important they certainly aren't neglecting flying in space. We can surely agree that a statement like this will signify nothing.

I suppose, then, that we need to look at the numbers - to consider just how many staff get shifted to key Eve Online functionality, and how much funding gets shifted to it too. Endie, I do not wish to be unfair, so why don't you set down the marker and tell us how many people and how much cash would constitute a win? Think carefully, because there can be no smugpost.txt without victory.

It' absurd to even suggest that metric, no one outside of the company is going to have access to that type of information.  I think endie was pretty clear that the metric is increased focus on FiS, including implementation of systems they have been promising within a regular time frame (which they haven't been doing).

You are reading a bit much into Endie's and Mittani's post.  No one is suggesting that Mittani is running CCP now.

[eldaec]

Is there even a winter "expansion" planned? We usually know what it is called by now don't we?

[palmer_eldritch]

I fear the forces of Mittenhood plan to declare victory no matter what happens. An expansion will inevitably be announced at some point, with spaceships playing a role, and no doubt this will be seen as an excuse to unleash smugness on the forums. I shall not attempt to stand in their way.

[tmp]

I fear the forces of Mittenhood plan to declare victory no matter what happens.

The only way to win is not to play.

[Numtini]

The only way to win is not to play.

And with Eve, you can advance your character anyway!

[Sir T]

Not anymore. You don't advance if you are not subbed. Your research agents don't gain research points either. Still I'm riding about in my Titan in X3 so I'm happy 

I don't doubt Mittens seriousness and he has the time to make this work, but he is enough of a laywer not to take on someone with bigger pockets than him, so if lawsuits get talked about he will back down. It will be a media campaign only.

[Amarr HM]

The only way to win is to join forces with CCP under the delusion that Eve is running exactly the way it wasn't planned.

[tgr]

More press :words:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/14/feature/5582/EVE-Online-The-Mittani-Speaks-Out.html

[ajax34i]

Here's a post by CCP PrismX in the (new) General Discussion forum where he says that

The reason for this being the best I can provide is that we are currently in the middle of a planning phase. Everything is up in the air and mutable at this point so promises aren't a current possibility. All I can really do is assure you that we're not ignoring the issue nor do we intend to bury it and hopefully the final plans will start to emerge soon and we can actually give you some insight into them.

So, whatever.  I guess we'll see who wins, if anyone.

BTW, Endie, you will have to link the various articles by Mittani here, because you said "watch and learn" not "search the internets for obscure Mittani posts and learn," and I'm lazy.

[Kageru]

There'll be a winter expansion. They need to lay the groundwork for tying Dust into the Eve sov system so that winning in Eve depends on coddling and funding console gamers.

[Ingmar]

There'll be a winter expansion. They need to lay the groundwork for tying Dust into the Eve sov system so that winning in Eve depends on coddling and funding console gamers.

The sort of console gamers that would enjoy a game that plays as well as the station walking, besides.

[Stabs]

Well we're hoping the big nullsec shakeout is coming this Winter aren't we? It will feel a bit anticlimactic if it doesn't.

What interests me is to see how far other vested interests will suffer to boost the attractiveness of nullsec.

- W-space losing ABC ore. Well, annoying but they import stuff from Jita anyway and are pretty well organised. Not really a reason for anyone to pull out of wormholes because it's become too hard. I'm sure this one will go through.

- high and low sec losing Ice. This will be interesting because of the way Ice is distributed. Ice fields are quite rare. You normally only get about 5-6 per region. This makes these eminently campable. I can see some unforeseen consequences here with ice denial being possibly becoming part of the nullsec territorial game. (Would that suit Goons? They have lots of subcaps and random people in their space so they would be quite hard to deny and good bombers so they would be quite good at inflicting this. So probably yes).

- high sec and low sec losing level 4s, low sec losing level 5s. This would be the most radical change. If this happens then I think mittani could say he has acquired enough sway over Eve's development that he can push through changes that cause hundreds of subscribers to quit.

In the long term I think the issue is less about some player bragging and more about systematic real world infiltration of CCP. The ex-head of the Euro Goons and the former head of the Goons now work at CCP in very responsible and powerful positions. Did they just fancy the job? Did they take the job out of a desire to see Goons win Eve? I think there's a real possibility that they are helping the Goons which is unprofessional. Goons may have inserted their own T20s.

Conspiracy theory on my blog here.

[palmer_eldritch]

Well we're hoping the big nullsec shakeout is coming this Winter aren't we? It will feel a bit anticlimactic if it doesn't.

What interests me is to see how far other vested interests will suffer to boost the attractiveness of nullsec.

- W-space losing ABC ore. Well, annoying but they import stuff from Jita anyway and are pretty well organised. Not really a reason for anyone to pull out of wormholes because it's become too hard. I'm sure this one will go through.

- high and low sec losing Ice. This will be interesting because of the way Ice is distributed. Ice fields are quite rare. You normally only get about 5-6 per region. This makes these eminently campable. I can see some unforeseen consequences here with ice denial being possibly becoming part of the nullsec territorial game. (Would that suit Goons? They have lots of subcaps and random people in their space so they would be quite hard to deny and good bombers so they would be quite good at inflicting this. So probably yes).

- high sec and low sec losing level 4s, low sec losing level 5s. This would be the most radical change. If this happens then I think mittani could say he has acquired enough sway over Eve's development that he can push through changes that cause hundreds of subscribers to quit.

In the long term I think the issue is less about some player bragging and more about systematic real world infiltration of CCP. The ex-head of the Euro Goons and the former head of the Goons now work at CCP in very responsible and powerful positions. Did they just fancy the job? Did they take the job out of a desire to see Goons win Eve? I think there's a real possibility that they are helping the Goons which is unprofessional. Goons may have inserted their own T20s.

Conspiracy theory on my blog here.

That's some powerful writing about the relationship between Goons, the Mittani and CCP. I don't buy it myself but judging from the comments on your site there are plenty of people who do. What might convince the average player that Goonswarm is secretly controlling CCP is if a new expansion is announced - and the Mittani and his allies claim it is actually a result of his demands. They could go further and boast that CCP have actually diverted resources away from two vital ongoing projects in order to ensure Goonswarm's leadership is kept happy. Mittens gives the impression he is trying to save Eve Online by forcing CCP to fund it properly, but I wonder if everything is as it appears.

[Kageru]

Boosting null-sec by punishing the rest of the game doesn't seem very bright to me. The main problem with null-sec is that it is broken due to bad game mechanics (Sov mainly), imbalance (mainly super-caps) and the emergence of massively dominant political force with no practical opposition (which is possibly super-cap related too). It also lacks a line of progression towards it thanks to low-sec and faction war having their own issues.

Nor do I believe Mittani is particularly anti-high sec. He's not even terribly PvP active or "hard-core" about it. He wants to see the game flourish and goons in Eve have fun. The first of which puts him on the same side as pretty much all the active player-base.

The goon conspiracies are funny, but sort of miss the point. It's not like the CSM has any power other than :words: and any change in game mechanics should have lots of oversight in the development and testing phase so there's little chance of "stealth" changes. Indeed the main fear is just there being no changes.

[Fordel]

Does Mittani even have an active game account? He's been puppet master for the goons for as long as I can remember now.

[Kageru]

I'm pretty sure he does. I seem to remember comments on him messing around with "my saber" and I've been in a fleet he was FC for. That's never really been his gaming focus though, which is good because he probably spends most of his time talking to people.

[Lantyssa]

He has an active account.

[Kitsune]

He's flown with me in some of the small gang incursion fights, definitely active.  Just not online-every-minute active.

[Kageru]

Some more heat from Seleene's blog. Quite well written and covering similar ground in a reasonable way.

[Endie]

In case anyone needs study notes, Palmer is trolling (oh God I hope he is trolling) and Stabs is actually wearing a tinfoil hat right now.  Literally.  It is made of three sheets of aluminium foil - as used when cooking poultry to keep in the juices - with tiny holes punched into it all over its surface to make a rudimentary Faraday cage.

I sit in jabber with Mittens and VR and talk to them both every day.  They can't go into specifics about CCP responses because of NDA stuff, but what we discuss most often right now is the CSM stuff, and the language is exactly that which Mittens uses in publis: "saving eve", "fixing the game", "stopping CCP killing Eve Online".  Mittens and Vile Rat - along with the rest of the CSM, most of whom are opposed to us in-game - stood on a very public platform and got elected.  They have a mandate.

If you want to see supercapitals maintained in their broken state then my suggestion is that you go back in time, somehow persuade more than the few hundred supercap-owning partisans to vote for you, get half a dozen like-minded self-before-all types elected with you, and go to town.

You might take this at face value, and those from both sides of the political divide who know my posting from Kugu and elsewhere will probably do so.  Alternatively, you may decide that Stabs is - against all the evidence - sane, and that we have been involved over the last four years in a methodical and long-term plan to insinuate agents into the company at every level with the intention of... I dunno, whatever he said was our reasoning.  Destroying eve, let's say, because Goons pay around a million dollars a year to CCP so that we can damage the game.  That'll be it.  It's been staring me in the fucking face.

I believe that the most apt emote available to me here is 

[tgr]

Conspiracy theory on my blog here.

Ahahahaha that was YOUR blog? I thought it was some random nutjob going full-on american redneck/the gubment is lying to us-style .

You're funny. Keep writing.

[palmer_eldritch]

Ok, but seriously, if people are going to bet on Mittani or bet against him, we should have an agreed definition of victory just for fun (but I don't know what it should be).

CCP are bound to announce some sort of expansion or planned new features for the core Eve game at some point, and if they're any good then some people will see it as evidence of the Mittani's campaign succeeding. But we won't know for sure if it was all going to happen anyway.