Based on some recent podcasts, mainly with Alekseyev, Hans and Seleene, we know that there are some issues and features they feel are critical to the success or failure of their tenure. Some are issues that CSM7 states are important, others are important by player standards (no matter what level of input CSM7 may or may not have had.)
Faction Warfare
This is Hans' territory. This is going to make or break him and will be the determining factor on whether he gets re-elected next year (assuming that he does run.)Some argument could be made that he's somewhat to blame for the current state of faction warfare, since through CSM6, he gave CCP a tonne of feedback on how he envisioned faction warfare as a system. Granted, not all of his suggestions were implemented, but a big deal was made of the fact that he did give CCP a lot of feedback, which then helped guide their development of faction warfare in the Inferno expansion. Of course, CCP rarely gets anything right on their first try, so some slack has to be given.
Retribution will be the last major pass at faction warfare (there'll be some iterations leading into 2013, for sure), but this is the last chance we get to make it right. If faction warfare is a failure come Retribution, it won't be getting any developer love for quite some time. Hans has been instrumental in supplying feedback to CCP, and many of the changes to be expected are issues that Hans has brought up himself as all-important to the welfare and longevity of faction warfare. Hans has certainly played a big part in the faction warfare changes coming in Retribution.
If everything else CCP does until the CSM8 elections are bang on and stellar, but faction warfare is their one failure, then Hans goes down with that ship. Faction warfare was the entirety of his platform.
Transparency
This was a platform issue for most of the currently active CSM7 representatives. Being more communicative, and more often, with the playerbase. Being more candid about the issues they were working on (without breaking NDAs). Making themselves available and accessible to everyone.Regarding the CSM Summit Report, I'd say they certainly delivered in this regard. The report was insightful and frustrating in equal measure. But I enjoyed it, all told. I appreciated the effort by those representatives that helped write it. I enjoyed getting a peek into the CCP/CSM process.
On the other hand, CSM7 fails miserably on the transparency issue. Of the thirteen members, only three are in regular communication with the playerbase, another two are occasionally in communication, and the rest are completely AWOL. That is simply not acceptable.
Three people, who are trying very hard, do not get to carry the other ten, and then call the transparency experiment a success. I certainly give kudos to those three for doing their very best, but if they cannot convince anyone else to join the crusade, then they fail overall at communicating the importance of their initiative.
POS Revamp
I would not be mentioning the POS revamp here, if Aleks hadn't blurted it out as a defining CSM7 issue during the Ripard podcast. But then, Aleks rarely thinks before blurting shit out. So, I suppose it's worth talking about if he feels it is that important.This is still pie-in-the-sky ideaville. CCP has not begun any significant work on this, and most of what CCP has been saying has been their usual over-the-top bullshit. The case of CCP telling us what they would love something to be, but when finally delivered we instead get some pale reflection of those original flights-of-fancy Fanfest proclamations.
This won't get delivered until some time into the CSM8 mandate, at the earliest. It doesn't seem particularly prudent for CSM7 to be hanging any hats on a feature no one is going to see until well after their term is over. For all intents and purposes, the feature is vapourware until we see some definite progress from CCP.
Ship Balancing
The CSM has had limited input on this. About the only thing they can claim any credit on is convincing CCP to focus on logistic frigates rather than sniping frigates. (If CCP really wants sniping frigates in the future, they can design new class of T2 frigates for that purpose.)The balancing process is as follows: CCP Fozzie balances a bunch of ships. He shows the CSM these re-balanced ships. They have about week to comment before the ships go public in a devblog.
About the only person who is truly capable of commenting smartly on Fozzie's work would be Elise Randolph. But that Fozzie only leaves the new numbers in the hands of the CSM for a week, preferring to get them to the players as quickly as possible, suggests that he sees more value in the threadnaughts of discussion that happen on the forums than the limited feedback that the CSM can give.
I would consider the input the CSM gives into ship balancing to be quite minimal. So, is success in ship balancing a success for CSM7? I would discount any claims the CSM might make in this regard. I would certainly give some credit to Elise Randolph, but he would be the only CSM7 representative that would have had any valuable input into the process.
Crimewatch
I think there's a bit of a "let's make highsec safer" initiative over at CCP that the CSM is definitely not privy too. CCP Greyscale is in charge of this initiative.I hold out little hope that Crimewatch is going to do anything other than make highsec even safer than it already is. I have little hope that the CSM can influence CCP Greyscale in any way whatsoever. I would imagine that CCP Greyscale communicates with the CSM as little as possible.
I would not blame the mess that Crimewatch is likely to be on CSM7.
CSM as Stakeholder
The CCP team responsible for the bounty overhaul is the team that is participating in the stakeholder pilot project. CSM7 has had an unprecedented amount of access to the CCP development process via the bounty revamp team. From being able to view video of the initial sprint meetings to time being given so that they could comment and supply feedback on the development issues raised in those meetings. No other CSM has had this level of access to the CCP design and development process.Currently, what we know of the new bounty system revamp, it looks reasonably solid. But then, faction warfare looked pretty solid last April too. We currently only have a limited picture of the bounty system, and are awaiting a much fuller picture via a devblog.
The CSM, as a whole, sinks or swims with the bounty system revamp. If the new bounty mechanic is a failure, then either the CSM gave poor feedback or failed to communicate the problems they saw in the system. It doesn't necessarily mean the stakeholder initiative is a failure, and that CCP should not continue pursuing it with future CSMs, but it certainly means that CSM7 didn't leverage the responsibility effectively.
Especially given that Aleks, Hans and Seleene, in interviews, have expressed stakeholding as the single most important issue during their administration. The access they achieve will affect every future CSM going forward. They're the pioneers. Do they end up being the Donner party? Or do they make it California?
Already Hans is distancing himself from any direct blame, if the bounty system proves to be a disappointment to the players:
Our job will be to leverage the success of the pilot project to justify involving us deeper in EVERY project, for the sake of future CSM's (sic). And if it fails, our job will be to leverage it to prove to CCP why they should have involved the CSM more to begin with.Basically no blame is to be laid at the feet of the CSM. If bounties succeed, then CCP did right in paying heed to CSM7 feedback. If the bounty system fails, CCP didn't pay enough attention to CSM7. This is where I roll my eyes. Hans' skill straddling fences is beyond reproach.
If the bounty system fails, then CSM7 simply failed at communicating their feedback to CCP. Or they simply failed at understanding the ramifications of the system, thus not giving any useful feedback. On the other hand, if the bounty system is a success (which I am moderately certain it will be), then CSM7 will deserve praise for successfully navigating this very first foray into stakeholding with CCP.
The bounty system overhaul, the stakeholder pilot project, in my mind, is the sink or swim issue for CSM7.
Crimewatch, as it currently stands, is an utter mess. Not sure why CCP putting in an effort to clean it up so readily causes some to don their tinfoil hats over it. If you're referring the fact that Greyscale seeks to get rid of those aspects of Crimewatch that "pirate" types typically manipulate to trick carebears into aggression, those are things that needed to be gotten rid of anyway. I put those aspects of Crimewatch on the same level as the old crappy contract UI. It's one thing for a player to manipulate a mechanic in a truly ingenius way. I respect that, as we all should. But it's entirely another for such players to be helped along by the fact that the mechanics in question are poorly designed, unintuitive, and confusing as shit, especially for new players. The game shouldn't be designed to do half the thinking for "pirate" types. They should have to think on their own. Let them work within well-designed mechanical boundaries, not take advantage of broken mechanics that make skulduggery easy and effortless.
ReplyDeleteCrimewatch, as it currently stands, is a confusing mess. I simply feel the new Crimewatch will make highsec even safer. Over the last year, we've seen CCP move strongly in this direction. Mining barge revamp, for one. The safer highsec becomes, the more people will gravitate to it, emptying out other areas of space. Players move to the least amount of resistance for the most profit. CCP keeps talking about making highsec less profitable, compared to other areas of space, but so far it's a whole lotta talk, and zero action.
DeleteTo say that we have limited impact on ship balancing is just plain wrong. I count over 140 posts in the various ship balance threads in the CSM forum. It isn't just Elise that is replying, either. I have been giving them a lot of feedback, as well as folks like Hans, Alek and even your favorite guy, Kelduum have been contributing regularly.
ReplyDeleteWe also had a *lot* of input into Crimewatch, which has been under discussion for quite a while. You claim that the goal is to make highsec safer is laughable, since that isn't a goal at all with the new system. The #1 goal is, as CCP Masterplan says, making the new system easy to understand. If you took some time to read the Crimewatch dev blog, you would see that very few changes are being made to the safety of highsec. The only major difference is the change to can flipping which is relatively minor.
Alek is 100% right about the bounty system. Remember, CCP doesn't *have* to listen to the CSM, and if we tell them something is good/bad and they ignore us, how is it fair to blame *us* for that?
First, I wrote this before the Crimewatch devblog was released. Two, some of the changes to highsec do make highsec SAFER. You might spin the changes as minor, but they are not.
DeleteCCP doesn't have to listen to the CSM. But if they do not, that doesn't necessarily make the CSM blameless (as much as you would love that.) Perhaps the CSM fails at communication. Or perhaps the CSM's feedback is simply bad.
If the CSM is involved in the process, then they bear some (not all) responsibility for the result of the process.
I see you have been studying RL politics a bit much. You completely ignored what I had to say, except for the very last paragraph.
DeletePerhaps you can point out which changes you think make highsec safer. My reading of the feedback suggests that many highsec people apparently have terrible internet connections and will lose a lot more ships to the new NPC flag.
If you want to make completely wild, unfounded accusations, you need to be willing to be honest when you are called on them. You are dead wrong about ship balancing, you are dead wrong about crimewatch, and you are missing the point on the stakeholder stuff. CSM7's *primary* objective with the stakeholder stuff is not to put out an awesome bounty hunting feature, it is to prove to CCP that there is value in CSM being involved in the process. That is far more important than if the bounty hunting feature is a success or not (though we all certainly hope it will be)
"If the CSM is involved in the process, then they bear some (not all) responsibility for the result of the process."
DeleteAnd your value is weighed by whether or not the system is accepted by the players. If the players deem it a success, then it is a success. If it is not a success, then the players will attempt to determine why that is so, which may include evaluating why the player-proxy relationship failed.
CCP might not hold you accountable for any failures to the bounty system, but the playerbase certainly will to some degree. To deny that is to have stuck your head in the sand. The playerbase sees the CSM as the last line of defense to bad ideas being implemented. You may not see your role that way, but the playerbase certainly does.