The Entire Playerbase is High (Vastly Revised)

Some of you, around 160 of you, will have read the original post under this topic. I really shouldn't write posts or tweet in a state of irritation. The conversations that happened afterwards, here in the comments and on Twitter with CCP Sisyphus, gave me further perspective on my disappointment and irritation.

So I'm rewriting the post. I am keeping the original title, for some posterity of my asshattery, even if it means nothing with respect to this rewrite.

First of all, I'm not blaming CCP Explorer or CCP Fozzie for any feature that is not implemented. The developers at CCP do not get to decide what they work on. Certainly, they have input in their scrums and such, but what items are given developer resources are ultimately up to the product owner.

I'm not blaming the product owner, either. It's certainly possible that this feature just never came to their attention. Perhaps I have only myself to blame for that, thus the rewrite of this post.

I guess first of all, what is this feature that I'm talking about? It's from a Team Super Friends devblog back in October 2012, in the Iterative Work section (I've highlighted the relevant feature):

There are a few additional things we’re looking into as a possible post-Retribution iteration work. Some of that stuff is too early to discuss right now, but here are a few tidbits of what could happen:

• Structure bounties – this is the ability to put a bounty directly on a structure like POS or POCO. While this is indirectly achieved by the ability to place a bounty on the owning corporation, being able to place it on a structure instead allows for a more directed strategic incentive.
• Private/public bounties – the ability to narrow the selection of who can claim your bounty. This would allow people to have more control over who can reap the benefits of the bounty and gives the receiver confidence that he will be rewarded for his efforts.
• More selective kill right selling – this is similar to the one above, only for kill rights instead of bounties. This basically allows the owner of the kill right to select more carefully who can purchase the kill right.

So, you're going to see the word assume used often throughout the remainder of this post. And yes, you can assume that that makes an ass out of me. Hell, you don't even have to assume it, consider it a fact.

Now my first assumption, back in October, was that the feature was so marvelous, that it would remain on CCP's radar through October, into November and on through December. That when it came time to figure out what they were going to do for Retribution 1.1, that it would obviously be on the list of development considerations. The other assumption, that it was such an obvious evolution of the bounty system, that it would be a development no-brainer.

Since the feature suggestion was just words in a devblog, it was incorrect to assume that CCP saw the same importance in the feature that I did. For all I know, the feature suggestion was written and then forgotten. I assumed that my understanding of the feature for the bounty system would be CCP's understanding of the feature for the bounty system.

I wrote about the feature several times in the last couple months. Here on the blog. And on the forums. That is no guarantee that any awareness of the feature is raised in CCP headquarters. I've never been one to assume that my blog is read by CCP people. I know that I'm occasionally read (I can see where the pageviews come from), but I don't imagine that I'm regular reading for anyone in Iceland.

So really, that was my first mistake. If I thought the feature was of vital importance to the evolution of the bounty system, then I should have followed up with CCP people. Made sure that awareness of the feature was kept high. When I wrote about it in October, I should have made sure CCP Explorer knew about it. I should have brought it up again in November, and yet again post-Retribution 1.0. Where other people expressed approval and excitement for the feature, I should have pointed out those comments. It's certainly not enough that just I feel it's important, it's vital to point out that a broader base of users feel it is important too.

Since the feature did not get developed for Retribution 1.1, I should probably blame myself, for not ensuring that CCP was kept constantly aware of the feature, and that there was a desire among players to see it given development resources. CCP is kind enough and open enough to give us the tools to communicate with them (Twitter for one), and I certainly failed in using those tools for one of the intended purposes.

So what prompted the silly post, that I'm now rewriting (and which I may include in the comments later, but undecided at the moment), is a Twitter conversation earlier. I was wondering why I hadn't heard anything yet about private bounties for Retribution 1.1, so tossed a tweet to CCP Explorer. I'll include the full conversation here, even though it makes me look like a complete ass. (Bear in mind, that in the intervening months, I'd forgotten that it was a potential feature, and had come to think of it as a planned feature):

@erlendur It was mentioned that specifying corp-only bounty collection was an upcoming feature. Is this still planned for a point release?
@erlendur For instance, I set a bounty on Alliance X, and specify that it can only be collected by folks in my alliance.
@erlendur When I say "corp-only bounty collection", I mean corp/alliance, but shorten due to tweet limitations.

@PoeticStanziel Not that I know of, perhaps @CCP_Tuxford knows.

@erlendur @CCP_Tuxford K. Because this was mentioned in the original Bounty dev blog, as something planned for a point release.
@erlendur @CCP_Tuxford See the section on Iterative Work in this devblog: http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp...

@PoeticStanziel @CCP_Tuxford Not planned; "possible ... iteration work" / "what could happen".

... and here's where I decide to become belligerent and entitled ...

@erlendur @CCP_Tuxford I understand you gave yourself the out to ignore what's written, but you did write it. It became an expectation.
@erlendur @CCP_Tuxford How difficult could it be to make bounties payable to certain corps/alliances? Sounds like an agile short story.
@erlendur @CCP_Tuxford Lesson: never write what could be planned if high probability you'll ignore what you all wrote.
@erlendur @CCP_Tuxford Christ, that was the only part of bounties I found useful and exciting ... and now it's likely not going to happen?

... and then CCP Fozzie steps in ...

@PoeticStanziel @erlendur @CCP_Tuxford This is why we can't have nice things. :( You have to be able to see why this attitude is poisonous.
@PoeticStanziel @erlendur @CCP_Tuxford I'm actually not sure if you're trolling or just high.

I won't continue further. Suffice to say, I do manage to make a bigger ass of myself. (One note, when I used the word you in those tweets, I was referring to CCP the organization, not CCP Explorer personally. Though, it's possible he felt that I was not only being an entitled jerk, but attacking him personally.)

Now when Explorer wrote "Not that I am aware of", I should have walked away from the computer. Not let annoyance and irritation get the better of me. It wasn't Explorer that irritated me. If a feature does or does not get on the development plate, it's not his fault. I knew that the feature was not going to appear in Retribution 1.1. CCP Explorer, in my experience, knows pretty much everything that is happening development-wise. So if Explorer was not aware of it being in development, then a 95% chance that it wasn't in development.

This was a feature I'd assumed would appear in Retribution's first point release. It was a feature I was really looking forward too. I planned to use it within Fweddit to motivate us, reward us, against certain Minmatar enemies. That this was not going happen and, well, I was pretty darned annoyed. And it is here that I should have walked away from the computer until such time that I was replying from a rational state, not a state of irritation.

After Explorer's "Not that I know of" reply, I should have gone back, looked for the old devblog first. Refreshed myself on what had been originally written. Upon seeing the word potential, I should have then asked "How might I get this feature some attention, perhaps for Retribution 1.2?" And then explained why I thought it was such an important feature for the bounty system.

Unfortunately, and to my discredit, I did not do that. I did none of the right things, and all of the wrong things.

My hindsight is 20/20. Unfortunately, my in-the-moment sight is nearly blind. I obviously need a better mechanism to recognize when I'm in an emotional state that needs to refrain from communication of any sort.

Fozzie, of course, was right calling out my attitude as poisonous. Me, having the gumption to tell CCP that they shouldn't spitball ideas with the playerbase, because it could lead to expectations and anger and such. That was wrong. And as he pointed out toxic. We should be encouraging CCP to spitball ideas with the players more often. And the players (me, in particular) should understand that if a particularly appealing idea from CCP comes up, then the player should follow-up on that idea with CCP people. To be respectful about discussing the idea, and to understand that no matter how awesome one might think that idea to be, it may not ever see development time. And the player has to be cool with that. Disappointment is okay, acting out like a child as a result of that disappointment and irritation, not so cool. Hell, if a respectful dialogue occurs with a CCP person, the player will probably come to understand why said feature was not given development time, whether that's due to lack of resources, CCP forgetting about the feature, or some aspect of the idea being fundamentally flawed.

Unfortunately, for me, what could have been a useful conversation with CCP Explorer (and perhaps CCP Fozzie and CCP Tuxford) devolved into not much more than a personal tantrum.

So, my humble apologies to CCP Explorer and CCP Fozzie. My disrespect to the both of you was completely and entirely unwarranted. You're both two of my favourite CCP employees. Hell, I gave CCP Fozzie my CCP Employee of the Year Award in December. CCP Explorer was in consideration as well. You're two devs I very much enjoy chatting and joking around with on Twitter. Hopefully, you'll both accept my apology, and we can continue to tweet back and forth in the future, on EVE and non-EVE topics. If you're reticent about that for the next while, that's okay too, and understandable. Hopefully I didn't burn the entire bridge down, that I can repair it.