Some people have told me I'm wrong wrong wrong. That I need to supply examples. Well, here's an excellent example. Actually, I'll give you an example of what they've been doing wrong, and then I'll give an example of one specific thing a particular representative did right.
I'd like to see CSM8 move more towards advocating for the players, and leave CCP to explaining their actions to the players. Let CCP fall on their own sword. The CSM shouldn't be offering to fall on swords in CCP's stead. It's not the CSM's job to explain away the things CCP does. It comes across as defeatist, and what we don't want from the CSM are people who won't advocate for players because ::effort::.
(Before I go on. Quick disclaimer. I could give two shits about live events. I think they're mostly a waste of CCP resources, and that the storytelling is overly linear. But, this blog post isn't about live events specifically, but about a general attitude I've seen from CSM7 most of the year, something I hope ends when CSM8 begins its term.)
So today on Twitter, some of those people who like live events were commenting on the recent Uprising devblog. Uprising is an initiative to give players more story-driven live events. Here is a sequence of tweets on the issue. (I'm not going to call out the CSM representative specifically. That's not the point of this post. This has been an issue endemic with all CSM7 throughout their term.)
Player 1: How many kicks to the implants will it take before you acknowledge USTZs?And there we have it. A CSM representative explaining why it's a dead issue and why it's not worth time fighting about. Instead of speaking up as a player representative, perhaps strongly and publicly supporting USTZ live events, he chooses instead to take the side of CCP, and offer a reason why it's not a reasonable request. He basically kills the debate and lets CCP off the hook.
CCP Dev: I'd love to. We simply don't have the manpower to do it currently.
Player 1: Please remove special items until you can figure it out. We don't need it rubbed in our faces that we can't attend the events.
CCP Dev: You're assuming we're only going to give out items once and never again. We're not.
Player 1: You already know that live events piss off the USTZ's. How about a little good PR and stating that in the posts for live events?
Player 2: CCP should open an office in Atlanta or something... Would be nice for USTZ events. San Fran would be good too.
(Note: Player 2 is being funny. CCP has an office in Atlanta, and they just opened another in San Francisco.)
CSM Rep: As tempting as it is to throw those staff right onto Live Events though, training is CRUCIAL.
The CCP dev gave his reasons why they won't do USTZ specific events. There was no need for the CSM representative to follow-up with an additional excuse, to soften the blow of CCP's refusal to solve the issue. That's exactly what the CSM representative was doing, trying to soften the blow. Appeal to reason. Kill the argument. Let CCP off the hook.
Except, I don't see it as the CSM's job to be softening blows. They're there to advocate for the players. To stand up for the players. To support the players. They weren't given their positions to be a soft landing for unpopular CCP decisions.
This is exactly the sort of CCP-focused behaviour that I don't want to see from CSM8.
How should the CSM rep have handled the situation? He should have simply tweeted that USTZ live events are crucial. He should have focused on player advocacy. He should have supported Player 1 and Player 2's position. The CCP dev might have been upset with the CSM rep for publicly decrying CCP's reasons for not engaging more with USTZ players, for trying to force an issue, but we didn't elect CSM reps to make buddy-buddy with the devs. We didn't elect them to act as a public relations tool between the corporation and the customer base. We elected them to stand-up strongly for player issues.
This particular CSM representative should been more like Two Step. And with that I refer specifically to the POS revamp issue. CCP explained that they were pulling back from a POS revamp. Rather than apologize or make further excuses for CCP, Two Step advocated for the players. He pushed hard against CCP's decision and forced the issue. Did that make him unpopular with CCP during that time? Very likely, with some of their employees. But people didn't vote Two Step so that he could broaden his circle of pals, they voted him in to stand strong and firm on important gameplay issues. And that's exactly what he did. We need more Two Steps on CSM8. And I'm hopeful we'll get that.
Sounds like USTZ players whining, personally. Until they have to deal with downtime right in their primetime, they can HTFU.
ReplyDeleteThis. I'm sick of hearing whiny bitching out of the USTZ. They act like spoilt brats because they're used to being the primary focus, like in every other game ever. Suck it up, don't act like entitled wankers and maybe you'd get a more positive response when you raise issues.
DeleteSecondly I don't see Hans' response as defeatist or apologist at all. It's a perfectly valid comment, though without the context of "This has been discussed before, and we are pushing it- but..." I guess it could be misconstrued if you were looking for something to whine about... which obviously you are. Linking what you perceive as a failure on the part of CSM to this particular quote is pretty tenuous, mate.
Great post Poetic! That's why I'm voting for Ripard Teg for CSM. I think he will be a strong advocate for the players. Why? Because he's written about: http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2012/11/activism.html
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work Poetic. You too have a strong voice.
The CSM representative Poe refers to is me, though this is hardly "a dead issue". :)
ReplyDeleteYou made an excellent point, and that's that sometimes statements we make can come across as defeatist. But coming across as defeatist and actually saying "Don't bother guys, this is a waste of time, its not going to happen." are completely separate things.
If I thought Live Events in North America were never going to happen, I'd just tell everyone as much. It's much easier than dicking over the players by pretending they can have something that they can't.
The reality is that when we started this year, there was NOBODY on the Live Events team. CCP Goliath single-handedly WAS the Live Events team, and there wasn't much to talk about in the May summit. It was him, volunteering, and his ideas. That's it.
CSM7's encouragement of CCP to not only expand their live events program, but to pay good money to hire people to handle it, is on record. It's silly to pretend otherwise. And since than they've hired 3 new community members and began running regular events in myriad forms, and are looking at options as how to expand these into North American timezones as well as they continue to grow.
So by all means, accuse me of sounding defeatist. It's a fair criticism, I can see how some might interpret those comments. But the bottom line is that no player, myself included, is going to effectively encourage CCP to continue doing these events by calling them a bunch of fuck-ups. The community team members, the ones receiving the most flak right now over this, want to expand their program as badly as we do. And they have about as much power to dictate CCP's budget as the CSM does.
You can certainly argue that the CSM should be castigating CCP Falcon or CCP Eterne over twitter for the fact that CCP isn't hiring more people like them. But you and I will just have to disagree, just as we disagree as to whether or not these should be happening at all.
Well if we're looking at this realistically, that is exactly the role of the CSM, as CCP likely envisioned it would be when designing the framework for player representation. Should it be any surprise that a body designed as a buffer between players and developers, to let the former RP a bit, but mostly just to act as a pacifying meatshield, more or less acts as a mouthpiece for CCP?
ReplyDeleteWhether CSM reps realize it beforehand or not, they are ultimately brought into the fold in such a way that they will inevitably end up feeling more or less grateful for the privilege, and be far more likely than the average player to see things the way CCP does. They are given the opportunity to gain a level of expertise on internal issues that most players are not, and there is something intoxicating about flexing that expertise, even when it runs entirely counter to your own interests as a member of the EVE player community, and particularly when you are otherwise powerless to do anything else. Better to flex that expertise and bask in the reflected glow of insider status than to openly acknowledge and internalize the fact that you are not really much more than a PR helper for CCP.
This is something that carries over from real-world politics, unsurprisingly. You have countless partisans in any given society who will use politicians' own internal defenses of bad behavior in order to run defense on behalf of those politicians, instead of properly arguing from their own positions as ordinary citizens. Suddenly you have any old Joe on the street talking about "political capital" and "the politics of the possible," things which the politicians (or their PR flacks) should have to put out there themselves, but which they no longer need to because they have countless lay "experts" out there to do it for them. And in the meantime, nobody's advocating for the regular citizen any longer. We have internalized political bullshit so completely that we spew it ourselves and neglect our own interests.
I think the same is ultimately true for bodies like the CSM. If you place strict limits on what an exclusive body of so-called representatives can do, but you supply them in turn with a little juicy knowledge of how things work internally, they're going to a) never do anything of value (because they can't) and b) carry your water so they can demonstrate that they've got some special, insider perspective on things.
Also don't forget that this very issue is in the winter CSM minutes, it was already discussed. Would you not expect a CSM member to bring in context that came out of that and possibly other discussions that have already occurred? Rather than just restart discussion on something that hasn't been given any time to change?
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt CCP gets upset at any CSM that engages in critical argument on any point no matter how "unpopular" it may be. But I certainly expect CCP or any reasonable person to grow weary of people who just keep playing the same note over and over again and are not interested in moving the conversation forward and adapting to reality.
I would like to add I think the point of your post is correct, the CSM shouldn't be in the business to making excuses for CCP and afraid to say things out of fear of not being liked. But I think your example might not be a case of that.
ReplyDeleteThe CSM rep could have supported the UZTZ argument that the two players were making. He chose a different direction.
DeleteThe idea that CCP wouldn't like us for delivering constructive criticism is kind of ridiculous, actually. These are paid professionals, and designers at that. Design is a process that is FUELED by criticism, which is embraced by any competent designer who cares about his work turning out the best. CCP criticizes each other internally, and accepts criticism from players. When criticism isn't listened to, the result is shitty game design, player outrage, and potentially a loss in revenue.
DeleteCriticism is vastly different, however, than treating them like they've failed at their jobs because they're working on something and its not here RIGHT NOW. The latter is much more satisfying, and what many people enjoying seeing from their representatives. Its also a completely unnecessary component of both real advocacy AND activism, and fails to produce the results that players ultimately would rather see in the long run.
So if you had tweeted: "I agree. USTZ live events is of paramount importance to a lot of players" that would have been a slap in the face to the devs?
DeleteYou could have followed up with another tweet: "I will push the people in charge harder to get a move on this." Again, I suppose that would have been an even harder slap to CCP's face.
You didn't choose to do any of that tho. You chose to apologize for CCP.
Players want *everything*. For every possible feature there is you will find players who think the CSM should use its influence to lobby for that feature.
DeleteCCP has limited resources - they can only implement a very small subset of all features that might be a good idea and worthy of CSM support.
So the CSM can just dump an endless list of feature requests on CCP and hope for CCP to make sensible prioritization choices.
Or the CSM can lend its support to a very narrow set of feature requests that are really, really important (say, the POS revamp) and push for these features at every opportunity.
The first approach used to be the norm. The CSM gave official support to just about every feature request that was not unreasonable and created a huge backlog that got ignored by CCP.
CSM 6 showed that the second approach can be extremely successful.
But this approach requires the CSM to kill off discussions of feature requests other than its term focus early so as not to confuse CCP with mixed messages.
The two players were Marcel Devereux, and Funkybacon. Funky was sarcastically asking for something that CCP already has (studios in the USA), and doing it to a CCP staff member that literally has no control over how much money his bosses will sink into his project. A staff member who's already been an outspoken supporter of expanding into the USTZ. Nobody here is trying to slow down or stop that process.
ReplyDeleteAs for Marcel, once I explained why this process is taking some time to get set up, simply agreed that is was best that these events not just be done, but done well. You're welcome to claim that I'm somehow disagreeing with my friends, but everyone can see that its a crock of shit. :) All three of us have chatted plenty about this issue and vented mutual frustration that we can't participate. The only thing I'm unsupportive of is aiming that frustration against the devs who are our allies in resolving the situation.
And yet, Funky expressed disappointment in you when he tweeted: "You're quite full of excuses lately."
Deletehttps://twitter.com/FunkyBacon/status/310156218041774080
"... a CCP staff member that literally has no control over how much money his bosses will sink into his project."
DeleteNo. But he does have the power to relay the player mood, as well as the CSM mood on the subject.
So if you had tweeted: "I agree. USTZ live events is of paramount importance to a lot of players" that would have been a slap in the face to the devs?"
DeleteOf course not. :-P But its also completely unnecessary, and I see no value in continually repeating something to CCP that they are well aware of and highly capable of articulating back to the players that they understand this and are working on it (and publicly done so). The broken record approach might be effective and/or necessary when CCP refuses to listen, but its counterproductive (what many would call "spergy") to do so on an issue they're currently engaged with.
Quote from the December minutes (end of page 76):
ReplyDeleteA big part of what Team Illuminati is doing is trying to get ‘buy in’ from within the company, which has been going well, in order to get resources to expand their capabilities so they can scale up the size of events. Part of that is getting people in the Atlanta office to help run events in the US time zone. Falcon indicated that he doesn’t sleep much and has run some events very late at night. The other devs chimed in that this has happened quite a few times with them as well and that CCP has been very accommodating by letting the team members adjust their working hours to facilitate the process.
That was December. And this is March. So, obviously CCP did not approve any USTZ devs to participate in live events. Otherwise, it would have happened by now.
DeleteAgain, Hans was simply apologizing for CCP. When he should be asserting pressure and advocating for the playerbase.
Ok well all I have to say is exactly what I have been saying for the last 6 months
ReplyDeleteThe CSM is the voice of the players, they are elected by the players. If they find they can work constructively with CCP that is great but it is not their primary responsibility.
The CSMs primary responsibility is to be the voice of the players, you are there to represent us. You state what the player base elected you for, any additional things that have come up and your personal feelings as to the reactions of the player base. As to what and why CCP are doing things, well we have Dev blogs and the Devs for that.
You are the voice of the players, not the voice of CCP.
Blog starts to become boring, bring moar PVP, moar FW, moar Lowsec and less CSM please
ReplyDelete