[Eve] Microtransactions

Gneez

Well the CSM meeting has gone as expected so far, CSM are shaping up to be CCP's apologists in the matter, from a thread on eve-o

The Peace Talks - Day One
The first day of the great Incarna Peace Talks is over. I will not attempt to go into incredibly great detail in this posting; I just want to give a broad overview and offer some impressions. To be honest, I'm exhausted and only have a few minutes before dinner.

I want to start by saying that everyone at CCP, and in particular CCP Zulu, was very open and frank about their opinions, and provided any information CSM requested. This was very useful.

In the morning, we discussed issues regarding the rollout of Incarna and the Captain's Quarters. Just about everything people have been *****ing about and then some was discussed in detail -- melting video cards, multiboxing, lighting, the death of ship spinning, just to name a few.

CCP started this meeting by saying something incredibly smart. It gave me hope that the entire summit would be a success, but you will have to wait to find out what it was. Suffer, *****es.

Then, after lunch, we spent over 3 hours discussing the Noble Exchange rollout and virtual goods pricing. This was a very passionate session, to say the least.

CSM got a complete rundown on the overall CCP vanity goods strategy, and it became obvious how a series of mistakes and communications breakdowns -- both internal at CCP, to CSM, and in their messaging to you (and lack thereof) -- resulted in the NEX rollout debacle.

There should be a devblog coming out in the very near future that explains CCP's strategy, puts things into context, and hopefully starts healing this self-inflicted wound. Anyone can shoot themselves in the foot, or the ass, but in this case CCP managed to do both with one shot, which takes real skill.

The day ended with some work-in-progress demos of the other CQs and an establishment. Some nice work, and the Gallente CQ is the best CQ IMHO.

Tomorrow, we will tackle the big question: Does CCP have plans to release game-affecting virtual goods (aka "gold ammo")?

Suggestion of the day: adding a "Just Say NO to Virtual Goods" t-shirt to the Noble Exchange, priced higher than a monocle. Is CCP fearless enough to do it?

End of quote.

UPDATE
Apparently ship spinning / the old hangar is never coming back. Trebor_CSM tweeted about that, I was about to copy that tweet but apparently he removed it (!!) I am not making this up.

The first reply in the thread sums it up nicely.

TL;DR

CCP: It was all just a breakdown of communication: here's a dev blog for the plebs
Trebor: Suffer, *****es.

Summary: Yawn.

I honestly don't see a point to the CSM. Way I understood it, it was about feeding info to CCP re: game changes so they could get **** done for us in expansions. Which always seemed to be carping on about obvious **** they never had any interest in addressing because - as we later found out - polished content etc etc etc.

Since then, what's the point? Are the CSM just cheaper than hiring a PR firm? Guess they are.

Venom

Does the Eve online playerbase even consider the CSM to be anything apart from CCP apologists?

Any MMO Iv ever played that had a player council was always nothing more than a bunch of developer arselickers.