Hey Guys, the time is here! CCP Games is actually asking for feedback on the current state of Null Sec and its “High Goals” in the eve of the upcoming Council of Stellar Management Summit.

Here is the thread OP, as posted by CCP Foozie on the EVE-O forums.

Hello everyone! With the CSM Summer(ish) summit fast approaching we wanted to post a thread to set the stage for some of our nullsec discussions, since we expect that 0.0 space will feature prominently in this summit’s CCP-CSM discussions.

Why should I care about the CSM and the Summit?
The feedback provided by the CSM is a key part of our development process for EVE. We involve them at many stages of the design and development pipeline, and thanks to their NDA we rely heavily on them to provide us player feedback for concepts that are not ready to present to the wider community yet.
Nullsec and sovereignty design has been an area that the institution of the CSM has been heavily engaged with for years, and they have provided very valuable feedback in the past.

I believe that the Winter 2012 CSM summit is an instructive example for looking at how CSM discussion has helped us focus our nullsec changes over time. This particular summit is one that sticks in my mind as the first one that I was able to participate in as a relatively new CCP game designer (after years of closely following the CSM process from the player perspective). The minutes for this summit can be found here and the nullsec section of the minutes is split into two meetings.

I’ll be the first to admit that we didn’t come into that meeting with as much preparation as we should have. The fact that Soundwave, Greyscale, Unifex, Ytterbium and myself entered that meeting without a clear and focused agenda definitely contributed to some of the frustration from CSM members about the scattered nature of the first meeting that clearly comes across in the minutes. This is a mistake that we have been endeavoring to avoid since, and is part of the reason that we are putting so much preparation into the upcoming summit discussions.

That being said, the meeting did eventually generate some very valuable discussion and after that first meeting we decided that the CSM and nullsec deserved a second meeting, on the final day. These two meetings were extremely valuable in setting the agenda for how we approached nullsec design in the two years since. The biggest takeaway from the meetings was that we needed to prioritize the economic side of nullsec gameplay, which at the time represented a lot of the most serious problems with the feature.

Over the next few years we were able to make some great strides in improving resource collection, income sources and industrial activity in nullsec, through the changes made in Odyssey, Rubicon and Crius. Thanks to the agenda set in that Winter summit, nullsec mining and ratting are more popular than they have ever been, alliance income relies more heavily on players being in space, and local industry has begun its renaissance. Obviously there are still many improvements to nullsec economics to be made in the future, but we are standing on a stronger foundation than ever before and we have been turning our main focus to other aspects of gameplay in this space.

What is CCP working on?
Those of you who watched the Fanfest presentations or the recent Alliance Tournament will remember that we have formed a targeted “Nullsec Working Group” back in April of this year to lead the way towards our next major round of changes to zero security space. This group consists of CCP Bettik, CCP Delegate Zero, CCP Greyscale, CCP Masterplan, CCP Rise, CCP Scarpia, CCP Ytterbium and myself.
We have been working on re-evaluating the high level goals for nullsec and sovereignty, surveying and learning from the EVE community’s extensive discussions on the issues, and designing and prototyping potential changes to improve nullsec gameplay.

The working group recently held an extended offsite design and discussion session on September 5th, in which we discussed many of the player-written proposals about Nullsec, clarified our collective position on several issues and made a lot of progress in preparation for the CSM Summit.

For this upcoming CSM summit we are planning to discuss in detail a set of significant, specific and targeted changes that we hope to release in late 2014, as well as the concepts and prototypes that we are developing for more far-reaching changes in 2015. The CSM has already proven an invaluable resource for bringing us feedback and analysis on the current state of nullsec as well as the community’s desires for the future. We are confident that the multiple nullsec sessions that we have scheduled for this summit will be extremely valuable.

Our current plan is to bring the late 2014 designs to the wider community for feedback very soon after the summit, independently of the minutes.

How can I get my feedback to CCP?
The short answer is: keep talking and we’ll keep listening. We are continuing to read everything we can of the community nullsec discussions, whether it takes the form of forum posts in this section, blogs, or ideas passed through the CSM. We highly recommend all players that care about nullsec talk to the CSM representatives (any and all of them) and help them provide the best possible feedback to us. We have asked the CSM to pass along player blogs, posts and other content to us to help ensure that we don’t miss them.

When we’re ready to move beyond the CSM-exclusive feedback stage on designs, rest assured that we will communicate them widely and loudly to the community, since we will be looking for all the constructive feedback we can get.

Thanks for reading, and a special thanks to everyone who has voted and contributed to the CSM process. We are in full preparation mode for the CSM summit here in Reykjavik and we are confident that this will be one of the most productive summits yet.

Why this is important

First I must way that this has really caught me by surprise, in several ways. I get a message on how CCP Games is at least willing to listen ideas and feedback on one of the most fundamental and influential parts of the game. On the other hand I can’t decide if this driven in part by their short release strategy or if there are ulterior motives behind this open call. What is clear to me is who appears to be in charge of this, CCP Foozie, who happens to be one of my favorite developers just for the fact that he gets “shit done” and he’s not afraid of making substancial changes to long standing mechanics.

So if you are a bitter vet or a new comer, now is your time to make your voice listened, head to the thread below and above all, keep it civil.

[ EVE-O Dev Post ]