Improving […] EVE is at the heart of our plans for 2015. We will not just release a single set of changes, but continuously work with these systems all throughout the year and take the time needed to make things work well to provide good times and good fights.
— CCP Seagull, Executive Producer
Over the term of the current CSM many, many changes have occurred. The biggest change in my opinion is the change from a biannual release cycle to smaller expansions every 6 weeks. These releases are each named after the Greek Titans: Kronos, Rhea, Themis, Phoebe, Hyperion, Crius, Proteus, Oceanus. Each release has focused on one aspect of Eve: Online and generally included many quality of life improvements to each players experience.
With Crius, industry was over hauled. The industry UI and features have not been changed much since they were introduced and thus was in need of some TLC. Compounded by the fact that without industrialists and miners, everyone wouldn’t have any ships to fly in. Industrial teams were added in Crius and despite the potential to become widely used they never caught on. This prompted CCP to remove them from the game in the later Phoebe release. Why am I focusing on this? It shows that CCP is listening to their community and is taking into account the reception that new features have; something I consider important.
0.0 space was also recently reworked in the much-anticipated Phoebe release.
The introduction of Jump Fatigue removed the ability for large alliances to move around the map continuously every day, week after week. Set to be reworked soon is the sovereignty system with the Proteus expansion. This is phase two of CCP’s 3 part plan to rework the overall 0.0 space quality of life.
Once again, showing that CCP is listening to their players, they published a survey allowing players to voice their opinions on a number of topics, however whether or not they will take any of these opinions into their design meetings remains to be seen.
The pattern to be seen in all this is that CCP is doing what they can to improve the quality of life for all players and seems to be “getting their house in order” prior to a larger expansion.
I believe that these larger expansions will be in the form of player made stargates or something similar as was teased at Fanfest 2014. This is supported by the fact that CCP has been introducing more star systems over the past few months and the trend seems to be continuing.
Now you may ask what role does the CSM play in all of this? Not much of a role if you ask DJ Funkybacon.
But with CCP’s recent paradigm shift to smaller releases and their ability to force the game in a particular direction diminished. They need the CSM and the players to provide feedback for what will ultimately be improvements to their playing experience, now more than ever. I for one feel that these improvements, while perhaps not attracting scores of new players with new spaceships or more explosions, make the game more enjoyable for current players and new players alike.
Do you feel that CCP is doing a good job listening to their players and improving the game? What would you like to see the CSM do in the future?
Let us know in the comments.
