Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 60th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.
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Jakob Anedalle of Jakob’s Eve Checklist blog asks:
With Phoebe about to land, CSM Minutes now out, and more of CCP Seagull’s vision from Eve Vegas it appears CCP has a bold roadmap, is making big changes, and is willing to take a hit in the short term to see it through. What do you see as the measurable signs that will tell us that they’ve succeeded? What outcome will we see as players? Is it concurrent player count or something else?
Get writing!
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Now I just finished the last post and realized I wanted to write about this but I am going to do it OOC. So if you are looking for the filthy RP’er stuff, move along move along.
I am in the semi enviable seat of having a better idea of what is coming than most. One of the priveleges of sitting on the CSM. You are probably expecting me to do a cheerleader job, here. Go team and all that.
Nope
Measuring things is a funny business. In teacher training I actually too a full course in just how to make tests and evaluate the results. Oh, numbers are easy to count but are they measuring what you think they are. Are they a true reflection of what is going on? There are probably some folks at CCP who say ‘yes’ to that question as the bottom line IS the bottom line and folks have to get paid. But I asked more than once, at the last summit ‘what are the goals’ and the answer was seldom ‘more subs’.
It is measurable and that is what the blog asks but I prefer some other metrics to consider. Activity, maps, where things are happening and how much. Use your maps in dotlan and see if changes have an effect. CCP released the data of cynos lit and Steve Ronuken made a fantastic gif out of it (btw to really piss off some people I alternate between three different pronunciations of gif, the third making the g silent). Click the link and if you think of it, thanks Steve and CCP Manifest.
http://i.imgur.com/w0yQct1.gifv
Pick what is important to YOU and decide if things are getting better because this is Eve and nobody should be able to tell you that some external measurement can decide if you are happy. Looking for fights? Count how many you had last month and do the name next month. Maybe attach a value from hotdropped to fair fight to we blobbed them and decide which is worth the most.
What CCP wants may or may not be what you want. Maybe you are just killing time till [insert upcoming space title here] stops taking peoples money and actually ships a game. Maybe your lifestyle is ruined because of changes made or upcoming. In which case Eve failed . . . failed you.
But if 5 years from now there is still and Eve, if we are still playing and arguing that Eve is dying. I’d say that is your empirical evidence that the seachange called Seagull and the bold shifts and roadmap worked.
Hope I am here to see it.
fly it like you won it
m
Eveoganda – On New Wings
Jakob’s Eve Checklist – What’s Op Success for CCP?
Mabrick’s Mumblings – Measuring Success – Only One Thing Matters
A Missioneer in Eve 
My measure of success is my subscription, and according to it, EVE has been failing for some two years. Also I don’t see it succeeding next year, from what I can tell about the plans.
I will keep reading about EVE, though. Some claim that’s the best thing to do in EVE…
I lol’d. I personally am not a fan of food from country XYZ. Clearly the cuisine of XYZ is a cultural failure, despite the number of people who do greatly enjoy it. If only everybody would make things in the way that I personally favour, then obviously the whole world would be much better.
After seeing some disappointing and awfully naive views on business performance as the one metric to rule them all, I’m glad to have also seen some much better considered opinions. (I mean, seriously? Do people really think the pop single that sells the most copies represents the current pinacle of musical achievement? The fast food chain with the highest revenue the most delicious dining experience? Come on. That one MMO that brings in way more money then all the rest, it’s obviously the bestest game ever. It’s inconveivable why anyone would bother playing anything else.)
Thanks for getting my point, I reread my post this morning and decided that doing posts while tired and after writing another huge one causes a bad case of the rambles.
m
The extension of this tired misconception often leads to the “if this change [goes through / is not implemented], the total number subs will decrease by some amount, devs will be fired and their children won’t be able to afford college, won’t someone think of the children” trump card argument. Like every change to the design of a video game should surely and directly translate to a monotonic increase of revenue or share prices.
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