Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, CCPPetur “Xhagen” Oskarsson, CCP

Council of Stellar Management: EVE Online bridges worlds for a society

CCP• Company

– Founded in 1997 – Privately held

• Culture– Technology excellence – Innovative game design– Customer respect– Vision and teamwork

• Prosperity– Grown from relative

obscurity to moderate success

Virtual Worlds

• Virtual realities– Trying to mimic the real?– Not so!

• Alternate worlds/Alternate experience– Communicate with other humans under different sets of

rules and regulations– But the same principles apply

• Role playing, Social worlds, Sandboxes, Coffee shops….

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EVE Online

• Play on One Server - 265.000 Players– EVE Online is a leader in online gaming

technology, hosting hundreds of thousands of players in the same persistent universe.

• Liberating advancement – Never "grind“ for a skill again. The EVE

universe is persistent and skills increase even while offline.

• PvP based on strategy, not levels– Tactics have value in EVE Online.

Experience and treachery will often beat top-of-the-line modifications and fancy ships.

• Free EVE Online expansions– Never be charged for an EVE expansion,

as the EVE universe grows, so do the benefits of the subscription.

It is not only a computer game….

• … as we generally understand computer games

• It is a place where people – come together….– enjoy the same experience…– have fun together…..– share goals…– share conflicts of goals…

• The game provides a foundation to a community

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The importance of being one…

• The number of possible social interactions increase exponentially with population size

• The larger the server population the “richer” the social world

• A social world with 250,000 people is therefore by orders of magnitudes more interesting than with 5,000 people

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TimelineSocial institutions

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2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

CSM II

CSM I

Corporations

Alliances

30,000 50,000 100,000 250,000+

EVE Radio

EVE TV

E-On

Markets (NPC)

Markets (Player)

Economics

2009

Governance of large communities

• Complex social structures and communication

• Needed representatives from the community– But not selected by CCP

• Electing official in a democratic manner in order to communicate with CCP on what issues must be addressed and how to evolve EVE– Roots in the history of democracy in Iceland

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Design and preparations

• White paper created

• Deliberation regarding the concept– EVE Fanfest– EVE Forums– Several academic scholars– Within CCP

• Essentially using the structure created to further the concept – without the elections

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Council of Stellar Management (CSM)

• A council of nine representatives

• Candidates step up and run under their real world names

• Elected directly by players in a democratic election

CSM - Structure

• The council deliberates and votes on issues – Issues presented to CCP only after deliberation

• Players can force the council to handle a topic

• Each term is for 6 months, with 2 terms as the limit

• The council is flown to Iceland to meet with CCP representatives– The council must prepare the issues beforehand– CCP must formally explain their stance

CSM – First elections

• 64 accepted applicants campaigned

• Voting was open from May 5th through May 19th , 2008

• Candidates campaign out-of-game– Forums– Own websites, including text, pictures and videos

• Political campaign– Some represent themselves as part of a political group– Alliance politics are minimal, more play style politics

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CSM – Second elections

• 42 accepted applicants campaigned

• Voting was open from November 7th through November 21st, 2008

• Candidates campaign in game and out-of-game

• Political campaign– Increase in powerblock voting where candidates have

the declared support of Alliances– Continued lack of ingame politics, play style is dominant

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Second elections, cont.

• Three members of the first CSM ran again and all were elected for their second term

• Voter turnout went from 11.08% to 8.61%– Voter’s apathy– Changes in subscribers’ makeup

• Work has begun with the CSM to address this

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CSM – campaigners

Omber Zombie Darius JOHNSON

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CSM – campaigners

• A campaign video• http://evajobse.net/TakeCare/movieclassic.php

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CSM - Impact

• A modest prediction of mainly game balance topics– Logical to assume that the most discussed topics being

high on the list

• No attempt from CCP at sensoring or directing the topics raised by the CSM

• A completely independent player input

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CSM – Implemented features

• Requests from CSM– Switch ammo in all guns at once– Medium sized cargo hauling ships– Increase repercussions for ‘unlawful’ PvP

• Implementation by CCP– Weapon grouping; allows for multiple guns to be

interacted with at once– Specialized logistics ship for miners; medium sized cargo

amongst its capabilities– ELO style standing penalty; sensitive to players’

standing and location of criminal action

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CSM – Still in discussion

• Requests from CSM– Make Corporation warfare more meaningful, less ‘pay-

for-gank’– Change the nature of players ownership of Solar

systems and Space stations– Create a foundation for an effective Bounty hunting

carrier

• These aspects of the game involve the core of EVE’s PvP system

• Several approches have been discarded already in conjunction with the CSM

• Ongoing discussion between CSM and CCP with the aim of meeting these requests and improve game play

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CSM – Features rejected

• Requests from CSM– Rentable Corporation owned services; allow non

Corporation members access to repair structures, research structures, etc.

– The ability to destroy Space stations– Market functions based on criteria set by players; i.e.

standings between players, ability to buy from certain players, etc.

• While everything is possible these features were rejected solely due to technical difficulties.

• All access functions are tied to Corporations; player assets (to name one) in stations; greatly reduced efficiency of a very busy market. 20

CSM – Quick overview

• 101 topics brought up for CCP

• 40 topics are in the development pipeline with different priority ratings

• 41 topics have been injected and/or assigned a higher priority in the backlog

• 20 topics are a) waiting for further CSM input b) have been denied or c) already implemented

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Communication

• Special relationship

• MMO players are:– Our customers– Our fans– Our best critics– Our worst nightmare

• …. and we love them all!

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Communication

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Communication

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Communication

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Communication

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From the Dev/Publisher perspective

• Interacting at a different level

• Direct and unmodified feedback

• In – depth discussion

• Based on trust

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From the players perspective

“We had a great dialogue with the developers and they were exceedingly open to our ideas and suggestions and pretty straightforward in explaining technical limitations where not. It was clear that some changes we suggested were already on CCP’s agenda, but it was also nice to see the occasional ‘Eureka’, - ‘why didn’t we think of that?’ moment amongst the developers. This clearly demonstrated the value of the process both to us as players but also to CCP,” said Andrew Cruse, Chairman of the [first] CSM.

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http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/06/26/eve-player-council-pleased-with-first-ccp-summit/

Trust

• Must enable trust

• Takes time

• In person meetings a must

• NDA´s and other confidentially agreements

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Practice – lessons learned

• Manage player expectations

• Manage CSM expectations

• Be constantly mindful of voter apathy and general disinterest inregards to political functions

• Allow the ‘simple’ and ‘narrow’ topics to be brought up and solved – The ‘larger’ and ‘broader’ topics will follow

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CSM in the future

• Integrated part of EVE

• A powerful tool for both players and CCP

• A venue for players to inspire CCP and for CCP to inspire players

CSM - results

• True representation of the playerbase

• Uncensored communications between players and CCP

• Two way communications between players and CCP

• Better EVE for everyone

www.eve-online.com