EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

Greed Is Good, But Company Memo Leaks Are Better: A few weeks ago, certain individuals acquired a copy of the May issue of CCP’s company newsletter, “Fearless” which featured a picture of Gordon Gekko and titled “Greed is Good?” The focus of the magazine was entirely devoted to the topic of microtransactions, with various CCPers opining on their utility or where the company could go with them in DUST 514, EVE or World of Darkness.

This lurking drama bomb was left unexploded until patch day, June 21st, when Eve News 24 displayed a surprising level of media savvy and leaked the offending newsletter in .pdf format right in the midst of the Monoclegate drama. Most controversially, one employee in the newsletter suggested selling ammunition, crossing the vanity-items-only line in the sand that the playerbase and the CSM have vehemently defended.  

Yet when looked at with a dispassionate eye, the leaked newsletter is mostly banal discussion of the existing microtransaction trend within the games industry. The problems of this leak have been exacerbated massively by the ‘edgy’ display of Gordon Gekko and splashing “greed” on the cover. This might make your company newsletter superior toilet reading for bored employees, but appearing to confirm the nightmare of most players in such a flamboyant style on the heels of charging $70 for a monocle is positively cringe worthy.  

Want more bitter irony? Check out this “April Fools” dev blog from 2008. Who’s fooling now?

Bright Spots: Amidst this ugliness, there are a few bits of good news. Incarna included more of Team Gridlock’s work in the war against fleet lag, and they’ve managed steady success against a seemingly impossible task. The first signs of iterative ship balance have been announced, with CCP Tallest tweaking the Dramiel and Logistics warp speed. The new turrets are wildly popular and look great, as does the new UI style displayed in the Captain’s Quarters. Perhaps most importantly, the revised newbie experience is actually entertaining, which should inject much-needed new blood into the game.

As for me, I suspect that the core of the Incarna patch will be deemed a success in time - so long as CCP stop kicking themselves in the balls when it comes to embarrassingly basic public relations. Incarna 1.0 is a “tip of the iceberg” patch; the vast amount of work that has gone into Incarna can only be seen in the one flavor of CQ (Minmatar) presently available, yet the effort of creating the engine - the ability to move an avatar around an environment - is ‘underwater’ from a player perspective. As more CQs are added and Establishments are rolled out, the value of this patch will hopefully become more obvious - but it’s hard to see that right now, amidst CCP’s flailing and stumbling.