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Possibly the best goodbye letter ever.
DarkPony
Member Posts: 5,566
Sums up a lot of people's feelings perfectly I think:
A letter on the bedside table for CCP
Dear CCP,
I know that writing this letter may seem heartless and cold, but I really need to tell you some important things that would be lost in emotion if I told you face to face. We've been together for 8 years now, living as geek and internet spaceship supplier. I hope that still means something to you (it does to me) and so hope that you'll listen to me when I say, now, that we have problems.
At first you bowled me over. You gave me an entire world where I could do what I wanted and damn the rules. You gave me power, both martial and industrial, and said to me "do it your way". For my part I injected life and human interaction into that world. We both worked hard for this; at times I felt like I was working a second job and I know that you were faced with technical challenges that had never even been thought of. But we built it together, nourished it and sheltered it while it grew. In time, we marveled at what we had created together. We had taken a blank canvas and filled it with complex, daring and, above all, dynamic designs.
You weren’t done, though. You gave me more wonderful tools in the new combat system, T2 and POSes. After I had gotten to grips with these tools you then gave me a crowning goal; sovereignty, the ability to place my own precarious and unique mark on our world. You had given me gifts, in the form of outposts and capitals, to go out and build for myself the sort of world you had created. You loved me for my tenacity and my willingness to exercise the gifts you shared with me.
You weren’t happy leaving it there, however. To make your point you showed me Dust and Incarna, hinting at the possibilities of interacting with a vastly expanded world with different ways of interacting. I marveled at your brilliance and looked forward to these momentous changes.
Maybe it was because you spoiled me so much in those early years that what was to follow came as a shock. You seemed unhappy with the way I was using the gifts you gave me. I frowned as you started replacing my tools, with which I had recently gotten to grips, with frighteningly complicated simulacra (Sov, PI for POS fuels, PLEXes etc.). I was left wondering where all the spaceships went. It felt like you were telling me that you were no longer happy with what we had made, but then you smiled and told me it was simply part of your larger plan. All of this happened through the four years of waiting for the new worlds you promised.
You finally opened up the Captain’s Quarters to me. I was excited and dove straight in, and emerged confused. This wasn’t what you’d promised me. This wasn’t a tool I could use to do anything with. This was a cheap bauble, a plaything to distract me for a few brief moments. Or so I thought until I found the Noble Exchange.
In all those five years you never hinted that I’d have to start paying for your affection, but recently I discovered your diary and your plans of what you had in store for me. It made me feel cheap, dirty. Our relationship had always been about mutual benefits but at least it had the semblance of commitment. No longer.
You have decided to go chase other kinds of players, the sort with an attention span of a gnat and intellect to match. These guys might wow you with their bulging wallets but - I think you’ll find - they don’t love you for who you are. They won’t help you build worlds. They won’t inspire you, or be inspired by you. They’re not me.
Maybe this is all my fault. I listened to you and trusted you. I told you that I’d like our world to be like this, though I secretly held my reservations.
Now, as our world begins to fill up with cretins and Farmville fans, I am left to ponder the emptiness I feel. I know you’ll say “I’ll change!”, but that’s the problem; you did - and it wasn’t good.
I’ll always have feelings for you and your quirky spaceships but that’s not what you’re about anymore. I simply don’t like what you’ve become and nothing you’ve told me has made me feel better.
Goodbye,
Me
P.S. I've cancelled the credit card that I gave you to use
Dragothmar
Southern Cross Monopoly
Flying Dangerous
Comments
Yeah, I read this last night and the author did a really good job summing up the overall community feelings over this.
Bren
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beat();
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There's nothing quite like a good old-fashioned rage-quit. Even if it is calm and smells of roses and perfume. Good job to the player for making his feelings known and handling the "breakup" well. Very poetic. Harsh at times (Farmville?). Touching, really.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
i'm new to eve but still... that was beautiful!. i didn't know how eve was before i came to the game, before the expansion, but i aggree. Before the patch i had alot of fun playing but the changes push me a bit back.
But still awesome and beautiful altogether.
a awesome post
/military-salute
BestSigEver :P
Never thought I'd say this about my once upon a time favorite MMO , but EVE-Online will become the niche of morons.
Incarna / Captain quarters ... some frontiers are best left untouched.
Totally agree with that letter, being a 6 year EVE player myself , I find myself abit loss at what CCP is actually trying to accomplish , I always thought CCP have put players before their wallets , but I guess as time passes on , people change their mindsets ... it's a pity CCP took the same road as every other MMO have taken , EVE-Online isn't unique anymore , it's just part of the same batch of MMO and will soon be considered as : "Remember that space ship MMO a few years back...?"
Oh well , still got DNF to finish and then the wait for the Wii U.
This author tells me all that I really need to know about him.
He says, "Our relationship had always been about mutual benefits," right after saying, "In all those five years you never hinted that I'd have to start paying for your affection." What kind of benefit does he imagine he provided CCP I wonder?
"You have decided to go chase other kinds of players, the sort with an attention span of a gnat and intellect to match."
"Now, as our world begins to fill up with cretins and Farmville fans..."
My wife is a Farmville fan who, I can say difinitively, would not play EVE. And if I'm not mistaken this guy just called my wife a cretin. And I'm now supposed to respect his opinion?
The arrogance of players who assume somehow that that it was they who built the world, they who own the world, they who the world should cater to, they who should decide which people are worthy to join their world and which people are not, is astounding to me. This guy obviously believes that it was he, not CCP, who made this game great. As if he invested his money into it. As if he wrote a single line of code. As if he was the one who implemented designs and design changes that would keep this game viable.
With every new thing that CCP adds who's livelihood and future is at risk? Who stays up at night sweating over a new feature or new expansion hoping it comes off without a hitch? Who has worked day and night to try to meet deadlines and live up to expectations of 300k+ players? This guy? I think not. In fact, based on his statements I'm under the impression that he hasn't even dropped a dime on a monthly sub in a very long time. But somehow he believes, "We built it together, nourished it and sheltered it while it grew. In time, we marveled at what we had created together." Really? Unbelievable.
Has the EVE community made EVE great? Absolutely. But if this guy honestly believes that he has anything close to an equal stake in EVE he's crazy. EVE will die like all games die. When it does a lot of people at CCP will be out of a job while this guy will just move on, his life not interrupted at all, his entertainment coming from some other source. CCP will do all they can to make a profit for as long as they can. But this guy doesn't care about them or their families or their livelihood. He only cares about his game staying the way he likes it for as long as CCP can keep the servers running.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
stopped playing back in november 2010 personal reasons
now that i am more able to play again i was thinking of resubbing until i saw the horror this has become
this is what i was afraid of when they announced "walking in stations" a while back. then changed it to "incarna" and released more details, i was then terrified! all my fears have come to pass. this is not what i signed up for this is not what i used to like.
You totally missed the analogy with a real life "goodbye-I'm-ending-our-relationship letter".
pro-tip: Every time you read "I" or "me", replace it with "player base".
p.s. I agree with the farmville remark but falling over just that would be nitpickish.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Hmm, I really should read up on what's happening. Anyone able to give me a short summary?
Just reading his letter doesn't really give me enough background.
Which is pretty much the same thing with any number of these doomsday drama whiners complaining about how CCP has suddenly changed or lost their trust, or whatever nonsense they choose as their soap opera phrase of the day. The funny part is that they think they speak for everyone, which is absurd considering how little the population has changed since the patch got deployed. Which is to say, it isn't from what I've seen. The way these people talk about it, you'd think that come next tuesday, there won't be anyone older than a year anywhere on the server.
Laughable at best.
pro-tip: Every time you read "I" or "me", replace it with "player base".
p.s. I agree with the farmville remark but falling over just that would be nitpickish.
Problem being that the letter doesnt speak for even half of the player base. Kinda funny you see all these I quit rage posts and stuff yet the number of people logging into Eve each night hasnt drop much if any at all since the expansion launch.. Funny huh..
I quit I quit yet they are still ingame and playing just like all the rest of us Eve players.
Like the dozens of expansions before that have been released. People always have to find something to complain about then in afew weeks they forget all about it and keep playing.
You may be right on that, but at best he speaks for only a segment (albeit a significant one) of the population. I'm not sure that a broad interpretation of this letter in any way diminishes any of my points as I'm sure there are a lot of people who ought to take a step back and realize that this is their entertainment but it's CCP's life. I've been very disappointed with game changes that had me leaving games in the past, but a realistic perspective would have a person saying, "This is no longer the game for me," or, "Boy, those devs sure made a lot of mistakes." A realistic perspective is not, "I helped them build this game and this is how they repay me?"
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
You've summed it up nicely. I love how all these I quiet posts seem to be so effective, yet somehow the daily population of Eve hasnt change much if any at all since the patch launched..
That's totally what I used to say since 2004. Supported CCP through thick and thin. Not on this one though. I intensely dislike the direction they are going now. But I guess people have different standards of what is acceptable to them and what not.
Hoping they make a 180 with some of their decisions.
My brand new bloggity blog.
You're not real big on the whole sandbox thing are you. Not to worry! Farmville is still there to tell people what to do in a game world that is made for everyone.
How has their direction changed in the last year? how is what they are doing directly affecting the old players?
I don't get it, why the nerd rage?
I only see the news pop by from time to time, not playing EVE myself, but they added crew quarters and are planning to add other Incarna related features. It hardly seems like a mini-NGE to me, the rest of the gameplay seems to be left unharmed, so why this sudden uproar?
Because of some rumor that was about how some minor items that you can pay for with real cash would be added ingame? That's all? Or what's the big deal that has people in so much uproar?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I liked the letter except for generalizing fans at the opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of insisting that these people are lesser beings of low intelligence simply because they have a short attention span, he could have just stated that they were steering EVE away from the core audience that had built it up and made EVE the success it was.
To each his/her own is a good thing to live life by if you find it too easy to insult others based on what you perceive as intelligence.
Other than that.. overall nice write up for the people who have stuck with EVE so long. I am not one of them, but I understand where he is comming from with this.
- ya I'm here
Their revealed dedication to make EVE a complete cash-shop fest (and for not just vanity items) with apparently ridiculous pricing (in a sub-based, sandbox game). Read up on the internal newsletter leak thread if you haven't.
Personally I was never opposed to either Incarna or Dust. So yeah, for me this was kind of a shocker.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Laughable at best.
That's totally what I used to say since 2004. Supported CCP through thick and thin. Not on this one though. I intensely dislike the direction they are going now. But I guess people have different standards of what is acceptable to them and what not.
Hoping they make a 180 with some of their decisions.
How has their direction changed in the last year? how is what they are doing directly affecting the old players?
Their revealed dedication to make EVE a complete cash-shop fest (and for not just vanity items) with apparently ridiculous pricing (in a sub-based, sandbox game). Read up on the internal newsletter leak thread if you haven't.
Personally I was never opposed to either Incarna or Dust. So yeah, for me this was kind of a shocker.
Because the internal newsletter that was used for brainstorming is entirely set in stone and is the word of god and can NEVER change.
Heavens forbid a company where hundreds of people WORK want to make money to pay there employees and finance future projects.
It's because of an internal document that was leaked, which CCP admitted was real.
Basically the document gave strong tones of CCP viewing customers as little more than money to be harvested, and their plans to add more invasive micro transactions to the measure of actual ships, equipment and potentially even faction standing... which would kind of undermind the whole 'player sandbox' point to the game.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/22/rumour-leaked-document-shows-ccps-microtransaction-plans/
This was a very interesting read. This concept of a mutual relation, growing together, company and client, it's nice. Too bad CCP ruined it, at least for some people.
In a selfish way, i don't feel guilty anymore for not playing the all-sandboxy-glory of MMOs, Eve.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
For a lot of people, the fact that CCP is even entertaining the idea is enough reason to worry. The game's roots are based in being a sandbox where players set the factions and game economy, and some of the 'planned' MT runs in direct conflict with this. If CCP is even considering adding invasive MT, enough to formally document it, then it brings CCP's future goals into question.
It's great until the eighth paragraph, where he starts sounding like an elitist twat. Shame.
You missed the orange part and went all dramatic. I have nothing against companies making a profit.
But yeah, I hope the following quotes are not set in stone, (but they sure don't read like bits of a brainstorm session, they are more like statements; the decision makers informing the rest of the CCP employees):
WoD: "...there are three main areas that virtual goods sales will focus on in the game: cosmetics, items of convenience and items of power."
"One other service we're looking at is selling faction standings. We want to offer convenience"
"Not all virtual purchases will focus on customization, some will simply be new items, ammunition, ships, etc. that can be purchased outright."
"Thus we will not and cannot focus on virtual sales only within the Incarna evironment, nor build that evironment around such sales, rather we will effect a universal strategy of micro-sales throughout the EVe experience."
My brand new bloggity blog.