So, some good(ish) news to report, following up to this.

Prior to even posting this, we poked CCP PR. We wanted them to know we were going to post something that was going to end up being pretty grim, and why we were posting it. Following this courtesy call, emails were sent out and we were contacted by several of the higher-ups, asking what was up to hear it for themselves. We were told this stuff was being added to the agenda of meetings with the higher-ups this week, and that they'd get back to us in a meeting shortly after.

This was pretty much expected, but we're not so much posting this to turn heads at CCP or to make it seem like we're trying to bully them into a response, so much as to acknowledge to the public "This is how things are right now". Our hope is that in the following week(s), we can hopefully have something much more positive to report. We want to keep the players in the loop as much as possible with what we're doing and how it's going.

Now, on to the positive stuff!

After posting this, I had a nice, lengthy talk with CCP Cmdr Wang. We talked about this statement, why we were making it, what our goals were with it, and the conversation progressed into something massively productive, beyond anything I could have hoped. He explained clearly and concisely CCP's internal design process and terminology and planning structures. We talked about the devblog process and how they determine what information is getting out and what precisely the 'hoops' are in order for a blog to land in the communities' lap. We talked about dev & blue posts, and any rules regarding those that apply to information getting out.

We also discussed the hotfix process & how the weekly reports from the community team play into those, and how those fixes are prioritized. We expanded our conversation into marketing, and while I can't get too much into what we talked about here, it was good info and super helpful.

In summary :

CCP Cmdr Wang gave us a MASSIVE amount of insight into many of CCP's processes that we have grievances with, and explained the proper terms to use to best ensure we 'click' with the devs and can communicate with them as efficiently as possible using language and methods that would best allow us to make the impact we're attempting to do. Now, in the meeting later this week with the higher-ups, we'll be completely armed to take best advantage of this opportunity and do the most good.