Interesting reply Dolan, shame you missed the point on quite a few of the concerns raised. (it whiffed of 'reaction' and not absorption')

Alot of people are not happy with the CPM and the CSM (im amazed you deny this), given this is your actual job right, i can see why your keen to 'save' it but just go look at the forums, comments made on the video i released, hell go ask randoms what they think and you will find significant apathy and mostly disregard and suspicion to the entire CSM and CPM concept.

But lets just brush all that under the carpet and continue to allow major groups to suck up to CCP lets watch players who wish to be CPM white knight for the concept (many posting right here) and bring a big old stack of agendas to the CPM so the game development benefits the few and this problem grows as people become more disgruntled with this farce.

So the fact remains, that unless a platform is provided to engage with the masses to give them a simple quick means to provide their opinions, then they will just remain hidden.

AFAIK, it's not the responsibility of the CPM to come and hold your hand and 'reach out' to you. Not everyone has access to the forums? Why not? What's stopping someone from getting on a laptop/PC/smartphone/PS3 browser to come on and express their views? What's to stop them from doing it in a reasonable manner to lend more strengths to their arguments?

Nothing.

No one is responsible for such apathy but the players themselves.

my skype is ....

There, all respect just gone ....

Since Closed Beta, I've received an opportunity to fill out three surveys via e-mail about the state of Dust 514 and CCP as a whole. It's entirely anonymous and I can express my opinions and views, in depth, without fear of recursive disregard of disapproval by my peers here on the forums. This is an excellent step in the right direction but I feel that they should send these surveys out a bit more frequently.

I wholeheartedly agree, i've also had these surveys and filled them out, however... we have to take into consideration two other factors on this.

(1) We are playing a PS3 game, and as i've previously stated.. i was alarmed to find out just how many people didn't own PC's, so checking their mail would be difficult.

(2) Even for those who do have PC's, nowadays a lot of spam gets through, and yes we can use filters for those of us who know enough to set them up, but there are many who don't know a lot about computing and may just delete that mail amongst other spam if they've not checked their mailbox for a while.

So although yes it's great we get them, and yes if we were contacted more frequently it would be greater still... though i reiterate.. how much more frequent would it be, and how many more players would it engage if it was done through a tab on the update screen in game. That's a solution there... Might not be the ideal way, it could be adapted for sure... But there's a way to get the required engagement. Also to ensure that those who are totally unaware of the CPM and all these issues become aware.

Perhaps even add in an interface option to post a message/petition to a CPM mailbox 'ingame'.

What i've been saying this whole time is that the CPM can't represent a whole community if many have not been contacted and don't even know who they are. If they can't represent the whole community then they don't represent the community. Which is why i maintain it's easier to do this kind of thing in-house.. meaning within CCP.

I'm hoping i don't have to post again, i've tried to clarify what i've said plenty, if people just take the time to read the explanations.

You know, CCP raRaRa (best dev ever btw) on Monday made it so that PS3 browsers had access to the Dust 514 forums. The only thing left to do there is increase awareness of it, the option is available to everyone now. I think we should advocate this ^_^

Sorry you obviously didn't read the whole lot, some people don't own the media to be able to get on the forums, many others as you say.. due to apathy don't want to. Though as i also said, that doesn't mean they don't have valuable opinions which should be heard.

Companies should provide the means to get feedback if they want it.. it's not on the client to do it. Do you keep getting in touch with your ISP letting them know your happy with your service but if they just changed this one thing you'd be happier? Do you contact your tv provider and let them know if they just gave you this one channel you want and removed 4 others then you'd be much happier? Do you bother getting in touch with anyone? :) .... Think about it..

So sorry, you and i have to agree to disagree.... and it's precisely that premise which is the whole point. People have different opinions and they need to be sought out. So many players will be ignorant that this is even going on.. so many don't know who the CPM are, so many don't even know we have a CPM or what it is.

i.e. it's always on the company to approach the client, not vice versa... and if they don't own a PC, do you think they are going to find their nearest netcafe just to express an opinion... come on.. wake up.

Either way though, your entitled to your opinion.

I wasn't aware of that, the last time we tried to do it, we ended up faffing around and it wouldn't work. That's good to know.. and again, these kind of things people don't suddenly become aware of, if there was a link in game to the forums (again if there is one.. i've not seen it) ... then that would aid feedback.

Though, forums are not the nicest way of getting feedback, just look at this thread for an example... how much jibber jabber needs to be filtered to get anything useful. There has to be a cleaner platform via the ingame interface to make it 'easy' for people as i've previously said..

CPM gets very personal if you disagree with them, they back certain playstyles and try to crush others (vehicles is a very good example), actions speak louder than words and i have seen said actions benefit the corps and alliances they play for

This is why Betamax is such a prominent PC corporation, ladies and gentlemen.

In the early days yes they were, CRONOS was king, betamax was in CRONOS awoxing and locking up all districts along with the rest of CRONOS

Then jenza run off with the corp wallet and disappeared for months after CRONOS fell

Jenza went to japan for a few months vOv

In the early days yes they were, CRONOS was king, betamax was in CRONOS awoxing and locking up all districts along with the rest of CRONOS

Then jenza run off with the corp wallet and disappeared for months after CRONOS fell

One thing I'll just point out is all the CPM members can be reached via their in game mail boxes. You can quite easily send a mail to all of them at once.

Agreed that it's nice to have that ability and while 'we' may be aware of that, what about those who are not checking forums and those who don't know who the CPM are or aren't even aware we have a CPM? The forum and e-mails can't be your be-all and end-all of customer engagement if you want broad feedback. I've already explained how even with our small segment of 2k of your playerbase, we could only get 200-300 of those on these forums and our own forums.

If you truely want feedback from the masses, then there are technical means and ways which guarentee you engage 'all' players, not just those who seek it out.

Believe me, i trust that your doing a lot at the moment, but i've already explained a means by which you can engage with more players. I also know you will have competant coders who would also agree it can be done. If you want the CPM to represent the community, give them the tools they need to engage 'everyone' via in-game feedback.

Either a CCP staff member or CPM could update the content of a splash interface on the update screen, either requesting feedback on something in the form of radial selection, checkboxes or a short typed response. Which can then all be collated and discussed. You can also provide a petitioning system in the game so people can send other written comments back under different subcategories.

This is not a *****, this is not a whinge, this is not a troll, it's positive critisim on the ways and means you are currently using with proposed viable solutions which can be considered and adapted to increase performance, feedback rate and opinions over a broader spectrum.

Because the truth is that the CPM don't represent us all, they don't represent me, or anyone else who hasn't engaged with them.. At the moment people only have the option to contact them if they are aware of them, i'm aware of them and i opt not to seek them out as i have other things to do, whereas if i had a screen asking me for my opinion on something when i log on, sure i'll spend a few moments to type in my opinion or select an option. Also despite being aware of them, i may have opted not to contact them, but neither have any of them reached out to me in any media i regularaly check. So just realize how many others have not engaged with them too.

This is logical, technically possible, feasible for increasing consumer contact and credible for helping to steer the game the way players would love to see it go.

Making claims like "a majority of the community is calling for an end to this" is blatantly false, and I would like to see any sort of stats backing up this claim. I love to see when the majority of the community agree on anything, as it usually results in great changes, but you aren't going to find a consensus to support disbanding the CPM. I suspect that people are falling victim to confusing "the community" for "people who talk to me".

Making claims that the CSM and CPM are marketing stunts and would be better replaced by a group of the "underprivileged or disabled", is frankly pretty insulting to a myriad of groups including myself, the CSM and CPM, the community members who support the elections, and the disabled. Honestly, if the CSM or CPM was some sort of marketing endeavor, you'd be hearing a lot more about them, but I really don't have the time to show them off to the general public as both the councils and myself are busy doing actual work to improve the games.

Making claims that the CSM is in some way corrupt and that the CPM will follow suit is also blatantly false, and shows a severe lack of understanding of how the CSM and CPM operate. In the past, members who come in to only serve specific agendas quickly disappear in to the ether of irrelevance while constructive members actually get good things done. Pushing agendas isn't how the Councils work at all. Council members are not junior game designers, they are a sounding board for CCP ideas and provide feedback on our planned upcoming features and ideas. I understand that in the past CCP has made game decisions that have made some people upset, and CSM members have taken the opportunity to troll those upset people, but there is no part of being on the council that prevents you from trolling. If anyone feels that they have evidence of real corruption or information leaks on the CSM or CPM I would appreciate you mailing both myself and Internal Affairs so it can be properly dealt with.

Making claims like "because things have not progressed as quickly as planned, the CPM project is a failure" is either just poor rhetoric or a lack of understanding of how game development and creative industries in general work. If CCP wrote off everything that did not progress as planned as a failure, then we would never have had a game, and would have remained a group of 3 programmers in Iceland.

Finally, while I have always been open to forming large focus groups to work on particular content (as was done by Hans Jagerblitzen during his CSM time to work on Incursions), I think many people underestimate the vital nature of an NDA to the whole council process. As Logibro detailed earlier, a certain amount of the things that the CSM and CPM hear are simply not fit for public consumption. Additionally, I think many people underestimate the time commitment required of council members. If someone thinks they can rapidly form large groups of knowledgeable players, have them all enter into a legal binding NDA, not have any of the info they receive leak, and do it with a 24 hour turnaround time from the request for info to them handing in their official feedback, then you should probably apply for my job because you are a miracle worker.

I'm with NanoCleric on the spirit of what he's proposing.

I agree somewhat with this. It's understandable for things that are programming related E.G. hit detection, the whole murder taxi thing where one collision hit infinitely and instakilled, but it's a lot less understandable when the issue's resolution is by changing about a dozen numbers in Catma. (For those that don't know, Catma is the format and database that the stats of Dust items are stored in)

it can be done through the ps3 in game via the interface, so yes it can be made even easier.

Because so many people are reading the initial instructions on how fittings work and so on...

EDIT:
OK, that came out a bit harsh. All I wanted to say that putting polls in people's faces isn't the end all solution. I, for one, would likely skip them, like I do with the bonuses screen. Many people wouldn't bother reading them.

I don't remember the exact mechanics but Star Citizens had the functionality to offer up poles to their players to gather feedback. What made it more successful than what was suggested here was that when you answered the poll you got a reward (I think it was a few units of their equivalent to aurum).

Offer up the survey and give people something for completing it. 100 aurum? A few guns? 100k isk? 500 SP?

The thing to keep in mind is that if CCP were to implement any kind of in client survey system, it would be purely supplemental to the feedback they get from the CPM, and from what they get on the forums. It is by no means a viable replacement.

What are you doing this summer?

*Playing star conflict
*summer vacation
*something else

Uh, you talking about CATMA? The public DNA genome sequence microarray DB CATMA? Because I work with databases and get the feeling you're throwing out big words so that you can look like an authority figure on a topic you clearly know nothing about...

I think Dogma is not so much the database, as the object tree and algorithms used to turn a character + fit + environment into actual attribute values.

tldr not a database, but a model.