Look, I just want to ask this right now - are we gonna get Rouge Wedding'd again?

Is CCP using Shanghai (Dust team) to develop a VR game while doing everything they can to suck the last bits of aurum out of a small but dedicated community of loyalists (if you're playing, reading or thinking about DUST you're a loyalist, all there is to it)?

Because, CCP; I don't want to do that again. Hear me? DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!

Sorry but you've got the wrong idea of how business works. Profit/loss are inconsequential for DUST right now. CCP has made the richest Shooter ever. If they invested the resources to get it right, the returns could be bigger than EVE. Hamstringing the project because of a short-term budget shortfalls is a terrible business strategy.

Amazon was founded in 1994 and didn't make an annual profit until 2003. It had millions of investors, why? Because the idea was good. It's not only reasonable in business to sacrifice short-term losses, for huge long-term profits, it's a very good strategy. If CCP hadn't strangled this project's budget, I think they could be bringing in much bigger profits by now.

Cross Atu,

Thank you. This is why I voted for you for CPM2. You're willingness to step in and communicate clearly and effectively will do more for this community than any amount of forum warrioring that we can provide.

You're correct that this world isn't perfect enough for most of the DUST community to trust that CCP intends to maintain or even expand this game we love. Rattati and the Shanghai crew have done a lot (A LOT) to re-establish the trust that was lost last year. But a lot of trust was lost.

My gravest concern is that we wander blindly down a similar path that led to the Rouge Wedding. We were led there unknowingly and when the flow of information stops (like it has recently) and rumors pop up...paranoia kicks in.

Thanks for this assertion of faith. I want to support this company and this game. Hearing what you can offer helps.

How often do you guys talk to the CSM? I think DUST could "easily" (from a design standpoint) be added to "Fozzie Sov." You could have a DUST fight be involved in the node captures. You could have DUST PvE be involved in raising the index of the system somehow. DUST mercs could "entosis" an enemy space elevator asset. You could integrate the games via exploration (like the proposal in my sig). The possibilities are immense and wonderful. I fear that siloing these games into their own columns is a big part of why the integration is so hard to pull off. DUST guys saying it's on the EVE guy's shoulders, EVE guy saying it's on the DUST guy's shoulders, etc. I hope the CPM2 can spend some serious time talking about this stuff with the CSM. Ideally they would conference in the CPM in to the CSM summits for a session or two to discuss this stuff.

Who are the CSM? I think it's time the DUST players started reaching out to the CSM and attempting to show that, we are still around and Rattati has done a damn good job.

The EVE players are interested in working with us. They just don't know how to find us, work with us, or really do anything besides chat. Orbital Bombardments? EVE players have to figure it out... It's not even in the EVE tutorial

For those of you who are interested you can meet a lot of Eve players outside of the game through tweetfleet.slack.com. They even have a Dust 514 section to hash out ideas about Dust 514 over there but you can absolutely chat up the Eve players in your spare time. Lot of CCP Devs use Slack as well and while I don't recommend messaging them directly and pestering them you can, and probably should, try to hit them up with your questions related to what they do as a developer when they're in the public channels. Some members of the CSM are also in there and from the talks I've had, they do support Dust 514 but in the limited capacity that they are allowed since they can't push for features in a game that "isn't in their jurisdiction", if that makes any sense.

Vell0cet, you literally have not registered anything I've said to you.

But that's okay, I've accepted that somehow Cross can say all the same things I do and he gets lathered in praise for it. I'm just going to be bitter about it forever. Cross, you, me, CCP Atlanta. I want a rematch.

All =/= Heavily
They can invest 90% and still have 10% left over for side projects.

Which is exactly what Gunjack is. Hilmar straight up said he can fund it with what's in his wallet right now during FanFest 2015.

Since I am here,

Gunjack is pretty awesome in the GearVR, i didn't expect it to be so great to be honest, but there is something mesmerizingly fun there. It cannot be judged from a 2D trailer, that much is sure.

CCP has had to look hard and deep at how they do things given what has happened. Projects are treated as separate business cases where each lead makes the strongest case possible. Budgets are granted on a case by case basis and certainly do not come out of other project budgets.

Gunjack does not detract in any way from DUST 514. As a matter of fact, it makes the CCP Shanghai studio much stronger and capable, showing what can be done with the right vision, the right methods, a great tool in UE4 and a small team.

CCP needs to diversify, yet smartly, and Gunjack is one of the ways to do that while keeping EVE Online as the ultimate sci-fi mmo experience.

Of course you're 100% correct that the CSM is accountable to EVE players and CPM is accountable to DUST players. That said, if we don't take steps to try to have shared conversations I fear progress will continue to remain stalled. I'm pretty sure the EVE player base isn't very interested in DUST because it doesn't really affect them in any meaningful way (possible exception for FW pilots who can make decent ISK from orbitals), not to mention I think most EVE players think DUST is dead. It's a chicken/egg problem. It would be beneficial to both games if the CPM & the CSM could have a closer relationship (maybe doing a joint townhall podcast every 6 months, and/or remotely conferencing in the CPM for a joint session at a summer/winter summit).

In my opinion, something as simple as a shared event could go a long ways towards indicating that CCP does stand behind DUST. It doesn't have to be complicated or require a lot of effort from the Dev team.

I just came across this article in my RSS feed: I Tried VR and It Was Just OK. It's written by Jeff Atwood, the cofounder of Stack Overflow (i.e. a very smart guy). It's an interesting read. I've never tried VR before, and I really want to like it, but he makes some great points. You need very high resolution and exceptional performance for it to be a good experience. This is incredibly hardware intensive. After reading this, I'm even more skeptical about the Samsung Gear VR.

The Occulus Rift may be the first hardware to pull it off, but I have serious doubts about a cellphone having the horsepower to drive a good experience. Even if Gunjack manages to pull it off and actually be a great experience--due in part to lots of black in the scene where you won't notice the grid of black pixel boundaries as much--If there aren't enough other good games to entice someone to drop $200 on the hardware and even more on the phone if they don't have one, then the platform itself will be a failure. Having a good game on a failed platform is not going to be a commercial success (again, that's assuming it's even going to be good).

Really interesting analysis. Could you go into a bit more detail about your experiences with the Gear VR vs. the Rift (more about the platforms than the games). Are you considering buying the Samsung Gear VR? what about the Rift? Why/ why not? When you played Valkyrie was it running on a PC or a PS4? The article mentioned that current gen consoles would struggle to create a good experience. Do you agree?