I really hope those CSM minutes don't read like a 'declassified' government document.

Its usually a condensed report about how they argue about crap and what they finally agree should be a priority to the devs. The CSM basically reads like an after action report in a lot of cases, glossing over the cussing, drinking and calling each other jackwads.

amagad it's that CSM guy.
Good read though, will read over again when I'm less knackered.

+1 but...
That's a lot of chatter about ISKs... but if I may be so bold... planetary interaction? From my perspective, the link needs to be stronger than just ISK. EvE with no industry would not function. Dust without industry will not function. It's all about the PI. Even if it starts out as something like a Facebook game for the first few months. Then they can add a similar option to Captains Quaters. All IMHO ;)

+1 but...
That's a lot of chatter about ISKs... but if I may be so bold... planetary interaction? From my perspective, the link needs to be stronger than just ISK. EvE with no industry would not function. Dust without industry will not function. It's all about the PI. Even if it starts out as something like a Facebook game for the first few months. Then they can add a similar option to Captains Quaters. All IMHO ;)

Nice post.

Flattered to think you consider me a community leader.


Personally, I'd say I'm more of a parrot. :P

I don't mean to be rude Hans, but I learned nothing new from your posts...

I don't mean to be rude Hans, but I learned nothing new from your posts...

That's fine. If you were learning new things from me it would be because I'm breaking another NDA. But -lawyers- and stuff.

I don't expect anyone to learning anything new about Dust from that wordy brain-dump, but I hope you at least walked away with a better understanding that the CSM will be watching this merger carefully and is being very open with CCP about the concerns we share with you about how this is all supposed to work

You might learn a few new things from the summit minutes, unless CCP wimps out and blacklines all the fun stuff. I talked to Nullarbor yesterday though and encouraged him and his team to be bold and to peel back the curtain for you guys and let the minutes stand as much as possible.

The inevitable strikeouts will be all the dates, specific release schedules, etc. That stuff won't ever make it past PR screening. But the game design stuff? That lies in the bravery of the developers, and I'm hoping they'll let you all see as much as the showed the CSM about their future plans.

And yes, I'll post again here in the Dust 514 forums once the minutes are out, I don't expect all of you to suddenly become armchair EVE political junkies and camp the Jita Park forums. You still deserve the news that's related to you nonetheless.

Essentially the CSM's primary concern is with the level of depth in the EVE-Dust link, and what constitutes true "gameplay" between the two universes. As we've all seen here, Dust 514 and EVE Online still feel very much like separate games longing to dance with each other in a meaningful way. CCP has acknowledged we are still in closed beta, open beta will widen the public conversation and spotlight, but we are gravely concerned with making sure that this beta period - closed and open alike - are clearly messaged as such, because in our opinion that true game between two games needs to be up and running before the two can really be considered "launched" and worthy of the AAA media marketing blitzkrieg. In my personal opinion, this all still feels like a tech demo, and not anything resembling the cinematic moments hinted at in the trailers we've grown to love.

This was your primary concern when speaking to CCP? Why are people so impatient? No sh*t CCP acknowledged we are in closed beta. As they said last year at the EVE Fanfest, they are just focussing on getting the core game play going. Some dude even asked if we would one day be able to boards EVE ships and CCP basically said it would be easy to do in the future but...BUT! They wanted to focus on core game play. Is breaching an EVE ship as a DUST merc enough depth for the EVE-DUST link for you?

Man...I hope your future sessions come off as being more productive.

PI in eve needs to be scraped and replaced with something that dust works into like we were promised

PI 2.0 on the Features and Ideas forum on the EVE Online site would cover it perfectly.

+1 but...
That's a lot of chatter about ISKs... but if I may be so bold... planetary interaction? From my perspective, the link needs to be stronger than just ISK. EvE with no industry would not function. Dust without industry will not function. It's all about the PI. Even if it starts out as something like a Facebook game for the first few months. Then they can add a similar option to Captains Quaters. All IMHO ;)

Because the as a Council Stellar Manager elected official by the players for the players to give the developers a real piece of our mind, IT'S @#$% HIS JOB! Of course there are plenty of lag, they're basically ECHOING our concerns. Majority of the issues brought up by the CSM are very well known by the eve community in one shape form or another. Hell I live in high sec and know every single complaint about low and null sec mentioned in the CSM minutes when they're bought up. That's how bad it lags but I sleep better at night knowing that CSM has expressively pushed the top concerns onto CCP and force CCP to acknowledge something is just not right in some places.

Rewind to the whole Incarna fiasco. CSM consistently expressed concerns it added little to no game play value, CCP ignored them. This resulted in probably the largest loss of Eve players to date, forcing the firing of 20% of CCP staff, another delay in World of Darkness. and scrapping a lot of previous plans in eve development schedule.

My overall general consensus gathering of the Eve population's opinion on Dust 514 is... they're afraid... they are truly afraid dust 514 is going destroy eve online.

While we may find this far less informative when you have people running community errands from developers to you guys on a near daily bases constantly keeping you guys up in the know-what's-up soon. Its all because what I and my fellow community builders know I can freely share with you guys. I cannot do this for eve pilots, constantly regret sharing frustration with the NDA over it. There are eve pilots genuinely still believing we'll will be taking over their PI infrastructure, their FW Sov, destroying years worth of market foundations, and even flipping year's worth of building an empire sovereignty and they'd be powerless to stop it.

Some empires in Eve are 10 years in the making, they have every right to be afraid, and in all honesty I would not be surprised if CCP itself was afraid over this project. Props for CCP for actually doing something other than fantasizing about a day where two games are in the same universe, an industry major first almost.

You're right Tony, but you've got the wrong target. PI is a side game in EVE. It's useful and would be a good income stream for us Dust mercs(given our cost of doing business), but on Eve's industrial scale it's akin to a one-man pottery shop - virtually meaningless.

The target we should all have in our sight is Technetium and the other moon minerals. This is the game, this is the oil, this is what is worth going to war over and slaughtering million of innocents if necessary. An alliance without TECH is nothing, the best they can aspire to is loyal lapdog status.

What we mercs need is a game mechanic that allows us to fight for the Tech and take it - and then take it we will.

The first time such a thing happens, all of New Eden will shudder. Their collective balls will shrivel and pull up inside their bodies. Because at that point they will know they have become engaged in a fight to the death.

And if the game mechanics offer a reasonable playing field, we can win that fight.

Thats not going to happen because CCP already want to take all out Tech moons from us. They plan to revamp that whole system with ring mining so tech won't be as valuable as it is now anyway.

DUST needs an even bigger impact than the technetium market because its already being looked at.

I agree with you - this games success will come with how it defines itself differently then all other FPS - changing points on a planetary map isn't a new concept. Neither is conquest of said planet. But industry? God - it makes my mouth water.

What you say is true, i'm hoping myself that DUST is somehow incorporated into ring mining. But the point is that the wealth in EVE is being generated primarily by the T2 extraction/refining/reacting/manufacturing chain. I don't care what it is, so long as we mercs have a chance at owning it.

There needs to be much more than JUST PI though.

I think CCP have that in the works though, just looking at some of the models they have groundside get's my interest going as the functions of some of them are pretty obvious and could open up some very interesting stuff.

HA. This has nothing to do with impatience. This has everything to do with the fact that you all have compared this game to a hundred other shooters, and what stands out as the shining beacon of separation between Dust 514 and other shooters (besides the customization and death of gear, which is cool) is the fact that you're playing in (and hopefully affecting) the EVE universe. Up until recently, that has been the big focus of nearly 100% of marketing dollars spent.

If Dust 514 goes "live" in the mass media, not-beta, "real game now" sense, and there is no game between the two games, a paper thin link that allows Dust 514 mercs to affect capsuleers, but not the other way around, a lot of those marketing dollars backfire. Even a shift towards "PS3's first free-to-play MMOFPS" as the tagline won't be enough, they've already spent years marketing the cross-platform gameplay.

So yeah, its a big deal to the CSM, and it should be to you as well. All the patience in the world as a beta participant doesn't change the fact that the CSM is notoriously good at spotting these sort of business-case issues far in advance, and when CCP hasn't listened in the past, its cost them dearly. Thankfully, the developers have been quite cool about accepting criticism in the spirit it was intended, not taking it personally, and putting forth extra effort to bring us up to speed with the advance plans they have in place to address some of this.

This doesn't validate nagging CCP about the link at this point of the game's development. It's like expecting a baby to be able to sprint before it has learned to crawl. It's an unrealistic expectation imho. Who else has done what CCP is doing? It's uncharted territory so being disappointed at the level of depth, when the game has JUST been brought to the EVE server, WHILE the game is still in closed beta seems like a waste of time, especially when they have already said that it would be easy for DUST mercs to visit EVE pilots and to even breach and attack their ship from the inside...These things will come in time so it is a matter of patience, and realistic expectation.

The game has been in closed beta for more than a year now, so it is hardly nagging and rushing when the CSM asks CCP to actually deliver on the single most important feature in this game. This is an FPS, so unless there is something to keep them hooked, people will play the game for a couple of months and then leave.

In simple terms, if the EVE / Dust link is not present a LAUNCH, or if it is so insignificant that it doesn't give people a reason to care, this game will be dead once the next Call of Battlefield 26 comes out. It won't matter what CCP put in the expansions if nobody sticks around that long, and if Dust fails, CCP (and EVE) will probably be in a lot of trouble. Something that as both an EVE player and a Dust player, I don't want to happen.

So yeah, it is perfectly acceptable for us to want to know that CCP has some pretty solid (non SoonTM) plans for how EVE and Dust will work together, because TBH, it's all starting to seem like vapour-ware.

Also thanks to the CSM for pressing the issue, and for getting some answers - even if the specifics are NDAed

Good to know the CSM keeps the pressure up regarding Dust-EVE's link. As for the moment, i dont see much of it... Contracting system needs to be enhanced A LOT.

I get they dont want capsuleers to bankroll mercs day-one with billions of ISK. But let's face it..... Eventually some dust corps will become tremendously RICH and will roll expensive stuff everywhere, pub match, FW and 0.0.

Just like in EVE.

Regarding industry, i can understand the desire for mercs to dive into that kind of gameplay. But Dust is an FPS ! Even if PI were available to dusters, how do you think it would work ? Like in EVE ? with every individual setting its own command center and stuff ? That's just not possible imo.

Imo, industry should be an incentive to join a corp. Corps owning planets should be able to make money out of it. And thus give back some to its members. But, dealing with all the planet management should only be the matter of a few designated members inside the corp.

Then there's also industry as in crafting. Are dust players eventually gonna be able to own blueprints for higher tier equipment ? And by blueprint, i mean EVE-type blueprints. Those that needs materials, skills, and places to be used in order to get actual equipments. Not those AUR blueprints that just poops weapons and stuff out of magic.

Or even before that ? Will EVE dudes get to use blueprints and flood the market with EVE made equipment ? Wouldnt that create a massive deflation bubble ? Especially with the demand for proto gear that will inevitably grow bigger and bigger after a few month\years etc....


Those are all good questions. But there aint no good answer possible atm as the amount of variables is just too high.I see people talking about mining, PI and i wonder how much they know about it when they suggest it should be added to dust. As, for the few month i played EVE, those are mechanics that just cannot fit in. Like boarding player-owned Ships.

I don't want to board a titan >< Too much trouble.

Good to know the CSM keeps the pressure up regarding Dust-EVE's link. As for the moment, i dont see much of it... Contracting system needs to be enhanced A LOT.

I get they dont want capsuleers to bankroll mercs day-one with billions of ISK. But let's face it..... Eventually some dust corps will become tremendously RICH and will roll expensive stuff everywhere, pub match, FW and 0.0.

Just like in EVE.

Regarding industry, i can understand the desire for mercs to dive into that kind of gameplay. But Dust is an FPS ! Even if PI were available to dusters, how do you think it would work ? Like in EVE ? with every individual setting its own command center and stuff ? That's just not possible imo.

Imo, industry should be an incentive to join a corp. Corps owning planets should be able to make money out of it. And thus give back some to its members. But, dealing with all the planet management should only be the matter of a few designated members inside the corp.

Then there's also industry as in crafting. Are dust players eventually gonna be able to own blueprints for higher tier equipment ? And by blueprint, i mean EVE-type blueprints. Those that needs materials, skills, and places to be used in order to get actual equipments. Not those AUR blueprints that just poops weapons and stuff out of magic.

Or even before that ? Will EVE dudes get to use blueprints and flood the market with EVE made equipment ? Wouldnt that create a massive deflation bubble ? Especially with the demand for proto gear that will inevitably grow bigger and bigger after a few month\years etc....


Those are all good questions. But there aint no good answer possible atm as the amount of variables is just too high.I see people talking about mining, PI and i wonder how much they know about it when they suggest it should be added to dust. As, for the few month i played EVE, those are mechanics that just cannot fit in. Like boarding player-owned Ships.

Some engaging instanced team based PVE for limited run blue prints of higher meta level equipment would be nice. Dust Corporation owned planetary mines, farms, factories, cities, shipyards and the like would be tremendous incentive for time investment and defending what you have.

But to say that boarding mechanics for EVE ships are an impossibility, hardly. You figure a battle ship lasts about 2 minutes under consistent fire, battle cruisers about 1.5, cruisers about 45 seconds and every thing smaller is lucky to survive more then 10 seconds. Whats the difference between turning it to scrap and putting a bullet in the brain pan of a goo soaked capsuleer. That difference is profit. the only thing better then grabbing scrap and loot out of space is towing your haul home to count the isk you managed to take by force.

that one feature not only changes the tactics of hit and run pirates, but fleets as a whole. you could impregnate one of a pair of cross repping carriers and interrupt the triage module for one of an infinite number of examples. the key for balance is in that method for impregnation. but to say it is impossible is a bit closed minded and short sighted.

I would want Boarding ships to be something reserved for Cap Ships and be one of the most challenging things to do in the game. It would require a lot of attention to detail and tactical maneuvering on both Eve and Dust sides.

I'm thinking for example, that you have to essentially "broadside" a cap ship with a warbarge (a purely defensive ship/ Boarding feature and light drone defenses) by allowing an Eve pilot and a Dust Clone Reserve Cargo and you essentially fire clone pods into a grappled Cap ship. This would be the same as ammo except generally these pods added 2-4 Dust clones into the fight at a time and took a relatively long time to reload...allowing for the need to constantly keep the situation stable on the Eve side. The catch to making this effective is that it would need to be rather co-ordinated and Dust mercs, while they could be fighting somewhere else at the time, would need to be on relative standby so that when the expected engagement occurred they could attempt to seize the ship.

The process of seizing the ship would be both a race against time (with the Eve Pilot able to measure their progress in chunks or by subsystems). As such, it is likely that they will also face a self-destruction timer issue and will have to become proficient in locating AND disarming this (or at least delaying; both requiring skills and specialized equipment). Last of all you would need to fight through competent AI, Other Dust Marines, or preferably both. And of course once you capture it, it becomes a sitting duck until you can find the proper Cap Pilot Eve-Side to effectively steal it away. All this combined and dependent on Eve facilitation and Clone reserves would be essentially for conducting boarding/capture operations...and the reward for doing so would be outstandingly delicious

Just some thoughts ^^

What you say is true, i'm hoping myself that DUST is somehow incorporated into ring mining. But the point is that the wealth in EVE is being generated primarily by the T2 extraction/refining/reacting/manufacturing chain. I don't care what it is, so long as we mercs have a chance at owning it.

Like what? No, really, I am curious about your ideas and aspirations regarding the Dust/Eve game and what it Could be like.

How the hell would they incorporate Dust into ring mining?...

And the whole point of Dust is to be a huge ISK sink so in theory we'll always be rich in Dust terms if everything works right, they want to siphon money out of the EVE economy and into Dust so that's its destroyed, right now there's a tiny volume of ISK destroyed each day in comparison to what's brought into the economy each day with ratting bountys etc so people get richer every single day in EVE and that's having a massive impact on Inflation, they want EVE to have a recession to bring some balance back into things.

That's not hard. Easy to generate scenarios. Try these:

Ring mining needs an orbital platform which significantly increased the efficiency of mining ships. Said platform has hellacious sheilds to survive the ring environment, but is also vulnerable to infiltration by mercs....

The processing of ring 'ore' requires a plantetside/space elevator facility in it's refine/react/manufacture chain....

Ring mining requires a gas giant 'floating city' infrastructure hub that will significantly improve long-range scanning in the rings for high-grade ore...

As one post in this forum has stated the CSM 2012 Winter Summit Minutes are out.
http://community.eveonline.com/council/transcripts/2012/CSM_CCP_Meetings_December_2012.pdf

I encourage every one to read that document through, even tho EVE/DUST 514 part isn't covered in that document, but released at latter date seperately, this is to learn how and what kind of mentality CCP has in developing this New Eden universe.

Even tho somewhat lenghty one, I found this very interesting to read through.

You put a lot of thoughts into that and that is awesome, personally I would just be really amped to have some running gunfights through the hallways of a starship ala the very beginning of Star Wars. Here's hoping CCP makes my nerd dreams come true someday

I recently interviewed Alekseyev Karrde member of CSM 7 regarding the Winter Notes. Here is a link for those interested. http://www.twitch.tv/mitauchi/c/1843740

This ROFL show is new to me. Hmm.. Very good interview.

Thanks for this Hans.

I'd already learned from another CSM (no prizes for guessing witch one) that the Dust section of the summit and the additional session added was nearly the most heated, discussion wise, of of the whole summit.

I thought it very telling in the minutes that Unifex pointed to an iPad and wondered why PI wasn't being done on that. Certainly shows the direction that CCP want to go.

Can't wait for the full transcript to be released.

So in all seriousness. I'm putting my ass up for sale. Gimme a recruitment pitch, show me where I can get involved in some cross-platform pew. I've been in betamax up until this point, and Jenza is a true hero, but this will be much more interesting. I'm in an NPC** corp due to the wipe and its time for a clean slate. Until CCP gives capsuleers the capability to give me a reason to fight, I'm going to rely on you, the community, to provide that incentive. I'm a solid player, I'm going to be skilling up as anti-vehicle, and I can be professional on comms. Show me that your corp is more fun than the next, I'll happily lend you my forge gun.