So now that I have a little more time, I'd like to expand on this. Mostly because I want to save everyone well-deserved grief and instead shift the grief back into the normal realm of the completely undeserved.


The Eve community doesn't have a very high opinion of you as a community advocate, Mintchip, but realistically I don't know that anyone really cares. The people at CCP decided to pay you money to do something, and far be it from people to tell you that you shouldn't do it. My personal exposure to you has been in the form of two 1 quarter segments of some of your Eve videos more than a year ago. I couldn't take the absurd perkiness nor the typical videos-for-the-masses condescension in the form of offensive numbers of jump cuts.

Here's a real heart-to-heart about the people with whom you're interacting and why the spin-laden perkiness is the best way to make yourself a non-entity to the players here.

Dust 514 is a niche game with concurrent player numbers averaging around 6k daily. Of the unique users who play the game, it's evident that a very small proportion of them participate on these forums. On top of that, many of the guys here on the forums have been playing Dust 514 for coming up to 14 months. Let's be honest: probably longer than you've even imagined getting a job working on Dust 514.

Release cycles with Dust have consistently been disappointments for a number of reasons. One of the most cited? A two steps forward, one step back philosophy.

The people here don't want to hear the empty platitudes that you're spouting simply so that you can go to your new boss at the end of the day and say "I did something." If that's what you want to do for the rest of your experience here on the Dust community team, go ahead. But all it's going to do is put people's backs up and relegate the public's perception of you here into the "ignore when you see the name" category. Pretending that everything's going great is condescending and moderately delusional. You have very few new faces here to please, and even if you did you'd be washed out by the current detritus strewn around the forums.


Want to make a real community impact? Go get a few more hours sunk into the game, and while you're doing that try communicating to the players here like they're actual people, rather than a bunch of zombies who will instantly perk up at a few empty promises. Nobody's asking you to be as glum as the typical bitter"vet" here, but acting like a member of a company rather than a YouTuber trying to get the random passerby to subscribe to your channel is the place to start. I guarantee that you will be insanely more effective at your job.

So to round it out, that's why I made my above post. It's great that you landed a job with some of the most insane people in video gaming at CCP. More forum communication from CCP? Always fantastic...when there's enough content in your communication to merit it being there. You're trying, and I appreciate that, but you are legitimately not helping.

Edit: 514 likes. *pic*

I am far from one to like you nor do I actually hate you, but that said, this post is pretty much evidence that your attitude isn't going to be helpful at all in this community.

You've made a promise of "more updates and more information is on the horizon", which is basically CCP's way of saying "yeah sure, we'll get to it" which is exactly the same sort of attitude that has come from CCP in the past which lead to this thread. This isn't something CCP isn't known for doing, they did it in EVE for a good while and actually realized that they should communicate with the players more.

The added "cheer up buttercup" is needless and, to some, it comes across as if you're talking to a child and not someone who is a customer. I can see where you want to make the OP feel good about the game, but don't let the ambiguity of your words lead to you coming across as condescending.

In your two years of playing EVE, you had to have at least seen the EVE-O forums once or twice, and in which case you would have seen the posts Guard, Navigator, Falcon, Eterne etc. make, they never let themselves come across as condescending. Hell, Xhagen came across condescending on the EVE-O forums in your "I work for CCP now" thread and the players chastised him over it, because its bad form and makes you look like you're of the Incarna-era mindset CCP has tried to correct over the past few years. Being that out of touch with your community in a game like EVE and, conceptually, DUST is just a bad business move. These games are niche and attract niche players, when you start mistreating them, you're basically throwing away your base which is where your money comes from, especially your paycheck.



I'm not sure what qualifications you had that got you the position nor does it make any difference at this point. I get you're having a blast in Iceland and stealing FoxFour's phone to post on his twitter, its cool I get you want to have fun at work, we all do. But when you're on these forums, you know your e-office, for the love that is holy follow this advice:

If you're just going to empty-post, don't bother posting. You're just fueling the "CCP doesn't provide any information and makes false promises" that you, as a Community Representative, should be trying to fix.

We have players here going on a year of playing this game, and know a lot of the issues. These people have been patient while CCP does this, or that to improve the game. When you come in and just say "yeah we'll totally do that!" months after that same thing was said, it's not helpful whatsoever and only leads to others pointing out that your role, or possibly you in particular, are not needed nor helpful to the situation.



They have that, its the CPM which was appointed by CCP until the first elections take place. They have, in some ways, been useful but in others they haven't been able to provide any details on matters due to either NDA, or CCP just not working with them or giving the information.

I just want to add that I find it highly... well awkward that very few of you bother to make such long and thought out responses when I post random to the forums or "interact" with the community. Guess I best shut up before you guys get mad at me.

If for some reason you guys don't want to believe CCP Mintchip when she says it, as someone from outside the community team they are working to improve the communications.

/me shrugs

Home I go