Disclaimer: this is not trolling and I am genuinely hoping CCP can address some of the questions.

Dear CCP,

Recently there is a loss of hope among the Dust community regarding Dust's future. (Look around you, I can quote things all day.) This is boiled down to several causes: Dust's gameplay issues, Dust's gameplay compared to other games, CCP's slowness of fixing things, CCP's silence, and some fundamental managerial problems CCP is suffering; the coming of PS4 and many competition games; Dust's future, and the continual loss of players.

First, broken gameplay issues. CCP's been taken forever to fix these problems with very limited results. I am referring to mainly performance issues and the whole aiming thing. It is unacceptably slow to still not have these issues fixed, you have taken too long, and it seems like you simply don't know how to fix them. Dust is an FPS first and foremost, and basic FPS mechanics is vital and should be prioritized over everything else, but CCP appears to not aware of this fundamental order. There is no excuse of having such a low standard quality for some very high ambitions you hold.

Dust's unfinishedness. The game is supposed to be released, but there are many jump suits and weapons missing and the overall contents of the game feels empty with the many holes of missing stuff all over the place.

CCP's communication. Or the lack of. It's been very poorly communicated on what CCP is working on and there is no way for players of keeping CCP in track. Community managers are hired to throw bones to silence any issues raised, but they communicate nothing useful, all they say is "working on it" but do not provide details. It communicates one thing: CCP isn't doing anything and do not have progress to show.

CCP as a game maker. CCP as a game designer knows little what to do, you rely on player inputs to progress the game, but there is no oversight and there is no design innovation. Soon is a word that gets thrown around a lot, this seemed like a cool thing to say, but it really means that you have no vision as to how and when things can get done. In a properly managed company, soon is not an acceptable word, you will need to have a plan as to what to do and how to do it and when to achieve it. Getting things done is one of CCP's problems. Beware that claiming that things will get done in the future is different than getting things done. CCP's apparent lack of vision and control is not helping anyone at all. The worst thing is, CCP is probably too comfortable sitting in the bubble they have created for themselves and still think their impulsive, unorganized, and lack of vision mode of working is their "strength" of an "ongoing development" game which, in layman's speak, translates into "never getting things done" and "it's okay to not know where you are going". Unfortunately this is embedded in CCP's genes - EVE was built up using this mentality, the whole of CCP is structured around this sort of working method, and to change means a complete restructuring of CCP in every aspect. Et cetera, et cetera. See how this is creating hopelessness?

The coming of PS4 is going to draw players away from PS3, and you will have less and less people sticking to PS3 in a major way. It is never communicated that Dust is going PS4 (in fact CCP intents to stay with PS3). How is Dust going to survive on a last-gen console?

With the coming of PS4 comes many competition. First titles that comes to mind are Planetside 2 and Destiny. There are many other titles inside and outside the MMOFPS category that will simply draw people away. I guess the question is, how do you attract and keep people? Because I can see CCP is having no obvious strategy combating this. "Oh but we cater for a niche group of people... those who like EVE's complexity and like to play a bit of shooting, those who want to play an MMORPGFPS,

and own a PS3 but don't own a PS4, have good internet connections to the servers but no money to buy anything else..." CCP, that is really convincing, let's see how many people actually fits into this definition.

Dust's future is grim: things are broken and there is no fixing of basic mechanics in sight. It is even suggested that it is down to the problems of the Unreal Engine 3 itself and the game is not fixable. New features are shown in fanfest, but we all know that 99% of the stuff CCP show is only for show, and won't be implemented because of their slowness. (Most obvious case: Incarna) Now these features are thrown around to deflect anyone who question the content of the game. "But there will be X and Y and Z in the future!" Yeah but it isn't in the game, and it won't be implemented in 5 years time, and if CCP doesn't decide to scrape the whole idea altogether.

Dust is already losing players. The downward slope is steep, obvious and undeniable. What in 1.2 is going to keep people from going away? I'm not even talking about attracting more players.

So CCP, if you have anything up your sleeves that you haven't told us, you will need to tell us now, because the dam of truth is broken, and the reservoir of hope quickly depleting. Answer these questions.

Is Dust coming to PS4?

Is Dust coming to PS4 without the Unreal Engine 3?

Are you actively working on some features that we are not aware of such as PvE?

Is there anything, at all, worth looking forward to after 1.2, perhaps later this year?

Save me CCP you are my only hope.

Yours,
Concerned Citizen

Disclaimer: this is not trolling and I am genuinely hoping CCP can get out of this, but I'm losing hope quickly because of the mountains of obstacles that reality have presented to us, and because of the fact that CCP has resorted to silencing people in the past and ignore questions raised and doesn't seem to want to even address some problems. It was fine in the past but this time it will be vital for the sake of Dust's survival for CCP to face reality checks once in a while.

They can't get it right in the PS3, what makes you think that they will get it right in a NEW platform ?

Maybe, but i think the problem is that CCP have 10 years of experience with Computers, they haven't work with any other platforms until now. The PS4 will be exactly the same story, but with ALOT more competition.

Yes, but how that will help with game mechanics ? Lets be honest, part of the problem is also CCP's lag of experience with FPS games, i believe you mentioned this in another thread.

So why are the ones saying it's hopeless are still on the forums saying its hopeless?

I don't know one FPS game that has the aiming and hit detection down to perfection.

Before I left, people anticipated Uprising. Since my return, all I see is complaints about it. And it seems that most complaints are nothing more than concessions to complaints by others who didn't know what they were talking about in the first place.

So what are the shooters are you going to play that offer something better than Dust really?

Much as Dust still needs some work, it still offers something (at least from my perspective) that I can't find on a console.