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Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
CSM for Ashes of Creation?
3Snap
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
What would people think about implementing something like the CSM (council of Stellar Management) from eve online. Its a group of players elected within the game yearly that work with the development team closely and are the direct voice of players ingame.
This isn't just talking to developers. In eve they have to sign a real NDA and have access to balance changes/statistics/new game play mechanics from inception and actively work with the devs to balance the game. Eve`s CCP actually fly CSM members out to iceland for in person meetings as well.
This idea is different than the founder/kickstarter talk to the devs bonus. The idea is to have yearly elections to have a elected government of people that speak directly for the entire games population working directly with the devs.
I feel like having the CSM working so closely with eve's devs has been what has kept the game going strong for years.
Thoughts?
This isn't just talking to developers. In eve they have to sign a real NDA and have access to balance changes/statistics/new game play mechanics from inception and actively work with the devs to balance the game. Eve`s CCP actually fly CSM members out to iceland for in person meetings as well.
This idea is different than the founder/kickstarter talk to the devs bonus. The idea is to have yearly elections to have a elected government of people that speak directly for the entire games population working directly with the devs.
I feel like having the CSM working so closely with eve's devs has been what has kept the game going strong for years.
Thoughts?
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Comments
It is, in my opinion, the single reason EVE is still relevent.
I would like to point out, that Intrepid so far has been relatively transparent, and open with the community. I am not sure that such a thing is really needed at this time. The DEVs seem eager to pop in on popular threads, and clarify things. If there are mixed emotions about implementing a feature such as the login rewards. They put up a vote to better understand the situation. I don't feel like the Intrepid DEVs live in a magical black box where patches come from like I do with WOW or FFXIV, only poking their heads out occasionally to answer easy questions. I actually like Yoshi-P and Ion Hazzikostas, but I don't feel like their companies let them out of their cage that often.
If you have a question it does seem to get answered. They may not respond to every suggestion on the forums, but they seem to be looking at them.
So while it is a cool Idea that has worked well for two games I can think of. I am not sure it is needed at this time. I am always hopeful that the play base is massive. In which case such a system might be desirable to the DEVs.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
While Intrepid are somewhat more transparent now than most other developers, that is likely to change drastically as the game gets more popular - influxes from open beta testing, let alone actually going live, is likely to bring in a while lot of players.
I'm sure you remember a while back when Intrepid were called out for not meeting targets they had set themselves, with people inaccurately saying they missed deadlines (targets are not deadlines). Intrepids response to that was to not give any more targets.
When there are more eyes on this game, and thus more scrutiny, it seems almost inevitable to me that a good portion of the transparancy that Intrepid have now will disappear, for that exact same reason.
This is when I can see something like this being useful - though again, only if Intrepid/Steven saw value in it. It isn't something I would ever argue for if they came out and said they didn't see a point.
_IF_ they need to scale up the feedback mechanism due to millions of players making the current arrangement unmanageable then I'm in favor of giving the official content creators that feedback position. If people like what the content creators are doing then they get subscriptions. If they ask their subscribers questions then they can collate that feedback. It's in their best financial interest to appeal to as many subscribers as they can. If you don't think your voice is being heard, find another content creator with similar opinions to your own. It seems like a self balancing mechanism where the opinions of the many are heard.
But only if Intrepid feel they need it.
It seems like there are more than enough ways for them to listen to the player base and they have done so so far in past with the development updates they release.
literally my thoughts when I saw CSM - hahahahaha
I have mixed feelings about this idea.
Maplestory tried to do this, but they used content creators as their "council" and it's resulted in a really toxic cultish group (making poor decisions, in my opinion).
If it becomes a thing in AoC - the council's egos need to be removed from the equation, and no money under the table/other benefits. I guess a voting system would help fight against fishy activity.
Any game that does this should automatically exclude content creators (other than those making purely informative content) from it.
Game streamers and such will always look at the game as a revenue stream, which is not the view you want for this.
My only worry would be that groups would become sounding boards for each other and the overall community wouldn't actually be taken into consideration.
Not to mention there'd need to be rep's from each server as the culture could vastly differ depending on which server a person plays on.
The members of the CSM are elected by the players, and they have to be reelected next term to continue. So I think the community will be ok represented. This might give the big streamers some advantage, should they want the job, but then again, if they actually represent the wishes of a lot of players... I dunno.. pros and cons there.
As for a rep from each server, that's a good point I think. Well, there is going to be too many servers for that, but limiting the CSM members to 1 per server, and also spreading them out so they come from the various regions would be useful.
Oooooh you better bet we're looking at them 👀
I think a system like OP mentioned could certainly have some interesting potential depending on how it was implemented, and for certain games it does seem to have impacted community and developer relations in a positive manner. Would love to hear more examples from folks on how similar concepts have been implemented in other games you've played, and what worked well/didn't work well
Not entirely the same, but Old School RuneScape lets the players vote via in-game polls on what updates make it into the game and what updates don't. Updates need to pass with a 75% or higher "Yes" vote in order to be implemented.
It generally works pretty well, but I'm not entirely sure how well it would work in other games. The reason it was implemented in OSRS was so the players could basically keep the developers in check with changes that may not have been true to the original vision of Old School RuneScape since drastic changes were what killed original RuneScape. RuneScape basically has a "Skill" system where you can level each Skill up to 99. In the 7 years that OSRS has been online, there hasn't been a single new Skill added because every time they're proposed via the polls, they get voted No on.
Edit:
Here's the heart of the article:
"From my own perspective, I’m not aware of the LOTRO player council ever having achieved anything of any note. If they did it certainly wasn’t overtly publicised. Having checked though archived blog posts I wrote at the time; it seems that the whole enterprise was nothing but a source of problems. All of which can be distilled into one simple point. Gamers are not a uniform group. They are motivated for a multitude of different reasons and unlike Belinda Carlisle, don’t dream the same dream, nor want the same thing. Hence player councils of these type are seldom truly representative. And just like forums and subreddits, it’s the most vocal that seek to be elected so they can lobby for what they want. Furthermore, for such an enterprise to work, it also requires goodwill and genuine intent from the developer or publisher side."
That last sentence is really at the heart of it. Unless the devs are actually willing to listen and change direction, instead of just sticking to "their vision", a council of players will accomplish nothing.
As for them not being truly representative, that is certainly true. That's just like RL politics. But still more representative than not having anyone except one entity at the top deciding it all (senior devs). Besides, if they all agreed it would kinda defeat the purpose.
DAoC had TLs (Team Leads) for each class and it seemed to work afaik but conversely RoR (Return of Reckoning) has appointed Class Leads but I know for a fact the Devs have neither listened to or taken the recommendations of those CLs. The Devs are of course not required to implement anything suggested but I know those CLs feel completely ignored.
Based on those two examples I would say it could be a good idea as long as the appointed people feel they are being listened to and not dismissed out of hand. Nothing pisses people off more than to invest your time and effort into something only to have it just dumped directly into the trash.
Having streamers on a council isn’t a problem. The council is decided by the server population. In the case of eve since the CSM gets access to features/balance changes they’re bound by NDAs ect. They’re prohibited from discussing or manipulating the in game economy.
I remember 1 eves CSM was permanently banned for doing just that. But was later proved innocent.
Yea I can’t really comment on LotR. But the only reason why it works so well in eve is because they’re not just throwing around ideas. It is a pure partnership where they work closely with devs very hands on with balance changes, implementation of new features ect.
Most people wouldn’t even get elected but it does require the devs being on board. As another said earlier I too think it’s why eve has survived for so long. Having elected people passionate about the game with a direct link to the devs, working together to make it better.
I think the one thing that makes eve's CSM so successful is that a lot of the reptesentative represent a facet of life in Eve. 1 candidate that represents traders, 1 for manufacturing, a few on corp warfare and big block politics, etc.
In a sense, Ashes would have to listen to the suggestion of every server's CSM, then put it all together and decide which to use.
I'm all for the CSM as i think that a lot of what makes eve's best and most loved stories (spying, grand theft, etc) will make its way into ashes, but we'd need to find a way to overcome the fragmented aspects of servers as opposed to a single shard to find a way to make everyone happy and heard.
Hope i made this clear as i have no clue how to rephrase it properly lol
There should be no mediator between the Community and the Devs other than Goodwill imo.
If you are a developer, and there is no filter between yourself and players, that means you then have to filter through those actual millions of voices and opinions on your own.
Clearly, if you are a developer, you would nope right out of that and just make the game, meaning there is no communication at all between developers and the players.
In order for that communication to happen at all, there 100% needs to be at least one step in the middle. Your quote here would apply to a situation where there are three or four stages of bureacracy between community and developers, not when there is one or two.
At my work (the nature of which is undisclosed), there are two stages that any information must travel through to get from the general public (not even necessarily paying clients) to myself, as a team leader. There are the people that take the calls from the public, gather as much information as they can, and then they pass it off to someone on my team that assesses that information to see if anything at all is worth my attention.
Generally it isn't, but that isn't really a part of this discussion.
Point is, that process involves 15 full time people in total. There is no way in hell that the process would work at all if people were able to talk to me directly, nor even if they were talking directly to the people on my team (who are exceptionally good at assessing information, but not nearly as good at extracting information from people, which is the role of the first people in the chain).
You are saying too much bureaucracy is bad, which is absolutely true, but you are setting that bar far too low by saying there should be nothing between the community and the developers.
Pretty well said. I know this idea is way too early to implement. But I just wanted to put it out there so maybe it inspires them to do something similar.
I said the only thing should be Goodwill.
I get the OP's point but adding persons as mediators is a no-go imo.
I think that the AoC Devs are very personable and will hear but at the same time I have found they they are quite set on their direction.