The nineteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux This months topic comes to us from @evepress, who he asks:

The CSM: CCP’s Meta Game? The CSM, an EVE players voice to CCP. Right? In the grand scheme of things yes, the players bring up issues and the CSM presents them to CCP. But in its current iteration the CSM was supposed to be given small authority to assign CCP assets to projects that the CSM thought needed work on. As it has come out, this was not the case. So fellow bloggers, is the CSM worth it, has the CSM improved the game in any way, or is it just a well thought out scam by CCP to give us players a false sense of input in the game? What’s your take?

This could get real ugly real quick.  I have no respect for the CMS for valid reasons.

In a Virtual Universe, the Politics Turn Real

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By SETH SCHIESEL

Published: June 7, 2007

The kingdom is in crisis. After pledging to treat its citizens equally, the government stands accused of unfairly favoring one powerful, well-connected political faction. Many citizens have taken to open dissent, even revolt, and some are threatening to emigrate permanently.

This specter of corruption has emerged most recently not in some post-colonial trouble spot but in the virtual nation of an Internet game called Eve Online (population 200,000) where aspiring star pilots fight over thousands of solar systems in a vast science-fiction universe every day.

So now, in a sociological twist, the company that makes Eve, CCP, based in Iceland (population 300,000), says it will tackle the problem the way a democracy would. In what appears to be a first, the company plans to hold elections so that players can select members of an oversight committee.

The company will then fly those players to Iceland regularly so they can audit CCP’s operations and report back to their player-constituents. And taking cues from transitions to democracy in the developing world, CCP says it will call in election monitors from universities in Europe and the United States.

“Perception is reality, and if a substantial part of our community feels like we are biased, whether it is true or not, it is true to them,” Hilmar Petursson, CCP’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview. “Eve Online is not a computer game. It is an emerging nation, and we have to address it like a nation being accused of corruption.

“A government can’t just keep saying, ‘We are not corrupt.’ No one will believe them. Instead you have to create transparency and robust institutions and oversight in order to maintain the confidence of the population.”

That confidence has been badly shaken in recent months as many players have become convinced that CCP has rigged the game in favor of a mighty alliance of players called Band of Brothers.

“Once again it seems that several of your employees have been up to no good,” members of a rival alliance called Goonswarm wrote in an open letter to CCP that was posted on the Internet over Memorial Day weekend. The letter detailed various allegations of misconduct, including a claim that a CCP developer had improperly infiltrated a Goonswarm group.

For nongamers and those whose gaming habit consists of a few rounds of Minesweeper during conference calls, it can be difficult to understand the emotional depth and commitment among players of so-called massively multiplayer online games, or M.M.O.’s. Players of such games, who generally pay about $15 a month for access, often spend thousands of hours over many years building their online personas, accumulating virtual power and wealth and often making friends with other players from all over the world.

The most famous and popular M.M.O. is the fantasy game World of Warcraft, which now has more than eight million subscribers. But there are factors that make Eve in some ways more intense than World of Warcraft or other M.M.O.’s.

Most notable perhaps is that all 200,000 of Eve’s users occupy the same virtual galaxy. In most online games, including World of Warcraft, players are split up among dozens or even hundreds of copies of the game world, known as servers. Each server may have a total population of only 10,000 or 20,000 people, and at any moment perhaps only 5,000 players are actually online.

In Eve, however, there is only one game world, and there are routinely 30,000 people within it at one time. And while a serious World of Warcraft guild might have 50 members, major alliances in Eve have thousands of members.

Also contributing to Eve’s distinction is the management of its “reality”: the game’s story line and politics are generated almost entirely by the players, not the game developers.

In Eve, for example, player alliances control vast expanses of digital real estate, including hundreds of planets. There are some areas that are safe for all players, known as Empire space, but much of the galaxy is called “0.0” space, which means that there is zero security or police presence there to protect players, as in many games.

In the 0.0 systems, virtual life is a literal free-for-all among warring player groups. If you fly your spaceship into a 0.0 system controlled by another alliance, you will almost certainly get shot on sight, no questions asked.

And so the various alliances of Eve Online fight epic campaigns for control of territory that essentially continue around the clock for months on end.

In an interview over an Internet voice chat program, the player known as SirMolle, chief executive of Evolution, one of the player corporations in Band of Brothers, said that his alliance’s goal was to take over every solar system in the game.

“Our goal in Eve is to control all of 0.0 space, and when that’s done we’re going to take over the empire one by one and control the empire as well,” he said. (SirMolle would not reveal his real name but said that he is a 40-year-old manager for a heating and cooling company in Sweden.)

The content is not real, in much the same sense that Tony Soprano and Scarlett O’Hara are not real. But for players to feel as if their investments of time and money have worth, they must believe that the company that makes the game is maintaining the fiction in good faith.

And so CCP’s credibility took a hit earlier this year when news leaked on Internet message boards that a company employee who played the game under the name T20 as a member of Band of Brothers had in essence given his in-game friends rare and valuable technical blueprints that allowed them an unfair advantage over other players. Band of Brothers returned the blueprints to the company, but the damage had been done. One player for Band of Brothers, Blacklight, who said he is a business consultant in Britain in real life, called the incident “a blow” in an Internet voice chat interview.

Then, over Memorial Day weekend, Goonswarm publicized its latest allegations. Last week the company rebutted those specific charges; in the case of the alleged infiltrator the company said that the employee was merely trying to fix a bug in the game code. But a broader problem was revealed: Many Eve players, writing on various message boards, said they simply do not trust CCP anymore.

So now CCP plans the radical step of opening itself up to independent oversight: nine player-overseers who will act as ombudsmen for the game’s subscribers. The company says it will hold the elections in the fall.

“I envision this council being made up of nine members selected by the players themselves, where you announce your candidacy, and if you win the election, they come here to Iceland, and they can look at every nook and cranny and get to see that we are here to run this company on a professional basis,” said Mr. Petursson, CCP’s chief executive. “They can see that we did not make this game to win it.”

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Wanted to be certain not to misquote, so copied the entire article here.  I articulate the English language.  Understand it very well.  It is my native tongue.  This bold as well as the blue are to bring special attention, hopefully to stand out in your minds.  All that being said, I’d like to start at the  very beginning of my relationship with the CSM, then you will understand I got it straight from CSM’s mouth that all the above that was said in this article was placation and nothing more.

I joined eve at election time.  I greedily consumed everything Eve related.  I was piloting through Tash-Murkon when a candidate started talking in local.  Didn’t know then “NEVER TALK IN LOCAL” rule, so, Noob that I was, I stopped and listened to his entire speech.  I went to his website page and read what he ahad to say.  He pretty much quoted the above article.  Lead me to believe the CSM had  real oversight, real authority.  I went back to him in game and asked point blank, was he genuinely saying he’d do what he professed if elected.  Responsible Eve Citizen I considered myself to be, election day I voted for this man.  Shamefully, I admit I fell for it hook line and sinker.  I read their forums dutifully, commented, voted, etc.  Then, one day, I had a REAL problem with CCP come up.

Trusting fool that I was, I turned to my elected officials, and lo’ and behold ~ my elected official, the one I voted for, delivered what I now recognize as the “Company Line” to another having a similar problem to mine.  CCP caught outright blatantly cheating! It was then i discovered something like “T2″ ow whatever , can’t remember now, but it was BOB getting advantage in game from a CCP employee.  This was a new cheat.  Everyone was on top of this one.  It was about the Market fiasco, you all remember that one (their Market guru still stands by the lie his db data didn’t indicate more product being produced than resource could provide for).  We all ran at the CSM, knew they were on top of it.  And my candidate delivered the company lie.  He out right lied!  I immediately called him on it, and presented proof of a cheat I had found.  On that same forum,  in support of that man, I presented mine.  For all to see. Issued direct challenge for CSM to prove whose side they are on, ours or CCP’s.  One CSM stooge demanded all my data, and I provided it, online in a blog which EULA demanded I remove.  Since the CSM was suppose to be the OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE, I gave this official all the data, locations, etc.  My character was banned.  I discovered the lengths to which CCP will go to cover up their cheats.

A couple of 3 or 4 threads moved/removed later, CSM admitted the above article was to appease the upset player base at the time.  The CSM has absolutely NO Power, they are merely there to tell the player base the lie that needs to be told.  EULA prevents me from being able to give you my evidence, the EULA CCP  cites  they get caught up.  They will ban you over their inability to cover it up, the EULA lets them shut you up over it.  It is easier for them to just kill your character, cite EULA violation and prevent you from sharing the petitions submitted and those discussions because it proves overmuch their true intent.

In don’t vote any more.  Why?  It’s a sham.  The Devs/CCP admitted it on their forums.  So why waste my time.  Let them pick who they want to bring to Iceland.  The CSM is not about doing anything real for the game or the player base.  It is there to pretend a care that is unreal. To make their misdeeds more palatable.

CCP won’t/can’t give what they have no intention of honoring.  They’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt anything will and can be said to the player base that is loyal, because we continue to pay to play and be cheated anyway.  Hell, I’m still here and paying each month.  Only two accounts now, soon to be one, but I am still paying to play.  I’m playing lots less than I used to play, and when I finally get to the point I don’t care about my skill training, I’ll probably stop the one account all together.  I’m continuing it now, just in case I decide I really want to play again.  I don’t want to resent having lost the monumental time sink the game is.

That laughable Planetary Interaction for the Manufacturers,  roflmao.  Gave everyone a free boat, with no defenses, so it is easier for the pirates too afraid of Oo to have some new prey.  If you haven ‘t gotten it yet, wait until you log on to do your zillion clicks and the red “Burned Up!” pops up.  I got that one too early, they put my facilities back, denied the message and quoted the EULA so screenshot cannot be presented to other players as warning!!  Save your isk, CCP can just destroy your facilities!  This too, when the Indies start complaining,  CSM will deliver the company line, and quote their NEW advantages they’ve been given.

CCP, If you want to be taken seriously, honestly, do what you originally stated in the above New York Times article. Until then, CCP, you are still lying, cheating, and taking our money because we choose to pay to play your game in spite of it all. It’s just a matter of time until we get fed up and leave for good. I had multiple accounts, now I’m down to one (Just terminated the other one after the “burnt up” message and lie from your GM over it.).

For the moment, there are enough  new players unaware of CCP’s historic cheats, cover-ups, and lies for CCP to worry about it.

See other participants:

1. Growing Pains | CrazyKinux’s Musing
2. CSM: Hoax or Serious Business? « Lost in New Eden
3. CSM-Power to the people or puppets of CCP « A whole lot of Yarrrr!!!
4. Gaming the CSM | A Mule in EvE
5. A Taste Of Democracy | StarFleet Comms
6. CSM: Player Power or Paper Tiger? | I Am Keith Neilson
7. Governance Thrash Redux? « The Ralpha Dogs
8. CCP Doesn’t Care: Blog Banter 19 « OMG! You’re a Chick?!
9. The Cataclysmic Variable: It’s Crunch Time!
10. The 19th EVE Blog Banter is upon us… and about the CSM and CCP | Victoria Aut Mors
11. CSM: Lame Duck from the beginning?
12. Blog Banter #19 << Dense Veldspar
13. Be careful what you say, Roc « Roc’s Ramblings
14. Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers « Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo
15. Blog Banter #19: Assumptions
16. EVE Blog Banter #19 | EVE on Real Life
17. A Reality Check | A “CareBears” Journey
18. Quit your bitching | Fly Reckless – EVE Online
19. War has come to EVE | Scram Web
20. CCP and the CSM | Morphisat’s Blog
21. More to come…

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