This whole thing has become a huge drama fest and to be honest, I have been hesitant in commenting on this, however, people are complaining in the fashion I have not seen since the NGE hit Star Wars Galaxies.
That being said, I am going to venture forth, with my asbestos suit on, and chime in here.
I feel that Ghost Training is an exploit and I support CCP in removing that exploit from the game.
I don’t feel that CCP handled it well at all.
Now that I have that out of the way, let me support both statements with some dazzling language and thought.
I feel that Ghost Training is an exploit and I support CCP in removing that exploit from the game.
There is a great article on MMORPG on this issue, http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?feature=2349%2FGhost-Training-Interview&game=14&bhcp=1. In a nutshell, It was not a bug, it was a game feature that was being abused.
So, the question remains, should ghost training be allowed. Well the quote from the article sums it up.
“I truly hope that people still realize that we’re just gamers like them, trying to make a game and making a living off of it. It was not out of pure money, greed or lust that we did this. It was a balancing act and a fairness act toward us as a company moreso than the gamers, but I honestly can’t think of any other company that allows you to skill up your character when you’re not even paying for it.”
It takes money from the game, according to the article, 4 percent of all subscribers were using it at the time of the announcement. Four percent may not sound like much, but it’s money that’s not coming in to maintain the servers, pay the devs, etc… CCP strives to continually balance the game and I must applaud them for their efforts. It’s not fair that some people were taking advantage of the situation and advancing their characters for free.
I don’t feel that CCP handled it well at all.
Want proof? Look at the EVE Forums. It just exploded with commentary (I am being kind here) on this change. To quote from the MMORPG.COM article::
“We announced it as a bug, which it was to a lot of us old devs, but as it turned out, our website listed it as a feature because we had outsourced the writing of our career guide to someone who was not knowledgeable about the code itself, years ago back in 2004… It was like a virus waiting to get out and nobody had really given it much thought until it was pointed out when the whole debate started.”
Now, you have to ask, how could you have missed that one? Put simply, they didn’t think to check. Always do your research, even on your own product. The worst thing you can do to a gaming community is lie, even though CCP’s explanations are sound, the appearance of dishonesty is something that many gamers will rage upon to no end. I am more willing to believe that they screwed up rather than lie, however, the whole situation makes CCP look like they did lie and that is just horrible.
Normally, they announce a proposed change, put it on the test server and let people test it for them. The Speed Balancing went on the test server and after much commentary, it was pulled, revamped and redeployed.
You have to ask the question, why did CCP make the changes to Ghost Training without first announcing that the change was coming like they always do for patches?
Again, look at the public outcry about the change. There are many people who feel, myself included, that CCP knew this was going to be a rough issue to address from a publicity standpoint. If they had announced the change, let people generate feedback and then go make the change anyway, they would be accused of simply ignoring the player base. That was the way Sony Online Entertainment ran things when I played Star Wars Galaxies. So, do you look like you are ignoring your players or do you play it as if it was a bug that needed immediate patching and deal with that PR damage. You do the latter, as CCP did in this case.
Now, how could this drama fest been avoided?
Quality control on a product, including it’s documention, is vital. This should have been done when the documentation was finished by their sub-contractor years ago. If they had done this, they could have corrected for this long ago. If they had, there would have been no valid public outcry as it would not have been sold as a feature. Not having this as a feature makes it easier to claim it was a bug.
I suspect that if this feature had not been listed in the documentation, they could have simply fixed the bug and when the public outcry came out about Ghost Training was not working anymore, a simple forums post announcing that a bug had been found and fixed could have been released. It would have been an easier issue to difuse and thus there would not be so much “commentary” concerning the exploit.
