CCP Games addresses player concerns in EVE Online Q&A

The first Q&A between EVE Online developers CCP Games and the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) -- a group of players (elected by fellow EVE gamers) that represents the collective interests of the subscribers -- was released this past week. It addresses a few concerns the players have had, for instance the delays with EVE's 'Quarterly Economic Newsletters', what is intended to be a regularly released overview of the game's ever-shifting economy. (CCP says they're on track to release the QEN's on schedule moving forward.) The Q&A also addresses a major question that has arisen for factional warfare participants, which began with the Empyrean Age expansion and its all-out war between the game's four races. Players fighting for the Caldari race's militia have, essentially, won the war. They've captured all of Gallente space. So where will (Caldari-Gallente) factional warfare go from here?

CCP responded: "We plan the NPC timeline for events leading up to expansions, coordinating the release of news and integrating the high level plot with chronicles, video, and everything else we can. This year, our storyline theme was to try and 'cross the streams' more, meaning that we were going to look for ways to weave the exploits of capsuleers into the NPC canon. The Caldari sweep of contestable Federation space gave us the perfect context to do just that."

CCP Games also hinted how the success of the Caldari militia players may impact EVE's storyline: "By the time this year's winter expansion is released, it will be clear that the NPC storyline events revealed then have direct origins to this player-generated event. In other words, it definitely shaped our storyline objectives, and fits perfectly with the concurrent efforts to raise the visibility of the player group actions in general."

The players are responding to the Q&A in a related forum thread, perhaps not just because of the answers CCP has given, but also because of the questions themselves? Have a look and see if you agree with them.