We The Fanbase [by Matobar]

 Forum poster Matobar of Onslaught Inc. recently posted an essay that gets right to the core of why so many Dust 514 fans are furious with CCP. He perfectly illustrates the frustration, betrayal and anger that longtime fans of the 'groundpounder window' into New Eden are feeling at this stage. Keep reading for a really great read.



Part 1: Before Fanfest:

So, apparently, DUST 514 was being retooled for PC as of "months ago," according to the CPM. Which is all well and good in and of itself, but it speaks to CCP's continued lack of business savvy or simple followthrough. According to CCP's own VP of product development:

Sean Decker wrote:

Sean Decker is the VP of Product Development at CCP, and he told Polygon the days of waiting a few years to show off a game while hoping the fans like it are done. "Put it out in front of them, see if they like it,"

You can find his full statement here. So let me ask as simple a question as I can: if your own VP doesn't think you should keep developments a secret, why was Project Legion kept a secret from us, your DUST 514 players? According to EVE Vegas, you remained Laser Focused on the PS3 as of November. That's half a year ago now, I know, but when did it switch from "Laser Focus" to diverting staff from DUST 514 to this new project of yours?

Simply put: you let the DUST 514 players down. Here we are, all 100,000 of us, playing a game you know is bad (as admitted by Sean Decker in the Polygon article), and you've been diverting resources to something the majority of us, as console players, will not see. Remember CCP, it was your decision to put DUST on the PS3. It was your decision to include console fans in your EVE Universe. You have every right to try again, however you want to, but doing a 180 and saying the PC is the future amounts to a middle finger for the people who have been playing your self-admitted bad game for the last two years.

We, the players, deserved to know. We deserved to know about Project Legion as soon as it was being considered. We deserved to know it was going to be on PC. We deserved to know its development, or pre-development, or whatever, was taking resources away from the development of the game we were playing. We deserved to know about this well ahead of Fanfest. We deserved to know you were taking all of our DUST feedback over these last months and putting it into a game a lot of us won't be playing. We deserved to know that time taken from Fanfest, time you at CCP labeled as DUST 514 time on all your schedules and devblogs, was instead going to be all about something you people even admit has not yet received a greenlight from your superiors! We deserved better to be blindsided in this way.

Part 2: Fanfest

So the project was announced at Fanfest. In possibly the most dickish way possible. According to Nova Knife's blog, the entirety of the CPM had warned and pushed for CCP to announce Project Legion months ahead of Fanfest. Months. So, more than one? Ripard Teg's own take on this also explains that he and others knew, in advance, that this reveal would not go over well. I think we can safely say it hasn't. CCP, if you're not going to listen to the CPM, the people you brought on to represent us as the DUST 514 community, and announce your project ASAP, what kind of message does that sent? Do you just not take this community seriously? Did you honestly think we'd be happy with this news, especially in the way it was revealed?

Ripard Teg's piece goes into why he thinks the DUST 514 Keynote was poop. I'd like to add my own thoughts to this as well. The only time the console crowd was mentioned, in any capacity, was during the beginning of the Keynote, when JC asked everyone to applaud Sony for their contributions to DUST 514. That's really it. Afterwards, we saw some interesting stats, and then the focus shifted entirely to touting Project Legion. And the PC. And the tech demo. And then it was over.

Seriously, the entire presentation took about 22 minutes. CCP, you had a freaking hour to spend. And you just walked off the stage as though you thought there was going to be no issue whatsoever. What about some news for DUST 514 during the DUST 514 Keynote CCP? Is its development continuing? Is it being axed? How does it relate to Project Legion? All of that could have been covered for the rest of the presentation, as a sort of "Oh yes we currently have 100,000 players on the PS3 and shouldn't forget about them" kind of move, perhaps. Or do we need to rely on post-presentation news articles like this one, with headlines like: "Dust 514 sees no planned updates, scraps survival mode and Vita app" to get our information? Do you know what kind of message that sends to us? It says you'd rather spend your time filling in outside press than your own playerbase, who you've told a completely different story. It's also telling that all of your DUST 514 presentations at Fanfest were actually about Project Legion, something that you continue to stress is not greenlit. Why are you telling us about Project Legion at Fanfest as though it's already a sure-thing if it isn't greenlit CCP? Did you forget about DUST 514, the game you actually released, that you actually admit is a bad game, and that you have actual players for? Or is it just less important to you than telling us all how cool your new toy is going to be?

This all strikes me as extremely disingenuous on your part, CCP. Ostensibly setting aside time for our game, the game you've already made, DUST 514, and then throwing it out the window to talk about something your players never wanted is extremely dishonest. Maybe you didn't mean any harm, and legitimately thought we'd be excited. Well, we're not, and that was a dumb thing to think. Either way, you made a huge mistake, and now we're all mad at you.

Part 3: What Next?

So what's next CCP? We're all pissed. You've gone and screwed up everything with your "Project Legion." You didn't listen to your CSM or CPM, things you yourself put in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening. You've angered your current players for your current game on the PS3, in favor of your hypothetical players on your hypothetical game on the PC. You even spent the last Keynote at Fanfest trumpeting EVE United for the PC, which tells us you really don't want to be on consoles anymore.

And you know what CCP? I'm ok with that. Go ahead and be on PC. I understand the things you wanted to do with DUST 514 just aren't feasible on the PS3. I understand the game's future lies on better hardware. I even understand you being faithful to your EVE playerbase.

But you know what I don't understand? The need to lie to 100,000 loyal customers for months when our representatives were telling you not to. The need to **** us over at Fanfest. The need for talking to the media days before you came to us with the truth. The need to scramble for emergency roundtables and summits with the CPM who are just going to say "We told you so," hopefully in annoyingly high octaves, when all you needed to do was make one forum post, one devblog, one tweet, letting us know what was going on in Shanghai.

Maybe you'll say "there was never a good time." And you'd be right. The PS3 fanbase you've built will never react well to a PC DUST version that's getting all the cool stuff you promised they'd have years ago. But you know what? You skipped straight to "the worst time possible" by telling us when you did. But maybe your executives will keep calling us "bumps in the road" to a great product.

I hope you're happy with the result of your actions CCP.