A couple of days ago the CSM5 Summit 1 minutes were published by CCP. In a continued evolution of the CSM process, CCP gave us a draft version to edit so that our notes could also be added. Mynxee spent time combining these and sent them back to CCP. This was repeated a second time and to their credit CCP changed very little (if anything) before publishing them. It did take a little longer than for the CSM4 summit due to the extra input from everyone, but those of you who’ve read them will also understand why it was important to spend the time making sure nothing was missed.

The result
We have a very frank and honest document from CCP which basically states that as far as big fixes (such as lowsec, FW or Corp roles) there isn’t going to be any resource available for around 18 months. Worse still it seems that the most supported issue in the history of the CSM (I suspect this is the case anyway ;)) has only resulted in straight out refusal of CCP upper management to believe the customer concerns about quality.

I’m not interested in Dust and I don’t even have a console capable of playing it. I’m not convinced that Incarna will bring anything of value to internet spaceships, I just want to play Eve

The player reaction has been mostly positive of the CSM (with a few exceptions) and pretty damning of CCP. Some of the (bitter) vets have already given up on CCP having a change of heart, but I remain (stupidly?) optimistic that continual pressure will lead to a change of focus at least within the Eve team schedules.

Where does this leave the CSM?
We continue to hold meetings and will be publishing our minutes of these, but all this is of limited use if CCP don’t have spare dev time or outright refuse to allocate any to player raised and championed issues. There have been calls for a mass resignation of the CSM, but I feel that is the wrong thing to do at this time. My reasoning is that such a frank statement of CCP’s 18 month plan for Eve would never have been released without CSM having called them to account for excellence and quality. If CCP want to disband the CSM then that is their call and they can deal with the fallout, we shouldn’t make their lives easier by packing it in right now.

I may feel differently after the December summit but I’m hoping that before then with a united eve blogosphere that we can get people within CCP to listen.

Tea