When you must state the obvious...

Just a short note.

I mentioned today on twitter that a new theme is developing on the official EVE forums, and it's one that is both good and bad. Let's start the good, because it's really good - a lot of EVE developers (CCP employees) are posting on the forums, and interacting with the players. This is a win/win for the players and CCP (if CCP can handle the trolling, anyway). Communication makes people feel involved, it gives them positive reinforcement (even if the communication isn't always exactly what they want), and it helps tie them closer to the communicator(s). This is a great activity with the current atmosphere around EVE, because the dev involvement on the forums (and other online venues) implies a greater connectivity to the game and the universe of EVE. If any of you CCP devs read this blog, I appreciate you taking the effort to talk to the players. Some of them are smart people. Some of them know this game really well (I am not one of those, BTW).

What saddens me is that the devs posting feel they must tell the players that they play EVE. There was such an outcry about everything that was going wrong with EVE for so long, and so many people used the "play your own game CCP" tagline, that someone in CCP felt it was necessary to remind us that they, too, like to play internet spaceships. I love the fact that the devs play EVE. I hope they enjoy whatever aspect of EVE they have taken up, although I hear through the rumormill that they can't do big sovereign warfare (which is a shame if true, but that's another story for another time).

I hate the fact that the devs at CCP feel they must (or have been asked) to remind us of that.

Players of EVE, these people have been here, among you, all along. For all I know, that guy in corp who types the teamspeak password in our public channel is actually a CCP dev (I'd still be frazzled by that regardless). But it is us, the players, who have to be reminded of this.

If you were to look at the changes coming in the next expansion (and perhaps beyond) it should be painfully obvious that CCP developers play EVE. Guys, I know you feel you must (or have been told to) remind us of that fact. For that, I am sorry - because I knew it all along.