BB 72: Roadmap for me; roadmap for Eve

BB72 is on the subject of roadmaps  and I'll break it into two parts.

For me I have a very clear idea of what I want to achieve in Eve.

- I want to FC Titans.

- I want to win the Alliance Tournament.

- I'd like to sample each and every new experience that our developers introduce.

With ambitions so grandiose I have to break it down into smaller achievable steps. Currently I'm in Waffles, feeder corp for PL, because getting into PL would be a step toward the first two goals. If I do get in then the next steps will be getting into the AT squad and getting accepted as a subcap FC. If I don't get in I might have to shelve one while focusing on the other as few alliances both fight with titans and have a decent chance to win the AT.

These are long term ambitions that may take me years but I'm very clear on the direction I want to go.

Wide open road

By contrast with Eve overall I'm much more inclined to be laid back about things.

In general I think the people at CCP are getting most things right, are far better game designers than me or any other player and can pretty much be trusted to develop the game on our behalf.

I have a few random thoughts:

- I hope the new areas of space that are opened up do not favour the large well-organised established powers. This is something they pretty much got right with wormhole space.

- I would like isk generation to be more susceptible to disruption. POSing up, perfect Local intel, etc, the only times players die while making isk in "dangerous" space is when they make a really glaring mistake.

- I would like to see disruption more susceptible to counterplay. As I write my alt is cloaky camping some enemy whose fleet of miners are POSed up while he's afk. I'm afk; he's afk, it's all very boring.

- I would like the same iteration and tuning that have been used to great success on the last three years of ship rebalancing to be used for other elements of the game, eg anoms and missions. Missions that people avoid should maybe pay a little more, Forsaken Hubs, so heavily farmed, need to be brought into line with the anoms no one ever runs. Just keep making small tuning passes that reduce the extent to which  PVE is solved.

- I would like players to be able to offer constructive feedback without these massive drama-bombs that seem to dominate dev-player dialogue. I don't really have any good solutions but listening to the latest Goon leader to be deputised to the CSM was just appalling. His interview was arrogant bragging about his ability to intimidate CCP staff, it seems their approach is "you didn't like the last bully  we sent so here's someone even worse."

- I'd like to see a shift away from the most vocal players. "Listening to the players" sounds admirable but in practice it means listening to a small subset of highly invested very vocal players whose interests run directly counter to most of the player base.

Our game in her hands - fine by me

Overall Eve Online is rolling along in a pretty healthy way and it's important to remember in thinking about mapping out new features that it's a very sound game that the people playing already enjoy. I want a roadmap with few sharp contours taking us in comfort through gentle country where  we feel at home.