CCP Director of Product CCP Rattati gave a Q&A yesterday on the economics-focused Twitch stream of Oz_Eve.
The frank and friendly conversation began with a discussion of CCP Rattati’s promotion to director of product, a leadership and strategic role that covers all CCPs gaming properties, after more than 13 years at CCP. In that time, he has served as EVE environments director, company finance strategist, and a leader on CCP’s shuttered shooter, Dust 514.
In keeping with the economics focus of the Twitch channel (and Rattati’s own background as a financial analyst), much of the questioning was about the economic future of EVE in the age of scarcity, and CCP Rattati’s passion for the economic metagame was evident.
Highlights of the Q&A include:
- CCP Rattati’s manifesto for the changes needed in EVE, and how each of those changes is being methodically worked through (including reducing capital supremacy and increasing the relevance of Mauraders as a capstone subcap).
- Planned enhancements to the NPC Empires of New Eden, including more dynamic world-building by those empires that will impact the game in meaningful ways.
- The increasingly prominent role dynamic systems (such as the Dynamic Bounty System and the System Cost Index) will play in EVE going forward. (29:51)
- The changes coming in 2021, including changes to Rorquals and Orcas as part of a wider set of adjustments to mining and resource generation. (38:20)
- The ongoing migration to a services-based model for various EVE components (such as killmails and the market) as a means of reducing server load. (28:11)
- The pitfalls of monetization and the cultural differences between Eastern and Western players in regards to the acceptance of Pay-to-Win. (47:05)
CCP Rattati’s vision for the future of EVE includes making all space desirable so that players will be incentivized to go everywhere. “What I want to do is to make all of the areas lucrative and desirable to those that want to take the chance. What we want to do is incentivize players to be everywhere.” (32:40)
A key moment in the discussion came when CCP Rattati outlined the various factors being discussed – scarcity, economic changes, dynamic systems, enhancements to the NPC empires – tied together into a single vision for the future of EVE. (28:57) In this vision, activity is driven not just by player activity, but by a dynamic, AI-driven system of colliding NPC empires as well.
Does the Empire take all the things that they mine and then make decisions and attack the Caldari or whatever? Can we imbue the universe with this kind of organism AI? That’s the future. Scarcity isn’t the future. We need to do this right now to make sure we haven’t messed up the economy forever, but this is the foundation for the third decade for EVE: to actually become one of the most awesome economy simulations that the world has. That is the vision for the team, and I’m super interested and enthusiastic about how it’s going. (29:04)
CCP Rattati
CCP Rattati’s vision is bold and in keeping with his background in finance. Only time will tell if it will lead to future successes for CCP and the EVE community. Either way, the whole conversation is worth a listen for those interested in the health and future of the game.