Unforced Error

Now I'm starting to get ... irritated. CCP Falcon published a news item yesterday that left me scratching my head. He attempted to explain the process that went into the distribution of the CONCORD ships to Fanfest attendees. Let me go through the article and discuss the items that don't really make sense.

"This is the first mass distribution of rewards of this size and value that we’ve undertaken since the introduction of Alpha accounts with EVE Online: Ascension, and in retrospect it’s now very clear to us that methods of distribution that have worked successfully for us in the past are no longer viable." 

Blaming any issue on the introduction of alpha accounts makes no sense. I received my ships with no problems. In fact, the only problem I had was receiving three sets of ships instead of one. But as CCP Falcon explained later on, that was a feature, not a bug. The only issues I heard of involved people who did not receive ships on all of their accounts due to using different emails on accounts and those, like CSM members and fansite owners, who did not receive their tickets through Eventbrite. In the first case, this year was the first in my six visits to Reykjavik in which attendees received complementary digital items on multiple accounts. That change was not due to the introduction of alphas. In the case of those who did not pay for their tickets, I watch almost every year as at least one fan site owner has difficult with tickets. Once again, a problem one cannot blame on alphas.

"The intention with this distribution of hulls was to offer a thank you to all those who made what is, for many, a long and expensive journey and a sizeable commitment to come visit Iceland for Fanfest 2017.

"Given the delay between Fanfest and the distribution of the hulls, and the fact that these hulls will soon be available more widely, these were awarded on a per account basis as a bit of an extra thank you for the wait that occurred before they were gifted."

What delay? According to the information on the Updates site in December, no delay in the handout of the CONCORD ships to Fanfest attendees occurred.

CONCORD ship information captured on 12 December 2016

On 12 December, the information on CCP's website stated that the Pacifier and Enforcer, "will be distributed after Fanfest 2017, in a summer release." Honestly, I did not expect to receive the ships until August. According to the information available when I purchased my Fanfest ticket, the earliest attendees should expect to receive the ships was June. We received the ships in June.

The second part of the promotion, that attendees receive the ships before the rest of the game, explained why the ships were given out in June.

"The Pacifier and Enforcer, in blueprint copy form, are due to become part of the tiered rewards structure for the second phase of Project Discovery, which is focused around Exoplanets and is scheduled to ship as part of the July 2017 release."

From everything I can tell from reading CCP Falcon's article, everything worked mechanically with the process of distributing the ships. CCP also met all timelines given to Fanfest attendees for when the ships would hit their redemption queues. The only issue involved the handing out of ships based on the number of accounts instead of the historical practice of handing out one set of digital gifts per ticket purchased.

"Unfortunately, entirely on our part, an oversight that did happen was a lack of clarity surrounding the extent that the current issues with Ghost Training would affect their distribution. The community was very fast to point this out and without a doubt, this has been a very direct and fast learning experience for us in this new era where open access to New Eden is now a reality."

If CCP had just distributed the promotional ships as advertised, a lot of player complaints would never have seen the light of day. Or, in other words, CCP would have happier players if they just had done what they said they would do.