Letter to CCP

Salutations,


Let me start off by saying that I am sending you this email today on a fanciful lark through ponyland. I have no delusions that you will select me for an interview, so if anything I say in this email is shiny enough to catch your eye and if I get an actual response, I may actually eat an inanimate and likely inedible object. Which one, I don't know. My mouse has been pissing me off lately.

I have been playing EVE Online since the fall of 2007. Back then, I was still sort of scared of committing to the game. Man, I made so many trial accounts. It wasn't until spring of 2009, shortly after Apocrypha launched, when I fully committed to the game and bought an actual account.

I spent my early EVE career in a little corp full of newbies. We tried - and failed - To live in a C1 wormhole. We tried - and failed - To be a highsec griefer corp. Eventually I decided things weren't moving as swiftly as I'd like, so one night when the director was drinking heavily I convinced him to give me some director privileges. He did, so I stole the entire corp wallet, all the shiny ships and modules, and most of the production minerals/salvage/etc. and made off like a bandit, which is of course EVE-slang for "selling it back to them at marked up price".

These days I hang out in Fountain as a member of TEST Alliance's Dreddit.

Over the years that I have been an EVE player, I've preached the gospel of open-world PVP and emergent gameplay to everyone who would listen. I've gotten, by my count, dozens of people to either try out the game for the first time or to commit to a trial and buy it. I know it's not best to cuss in an email in which I am trying to convince you to make me EP, but... I fuckin' love this game.

I read every dev blog. I read every chronicle. If Twitter didn't annoy the piss out of me, I'd read every tweet. This game, I feel, no - I know - is going to get very, very big this coming decade.

With the right leadership, of course.

And, I feel I can do just that.

I've never led a team before. Well, that's not true; When I was in the US Navy's basic training, I was the leader of my division of ~88 men for the duration of training, until I had an asthma attack and got medically separated. Didn't even know I had asthma. I honestly just thought I had bronchitis, which I did until I was put in the tear gas chamber. Great cure for what ails ya, tear gas.

I don't intend on leading CCP's teams the same way I did Division 156. For starters, I don't think Punkturis is in any shape to be doing major calisthenics right now. I don't think Soundwave would appreciate having to peel that dead animal off his face and neck. I don't think Guard would appreciate the Navy's height requirements. Several factors. Nah, I'd lead CCP the way I see it being led now, and that is in sort of an "Eyes and ears open, ask questions when you have them, forward march" fashion.

Which is what I like to see.

CCP is unique in the MMO developer roundtable we gamers are used to in that you not only listen to your customers, but you also on occasion employ them. CCP Rise is the most recent, and already he's changing the way we play the game.

As EP of CCP, my goal would be to stay on the forward path that I as an EVE player (And keep in mind this is still pre-Fanfest, my perception could change in a couple weeks) perceives the game going: Focus on ships and space first, and the EVE/DUST link at a fundamental level, and then eventually move forward toward that "future vision" we all shat our collective pants over at Fanfest 2011.

I would also try to add a bit to the plan. For instance, I'd probably want to bring a member or two from WoD's team to put the fashion system we saw at Fanfest 2012 in the Incarna content (When we get to that point). I'd want to make sure Lander's mobile project is an actual first party phone app that would replace all the shitty third-party ones we have now. I'd want to get fucking hammered in the local pubs with the team and loudly talk about things getting put in the game that aren't actually getting put in the game, because that's the kind of hijinks I like.

By the way, you introduced us to a new world of nasty-ass liquor; Allow me to do the same. Malort. Find it. Drink it. Try and keep it down.

I don't very much left to say, which I am sure comes as some relief to whoever is reading this after this much wall-of-text.

What I will say, though, is that this game actually means something to me. Unlike WoW or UO or any of the other MMO's I've played in the past, EVE is something of a love interest of mine. I fantasize almost daily with thoughts of "what if I were on the dev team?". I read the chronicles and the books and get transported to New Eden in my imagination. I tell all of my friends about this wonderful game any chance I can. I've had more experiences in this game in four years than I ever had in any other MMOs combined in the last 14. Who the fuck cares when I got my first epic mount, bitch I got a Tengu!

As your EP, I would work with the team and the community to make EVE the biggest thing the next decade will ever see. Because to me... EVE isn't a game.

EVE is real life. I play EVE when I am not playing EVE, simply by taking my cellphone with me and chatting with my alliance mates on jabber.

Like I said, no delusions. But... I hope someone reads this and considers me for at least a few hot, tentative seconds.

Thank you for your consideration, or at the very least, thank you for creating a world I like better than the one I am in. I love you, brothers and sisters.

Sincerely,

Bryant [REDACTED]