August 28th through 30th saw the CSM8 Summer Summit with CCP.
7 members of CSM8 got to attend in person: Trebor Daehdoow, Ripard Teg, Ali Aras, Mynnna, Mike Azariah, James Arget & Korvin, with the rest of us being able to digitally attend thanks to the magic of technology. Before I go on it has to be said that Chitsa Jason was easily digital man of the summit, he was there for everything & even webcammed in too, unlike the rest of us who are shy and retiring.
Over the 3 days of the summit we took part in around 20 sessions with a VERY large number of teams from inside of CCP – see a rough line up here:
Overall it is my opinion that the sessions themselves were very positive with just one or two exceptions, however even those finished on a good note, thanks in part to fellow CSM members really plugging our role as stakeholders.
The standout sessions for me were as follows:
- Economy: EyjoG was as ever well prepared with a serious amount of graph porn related to numerous financial statistics, all of which kept the small time financier in my head happy;
- Art: What can I say I am a sucker for pretty pictures, and the Art team did not fail to deliver, including new looks for various in game items. I would go further, but I could be breaking my NDA and Dolan will hurt me if I do that;
- 5-0 sessions: 5-0 is the team of the moment at CCP – helps when you feature the likes of CCP Fozzie – and what they showed the CSM was very well received, and I know you all will enjoy the content to come in Winter & beyond from this team as much as we enjoyed hearing about it;
- UI: Spoke with reps from several groups for this session, and I came away very much looking forward to what the connected teams have to offer in the near future.
Every session that I digitally attended – and there was a couple I was not present for due to real life getting in the way – were just as good as the above, but the standouts were the ones that really made ME sit up & take notice for my own reasons. Each of us on the CSM had sessions like that, for examples check Ripard Teg’s daily writeups over on his blog.
All in all it was an excellent Summit, even with a few technical niggles for those digitally attending – bad sound on day one & unable to be heard for half of day three – and I do look forward to being on the in-room version of this picture during the Winter:
As for the minutes, we have started the task of working on those this week, now that we have videos of the sessions available. We will be doing a two paragraph summary of each session, as well as more in-depth minutes for those people who REALLY want to read every word said. I cannot say with any certainty when these will be ready, just that with Ali shepherding us around, they will be ready sooner rather than later. And to the members of previous CSM’s who I may have offended when it came to comments on how long the minutes took to be publicised: I feel your pain now, I am sorry!