Tag Archives: CSM

CSM 15 – Candidates

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The voting for CSM 15 starts on June 1st, 2020. Please remember to vote during the time that it’s open. If you think “I won’t vote, because it’s all just null blocs who get in”, you’re contributing to that (unless you’d just be voting for null bloc people 😉 ) Maybe you won’t get the people you want, but at least you tried? And it’s possible for non Bloc members to get in. I did. For six years.

No, I’m not running this year. It’s been six years. I think I deserve a rest from it, no?

Onto the candidates:

The Alumni:

We have a few people coming back. I’d suggest you think about these ones. (Not saying the others are bad, but they generally wouldn’t need your support.)

Mike Azariah – I’ve worked with him before. He’s a bit of an institution (should be institutionalized? 😉 ) in highsec, running his Magic School Bus for newbies.

Brisc Rubal – But “Brisc is a Goon!” I hear you tell. That’s true, yes. If that’s a deal breaker for you, move on. If it’s not, he does actually listen, and he did bring stuff from non-Goons to CCP.

Exooki – He’s a somewhat polarizing figure right now. And can be accused of being a goon, due to the Initiative mercenaries thing. But he did a reasonable job talking to CCP about wormhole stuff. If you care about wormhole stuff, maybe keep him in mind. If you think wormholes (and/or potential Goons) should DIAF, then move on.

The Rest:

These folk haven’t been on the CSM before. There’s upsides and downsides to that. One of the downsides is that I won’t be there to see the hope die in their eyes when they see how the sausage factory really works. I kid. Mostly. I don’t really known these folks, so take any recommendations with a dose of salt. Do some research, if you can.

Insidious Sainthood – Small gang/Solo PVP advocate. While fleet combat is important, so’s the little stuff. You don’t want to have one destroy the other. Always handy for an alternate. Keep an eye on them for FW too.

January Valentine – Community type. Which can be handy, as part of the CSM job is keeping a finger on community sentiment. (There can be a bit of sentiment guidance too, but that’s entirely a personal decision. CSM members tend to have seen more of the reasoning behind things. Which is why there can be a degree of ‘white knighting’. It’s never been requested by CCP.)

Kenneth Feld – He seems to have his head screwed on when it comes to industry. As that’s one of the legs of Eve, it’s kind of important.

Pandora Singularity – I’ve met her, while she was organising Eve North. Which went without (from the outside at least) a hitch. More community connections, and generally a good egg.

Stitch Kaneland – If FW is your thing, maybe take a look here. FW’s been needing work for a fair time. Maybe CCP will finally be able to dedicate some time to it.

Conclusion

Now, just because I haven’t suggested someone, doesn’t mean they’re not worth voting for. While yes, I’m stuck at home at the moment like many of the rest of you, I can do my entire job from there. And it’s been hectic, and draining. My research has suffered because of this. A few of them reached out to me for an endorsement. They got a little more attention because of that. They didn’t all get it. I will have missed worthy candidates.

Either way, please vote. Put the person you want the most at the top, and then put people you’d still like to see below them. Those slots don’t cost you anything to use, after all.

The list above is in no particular order.

If you do more research on people, ignore anyone who promises you anything, other than that they’ll talk to CCP. the CSM can’t make CCP do anything. Those people have no understanding of how the CSM works.

CSM 14 – some initial thoughts

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Oh god. 12 votes. That’s the margin I had, avoiding elimination. Thanks to everyone who voted for me 🙂 Your votes made the difference. (Obviously this is true every time, as if no-one voted for me, I wouldn’t get elected. But you can see the difference a little more clearly this time)

Now, I’m not huge on Analysis for this kind of thing, but the closeness had me thinking. So I reran the ballot a few times, eliminting each elected candidate. Just to see what happened:

Unmodified. (the number is the candidate number. Just an identifier, it means nothing)
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”

Eliminating ExookiZ
2 “Sort Dragon”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”

Without me.
2 “Sort Dragon”
8 “ExookiZ”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”

Without Vily
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
31 “Cornak Firefist”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”

Without Olmeca Gold
2 “Sort Dragon”
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”

Without Gobbins
2 “Sort Dragon”
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”

Without Dunk Dinkle
2 “Sort Dragon”
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”

Without Merkelchen
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”
41 “The Judge”

Without Killah Bee
2 “Sort Dragon”
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
34 “Aryth”

Without Innominate
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
34 “Aryth”
41 “The Judge”

Without Aryth
8 “ExookiZ”
11 “Steve Ronuken”
17 “Vily”
19 “Olmeca Gold”
22 “Innominate”
27 “Gobbins”
29 “Dunk Dinkle”
30 “Merkelchen”
32 “Killah Bee”
41 “The Judge”

What does it all mean? Not a great deal, tbh. But I found it interesting, so here you are.

CSM 13 results

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Evening All,

Just a few numbers out of the election results.

First off: The Judge is the beneficiary of Creecher’s disqualification. The results with him disqualified (so the ‘actual’ results. The number on the front is just an identifier. it doesn’t mean anything. I’m being lazy by not removing it.)

7 “Suitonia”
8 “Aryth”
22 “Jin’taan”
28 “Innominate”
31 “Steve Ronuken”
32 “Merkelchen”
38 “Sort Dragon”
41 “Brisc Rubal”
43 “The Judge”
44 “Killah Bee”

The result without Creecher’s removal:

7 “Suitonia”
8 “Aryth”
11 “Creecher Virpio”
22 “Jin’taan”
28 “Innominate”
31 “Steve Ronuken”
32 “Merkelchen”
38 “Sort Dragon”
41 “Brisc Rubal”
44 “Killah Bee”

Going into the audit log, we find that Aryth and Sort Dragon each got enough votes to get elected without any transfer. First stage transfer from Aryth was enough to put Merkelchen over the edge. Not quite enough to get Innominate above quota, but pushing him into the top four.

It takes quite a few eliminations before it’s more than those 3 elected. Down to 23 candidates remaining, before minor transfer from Aryth and Merkelchen get Jin’taan over the edge. (it’s like 57 votes. He’s received enough transfer from eliminated candidates to get him there)

By the time we hit 18 remaining, Jin’s in the top 3 candidates, getting elected without any transfer.

Down to 16 and Killah Bee is above quota after transfer from Sort Dragon.

Down to 13 candidates, and I get on by transfer and elimination. I pick up a few from people who voted for everyone above me.

Down to 12, and I have enough to get on by myself.

Total votes which are totally exhausted before anyone gets elected: 2325

This year, with only a single member, Aryth would be it.

2: Aryth and Jin’taan.
3: Aryth, Jin’taan and Sort Dragon
4: Aryth, Jin’taan, Sort Dragon and me.
5: Aryth, Jin’taan, Steve Ronuken, Merkelchen,Sort Dragon
6: Aryth, Jin’taan, Steve Ronuken, Merkelchen, Sort Dragon, Brisc Rubal
7: Suitonia, Aryth, Jin’taan, Steve Ronuken, Merkelchen, Sort Dragon, Brisc Rubal
8: Suitonia, Aryth, Jin’taan, Innominate, Steve Ronuken, Merkelchen, Sort Dragon, Killah Bee
9: Suitonia, Aryth, Jin’taan, Innominate, Steve Ronuken, Merkelchen, Sort Dragon, Brisc Rubal, Killah Bee
11: Suitonia, Aryth, Jin’taan, Innominate, Steve Ronuken, Merkelchen, Sort Dragon, Tikktokk Tokkzikk, Brisc Rubal, The Judge, Killah Bee
12: Suitonia, Aryth, ExookiZ, Jin’taan, Innominate, Steve Ronuken, Merkelchen, Sort Dragon, Tikktokk Tokkzikk, Brisc Rubal, The Judge, Killah Bee

(I’m disappointed. Last year it would have been me in a single person CSM 😉

Solving the WarDec ‘problem’

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I’ve made no effort to hide the fact that I think that WarDecs need work. That they’re inherently lopsided. That said, I don’t want to get rid of them. That would make highsec far too safe. People could anchor things with pretty much no chance of losing them. I’ve been kicking round a few ideas on how this could be ‘dealt’ with. That’s what I’m going to share here. I’ve mentioned it to CCP, but I don’t expect anything to happen soon, if it ever happened. They’ve got their hands full with some really large systems.

The core of the idea is simple:

Anchor a structure to declare a war. If that structure explodes, the war ends.

Not complicated, is it? Now a defender has a reason to undock and fight. If they win, the war is over. Maybe add an invulnerability to wardecs from that corp/alliance for a period (Week? Two weeks? Not long) Allies now have a concrete goal (Blow up the structure).

The key is it’s counterplay to the declaration itself. And there’s a degree of limiting for how many wardecs you run. Because every group you Dec can attack the structures which are running the wars for the other groups. Off time zones can be handled by Allies, if the Attacker tries to make it harder to attack, by setting it when no-one involved is on.

Yes, small groups will still be stomped by large groups. That’s always going to happen. But now there’s action they can take, rather than having to deal with an attacker that always fades if they manage to get a small fleet together.

There are a bunch of twiddly bits to set, of course.

  • How vulnerable are the structures? (I’d say at least one hour a day. Maybe a few extra hours which can be scattered around).
  • What do the structures cost? (Cheap)
  • What fuel do they structures take (This is the replacement for the isk cost to concord. Maybe some LP based things from pirate lp stores/drops, in addition to other fuel)
  • Where can it be anchored? (I’d suggest highsec, in the same constellation as the defenders head office)
  • When does the war end (I’d suggest the following downtime)
  • Edit: How is fuel burnt. (To keep some risk for the attacker, you put in fuel for 7 days. It’s all burnt to online it.)

 

And if you want a lore reason for the change?

Concord finally noticed a corrupt department taking bribes to turn off protection for people. They canned them. Now you have to hire hackers to do it for you. They have specialist equipment which requires microgravity, and can’t have a warp core in the same structure.

Summer Summit – Day 4

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The final stretch. This has been a long week, and a draining one at that. It’s been pretty good, but if it went on longer, I’d probably end up breaking one of the windows to let some cold air into the room. (10 CSM, 2 Community Devs, + Devs from meetings. And the lights. it heats up rapidly)

  • EVE Producers
  • Team Security
  • FW & PVE
  • White Paper review
  • Community and Localization
  • Summit Retrospective

Eve Producers

Producers aren’t quite what you’d think. With the teams having a lot more control of what they do, their Managers exist to smooth the way for them. they take care of the regular HR stuff, while the dev teams get on with the regular stuff.

It was a good conversation, giving us insight into how things are managed.

Team Security

NDA

Just kidding 😉 I’m expecting most of the minutes to be NDAd, but we had a good conversation with them, and I’m hopeful that you’ll see something from them soon.

FW & PVE

The team isn’t combining these. They’re just the team working on both things. (There are a few things which are linked, but it’s not the reason they’re together). We talked abiut their plans (which should be, to some degree, in the minutes). It’s going to shake up the warzone, which is good. Stagnancy is bad.

White Paper review

We and CCP have been kicking round the white paper for a while, hoping to simplify it, and get a document which we all agree on. Not quite there yet, but really close.

Community and Localization

A session to talk general community stuff, with the community team, and the people handling localization. Covered a bunch of things.

Summit Retrospective

An After Action Report on the summit itself, and how we thought it went, and how it could have gone better. Really worthwhile, though not, tbh, hugely interesting for people who weren’t there. Lots went well. A few things, not so much. (We were in their biggest meeting room. But with all of us in there, and it not having good cooling, we boiled. Next time, probably a smaller one, but with an exterior door)

 

 

And so the summit ends. It went better than I expected, though that’s down to bad expectations on my side. I should remember that face to face nearly always goes better. When you deal in mostly text, or just audio, a lot is lost. When we could see, and compensate, things went smoothly.

Summer Summit – Day 3

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So hungry. I may need to eat one of the other CSM members. It’s been a fairly long, but productive and interesting day.

  • QA team session
  • EVE Metrics / In-game economy
  • Launcher / download on demand
  • Structures
  • EVE Store
  • Art session
  • UI session
  • Fanfest

QA Team Session

The day started with a huge Scotsman, with a large beard talking to us. As you might expect, this immediately made me feel at home. We talked a bit about how the QA team do their work (not the actual QA bit. The infrastructure around it) and where they think they’re strong, and where they’re not so good. Saw some graphs, heard some suggestions. A good meeting.

EVE Metrics / In-game economy

Heard some good news in this session, but it’s not my place to announce things. So I’m not going to. But again, I’m entirely happy with how this session went. And seeing some metrics generated on the fly (from the underlying logs) is always interesting.

Launcher / download on demand

omgomgomg. I will say no more.

Structures

We talked about structures. Both the Citadels, and the future structures which are coming later. We mostly focused on places where we weren’t entirely sure about things. I don’t want to talk about this too much, as the NDA applies at the moment. But I’m hopeful that there’ll be more in the minutes.

EVE Store

I want to buy stuff! And I want it to not cost me an arm and a leg! And CCP appears to have listened to this. As with things involving partnerships with other companies, CCP are going to hold this close to the vest until it’s actually ready. With luck, that’ll not be too much longer.

I asked about the card game, and the possibility of print on demand with a partner. As this was kind of a blind side question, I didn’t get a firm response. I didn’t expect one, just wanted to plant the idea.

Art session

We were shown a bunch of art stuff. It was cool. It’s not particularly possible to talk about, without having pictures, so I’m not going to. But Eve has yet more prettiness coming. I asked about hats (and other accessories). I got some dirty looks. As per last time, a lot of it is having to deal with things like hair as well, which is just difficult to work with, as customizable as it is. To make sure it doesn’t clip, or just look weird. It’s a customization thing. People have their portraits, and some people take a lot of effort over them. Some accessories naturally fit, like hats, which would sit inside the portrait.

UI session

CCP has a new team devoted to the User Interface and User Experience. (rather than embedded people, in other teams). They showed us some concept stuff they’ve been kicking round, we brought up some pain points on the current UI. A good productive session, but again, one that, without the pictures, isn’t simple or interesting to talk about.

Fanfest

We talked about Fanfest, with the person who organised it last year, about where we thought it went well, and where it could have done better. An After Action Report, so to speak. We had a bunch of comments, they had questions.

 

Today felt incredibly productive, covering a lot of ground, and having a lot of discussions. I’m not sure how much of that will come across in the minutes (They’re always a cut down version, unless you have a stenographer, and are willing to wade through reams of text), but it went well today.

 

Summer Summit – Day 1

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As some of you might well be unsurprised to hear, just from the topic list for today, this is going to be very light on details. Because a great deal of this will fall under the NDA. I’m hopeful that you’ll hear about it all fairly soon, but there’s some potentially contentious stuff in there, and other stuff which just isn’t ready for public consumption.

Anyway, with that said, let’s begin.

The meeting with Hilmar went pretty well, with us focusing mostly on how we see things going, and how we think CCP can communicated better with you, the average player base. There’s been a great deal of focus on things like Gunjack, and Valkyrie in the gaming press, with Eve sometimes seeming like the poor step sister, hidden away in the wings. In part, that’s due to it being ‘old news’, the game that’s been around for 13 years, without any major changes or new features which would be understood by the average person who reads the gaming press. Pandas are easy to understand. A new way to take space, not so much. It’s obvious when you actually talk to the people, that the passion is still there, but it’s not always well communicated.

Also, he fed us Sandwich Cake (Brauðterta) which was a somewhat novel experience. tasted pretty good.

 

Then we moved onto the 3rd party session. Nothing new to report here, other than we asked for a bunch of things, some which will be dependant on the other team developing the feature, and some which Foxfour said he’d look at. I’d like to say a little more, but forgot to check what the NDA coverage was, so what I’ll say is, read the minutes. Hopefully it’ll be in there, if not, sorry folks, that’s NDA for you. (It’s a technical point, rather than a new feature)

Then I fell asleep. 😉

Well, no, but we moved onto some long, and very very talky sessions about Sov, Cap changes and power projection. Some of it was a bit above my head, some of it seemed counter intuitive, but I guess that’s mostly because I don’t spend a great deal of time in Null, and I don’t move in the upper echelons of power there. Unfortunately, a great deal of that comes under NDA. Some minutes were taken, but I’m expecting another cat picture. (Sorry, no recipes from me this year) Hopefully you’ll hear about it fairly soon, but with some of the changes being talked about, I can understand serious NDA protection. I did like what I heard about Caps and Supercaps (from my admittedly less educated perspective)

 

And that’s the end of the day. We spent a lot of time talking about Sov. And, I’m glad to say, things remained civil. Which is nice, considering how high tempers could have run.

CSM 9 voting list

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The Election is almost on us, and that means suggested voting lists. As you can’t just put me 14 times, I have a number of suggested candidates. Other than myself, I’m not really suggesting any particular order (me first!). Pick people that are appropriate for your play style, or where you live.

If you’re an industrialist, consider voting for the wormhole candidates, as they’ll have a clue about the pain involved with working with POS, as they live out of them.

  • Me! Steve Ronuken.
  • Mangala Solaris – A good understanding of small gang warfare
  • Jayne Fillion – Another good understanding of small gang warfare, with good theory crafting skills.
  • Ali Aras – An incumbent who’s done a good job keeping lines of communication open.
  • Sugar Kyle – A low sec trader. Lowsec needs work, and Sugar knows.
  • Proclus Diadochu – Wormhole candidate. Wants to hit on POS and corp management.
  • James Arget – An incumbent wormhole candidate.
  • Mynnna – Yes, he’s a goon, but he knows his stuff. Incumbent.
  • Mike Azariah – An incumbent for the ‘casual’ player.
  • Xander Phoena – Another goon, yes. He’s, on the other hand, loud and opinionated. Which isn’t a bad thing.
  • Psianh Auvyander – More small gang warfare, and the merc perspective.
  • Matias Otero – BNI is a wonderful concept.
  • DJ FunkyBacon – I don’t agree with him on everything, but he’s not generally /that/ wrong. And he’s another Lowsec advocate.

Yes, I know that’s only 13 people. can’t expect me to do all your work 😉

 

Vote match may be of interest.