CSM Gets Some Priorities

  I'm a bit late to the party in this post, but better late than never. The CSM needs your help, yet again, to get the priorities of the community in order so they can push the proper issue with CCP.

  Here's the list.

  There are plenty of good items on the list and this time around. things are slightly different with your voting.

 * Each ballot is worth 20 points, divided equally between the items selected. No item can get more than 3 points per ballot, so pick at least 7 to ensure all your points are used. In the example above, Bugshunter Bunny picked 10 items, so each of his selections will receive 2 points. If he picked 40 items, each would receive 1/2 of a point.

* Based on player feedback on previous prioritizations, this time around you can also vote against items. To do this, just put a "-" in front of an item you want to vote against. For example:

Negativity Duck,1,7,19,24,25,3,99,-27,-44,-57

In this case, 10 votes are being cast, so each is worth 2 points, but 7 of them will add 2 points and 3 of them will subtract two points. Note that casting negative votes makes your positive votes less powerful!

* Since we will be looking at the results both with and without negative votes, please make sure you pick at least 7 positive vote items to ensure that your votes get full weight when only positive votes are considered.

  It is a bit oddly worded, but essentially you get to vote for and against items on the list, which are weighted with points. Use all your points to make sure you have an effective vote, or don't if you don't care much.

  So, with all that's on there what are you looking to have improved? There are some great ones that will be getting my votes:

12 Balance Self Destruct
27 Corp Bookmarks
28 Corp & Alliance Tool Overhaul85 Possibly Practical POS Proposal
88  Reconnect to lost drones

123 T3 Refitting in Wspace
139 Unanchoring Abandoned POSes

  Choose wisely!

-Mem

CSM Minutes and Wormholes Iterations

  The CSM minutes for May are now out and there are some interesting things there to read if you like that kinda stuff. These minutes has me a bit hot under the collar. EON magazine's newest issue also features wormholes and

  Starting with the minutes, I'll just throw a quote out:

"Based on comments by CCP Greyscale in a previous session, the subject of removing "ABC" minerals from wormholes was raised by nullsec-resident CSMs, who were surprised to learn that WH space was nullsec and that ABC minerals were available in them. They favored entirely removing ABC from WH space -- or limiting them to C5 and C6 holes -- but the two wormhole-resident CSMs objected strongly, pointing out that exporting minerals from deep wormhole space was difficult, and much of it was likely consumed locally. An argument was made by some CSMs that the prices of ABC ores and refined products were being crashed by "daytrippers" mining in easily-accessible wormhole space; other CSMs stated that no nerfing of ABC minerals should take place without first obtaining detailed statistics about the balance of trade for each mineral and class of wormhole."


  The fact that many of the CSM had no knowledge of wormholes is disturbing, considering how long they have played and their new high status placement. I also find it amusing since the most frequent "daytripper" are nullsec dwellers that only see wspace as a "carebear candyland". Then, when they apparently find out what it is they object to our playstyle and living environment. Excuse me? Nullsec tears tend to be my guilty pleasure sometimes, but this one hits home. We are nullsec and we do have the advantages. But unlike them, we don't have local or jumpbridges or gates so we do have disadvantages. Leave my space alone, it's fine the way it is. Now, that's not to say any of those changes would happen, but I worry for wormholes sometimes. 


Later in the minutes you will find this gem as well:


"The CSM brought up Superveld and the need for high-yield low-end asteroids in nullsec to remove the need to compress and import everything from hisec. CCP Greyscale was cautiously in favor of this, depending upon what the statistics might show"


 Lolwut? I'd say there are too many carebear nullsec'ers on the CSM. Take away ABC ore from wspace and give nullsec some better low-end ore? Hell naw, brosif, shed your tears elsewhere. 

  Which leads me into the EON issue #24. I'm happy to see them feature wormholes, since the more people know is usually the better. I'm not, however, sure about the implications that some of the articles were showing. It seems CCP is thinking of picking up the lost toy that is wspace and "iterating" on it. That's enough to get people worried, when we aren't sure what they will break or throw in against player wishes. The only real "issues" with wspace are the bookmark copy mechanic, POS mechanics, and corp mechanics. Those are things that will benefit everyone in the game, so when I'm unsure of what they might do I think the worst. 


  Stations in wspace? Tiered wspace? Making things easier in any regard? No. Thanks. Outposts, if done correctly, might be pretty cool. 


  But these are only my worries and reservations and even though many share them I will leave you to make your own conclusions and thoughts. 


  Cheers
-Mem

POS mechanics

  I just got back from time with the fam and my lady, just wanted to make a quick post since I'm not feeling well.

  For those that are running for CSM and looking at issues to address, please take a hard look at POS mechanics. Everything from T3 refitting to hangar logs, etc. That last is especially important when you have to live in wormholes where everything is basically available to the community without a way of tracking what goes where. The last thing I want to find is that I log in and my ships are gone. It's one thing to die in glorious battle, another altogether to get stolen out from under me.

  I think I remember hearing CCP mention that they do want focus on wspace a bit more sometime soon...hoping that's true.

  Also did a little hunting of a familiar name today. Shout out to Nashh Kadavr, although we didn't get any tasty killmails. He's rather smart when it comes to knowing what to look for and how to not get ganked. Maybe next time ;) Asuri says hi, too.

  Anyways, I'm going to go rest because I have lots of work to catch up on in the next couple of days.

o/
-Mem

The CSM Debate

So a new election year has come for the Council of Stellar Management, now going into its sixth iteration. It seems each new group pushes CCP harder and farther, a good thing indeed with the way CCP can act like a spoiled child that only wants new shinies. They work for the playerbase, or at least that is what they are supposed to do. They give voice to our concerns and demands, hoping that our universe's overlords will bend to listen. It's a lot of work and a lot of dedication put in for something that many people see as "just a game". So who would want to do this anyways?

Well there are quite a few this year it seems, names familiar and not. Kelduum Revaan, CEO of Eve Uni, has a campaign running I think, as well as Roc Wieler, and I am truly hoping one of my corpmates pushes to be a candidate. Roc, though, is my biggest pick and I will be voting for him. I hope you will too, but that's something for you to decide. Why do I want him? Good question, one that I will now answer.

In my mind, Roc is an exceptional capsuleer with a great amount of experience, knowledge, talent, creativity and character. In his own words:

"You’re getting an intelligent, charismatic bulldog that won’t back down from a fight. You’re getting a man that will stand tall and proud, shouldering your requests to the CSM, and then to CCP. You’re getting a cigar smoking, exercise driven ex-Matar Colonel that will fight with his last breath for what he believes in."

He loves Eve because of what the universe is and what the players make it to be with who they are.

"A game succeeds or fails not based on board room meetings, or even how good/bad a game might be; it depends on its audience. A game is only as good as its players. "

He sees the CSM as what it is: a voice of the people. While CSMs have done well to keep that in mind, they need to remember that their agenda is to be that of the capsuleers they represent. But that doesn't mean he is a puppet. He has his own mind and a sharp one with ideas to fix Factional Warfare and Third Party Apps, although they are only his opinions and not part of his campaign.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. He's a quality candidate and has had to fight just to apply to be one. But he is not my only choice as a candidate for the CSM. While I do prefer Roc's approach of doing what it is the playerbase thinks needs doing, I do want specific attention. Can you guess where? That's right, wormholes.

Embalizym, my aforementioned corpmate, is an excellent choice and to my knowledge the only wormholer that is going for it. She is as tenacious and bullheaded as she is nerdy. Yes, a woman *gasp* Mynxee isn't the only one around to kick CCP in the balls. And she is happy to do so to make sure CCP stays in line.

For Em, the important things are "balance, critical thinking, empathy, being painfully honest. anarchy and innovation" while she is less than enthusiatic about "people who rely more on numbers than skill, yes men, lap dogs & puppets." Very straightforward and honest in who she is and how she approaches any situation.

Understanding that wormholes are a growing and popular part of Eve, it is desired that the opinion of this group is heard, particularly in the following:

Overhaul of the BM system
-The current system is unwieldy at best
-A quick improvement would simply be to allow for adding bookmarks linked in chat, with the option to go directly to a folder
-Is it necessary that BM's first go to the general folder then the assigned?
-Implementing corporate bookmarks

POS Mechanics
-Refit T3's from POS's - require the ship be stored and unfit, make the change, then relaunch the ship, thus no redrawing
-Improved hangar tabs - allow for different tabs in different hangars, personal storage
-There is an option to name ship arrays and corp hangars, but it does not work, either remove the option or let us name them
-Allow for on lining of multiple modules at once/ why is it limited?

Scanning, WH's, etc.
-Why is D Scan in KM, people only care about AU
-Fail to jump bug, etc. There are bugs in WH's too.
-Perhaps implementing outposts in WHs to fix issues encountered with POS life

Now, there are also other issues in EVE and solutions for them:

Dealing with Bots and Nulsec
-Nulsec Bots are a problem, but cannot be easily removed because they must be detected
-Nulsec is effectively hisec for the locals, murder for anyone else
-Nulsec is often called static, unchanging

Change local to delayed (perhaps with modules to allow for faster local, etc. in more developed systems) - bots lose their security net, people have a chance to sneak around, making nulsec more violent, less static

PvP Issues
-Docking games, allow for some manner of stopping people from docking when engaged
-Hisec wars, and the fixing of

As is the trend, she does have an affinity for a particular area of space. Naturally, she hopes to finally bring more attention to wormholes and shape them into functional areas of space that they deserve to be. The CSM minutes from December noted that there is a desire to have players migrate to 0.0 space, including wormholes. So it is only logical that such a space needs work and Em is the one to get it done. Wormholes are ignored by just about anyone that doesn't live in them. The CSM has called it a "mini-game" and CCP seems to think it's good for little beyond day trips. But CCP also likes to vaunt how the game has developed through their players. Did you think CCP came up with jetcanning or alliances? Nope, that was all us players. So what if wormholes weren't originally intended to be what they are now. Working with the players as the game evolves is what the CSM, and by extension CCP, is all about.

So those are my opinions on a couple candidates to keep an eye on. I wish them luck in the days to come, as well as all candidates that are running.

Since I am already on the topic, I might as well mention things that have been knocking around. One of those is that the CSM itself could use overhaul in its execution. Well what do you mean? I mean the structure. Someone mentioned something like this and I would like to see it applied. Instead of electing an entirely new team of CSM, why not work more like the American Senate and stagger such changes. Keep half of the old CSM as an anchor to bring in the new candidates and maintain the established relationship and trust with CCP, while moving the CSM forward as a whole. As it is, the new CSM members have to get acquainted with the process and whatnot and CCP has to learn new faces and attitudes all at once. Might as well ease into it instead. Food for thought.

Another thing I have noticed in the CSM is that its members tend toward pushing changes that are important to them, rather than looking at each part of the whole and improving it overall. This can be good and it is certainly a natural inclination, you improve what you care about. But it can lead to favoritism. More than one CSM member lives in nullsec? Guess what gets brought up quite often. Yes, there are large number of players that live and work in nullsec, but that is hardly the entire game of Eve.

Since this is getting a little long, I'll just do TL;DR versions of some points:

-Roc had the idea in relation to FW, but why not apply dynamic content to more than that? Missions and perhaps exploration as well. Make it more alive and more worth the brain power.
-Along the lines of my CSM thoughts, when looking at changes and balances, see what can work for more than one area of space (highsec, lowsec, null, and wspace) and push for what can benefit many over a certain type.
-Instead of trying to get expansions out on some pointless timeline, why not just stop them. Stop giving us expansions, start working on what is already there. I like the move towards killing jump bridges and nerfing supercaps for example. We want to make what we have better more than we want more useless hangar decorations or broken mechanics. Fix hybrids, fix FW, obligatory fix lag (although ppl need to whine less about that imo), etc etc. Make more modular ships in the line of T3s.

I must say CCP is certainly doing a good job of working with the CSM, an opportunity no other player base has to affect their entertainment. So I do have to say thanks to CCP for allowing things like this for us all to enjoy Eve that much more.

Choose wisely!
-Mem

PS this has been sitting for a couple days, so forgive formatting issues and the little things.

A Look Inside

(This post is part of a series that looks at wormholes and life within them. I will talk about everything from mechanics to perspectives and opinions on anything that relates to wormholes. Part 2 is here, part 3 is here, and Part 4 is here)

  So my work seems to never end. This is my last week of school and the projects and papers never seem to end. I just got a smaller one done so my reward is writing to my dear readers. See, you ARE important! It'll be another beast of a post so buckle up. We finally recorded our first episode for New Eden Chronicles, so be on the look out. I'll of course let you know when it lands. In the meantime, send us mail and head to our page to say hey. Oh and btw, you may notice the badge in the upperleft corner. Indeed, I am now on Twitter as a part of the Tweetfleet, something I never thought I would be sucked into for long. But that's social networking for you :P

  As far as ingame things go, I'm finally back in my home system. When were you ever gone? Yes, well I haven't said anything since it's all been hush hush and I may still need to keep some details to myself. But basically, our corp acted on some outside intel and set up in an upper class wormhole that has a static to an even higher class wormhole with the intention of it being a staging area. Only we found the intel was bogus AFTER the tower was onlined. Interesting welcome party too in our system.

  The tower was 1 min away from being online when 2 Russian Legions decloaked and engaged our handful of battleships. I was naturally in my Scorp and comms lit up as I got my jams going. It was intense and 2 more Tengus joined the fray. I was thankfully getting successful jams over and over, missing one or two. Our 2 Scorps took the brunt of the surprise as I slowly had my armor melted and we could only hammer through one Legion's armor. We never broke them, but they also never broke us. Just as I hit 99% structure the tower went live and pushed the aggressors outside. My heart was in my throat and we were safe. Relatively.

  The Ruskies retreated for a few minutes, only to have our cloaky call a Moros on Dscan. lolwut? It seems they were in the mood to hit us for realsies. We only had 12 hours of stront, plenty to deal with them. They soon got to work and had fun for a while. As fun as POS bashing is, although it's interesting being on the inside for once. The tower online with half shields as it was so they were making easy headway. But their hole had been destabilized in the process and they didn't even reinforce us. Certainly a party in these higher class holes. We spent the rest of our time repairing shields and onlining modules.

  Besides that, I am slowly making my way into Recons with little detours of needed skills. Mech is getting closer to Orcas and I can't wait. It is taking him longer because I am filling out his core rather than just being able to sit in an Orca. I am also waiting out the skill reimbursement for his benefit and even have plans to put him into HACs after the Orca train. Quite the little squad I have cooking.

But I am also here to get into wormholes. I think this will become something of a series, my first! :D
I will talk about everything from mechanics to perspectives and opinions on anything that relates to wormholes. Since this post is already so long, the real meat of things will start in the next. For now, my opinion!

  I found an interesting statement in the CSM Meeting Minutes from back in September 2010. The CSM is meant to represent the entirety of New Eden, and unknown space is still within those parameters in my mind. For those that are too lazy or can't find it, the comment was:

[ 17:24:06 ] Meissa Anunthiel > I totally understand the objective, but I believe it won't accomplish reduced cost (pos fuel, logistics), and I'll make more profit, so that's cool with me on a personal level, but I'm not sure it'd be well received. [/end]
[ 17:24:20 ] Mynxee > dv go
[ 17:24:40 ] Dierdra Vaal > there is one thing that will change: people who live in wormholes will not feel they have to go to k-space to build their T2 ships. end
[ 17:24:45 ] Meissa Anunthiel > !
[ 17:24:50 ] Mynxee > meissa go
[ 17:25:33 ] Meissa Anunthiel > People aren't "supposed" to be living in wormholes, I don't think upsetting the balance of the rest of the universe for wormhole people (in this one particular instance) is justified. You want to live there, well, more hurdles to you. They have to go
[ 17:25:53 ] Meissa Anunthiel > back to empire to buy fuel anyway, being able to do everything in there is not good for the ecosystem... [/end]

  It seems we wormholers have no advocate or voice. We aren't even seen as "real" entities. More hurdles to me? Srsly? Perhaps CCP didn't intend for us to live here, but it has happened and it is a very valid play style. So being shoved aside as some worthless minority chafes. While intentions guided original implementation, application has come into effect and quite frankly, should be what now controls the situation. We live here, so throw us a bone mkay?

  I have stated before that wormhole life is the endgame for me. Why? Simple, you get all the benefits of nullsec without the blob filled dramafests and endless wars. There's no politicking or need to worry about neuts and reds. For Adhoc, if you aren't in the fleet or in the corp you are red and thus earn the business end of my missiles and jams. It's simple. It also is a far more dynamic environment and one that allows for situational control. Is Jita too far away to be worthwhile? Roll the hole until you get a closer connection. Connecting systems dead and boring? Roll til you find new friends to play with. And boy do we.

  The hole also makes sure only certain amounts of mass comes through. If you have a small hole and worry about home defense, just make caps in your own system and it means you have them but nobody else can bring any inside. Our respect is earned by those who are willing to give us a good fight or aid us in our own. However, ADHC has next to no blues so being one is pretty significant.

  Those are some of the points that drew me to my new home and continually keep the game interesting and new. Sure, you can mission until your eyes bleed, but to what end? You can mine and it does have a good application for production. But why not mine in a place that can be safer than null and much more so than Empire? And the minerals are richer here, a plus even for a reformed carebear myself. I have a new title "Stupid Carebear" simply because I went on about it to the corp. I got to try out the "Rokhtopus" mining vessel and can use my skills for the good of the corp.

  Living in unknown space also means a closer connection to those you live with. You really do become a family, at least that's how I feel about ADHC. Teamwork is essential and vital to your survival and success. You could just blob people...but that's less of an option when you have to worry about mass limitations and logistics. Space is a premium.

  So, hopefully this series will show you a few new things about wspace and perhaps even give you the urge to check it out. It may not be for everyone, but it is my natural habitat now. I love it here. I do miss friends in Kspace so I do come out to play. I do want more friends and targets in wspace, but only those who are willing to accept the risks.

  For now, I'll leave you with these tidbits while I run my head through a wall with schoolwork.
-Mem