Attitude

I've covered my opinions on Incarna frequently in the past; good idea with a poor implementation. Its easy to forget in the heat of the the fury of Incarna's sloppy release (single room, single avatar, overheating video cards, $70 monocles, "18 months", etc) that there was a broad and deep enthusiasm for Walking In Stations and the new avatar creator unleashed a lot of experimenting and artistic renditions that was indicative of the desire to be more than a spaceship in this grand space opera that is EVE.

Incarna destroyed that enthusiasm and made anything to do with "space barbies" toxic in the general discourse for a while, but it has not been ground down completely. You can see it peeking out from requests for hats or different coloured outfits, and excitement for new tattoos and cybernetic enhancements for the avatars. Its still there, still deep and wide, but traumatized from the botched introduction of its first time on the centre stage.

So when the minutes were out and I was reading the art session and saw this line I physically groaned and rolled my eyes.

Xander said that he would officially like to be documented as protesting any art time going to avatars instead of spaceships.

I know there is a section of the EVE population that is vehemently Spaceship-Only. I get that they probably stood up and cheered at reading that line in the minutes. But imagine if in a session about wormholes someone stood up and said "I would like to officially be documented as protesting any design time going to wormholes instead of null sec."

That's a big "screw you" to all the players who enjoy wormholes and want them iterated on, right?

I understand that Xander is speaking for players who want only spaceship development of EVE, as shortsighted as I think that is. But the grandstanding Black-and-White-No-Grey viewpoint of it in the middle of the art session was not the time to forward that opinion. That is something that should go into general planning and long term thinking of the game where everyone can represent the factions they feel strongly for equally.

The CSM is a body that should understand and respect other viewpoints besides their own, even if they strongly disagree with them. Knowing when to speak up about your position is an important part of respecting differing ones.

CSM Minutes: A New Concept

Back in December of 2013 I wrote that the CSM minutes were a conceptual failure:

But the minutes themselves that come out of the summits are a failure. Not just in execution, but in their conception.
[...]
But as long as the concept of the minutes is to provide a blow-by-blow, line-by-line account of a week's worth of meetings, the minutes will always be a failure. The handful of nuggets of useful information that comes from the released minutes are not worth the massive effort required to produce and review them and could be imparted in many other ways without the same overhead.

Since then we saw a marked improvement in the release time of the summer minutes at a cost of increased manpower, and then a radical change in the format this winter session to release the minutes each day of the summit.

Not to denigrate CCP Logibro's efforts at being the scribe for 4 days of intensive busy meetings, the resulting minutes are less work intensive as they provide less "blow-by-blow, line-by-line" accounting of the meetings' activities. I believe this trade off of detail for speed is worth it as a faster turnaround means that CSM have the meetings fresh in their minds the week after a summit to answer questions or issue clarifications than they would have months down the road for the release of more detailed minutes.

The concept of the minutes has changed and that's a good thing.

Response to Von Keigai

Von Keigai has left a new comment on your post "You Just Don't Seem To Care":
You seem to be assuming that "turnout" is good, no matter what. Yet CSM is an advisory council, not a legislature. As such, there is no need for it to be "broad based", or anything like it. It does not need "the will of the people" or any other such mystical justification. Its purpose is to advise CCP. As such, it does not benefit from politicians so much as smart, hardworking, and knowledgeable players. CCP presumably knows this, and perhaps they even know that adding noise to the election (which is what the "will of the people" is in practice) will result in a worse CSM.
So why is high turnout worth having? Is not a low turnout of only the most motivated and informed voters better for this purpose -- electing an advisory committee -- better than a high turnout of unmotivated and uninformed voters? 

I think that increasing the voter pool with "unmotivated and uninformed voters" is indeed a bad idea. CCP's goal should be increasing the voter pool with motivated and informed voters.

The reason I think that they should strive to do this above and beyond what they have done is because right now the voting pool is dominated by null sec pilots. This in of itself is not necessarily a bad thing except the game demographics is not quite as dominated by such players. Since the council is more than just an advisory board, in fact it is a stakeholder in the development process which has significantly more impact in the outcome of development, it behooves CCP to try its damnedest to make sure that the CSM represents as many styles of play as possible. Which requires expanding the pool of motivated and informed players, and CCP is best positioned of all involved parties in the elections and game to do so. They just need to be motivated to do it.

You Just Don't Seem To Care

Last year I wrote a scathing review of CCP's efforts to promote the CSM and the CSM 8 elections. Let's review:

We heard on various podcasts and media outlets that CCP was going to launch a publicity offensive to make players not plugged into the external metagame of the election and encourage them to vote. 

Media watchers like me observed and waited and wondered what CCP would do to drive voters to the polls that traditionally have stayed away. And what did we get? 

- The usual splash screen banner that no one clicks. 

- The usual news link in the character selection screen. 

Both of these are terrible in that a player logging into the game must be taken out of the game when they click on those links. I know that when I'm logging in the first thing I don't want to do is not actually log into the game. At best the player thinks about doing it later and at worst they say "meh, why bother?" 

- A horribly unimaginative and uninformative 38 second video. Words do not suffice for describing my disappointment. I love CCP Xhagen but the guy put me to sleep with his one line. This video should have been accompanied or replaced by a larger more vibrant video describing a) what the CSM is, b) how they are important and plug directly into Eve's development process, and c) what great things they have done in the past. And done it with energy like the Crimewatch video. 

- A mass mailing that one character of mine got. One. Out of eight.


Now maybe they have some metric for deciding characters that are active and yet still need a prod to go vote, but considering all my accounts had voted by this point and this character was no more active other ones, I don't know what metric they would be using.
To add to these failings I have to say the voting itself was painful. At least it was drag and drop but required my full screen and even then it was hard to get my voting boxes on with all the candidates. A side by side design would have been much better and easier to use.
I expected more. A lot more.

 So this year for this election cycle, was there any noticeable improvement?

- With the new launcher, we don't have a popup splash encouraging people to vote, and the news links in the launcher are even more obscured and un-obvious with all the other eye candy on there. My complaints about how these are terrible because the voting mechanic is an out of game utility and a player logging in does not want to immediately not log in stands.

- A 13 minute video with CSM8 members from the winter summit talking about their experiences and thoughts about the CSM and working with CCP. While this video is a vast improvement over last year's version, its still very dry and technical and probably only interest to people who are already interested in the CSM and will vote.

- A dev blog post with testimonials from a lot of CCP Devs about how the CSM has helped them do their job and advised on a lot of technical aspects of new development. This is a big improvements over last year but really only is visible to the people who are already plugged into the CSM process already.

In other words, the in-your-face prompts to go vote on logging in are less obvious and still take you out of game to do so, the promotional material from CCP about the CSM and the good it does is a lot better but only really visible to the people already aware of the election and probably going to vote anyways, and there was no mass evemailing to reach out to those more detached from the community. And let's not get on about the fiasco of the Summer Minutes and the marginally better job you did with the Winter minutes to get them out barely before the election started.

Overall its worse than last year. Which prompts me to ask, CCP, as an institution do you actually care about the CSM?

Voting is starkly down this season. I've heard many suggest that since it was a non-crisis CSM term that people are less motivated to vote, but that also implies strongly that your outreach efforts to expand the pool of potential voters, i.e. people who would vote in a crisis CSM term, were ineffective. Not that there has been any.

I have heard many devs from CCP extol the virtues of working with the CSM but the company as a whole seems loathe to expend any effort but the most basic steps (a single video and a dev blog). Expanding the elections to beyond the borders of those invested in the metagame and community requires some effort CCP, and you just don't seem to care.I mean, you didn't even try the mass mailing this time!

I CCP wants to expand the vote from below 10% it needs to take an active role in promoting and developing the election and its mechanics in the same way that effort was expended to promote and develop the CSM itself. At the very least, this should include:
- a voting tool built into the client for elections
- some sort of advertisement built into the client for CSM related activities like the elections
- mass mailing to each account linking the videos and dev blogs
- Hell, there should be a special window available on the Neocom for CSM information and related activities and elections.

You keep saying the CSM is invaluable, and you work them to the bone to get maximum value out of them, so now its time to show you really care in the CSM and make some investment in the infrastructure supporting them.

Endorsements for CSM9

Once again we're in the election cycle for Council of Stellar Management and I feel compelled to endorse candidates to vote for. For details on how I pick my endorsements, see this post from last year called "Earning Endorsements".

This year I'm going to give my top 5 candidates followed by several others that are on my list. I will admit I have not had time to listen to all candidate interviews but I'm listened to many and I think I have a feel for what I'd like to see.

1) Sugar Kyle

A fellow long time blogger and low sec resident, I was initially worried that Sugar would be too passive or laid back to discuss topics with the other CSM members if elected based on her writing style and perceived personality. After several interviews on podcasts I saw I had the wrong impression and she moved quickly up the ladder from a possible vote selection to my top vote selection. Smart, good communicator, and understands the fabric of low sec space? Yes please!

2) Ali Aras

Ali has been a standout member of CSM 8 and I like a lot about her and her approach to CSM duties. My one concern is her demonstrated inability on Declarations of War podcast to swing punches with Alekseyev Karde and Ninjaturtle in impromptu debates and I wonder if in CSM confines she is better debating with typed words rather than spoken (something I am very familiar with). Regardless, the word from other CSMs is universally positive so my concern is low.

3) Mike Azariah

My third endorsement from last year is the same this year! I'm pleased with how Mike did on the CSM and I see no reason to not endorse him again. His viewpoint on casual high sec play is valuable in a room dominated by intense "serious" players from other regions.

4) Psychotic Monk

I endorsed him last year and still think he would bring a good differing viewpoint to the table. I wish he had blogged more since last year to get more visibility and see more on his views.

5) mynnna

I was not surprised that mynnna performed well on the CSM 8 because Goons take the role seriously and only send candidates to the elections that will work hard at representing them. I was surprised during his interviews for this election cycle how much I agreed with what he said, and coupled with the praise from other CSM8 members, convinced me that it would behoove me to show him my support. Conversely, I cannot stress how much I don't endorse Sion Kumitomo, the other Goon candidate.

* * * * *

Other candidates on my list in no particular order:
Mangala Solaris
DJ FunkyBacon
Xander Phoena
James Arget
Steve Ronuken
riverini

Asayanami Dei

progodlegend

Willful Ignorance

I've been listening to the interviews of CSM 9 candidates on Cap Stable podcast and got to the one for Sion Kumitomo, one of the CFC / Goonswarm candidates (with Mynnna being the other official candidate). Listening to his interview infuriated me.

In November of 2012 I wrote about the stagnancy of null sec in a post called "Why So Stagnant?". Let's review what I said then:

The reason for the stagnation is that the null sec alliances at the top have been too successful for their own good.

What do I mean by that? Well, I think that the reason we don't see new FCs rising into the spotlight is because we don't see new alliances and power blocs rising into the spotlight anymore, and the reason we don't see alliances coming on strong out of the gate is because the current null sec power holders have become so good at the fleet doctrine meta that any new competition is quickly smashed and routed before they can get a foothold. The only way to get a new alliance into null sec is to find a benefactor or sponsor and thus accept their FCs and doctrines and command structure over yours. In other words, new FCs are not rising to prominence because current FCs are already so good at their jobs. 

Now this is not to say that current alliances are purposefully keeping new pilots out of fleet command opportunities. In fact, every alliance I've ever been associated with has had training programs to create new FCs and I have no reason to doubt the current powers that be are any different. But the reason we don't see any new major coalition level FCs (or at least very many) is because the current class is very very good at their job already. 

Contributing to this stratified ceiling is the increasing size and coordination of fleets that the current power blocs can muster (specifically the HBC and CFC but not limited exclusively to them). In the past, a big fleet was 100-150 pilots for a major conflict, and getting all pilots in the right ships with the right fits was an exercise in near futility. These days it seems that each side can fill out multiple fleets and each one has pilots in perfectly standardized fits that work in the doctrines. If you are not up to the numbers and professionalism of the current crop of null sec alliance war machines, you are not going to be in null sec long. More importantly, you are not going to break the stagnation as a result.

Here we are, about 15 months later, and nothing has changed. Even worse, if we take Sion Kumitomo as an exemplar of high level sov null sec opinion, the current leaders of sov null sec can't see that they themselves are to blame for the stagnation, not CCP's mechanics. Sure, the Dominion mechanics do not help in the matter but the fact is that the professional gamers in the null sec coalitions' leadership have min-maxed those mechanics to the point where they have built a great wall around sov null sec to keep everyone out but themselves and then sit around complaining there is no one new to fight. And should someone new try to scale that wall, the incumbents use those same mechanics to strangle the life out of them.

At this point, I can only assume that Sion and other leaders of null sec are practicing willful ignorance. Everyone there refusing to admit their own culpability in the state of null sec because they all sit there with guns to each other's head knowing if they accept responsibility and put down the gun that the others will execute them for trying to break the stagnation.

Another point I had issue with was Sion's disdain for renting empires. He seems to think that renting was forced upon them by the changes to Technetium but doesn't see renting as a good alternative. I thought to myself, what is the alternative? Renting is actually a pretty good system for sov null sec: the income is derived bottom up by lots of pilots instead of a handful, and renting empires are distributed and vulnerable to disruption by the enemy... if massive agreements/treaties like the B0tLords Accords didn't exist to prevent meaningful combat in those arenas. Would Sion like to go back to a single source of income so the coalitions could fund their massive wall-protecting war machines again? Ultimately, as long as alliances and coalitions "live beyond their means" of their own pilots and space, renting is the best of bad options for income generation. Perhaps CCP can add more income generators for these space communist empires, but I suspect now that they are hooked on sweet renter payments, they will never give them up. These are professional EVE players after all, and will always move to min-max the equation.

In the end, I fear the only way the wall will come down is for the current null sec residents to quit from boredom. Any change that CCP introduces will be consumed and gamed by the entrenched professionals whose investment in the status quo ensures that only their desire to stop guarding the wall will see it breached.

This and That

A few quick notes to end the week, none large enough to warrant their own post right yet.

* * * * *

I took a hard look at my goals for my Project Vulcan Capital Building Program and decided to stop production of Orcas now that I had capability of building Archons. I was concerned that too much energy would be diverted to what was supposed to be a short term start. By stopping the Orca lines I can move all necessary blueprints to my low sec production line AND liquidate some of the blueprints no longer required to fund more purchase of carrier BPOs (not going to sell any of the ones Ragelle lent me of course!).

Going from build times, I can make the component parts for an Archon in about half the time it takes to build an Archon. So perhaps first purchase will be a second Archon BPO!

* * * * *

The Rifter got a boost in Rubicon 1.3 and after all the words I wrote about the ship in my Whither The Rifter series I was interested in how the iconic ship got changed:

RIFTER:
Removed +7.5% Small Projectile Turret tracking bonus
Added +10% Small Projectile Turret falloff bonus
+10 m/s velocity
+0.01 inertia

It left me unimpressed. I know some people were interested to excited, but it really turns the ship more into a finesse flyer with longer range and more speed. I don't know if this makes it any better, I'll let you know if I see more in space.

* * * * *

I've not written on the Erotica 1 / Bonus Room situation because I'm still formulating my opinion and I'm not sure which side I'm going to come down on. On one hand, you have "sandbox" and the victim could have left teamspeak any time, on the other hand you have acts that had to be taken out of EVE in order to avoid blatant banning for, not to mention the moral depravity of it all. To make it even more confusing, there are rumours today the whole thing was staged by Erotica 1 and friends and the victim. 

* * * * *

With Xander running in the elections and not doing interviews for the candidates, erstwhile hosts of Cap Stable podcast have been doing ~30 minute interviews and doing a great job. I'm working on my list of endorsements and should have them out next week.

* * * * * 

That's it for now, have a great weekend!

CSM Elections Loom: Thoughts On Endorsements

So, elections for Council of Stellar Management are looming and candidates are announcing their intention to stand for election in the Jita Parks forum. Once more I'm looking at the candidates and trying to determine who I will endorse for election, but this time I'm considering the step of actually denouncing someone's suitability for CSM election.

I was raised in a "can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" home and while I think it has some merits I've come to realize as I've gotten older that sometimes you need to speak up and tell people what they don't want to hear. Not nice things, but things that will make certain people angry.

In previous elections, I never had strong opinions against any candidates so it was sufficient to simply put my endorsements forward and carry on. This time, however, there is one I think has a chance of getting elected and yet is such a bad fit for being on the CSM that I think I should speak up.

On the other hand, am I letting personal opinions / personality conflicts create bias against a person that might actually be a good or great CSM representative? Should I keep quiet and let others decide for themselves?

Sigh, its going to be a long election cycle.