As some of you might have seen on the EVE Online Forums, I will be taking part in the elections this year for CSM 10. I know, some of you have said, “Wait! Hang on, you’re not old enough to attend!” (21 was the age limit and I will be 20 around the elections.) This was true at the time, so I contacted CCP about the issue. After a few internal discussions within CCP Games, I received a response from CCP Leeloo, assuring me that their legal team agreed to change the age limit back to 18. CCP Leeloo was nice enough to post this in my forum thread as well so that everybody is aware of this change. Okay, enough said about that; let’s get down to business.
The CSM panel has interested me for many years because I felt that it was an ideal place for both CCP and the players to work together, and help develop the game in a positive manner. CCP Devs can run their ideas by the panel and see how they respond, and the players (CSM) can raise issues that might have been overlooked by CCP employees. Through this system, we have seen many things get solved pretty smoothly and I hope that this will continue to be so in the future.
Most of you will know me from my time here at EN24, so let give you a quick introduction of who I am and what I’ve done.
My real life name is Bob, I’m almost 20 years old and currently live in Holland (can’t wait for the next Evesterdam). I started playing EVE Online in 2010 and have only taken a few small breaks from EVE since. I have attended four EVEmeets during this period which were: Londen VETO meet in 2012, Evesterdam 2013 & 2014 and Fanfest 2014. All these events were a blast; what I liked the most was discussing EVE while drinking a beer or two with players whom I might never meet in game. I’ve done many things during my time—both in game and out—so let me sum them up for you:
– Highsec noob
– WH’s (normal player mode; c3/c4)
– 0.0 (C0NVICTED member; Delve War – Morsus Mihi Invades)
– BLACK-MARK (FC position around the time CFC took over White Noise Space)
– Red. Overlord (FC for my Corp – Fighting alliance such as 250+ Tribal band with 30 dudes and one POS)
– Unclaimed. (Second In Command / Head Diplomat – Main task was communication with the HBC Coalition)
– Northern Coalition. (Line member that died ‘fishing’ – RIP NYX)
– Homemade Napalm (Project but failed)
– (Counter) Espionage
– EN24 Chief Editor and CEO
– Assisted in Organising Evesterdam 2014
– Member of the “Fishing Crew”
– Assisted with a Archon in the Charity event organised by Bacchanalian in 2014
– I’m currently a member of Habitual Euthanasia, Pandemic Legion.
Unlike most other CSM candidates, I have a lot of experience talking to many different kinds of players spread across all areas and game styles. I can relate to their play style because I’ve done it in the past. I understand the issues they might have, or awesome ideas that otherwise may get overlooked.
EVE is often looked at from a general 0.0 alliance point of view (of course we have seen some changes happen in other places), but generally this area is given the most attention. Now, this is understandable because the player base for Nullsec is huge, but often changes that are designed to ‘fix’ 0.0 can have unforeseen effects on those living elsewhere in the EVE universe. This is what I want to look at the most in my term in the CSM. Individuals should not be hurt by things that a larger group decides need changing. In the end, those individuals are the ones who make each corp and alliance tick.
Agendas are often asked of CSM candidates, but over time we have seen that agendas are pointless because the CSM’s primary task is to be a team responding to CCP ideas, and not a group of people who are designing the game. Therefore, it’s pointless to make an agenda. However, I do believe—like other players in the game—that there are some areas that deserve the attention that I can hopefully convince CCP to give them. You can find a few of my ideas in my forum thread here. Two ideas I’d like to pull out of the thread and mention are:
1st: Change SBU’s to become single use!
By doing this, you would remove the play of onlining your SBU’s in order to secure your system. By making them single use, you would not be able to cycle your SBUs and therefore always make your system vulnerable. This will result in more fights for objectives rather than simply fighting, and if you, as a defender, lose the fight you just cycle your SBU’s in order to save yourselves from losing the timer. Once SOV is taken, all SBU’s would either be insta-destroyed or changed to very little HP so that they can be shot down quickly.
This change would stimulate the SBU market, which would effect the PI market as well. The effect on the PI market is something that I’m really excited about because this means more isk in the pockets of individual players, and this could result in some interesting game play! More battles about who controls which Customs office; wouldn’t that be great?
Its well known that Sov needs a rework, but there are small changes (such as the above one) CCP could do in the short term to help improve things currently before a rework is added.
2nd: Jump Fatigue
Jump fatigue is a much-debated subject, some love it and some hate it. I’m in between; I like the results it has because it changed how alliances move around. However, I dislike the effects that it has on the individual player. With this I mean that individual players now have to think twice before doing anything, because it might result in them not being able to join their alliances fleets later on. An example of this is something that I’ve experienced in the past. Before Phoebe, I loved to hunt with my blops while waiting for fleets, but now I can’t do this because I would gain a lot of jump fatigue, even with killing just one target. This then affects me joining in with my fleetmates later in the evening if they decide to use capitals or more black ops. This means that players, who use their main characters for both capitals and subcaps, are hurt the most because titan and super pilots simply get logged out whenever they have been used and acquired jump fatigue. This also means they can rest, but subcap pilots can’t because they are used more.
This really irks me because something fun in the game was removed, that before Phoebe wasn’t causing any issues. The problem—as I see it—was carriers and supers jumping from 1 side of the map to the other, without it taking much time for anybody to respond. That was the issue. My solution is to ditch the whole jump fatigue system and focus more on a jump timer. This jump timer would be about 10 minutes per jump (same as a DD cycle), and would allow players to keep using their jump capable ships without having overflow effects on other possible activities. And 10 minutes would allow you to do 1 DD cycle and two triage/siege cycles. This would still result in it taking too much time to move from one side to another.
You could even add a way of increasing your jump timer per jump, to let’s say, 10% but I will leave that open for discussion.
If I make it to the CSM 10 team this year, I will do my best to keep open communications within all of New Eden, allowing good ideas to catch the attention of CCP and work as hard as possible to make the most of my time with the CSM!
Thanks for reading and I hope I can count on your support!
VOTE BOBMON FOR CSM 10
