A Scientist's Life in Eve

Following the responses I’ve received, I am going to give the responses of a few of the candidates at a time, spready across multiple posts.

Since yesterday’s post, I’ve now also received a response from Korvin.

The first response to feature is that from Akirei Scytale.  My comments about the response are in the coloured text.

1) If elected to the CSM, if you could do 1 thing to improve gameplay for players like me, what would you want to do?

I don’t have many opinions regarding industry as I don’t take part in it, but I would push for a UI overhaul, which benefits everyone, especially the guys who spend most of their EVE time navigating horrendously organized menus and spreadsheets.

I think honesty is a good policy.  The UI generally could use some tweaking here and there, and although I love spreadsheets, I could do with a bit less time spent with them – but that might be mostly my fault

2) What is the one thing in Eve that you think needs the most attention, and what one thing would you want to change to improve it?

Supercaps are by far the most critical issue at the moment, in my eyes. Its a severe imbalance, though it only affects about half of EVE’s players. I feel that CCP needs to clearly define the roles of supers (and dreads), preferably buffing dreads and supercarriers while taking a good hard look at tittans and fixing the fact that they counter literally everything.

This was a fascinating response for me.  After all the comments and demands for action, here is somebody asking for supercarriers to be buffed.  I’m paying more attention to the first part of the answer, in that capitals could potentially benefit from more defined roles.  These are areas where my experience is more limited, so I can’t really comment beyond speculation and “sticking my nose” in to somebody else’s part of the sandbox.

3) Following the “summer of rage” and Incarna, when and how would you advocate CCP developing Walking in Stations, or would you prefer no further development at all?

Its a nice idea, that doesn’t deserve CCP’s full focus. I’ve got nothing against continued development, but would be strongly against focusing on it. CCP needs to keep its focus on space. I really, really love spaceships.

A pretty standard and expected response.  Eve is internet spaceships, and CCP have learnt numerous lessons throughout last summer.  However, they have expressed a desire to expand their player base and make Eve the ultimate space simulator, and it would be sad if this framework, which they no doubt spent significant money developing, wasn’t progressed further.  I’m guessing that the NDA would prevent the CSM from disclosing what else they’ve seen, but I’m betting that there is lots more content which is “close” but not ready for release yet.

Second up is Mu’ad Diib.  Same format.

1) If elected to the CSM, if you could do 1 thing to improve gameplay for players like me, what would you want to do?

Whilst I’m a frequent miner I’m not really an industrialist on your level so to a degree I’m grasping at straws. I guess the main improvement that I’d suggest would be an upping in the capacity of stations to allow for more production slots.

Having said this, I recognise that this might not be the change you want or need

The thing is, I’m not really standing on the basis that I know exclusively what’s best for other players. My position is clear on this.  I don’t.

What I do know is this: Being an accessible and independent candidate is really important for proper representation. If I’m elected, I’ll listen intelligently to the arguments, ask pertinent questions where I’m unsure and then I’ll intelligently and articulately represent your needs truthfully and with integrity.

Not much to say about this response.  The different player owned outposts in 0.0 each specialise in different things.  If you want to spend the ISK to upgrade them, then an Amarr station, for example, could be incredible for manufacturing.  However, the issue for me is how the market operates, not whether you want to spend 20 billion ISK or more upgrading your station (which I don’t!).

2) What is the one thing in Eve that you think needs the most attention, and what one thing would you want to change to improve it?

Fundamentally I feel that there’s not enough democracy within the game, (both in terms of the way that CSM candidates are elected and in terms of how CSM representatives advocate on behalf of the players who have voted them in). I think this means that partisan changes are often called for and happen that don’t necessarily represent the best interests of the community.

To bring this back to your question, my aim would be to strongly advocate for a democratic system to be put in place that will allow players to suggest and vote on changes directly, (rather than exclusively via a representative group) so that game evolution is more in line with the democratically expressed wishes of all of the community, not just via the flexed muscles of the super powerful blocs and elites.

I’m for the crowdsourcing type exercises that have taken place in the past, however the same principle would apply.  If a bloc decides they want to push something through or effectively veto something, then they potentially could get together and vote accordingly.  Goons got Mittens the Chair last time, and almost certainly will again this time.  Also, it seems clear that CCP, although having teams working on small changes and iterations, still have a longer term strategy, and this is unlikely to be significantly influenced by crowdsourcing unless they pull another Incarna on us.

3) Following the “summer of rage” and Incarna, when and how would you advocate CCP developing Walking in Stations, or would you prefer no further development at all?

I’d have to say that personally I find walking in stations a bit of a distraction form the main game, however this is just my own view. What I think does need recognition is that for some players, walking in stations is an exciting development and on this basis it should probably be developed further.

Having said this, should it be developed to the detriment of other aspects of the game, like flying in space for example? My resolute answer to this would be no.

My core belief is that the enormity of the game and the highly complex nature of Eve society means that development and support for aspects of the game should be, wherever possible even handed for example I don’t feel that high sec space should be prioritised over low sec, or the other way round. On this basis I think both flying in space and walking in stations are important features of the game and I’d like to see and equal amount of development invested in both these aspects.

A balanced approach, but for now, CCP would risk too much by getting anywhere near 50/50 in development time.  Who knows what might happen if they did successfully float the company, maybe the resources would be there to do a bigger push, but the community (i.e. the players, their revenue stream) needs to be brought along with them for any chance of success.

Well, with only two responses here, this is already a long post, so I’ll stop here and start another post for the next responses soon.