Thank you very much everyone for placing me on CSM 6 and now on CSM 7 where I am currently serving as the Chairman! If you would like to contact me directly, do not hesitate to just send me an eve mail in game. Keep your eyes here and watch for new posts.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Hurf Blurf & Dealing with CCP

If elected to CSM 6, this is the expansion I will push for.
An interesting pair of questions that allowed me to expand a bit on how I think CSM 6 will operate.
Out of curiosity, how will you deal with the possibility of - should you get elected - select other CSM members confusing the concept of accountability with hurf blurf, emo or fists on a table (you know what I mean). Accountability is one thing, the other stuff has made CCP run away consistantly as well a caused much kneejerking over the years. It usually only ends up in social engineering, which at best gives no results (look at Mazziliu and Elvenlord) and at worst makes CCP throw their company values even harder out of the window.
I can't predict how I'll deal with that possibility because each situation is going to require a response based on the facts of the moment. It's very important that the people elected to CSM 6 understand that the bullshit grandstanding and ME ME ME politics and attention whoring that have been demonstrated by some previous delegates isn't going to work anymore. I've seen this process from both sides of the fence and I have a good idea of what CCP thinks of certain types of CSM members that don't seem to care about the fact that they are on a COUNCIL and not there to promote just their one favored version of game play in EVE.

For months, I have been speaking with both past and present CSM members and soliciting their feedback as much as possible. I believe that many of the the CSM 6 candidates know how important it is now to be informed and are doing the same kind of homework. They are looking very hard at the past CSMs and will base their approach on what seems to have worked and what has obviously failed. If I am elected I am going to work with other like-minded CSM members to ensure that we take our predecessors' hard earned lessons about dealing with CCP to heart.

And as a second question, how would you deal with repeat occurances of CCP running for the hills the moment CSM does not agree with them (like they did with Incarna) and isolates the CSM while still feeding it all to the media. The only instruments you have there are those that Hilmar emphasised (transparancy, communication), but that means keeping all occurances within the public view, which is not liked by some parts of CCP. It's a tough thing to approach.
When I look at the list of candidates running this time around, I think there is a good chance that CSM 6 is going to comport itself much differently than past councils in terms of establishing communications amongst ourselves. When you get people who are long-time alliance leaders or real life professional managers (or both) on a council like this, we're going to play CSM much the same as we play EVE. There will be organized Skype / TS meetings, analysis of enemy fortifications, plans of attack and then execution.

If it sounds much like the CSM is going to war... well, perhaps it's an apt analogy. If you look at some of the other campaign threads in this forum, you'll see at least one common theme among several - that of forming a proper united front.

So when CCP moves to 'isolate' the CSM, it becomes the responsibility of the elected members of the CSM to do everything in their power and use all of their experience to bring the concerns of the people we represent to light. My former status as a Dev and the working relationships I had with people who are still there will count for something when there is a situation like that. If CCP chooses to run for the hills, as a member of the CSM I will call them out on it, keep the community informed about it and track it so that those trends can be demonstrated in no uncertain terms. I will work with the other CSM members together to be relentless in pushing for communication with the players on key issues even if there is no response.

At the end of the day, no one can force anyone in CCP to communicate with CSM, but I will certainly make sure there is a record of our attempts to try. Preferably, CCP will choose productive engagement with CSM 6. There's no reason to make this process unnecessarily difficult.

Friday, February 25, 2011

The Botting / RMT Issue

Ravens are the devil.
Time to put my stance on this down on paper, as it were.
What is your stance on botting?
In a perfect world, I'd like to see it completely eliminated. I worry that CCP may be taking an 'all or nothing' approach when it would seem to be more effective and efficient to follow a phased plan. But I do not know exactly what CCP is doing or planning with regard to this specific issue so uninformed speculation isn't really productive.
How far are you willing to go with discussions regarding botting?
This really depends on what CCP has to say on the issue when asked about it. It is certainly a topic that will persist on my agenda until they provide satisfactory answers and evidence of taking action to eliminate the plague of bots in the game. Personally, I would like to see them have a team devoted to this issue as I feel botting does more to unbalance game play than almost anything else in EVE.

It's a problem that has to be approached with a realistic assessment of how willing people are to take the easy way out (especially when punitive responses from CCP are laughably light), how determined they are to to do so, and how sophisticated and pervasive the software is. It's unclear whether CCP is being realistic with themselves about the problem, but it's pretty hard for them to claim ignorance given the information collected by players and provided to CCP over the years... especially in the last few months.
Are you aware of the full extent of botting? Are you aware of the full extent of RMTing? (ie Alliance leaders RMT'ing through renters)
All too well aware, yes. If you are familiar with the series of articles published by E24, I was one of the people poking Manfred to, "Well, say something about it. See if anyone else speaks up as well."

I've initiated conversations with several players in the past months about this issue and it's also something I get asked about constantly. I plan to put a lot of effort into keeping the issue on the table and making sure CCP addresses it.
What do you think about micro-transactions?
I think this is inevitable because CCP is a business and they want to make money. There are certainly a lot of things in EVE that have the potential to be developed as MT items. I am completely opposed to MT allowing you to pay for anything that you can currently achieve through normal game play though. For example, you shouldn't be allowed to go out and buy a Tobias warp disruptor for $$$. I have no issues with MT for vanity items or things which do not directly affect game play. If someone wants to pay $1.50 for a pair of Minmatar-skin boots, that's up to them.
Plex for Remaps - for or against?
Against.
What do you think about plex for ship customization?
This falls into the same area as my MT answer - if it's a vanity thing and not an actual 'game play' item, that's up to you to decide.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Can former Devs be impartial?

And then one day, Donald Trump couldn't find a parking place...
Scatim Helicon of Goonswarm asks:
Should we worry that your past as a Developer may prevent you from being impartial when working as a CSM? I'm thinking particularly of issues bought about under your watch - if CSM discussions turn to, say, de-buffing Supercarriers or changing some aspects of the Dominion sov system, will you be able to put ego to one side and be willing to take the axe to your own creations in the same way as you would that of others?
An axe? How about a flaming sword? Bear in mind that anything created on 'my watch' wasn't purely my own but the result of some sort of team effort that may or may not have been what was originally intended or desired. I know there are several things on TQ which I would have wanted to see come out differently or... finished.

As a case in point, the old sov system was a dead end from both a technical and a game play standpoint. The new sov system was designed to be able to be tweaked, iterated on and balanced on the fly. Multiple objectives, tiered goals and all that stuff. Yet there's so much that didn't make it into the first release of Dominion that it was gimped from day one. I've waited for two expansions and still not seen any sign that they are going back to it or finish it properly. All I see is vague talk about how jump bridges will probably get nerfed or fixed or whatever but probably not oh look a butterfly let's make more NPC stuff, etc...

Iteration is all about updating, tweaking and even scrapping things that do not work. This should be happening much more often than once every six months or every two years. It's one of the main reasons I am running for CSM - so I can go back there and ask in person, "Where the hell is XXXX? Sansha, wtf?" and a lot of other things.

CSM vs. CCP Employee

Drink the red wine and you will be drunk; drink the blue wine and... oh wait.

Avalloc, a former CSM member, asks:
Seleene, how can you hope to have any real impact as a member of CSM after having been a Developer with CCP in Game Design? You're asking for votes from the community which has been giving feedback to (you) Game Designers for years now. If you didn't take the opportunity to use it and exact real change when you were being paid to how will you being CSM be any better?
This is an awesome question but it has a very simple answer - A normal employee has to keep his mouth shut and swing the :awesome: bat while simultaneously trying (and often failing) to push points that would be common sense to most players. An employee can't talk to Massively or Rock, Paper Shotgun or blog about what a failure the last meeting was. A CSM member can do all of these things and more.

The CSM has come much further than many would believe. I remember when it first kicked off and folks inside the company had absolutely no idea what to make of it. Most wrote it off as a neat idea that probably wouldn't amount to much more than a big PR stunt. Yes, many of them are just as cynical and :bitter: as the rest of us and with good reason. Over time however, things changed due to the fact that the composition of the CSM evolved and began to come into its own. The analogy of the monster that CCP created grew out of control is pretty apt in this case. I'm sure a few people, such as Hilmar, fully realized what the CSM could become due to the media exposure and the uniqueness of the concept. Most still didn't, but reality crashed down on the CSM skeptics last year when CSM 5 presented a united front and presented their own version of 'Excellence'.

CSM5 worked because the members shared a common thread - they weren't there to have sexy time with the devs, they had a job to do and sought common ground whenever they could. Being a productive member of the CSM requires you to understand not only the game itself but how to address your concerns to the people making it with a united front. Which leads me to your next question:

You speak of knowing which Devs are open and receptive to the CSM and that it will give you an advantage in advocating for the playerbase. Couldn't that work against you too, having been an insider at CCP and now you are potentially pushing from the outside? This may create some tension at meetings where you'll know more than CCP may be comfortable with?
 If CCP were concerned about this then they wouldn't let former employees run for the CSM. I trust that the people the CSM will be meeting with aren't going to let such perceptions color their interactions. Some may not like the CSM, but due to how it's grown, they can no longer ignore it.

I left the company on good terms and don't plan to go in frothing at the mouth. I'm doing this because EVE is worth it, for all of us. As a community, as people. Yes, I would bring a new element to the table that hasn't existed before and it will be interesting to see, if I win a seat, how CCP deals with it. I also know of a few other former employees that are watching how all this plays out so I don't think I will be the last person who attempts this. Hopefully I won't because I think it would be great to see a former QA or GM employee bring their own experiences to the table on behalf of the players.

Pushing for 'Spaceships' a waste of time?

Your dad and I were in that Reykjavík pit of hell together...
Strenza asks:
CCP have stated that it is their goal to create this "ultimate sci-fi simulator" and I would just be worried that you are "wasting time" trying to push them in another direction which they have clearly made their minds up on. I would just like to hear your opinion on this. Thanks!
Well, until CCP actually defines what exactly they mean related to the "ultimate sci fi simulator" and produce a roadmap, that is all vaporware. Iterations is based on REAL stuff that is already started/existing. Saying they want to create a 'sci fi simulator' is just big empty words, and I'm not much of a fan of big empty words or things that are :awesome: until backed up by an actual PLAN. Meanwhile... ITERATIONS.

I have accepted that things like Incarna will be a part of EVE because the powers that be have deemed it essential to both their marketing strategy and necessary technological milestones. I am at odds with this design paradigm for the simple reason that, to me, EVE Online has always been a game about spaceships. However, as you pointed out, EVE is no longer going to be just about spaceships. CCP are in the process of adding a whole new side to it so we all have to learn how to deal with that. This means that all sides of EVE are going to need iteration, which means working with the CSM with a view on how to approach that.

In that sense, the CSM isn't a waste of time because it can play the role of guardian for the interests of the players. It can't prevent, but it can make visible things like CCP wasting lots of time on things that really don't matter to players. Although it is no use to oppose everything, the CSM can still ask the tough questions about what is being allocated either to Incarna or to spaceships. That is to the benefit of CCP and to the players at large.

I hope this helps clear up how the CSM can be useful with regard to helping keep CCP honest about how they intend to apply their resources. As CSM5 has shown, it is in CCP's best interests to convince the CSM that what they plan to do is in their customer's best interest. How are the players that the CSM represents getting the best bang for their buck? These are the questions that need to be asked, and CCP needs to be answering them with more than, "It will be :awesome:." :)

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Official CSM Thread & Endorsements

Make your choice - VOTE!

Well, seeing as how all the cool kids are doing it, I kicked off my 'official' thread tonight on the EVE-O forums:

[CSM6] Seleene - EVE ONLINE: ITERATIONS!

Please post your support there and feel free to ask questions!  I'll also use this post to keep track of endorsements from various people.

Endorsements

Mynxee, CSM5 Chair - LINKAGE
"A standout choice for CSM6 is Seleene. With his dual perspective as both a player and a former CCP Dev, I feel strongly that Seleene would bring invaluable insight and informed guidance to CSM6."

Dierdra Vaal, CSM1 Delegate, CSM3 Chairman, CSM5 Vice Chair - LINKAGE
"His drive to improve Eve and his intimate knowledge of CCP make Seleene one of the best choices for this CSM, which will need to keep a close eye on CCP and make sure they live up to their promises. Seleene will do this."

Teadaze, CSM4 & CSM 5 Delegate - LINKAGE
"Give your votes to Trebor and Seleene."

Virtuozzo, Infamous Shadowy Secret Master of EVE - LINKAGE
"My votes are going equally to Seleene and Trebor. I can't make a choice between them, since both bring to the table the combination of what is needed in CSM 6."

Vile Rat, Goonswarm Diplomat - LINKAGE 
"Seleene is an ok guy and wouldn't do a terrible job at this."

Vuk Lau, Morsus Mihi Executor, CSM2 Chairman, CSM3 Delegate, CSM5 Delegate - LINKAGE
"One of the most constructive talks I ever had with any CCP DEV was with Seleene both during CSM summits and Fanfest. He was extremely dedicated to the game as a player, later as a EVE developer and I am sure he will be the same as CSM delegate."

Friday, February 18, 2011

Incarna - Will history repeat itself?



You WILL use Incarna... or else!
So after a lot of speculation and general emo, CCP finaly published something of a dev blog yesterday on Incarna.


For those who haven't read the dev blog, it basically provides some concept art showing the new Captain's Quarters, described what would be in the initial roll out of Incarna, stated that CCP would approach Incarna in lots of iterative small steps (similar to Incursion) and included some promises, mainly that we'd see a version of the CQ on SiSi before FanFest and that more details would be provided at FanFest.

It sounds great, doesn't it? Judging from some of the rather sugary responses in the official comments thread, you'd think this is the best thing since sliced bread but I think it is worth setting aside rabid fan-gasming and taking a more analytical look at what this blog offers and promises.

First, some positives:

Incremental roll-out of this fundamental change to EVE is a good idea. Look how well that has worked for Incursions. For brand new technology unproven as yet through trial by fire, small steps are the only rational way to approach it, for both game stability and the developers' sanity! It's great to see CCP taking this approach to heart, although I admit the reference to "not rushing it" came across as heavily ironic, considering Incarna has been through so many revisions that it has taken over four years and three name changes to get to this point.

I also like the 'immersion' factor that CCP keeps going on about though.  From the blog:
"Another big change is that the current station hangar will be replaced with an enhanced balcony view where your character can gaze upwards at the majesty of your vessel as it looms above you inside the station."
Shit is getting real, apparently! How awesome is it going to be to stand on a balcony and stare out at my three-kilometer long Carrier inside a space station which must be...what? The size of Delaware?  FYI, the state of Delaware is 30 miles (48 km) wide and 96 miles (154 km) long which, according to CCP's artists, is the approximate scale of several stations in EVE. Now THAT'S immersion!

Seriously, revisiting this YouTube video from 2008, you can see just how much the vision for Incarna has changed from the initial implementation:


To be honest, four or five years ago Incarna was really nothing but a pipe dream. Now it seems, there is actual work being done, and able to be done, with Carbon in place and the depth of staff to deal with it.

A little history, if you'll indulge me. My first glimpse of what was then called, 'Walking in Stations' was back at FanFest 2006, shortly before I was hired at CCP.  It was there where we saw the beginning of what would become four very long years of development hell. There was a lot of buzz and video presentations talking all about how we would 'soon' be able to wander around the stations, take in the sights and generally look very awesome doing so.  We met Ambulation Man, a tough Caldari dude, and everyone looked at each other with a mixture of awe and ambivalence.

I am Ambulation Man. The code for me no longer exists.

What did it all mean? Could we stab each other with spoons? Stalk each other across an entire station? Conduct urban guerrila assaults?! Own dress shops? Be assured of a better selection of sunglasses?  The same questions that players are asking about Incarna today were being asked back then. They have been getting asked in all the years since. At least a couple of such questions have been answered by the dev blog.

Which leads to the negatives:

What is the game play for Incarna intended to be? There has been nothing substantial offered in answer to questions about game play. From this dev blog, it appears there will be no game play for months associated with Incarna, and what is mentioned doesn't have any detail associated with it that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that there is a Plan. Hopefully there IS a Plan, one we might even be shown at FanFest rather than some attitude of just throwing shit against a wall to see if it sticks.

Will docking into CQ create more lag? It was alluded to in the past that Incarna would run on different servers than EVE-in-space. OK, fine. But if true, it makes me wonder how CCP is going to make docking into our quarters no slower than currently docking today. I am curious as to why they couldn't be more clear about whether there will be options to dock and NOT disembark from the ship into the CQ. Which leads to my next question:

Will CQ be required? Are we going to be forced to interact with Incarna? If so why? I predict enormous rage from players if interaction is enforced and that enforcement imposes time penalties that don't exist today.

Will there be ANY kind of PvP in stations? Will activities in stations affect what happens in space? The dev blog suggests the possibility although in very murky language. My long time friend and corp mate, Max Teranous, made a post on Scrapheap Challenge yesterday that sums up some of my feelings about this:
"Torfi's argument is that an all powerful demigod pod pilot alliance leader, in charge of thousands of pilots, trillions of ISK, shouldn't be allowed to be attacked by a bloke with a spoon. Oh, and coz of RP, as a pod pilot is actually killable outside his pod. With hindsight it also looks like CCP are wanting the DUST connection to be the avatar combat part of Eve, but i don't have a console and am not going to buy one so that's a non starter for me personally.

My argument has always been that you have to create a combat system within the eve technology framework anyway for WoD, and you have to have that capability built into the engine from the beginning, not create an avatar system for just wandering about then bolt on a combat system afterwards. So if you have the technology in the engine anyway, may as well make use of it in some way for Eve."
One thing that is known is that DUST and EVE will be connected through some kind of <insert smoke and mirrors here>, but it's obviously not going to have a thing to do with the avatars you are creating for Incarna.  What we are doing now with the new character creator is purely for the immersion factor. This means a lot to folks who see EVE as a glorified set of chat windows, but it doesn't mean much to people who enjoy blowing people up and stealing their stuff.

The apparent utter lack of any focus on potential PvP angles in Incarna is concerning. I doubt I'm alone in stating that if CCP had spent the last four years refining Planetary Interaction / Incarna to be more along the lines of Planetary Warfare / Mech Piloting, there might be more excitement among the current player base. Even better, a complete re-focus on nothing but the spaceship aspect of the game would most likely have made a lot (dare I say a majority, especially of longer-term) players happy...ecstatic even.  Imagine where EVE might be today had all of these Art and technical resources been put toward Sovereignty iteration, Factional Warfare expansion, a Low Sec makeover, Industrial balancing and just every day spaceship balancing and iteration.

But, water under the bridge. Incarna is here, it's coming, whether we like it or not. So...

Deal with it, amirite?

Personally, I have reluctantly accepted that Incarna will be a part of EVE because the powers that be have deemed it essential to both their marketing strategy and necessary technological milestones. That said, I am at odds with this design paradigm for the simple reason that, to me, EVE Online has always been a game about spaceships. Unfortunately, CCP is more focused on some grandiose vision of "ultimate sci fi simulator" instead of effort to improve the GAME PLAY of the best spaceship PVP game on the market. They continue to push in all directions at once, which might be worth buying into if there was some evidence of a cohesive plan that connects it all and gives each element a reason to exist in a game play context.

Let me explain, briefly. I subscribe to EVE to participate in meaningful game play, where my actions have a direct causal effect on my environment. Both by my own and other people's choices, and by consequences of my own and other people's actions. This causality perseveres in EVE, and it has done so from the start. Here's an example:

I want to dock my Zealot into a drop ship the size of a Carrier and switch over to my customized Mech, which then gets dropped screaming through the atmosphere while being supported by orbital bombardment platforms. I want to see tanks, mechs, artillery and air support scurrying around on the ground as I fire my anti-grav and come in for a landing. I want to hit the ground running while enemy defenses scramble.  I want something deep and epic the likes of which would make the creators of Planetside go, "Christ, I knew we sucked but not THAT badly!"

In a universe as big as New Eden, shouldn't there be more than just blobs of capitals pew-pewing some magical space tower or mechanisms on gates to lay claim to a system? You want to own a system? You need to capture the capital city on its home world! You airlock its President and pillage the globe like a damn space viking! If the population doesn't comply, you flatten their cities until they do!

Planetary Interaction - Seleene style!
THAT, my friends, is IMMERSION. THAT is the sandbox. But alas, after four years of meetings, development and re-development, marketing spin, and awesomeness, we have... a mandatory Captain's Quarters (CQ)?  Immersion = sitting alone in my CQ doing stuff with myself. Awesome? Hardly.

I fully realize that at some point in the future we will probably be able to own an 'establishment' of some sort where we can frolic inside of a bar and do things like play mini-games or watch pixel girls dance.

Not a mock-up. This is a real screen shot.
She has tattoos!  WTF?!

I'm still not sure what any of this has to do with the hard core PVP game I've been playing since early 2003 but it's apparently inevitable and we are going to have to find a way to deal with it. The sad part is, with a little effort, there are lots of potential ways that Incarna could integrate into the EVE-the-space-game in meaningful and substantive ways. CCP likes to hint that is coming but until they show some evidence that they have actually given it more than five minutes' worth of thought, call me a skeptic. I'll believe it when I see it.

But I'm just one person, with one opinion. It's interesting reading all the replies to in the official comments thread related to this dev blog and it occurs to me that there are some useful ways one could analyze the responses.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

CCP Corporate Culture


For those who have never heard of it, Glassdoor.com is a place where folks rate jobs / companies in much the same way as you might review a stainless steel bucket on Amazon.com.  This site has seen some rather interesting reviews of CCP come and go.  By that I mean is that currently there are six reviews on the site out of at least 20 I've read in the past couple of years. It had been some time since I'd remembered this site existed until I was reminded of it by a thread that went up on Scrapheap Challenge a few days ago:

CCP Corporate Culture

The thread has generated some interesting discussion. Seems quite a few people thought the first review quoted might have been me but it's not. This morning I posted a couple of replies to clear up my point of view on all of this so I'll summarize the pertinent bits here.

I haven't posted anything on the Glassdoor site, but it all looks pretty familiar. Every year when CCP would do the yearly anonymous corp surveys, everyone would unleash their inner emo and then spend the next few days being not so anonymous discussing what they wrote.

A few folks have commented that this all looks pretty familiar and that this review could be written about any number of places. No doubt that's true. I always wrote this attitude off as CCP being a small, private company that experienced explosive growth in a short period of time. When I was hired I was one of about 120 staff. When I left three years later, it was approaching 500. I'd not expect any company to adapt perfectly to such rapid expansion, certainly not a new one with people in management positions who have no real management training.

I've been told that "things are getting better" but I have no idea if that's factual or just someone drinking the kool-aid of the day. There are some genuine gold nuggets at CCP that seem intent on trying to fight through the web. Zulu is one of them and a few more, including a new HR person that seems to specialize in causing minor earthquakes by doing revolutionary things like actually paying attention to what people say. (It's rarer than you'd think.)

I only know a couple people who left due to the money; some of the time it was due to localization issues ("I really don't want to live in Iceland forever."). Money wasn't a factor for me as I didn't really give a shit to begin with and, as with most 'older' employees, got into the gig because it was something different and fun. The pay issue is mainly a problem for the kids just getting out of college who are all ZOMG I GET TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES FOR A LIVING and are satisfied working for rent / beer money and little else. After a couple years, when they see local economic pay scales, they realize they could literally make more working at McDonald's and start thinking about scary stuff like their future. This is another thing I'm told has 'gotten better'.

How CCP views the CSM is an evolving process. While the CSM were not THE cause for some of the changes that have occurred at CCP, they were certainly a factor in terms of making transparent (heh) issues that would otherwise be left in the dark. The CSM was a catalyst for change and the proverbial final straw in some cases. The CSM has a level of media and upper management attention that normal employees and mid-level managers cannot hope to match.

Another factor is that a lot of EVE players are finally starting to make the leap from seeing CCP & EVE as one entity to understanding CCP as a company and EVE as a game that company makes. As this evolves, interest in the company itself intensifies because if the company is doing badly, so will the product. Working harder is not the same as working smarter.

CSM 6 is going to have to continue in the footsteps of CSM 5 in how they engage CCP on everything. It's not just about boosting or nerfing game features, but using the CSM's 'stakeholder' status to maximum effect. Maintaining and improving the communication process with the people at CCP who will listen can only have a net positive effect on any future interactions. Who you vote for in this next CSM election is going to be very important.  The right people will ensure that your voice is heard!



As always, feel free to ask me questions on this or any other topic.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Massively Interview

Serious interview is serious.
Massively contacted me about a week ago wanting to do an interview about the last few years and it's just gone live:


Hopefully you'll find it interesting and if you have any questions or comments, fire away!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Campaign Prep



Sorry for the lack of updates the past week or so but I've been very busy lately.  I've been following several discussions on various forums about both the CSM and the state of EVE which I'll write up something on in the next few days.

For now, my main focus has been on working with my campaign team on getting ready for the actual run and making sure the artwork (propaganda) is coming along well. One thing I've decided upon is the overall theme for my campaign which will focus on what I lovingly term EVE Online: Iterations. It sums up a lot of what I feel is needed in EVE right now quite nicely.

The latest Dev Blog came out today.  Needless to say, I'm now all registered and waiting on the official candidacy announcements. As part of the registration process I had to explain in 200 words or less why I was running for CSM.  That was not easy because 200 words is not much.  So, here is what I went with:

Having worked game design for over three years at CCP, I've had to apply creative thinking to a variety of play styles and have a broad perspective on EVE, both as a player and a Dev.  My main priority will be the iteration and balancing of current features. I want to see new content as well, but iteration of current game play would virtually guarantee new content as part of the process. I want to see everyone have an equally enjoyable game experience whatever their play style.

It is going to be a hard road to walk because this year CCP is adding a whole new side to EVE with the introduction of Incarna. It will be very hard to strike a balance between "spaceships" and "avatars" for CCP, but also for the CSM in advocating that balance and keeping a finger on the pulse of the community to make sure EVE not only sees shiny new stuff, but is also taken care of and improved.

EVE is more than just a game. We all may have different fun factors and challenges with it, but at the end of the day EVE is important to fight for, because it’s worth it!
I hope it conveys the proper message to those looking for a TLDR version of why I'm doing this. :)