CSM Campaigns

Hi

I am Major JSilva and I'm announcing my intention to run for CSM 9. I've been playing Eve Online at nearly every level for going on 4 years now. I believe Eve is an ever-changing game influenced by its players both new and old. My goal is to earn your vote for a seat on CSM so I can do everything I can to contribute to this process.

During the 4 years I've played, I've mostly spent my time playing in sov 0.0. I was a member of Morsus Mihi, Northern Coalition. and now currently Pandemic Legion with some faction warfare and low-sec dabbled in the middle. I've flown everything from a lowly T1 Drake in the Bleak Lands, all the way up to a Ragnarok in the recent slugfest of B-R5. While a large part of my focus in Eve is on the PvP side, I also help manage the largest renting alliance in game, Brothers of Tangra. As such I understand what small-to-medium sized players living in null sec need, be they industrialists, aspiring PvPers, or just people who want to live in the "dangerous" parts of space.

So why should you vote for me? I'm not a flashy name, but my background, experience, and diversity within the game is unique amongst the potential candidates. Additionally, I come from a group that is very active in the CSM process and I've been able to discuss at length with them (Elise Randolph CSM 6, 7 and Sala Cameron CSM 8) what the CSM entails. I'm not going to promise that I'll fix all the things you hate, because I simply can't do that. But what I can do is promise that I will be hardworking and keep an open mind. In light of that, here are a few of my views on some of the ~hot-button~ CSM issues.

Power Projection:

For as long as I've played Eve, force-projection has existed in Nullsec combat. When it was impractical to expect everyone to own a Carrier, the resourceful alliances merely kept a cache of ships in various NPC systems scattered across the universe. While nerfing the ranges of capital ships jump drives and jump bridges seems like an obvious solution, I'm hesitant to agree it's even a viable solution; while larger entities may only feel a slight inconvenience, for smaller to medium size groups the effects will be detrimental. The blessing and the curse of Eve is that it's an incredibly complex game, when you mess with one thing there are unexpected knock-off effects. I feel the reason force-projection is becoming an issue now is more because of the way sovereignty works - or rather, doesn't work - than anything else.

Sov Rework:

Lets face it grinding structures in general sucks; its terrible in stealth bombers, it is terrible in supercapitals. I have been part of conquering nearly every region in the Eve universe and it typically goes something like this: fight over systems for a few weeks in a few pivotal systems, grind the rest of the region uncontested. It promotes a certain bloc culture that lends itself to very large-scale fights. While these fights are interesting, and the mega-bloc dynamics are a fascinating draw to Eve nullsec culture, this comes at the expense of small-to-medium sized fights. Often these battle end in each side trying to put x amount of people in a single system resulting in slow hour long engagements causing massive stress on the servers. This is not enjoyable for anyone playing. On top of that, the huge coalitions that dominate in nullsec space now leads to situations. In which 25 of the 35 conquerable regions are now largely controlled by two groups.This isn't a fluke, either - in fact it's the easiest and most profitable result.

Placing the value of nullsec into space, where manpower has to extract it instead of static moons was a great first step into fixing the nullsec dynamic. However, it on addressed part of the problem. Players should be able to make large space empires should they so desire, but it needs to be costly and not at the expense of everyone else.

The Tidi Bandaid:

While time dilation is a great alternative to what was the norm in the pre-crucible expansions(black screen of death) and I’d absolutely love to see more optimizations made to make large fights more playable, I still feel that TiDi has become too much of a crutch. If TiDi kicked in for the massive quarterly or bi-annual fights like Asakai and B-R, spending 10 hours at the computer would be fine. However, TiDi fights are becoming more common than the majority of players would like. The “TiDi Trap” as it were happens once a fight reaches TiD levels, at which point everyone and their dog can make their way to the system and jump in. This is not a matter of force projection - an entire Battleship fleet can easily go 40 jumps in the time it takes a single Titan DD to cycle. People that die can reship and get into the fight near-instantly by TiDi standards. Of course as Eve players we are a little bit sadistic, so we keep fighting these fights knowing full well the outcome. While it may be a bit crazy for us to fight this way, the current sov mechanics actually promote this type of behaviour. Again we fall back to this issue about the mechanics causing a problem. While many people are focused on patching up the symptoms as they pop up, I’d much rather solve the underlying problem causing all of these symptoms. If, for whatever reason, that is not a viable option then of course I’m on board to play whack-a-mole.

While my experience in Eve certainly isn't as vast in comparison to some of the other candidates, age doesn't make someone more qualified. I understand what being a CSM means, and I’m eager to do the work. Through hard work and creative insight we can make Eve a better, more fun, place for both new players and game veterans alike. I will happily answer any feedback, comments, or questions you may have on a daily basis both here on the forums, in-game mail/convos, podcasts, and on twitter.

Major J Silva is a good man knows allot about eve is very active and very passionate about the game as well.

I honestly have no knowledge if phreeze is running or not.

If you're referring to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2dm1F42zp0

That was actually a troll video by me.

I had heard from another source but I'm willing to bet that source got his intel via your video Hendrick ;)

Hey there, nice to see even more people running for the CSM.

So I'll ask you the same question that's been asked of me, but with different names.

What do you bring to the table that Manny and Gorski Car do not? You seem to share a lot of talking points with Manny, and "fix sov" is on EVERYONE's plate.

Mister Major Jay Silva of the Habitual Euthanasia Corporation of the Pandemic Legion Alliance in EVE Online,

Assuming you are elected, how do you feel your contributions to the EVE community outside of your CSM role will be affected?

Do you feel that perhaps CSM members in CSM 9 should work with publications such as TheMittani.com, EVENews24.com, CrossingZebras.com, etc. to put out their statements and/or opinions on changes CCP are making, so long as they are not in violation of the NDA? Much like how Two-Step commented on CCP's actions numerous times, and so forth?

How do you plan to continue communication between the CSM and the community? What do you feel CSM 8 did wrong in the way of communicating with the player base? What do you feel they did correct? What do you feel is the biggest fault with CSM 8? What is their biggest accomplishment? i.e. "didn't communicate with the community enough" "didn't push for community proposal X enough" etc.

As an EVE player do you look towards any person and/or group as inspiration? As a potential "politician" do you have any real world experience in managing a community and the communications therein that would apply to your role on CSM? (not so much as a game designer etc. but as a "people person")



Haha, yeah it was intended to be aired during NEO but Phreeze never responded if he was down for the joke.

I'm actually glad that you champion outpost destruction. So many people hate the idea because they're afraid to lose their stuff. But honestly I think this would go a long way to solve many of the issues we have in 0.0 warfare. For one, a coalition can place hundreds of thousands of different ships into a single station and simply project from there. If outposts can be destroyed, suddenly you're going to see coalitions spreading our their resources much much more. Losing a station no longer means "we can sneak stuff out later." It means that everything is gone. This would also add another large and I believe much needed isk sink hole to counter balance the isk faucet we have in Eve.

+1

What sets me apart from Gorski and Manny I foresee myself answering this question a lot. Yes, we all share the same alliance name and we're all hoping to be elected for a seat on the CSM. Our means of getting there is one difference and our opinions will vary or be similar depending on the topic.

Yes, Manny & I's talking points and vision are similar, we both want to see a change to 0.0 sov but I think our means of doing that differ greatly in some areas. Manny would like to see jump drives severely nerfed or removed all together. I don't believe this is a viable option, many people now have trained years into flying capitals like carrier, dreadnoughts, titans etc. The ever increasing size of capital fleets is because of characters coming to an age where there character(s) are now at a point where they can fly practically any sub-capital and now in days it is easy to cross train different racial capitals once you trained the initial skills for you first one. Removal of jump drives, I would argue would make years of training, acquiring isk and whole line of ships meaningless.

I do agree with Manny on that space that is inhabited and prosperous should be harder to take then space that is not utilized at all. As well as opening up 0.0 warfare to more than purely just wars of attrition is needed.

You can just call me Silva :P

Assuming I'm elected I think my overall playtime would decrease a bit depending on the workload of the role. I would still help manage brother of tangra of course, it hasn't burned me out its a role I enjoy doing. It is not a glorious or exactly fun role but it's unique experience in itself. I'd also say that the experience has helped me in liaison sense. In a CSM role I would just be representing a lot more people of varying alliances, playing styles



Yes I feel that since the CSM is the elected representative of the eve community, its there role represent the player base and its issues, feedback both positive and negative and relay CCP's thoughts on certain things that are outside of NDA. Now via which medium be it blogs, twitter or gaming publication websites like Themittanidotcom is purely left to the CSM representative choice.



Well not just continue but also improve it. My hope is to be approachable like any of the CSM not just on forums, in-game or eve mail but via social media too. There are many means to communicate with people in real time it up to people to utilize the tools around them. I think its to early to judge the fruits of CSM 8's labour yet. A lot of there work probably won't be seen until the summer expansion because of there NDA they can't communicate what they been working on to much till dev blogs are released. Even after there terms are over the CSM is still limited by its NDA that tend last a few years.


Do you mean people in-game sense or real world sense? As far my real world experience goes the most relateable would be mainly in the retail and security industries where talking with the general public happens on a daily basis. You have be calm, reserved and confident in yourself and your answers. You don't always get to deal with nicest people but its your job too. I will say that the "customer is always right" philosophy is total bullshit but it just means you need to step back, think and find a solution to a problem consumer. While they yell and scream swearing, you just remain calm while they just look like an idiot, it gets you that bit more of respect from people about yourself and others in your position.