Assembly Hall

CSM, why did you sign the letter? I’ll give you an outsider’s view of what has just happened.

1. You knew that CCP would release a dev blog during October about the first nullsec changes.
2. Sion indicated that the jump distance nerf and cooldown proposals were discussed at the summit when he omitted these from his list of what was not discussed.
3. You decided that a pre-emptive strike was required rather than working with CCP on the rest of the changes which were evidently going to be figured out before the second week in October.
4. The letter was an attempt to take the initiative from CCP on the changes and to drive the agenda in a desirable direction.
5. Rather than allowing this to occur, CCP published the dev blog early and you were therefore not adequately consulted.

In summary, you gave the finger to CCP by trying to take control of the agenda along with the null bloc leaders. They, in turn, gave you the finger by not consulting with you on some of the changes. Your position has been publicly stated and your usefulness to CCP is diminished.

(As an aside, does this mean that you did not agree with the jump distance nerf and cooldown proposals at the summit? My interpretation was that CSM sentiment was generally positive following the summit. I am puzzled - perhaps you were just afraid of being seen as irrelevant through lack of involvement. Also, are you still broadly opposed to the additional changes as per the article or was this just knee-jerk on Sion's part?)

"What else could we have done?", I hear you ask. You clearly knew about the letter in advance and could have counselled that it should not be released. It would obviously have been released anyway so you could have immediately published a CSM statement in reply. This would have been along the lines of, “CSM understands why the letter was necessary. CSM understands the issues and these are the subject of extensive discussion with CCP. CSM understands that CCP has the right to drive the agenda in their game. A roadmap of the already-drafted changes will be published in a couple of weeks and we suggest you wait for them.”

As it is, the letter looks impotent and so does the CSM. Now, you have to choose how best to represent your communities. I suggest that this is not done by always taking a popular position or a position that is defined by your leaders.

I think you have harmed the CSM as an institution. I think you have nerfed your own ability to guide CCP through the most important changes that have hit this game in a long time (possibly ever). I think that trying to wrestle the agenda from CCP when you knew that change was imminent was a mistake. You have a privileged position which you have diminished by confusing null politics with your actual intermediary role.

Huh? What bit? It is all thoroughly defensible. I am not suggesting any grand conspiracy but rather criticising actions.

Yeah I'm gonna agree with Mallak here, this is pretty tinfoily, and more significantly, pretty wrong. The short version is I signed it because I agreed with it, and the letter had been something in the works long before any of this had been discussed.

I hope so! Probably.

That was kind of the point of it.

If a cake is being carved anew, then those null-sec leaders represented there are those who wish to hold the tool that carves the cake the most OR participate in holding the carving tool.

There's some null-sec leaders signatures missing however. I guess not everyone has succumbed to all the changes being inherently bad in the long run.

Any veteran of EVE is going to have his/her own story of how they endured the hard times when things were FUBAR and how they persevered. Why can't we do the same? Clench your teeth and take it like a man. Then, when it's over, go to your favourite proctologist and get a soothing ointment to spread around the hole that hurts the most.

Afraid much?

I don't understand this post. What would I be afraid of? I don't have a problem with the letter itself although I think it ended up lacking much impact.

What I would have a problem with is CSM members making decisions designed to benefit themselves or their corp/alliance/coalition at the cost of the game or the CSM as an institution.

It appears that the CSM has built up a lot of "CCP capital" over the past few years resulting in them being taken seriously by a larger number of teams. It would be unfortunate if this was spent on something pointless, that's all.

The CSM posts above indicate that this isn't the case (thanks for posting btw) so that's good.

If the letter didn't prompt an early release of the dev blog then Greyscale should be ashamed of shunning the CSM on such an important matter.