CSM Campaigns

EVE Meet is amazing, every second I was working on it, I had a nervous jitter. To the point where I put that many hours in with 3am coding binges that I drove myself to the Flu (its summer here....)

I was introduced to NPSI communities a couple of years ago by Greygal when I began participating in Agony’s public roams. Later when she left Agony and founded Redemption Road I was involved early on helping to promote her AUTZ fleets and would occasionally FC them.

Although it’s been some time since I’ve done any actual FCing for RR I still go on their public roams whenever I can. In fact I flew in their 100th anniversary roam just yesterday (RIP Dickslapper 2000. :( gf HERO, I hope you enjoy the complimentary signed copy of my book). I’d say I participate in 2 - 3 NPSI fleets each month (not always on my main).

I’ve never flown with Spectre or RvB but I can attest to having lost several ships to the latter while they’ve been out on their Ganked roams. Bastards.


Right now a chat channel and a mailing list is the extent of services the client provides to someone running a society. That’s clearly not sufficient when you realise that societies (which includes NPSI communities) are often more complex organisms than many corporations.

Since you’re mostly concerned with NPSI communities I’d say the main thing is standings. If societies were a formalised entity within the game an NPSI community should be able to set their own standings to other societies and corporations. Whenever a player joins an NPSI fleet the player’s standings would be temporarily overridden by the standings of the fleet commander. As well as now making them true NPSI fleets it would also be hugely useful when two or more NPSI communities are cooperating temporarily, such as recently when Spectre and RvB formed up like Voltron to kill Nashh Kadavr’s titan.

It would also be really cool if killmails reflected that a ship was destroyed by an NPSI fleet, similar to the “Killed on behalf of…” message that appears on KMs generated after a kill right was used. “Killed by Spectre Fleet” or “Killed by Bombers Bar” at the top of an NPSI fleet’s KM would be really cool, and people would know who was truly behind it when the KM gets passed around.

While we’re on fleets, stop the client from treating the fleet window as just another chat window. Let FCs save and reload MOTDs or fill out a pro-forma message when they create a fleet. Let the FC set up the MOTD so it displays the fleet comp to all members if he wishes and his requirements for hulls which updates dynamically as people join or leave a fleet. This way someone coming into an fleet can see what they need to get in at a glance without bugging the FC or XO for the 15th time on comms or waiting for someone to answer them in chat.*

Finally, to give you an example of when I’ve spoken up for NPSI communities before:

When I was at Fanfest last year I attended the nullsec roundtable and during the discussion ex-CCP Greyscale floated the possibility of removing fleet warp. Reactions around the room ranged from dismay to indifference to approval. When I spoke I told Greyscale that I felt it would have a serious negative impact NPSI fleets since they rely on the FC being able to warp the fleet to his tactical bookmarks. Corp bookmarks are no help since by their nature NPSI fleets attract random people from all over. I said if they must remove fleet warp at least add some other functionality so that NPSI fleets don’t become a nightmare to shepherd, such as allowing FCs to broadcast BMs to their fleet so that fleet members can warp to his tacticals manually.

Now nothing I said at the roundtable was actually that revolutionary. The point is that when Greyscale put the idea to the floor the other guys in the room began thinking about the impact on their own organisations. My first reaction was to ask myself “How will this affect others?”

That’s the attitude I want to take to the CSM meeting table and not just a Fanfest roundtable.

* To be fair that would be a great help to everyone, not just NPSI communities.

As someone who has played the game for as long as you have and worked on building communities, what are your thoughts on the New Player Experience in EVE? What do you think can be improved upon and adjusted to better incentivize players into subscribing etc.?

As a fellow Aussie I'm sure you're aware of our daily ritual of getting kicked off the server. Would you consider approaching CCP to have downtime moved back by a few hours so that it falls in China primetime, thus not effecting as many people on Tranq?

- West coast US would now have DT at midnight
- East coast US would now have DT at 3am
- West EU would have DT at 9am
- Rus (most of them) would now have DT at 11am
- And AUTZ would have DT at ~7pm (EST) - meaning that by the time they sat down at the PC after dinner and putting the kids to bed they'd have the entire evening - uninterrupted* - to play internet spaceships with their mates..

I have my preference for when it should be as outlined above, and if there is any opportunity to advance that change to CCP you bet I'm going to push it.

* Not factoring in spouse aggro.