EVE General Discussion

I'd rather read Jenn than you any day...

The fact is most people don't even know they have a voice. This is really the only game that has a public player elected body to represent the player base that the developers approve of. It's unique. People don't understand it.

It's as much the player bases fault as it is CCP. CCP isn't the one saying that CSM is useless, pointless, worthless... It's the players. They say it on the forums, they say it on podcasts, in corporations, alliances, news sites, etc. it's up to the players as it is a player elected counsel. If people can't step out of the bubble they are in, and can't get past the trolls who say CSM is pointless, then they won't vote, won't bother, and won't know. People know that most of the eve public have no clue how to vote even if they wanted to. First thing that happens when people ask "how do I vote?" Is the spam by people saying "do it this way and vote for these people". Is the person informed, no. Do they have a voice, it is not theirs.

It is difficult to inform a public on what a group does when a firewall is put up by lobbyists to discourage, disway, confuse, trick or falsely advocate for an organization to get their own agenda's pushed to the forefront. that's politics.

Is CSM important? Yes.

Will people disagree, sure they will. They play the meta more than they play the game.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but advertisements, the o7 show, websites with vote matching, Ingame prizes with announcements as to the CSM, the CSM on the forums, slack, jabber, Twitter, their own section on the forum, tags on the forums and on reddit...

At this point the only thing CCP could do is create a CSM unskippable tutorial and force every player to play through it, do Ingame ads and videos taking up the whole screen with an annoying voice screaming CSM with mandatory clickable links that are required to be clicked before annoying voice ends, or make the people unable to log until they go through an entire "what is the CSM" video session. At that point you could cram it down people's throats and hit them in the head with a sledgehammer and people will still ask wtf a CSM is. Hell CCP holds a yearly conference for the players, filled with thousands of people who are all informed players. Ask them who voted, maybe 5% raise their hands.

I can't see this as a total failure of CCP to inform the public. They are slapping the public in the face with a large trout, then announcing 2 weeks to make a vote vs the one day most people get in real life. The players have no excuse if they choose to be ignorant of the games development as a whole. At what point do you get people to say "ok I have a say, I have a vote".

If there is a person to point at regarding publicizing the CSM, it is not necessarily CCP. Could they go farther? Yes. They could integrate the voting system for CSM directly into the game. But at what point do you say "we've done enough to inform the public, they don't want to know what we do".

The typical average person does not care. The above average person who takes a investment into the game does.

I wish people knew what the CSM is, but for them to do so, they have to take some sort of interest into finding out. It isn't hard.

It's all about division. Break everyone up into demographics (voting blocks). Explain to them how they are victims of some other group (voting block), and that you and only you (and the government which you hope to be elected to) can save and protect them from all those evil doers.

If that fails, throw in some promises of monthly checks and watch the votes come roaring in.

Well here is the weird thing, I am:
- in a Null Sec alliance.
- asking people to vote first and foremost, take half an hour, read a bit and vote.
- asking people to vote for candidates from small corps / alliance
- asking people to vote for small corps in worm holes, anything in Low Sec and anything that represents High Sec as those are under represented.

So, in other words, I am asking for people to not vote for people in my position then to confuse them even more, I am going around and trying to get votes from people in all areas of space, so that I represent a cross section of EVE.



P.S. One major reason I am running is that I looked at a bunch of other candidates and thought, "Rather me than them whispering in CCP's ears," when it came down to casting my vote, I tried and failed to find a complete 14 candidates that I have full confidence in being in the CSM and doing a fair and balanced job

As Overlord Of Np corps I offer my sympathies as I myself have to inform many people that I actually own them...they seem surprised...

I have noticed CSM moving about in their popularity trains and realised an important thing - you need to get away from the train

I expect to be paid and admired for this solution...

-get some comms/chat channel

-make them open(simply ban the trolls and/or the unreasonable)

-answer questions in a weekly chat show and you can get your peeps to direct new people who may not know you and ergo be critical of your ideas and actively work on their concerns

-and have actual resources to aid organisations that further your ideals in game

-be entertaining

you are welcome and you may get a hold of me via the Scope Project

ps- unfortunately their is a niche community of highly active players that have the time to make their opinion known and widespread in the game, they are not representative of true consensus

Two questions:

1. Why is it important?

2. Why was the CSM originally established and for what purpose?

The answer to the second question informs the answer to the first. To me, it makes the CSM unimportant. It may be important to CCP, but not to players. It's not a tool for us. It's a tool for CCP.

So you can stick me in the group that disagrees, but I also play the game everyday. Less so, the metagame.

But I vote anyway. Which is kind of stupid. It would be smarter of me not to.

No. Because looking at either extreme as a simple thought experiment:

- If 100% of players voted, that would be a strong sign that the CSM is relevant and important
- If not a single vote was cast, it would be a strong message that none of the players care about the CSM

Since I sit more in the second group, that view the CSM as a very poor tool for most players, adding to the vote count kind of undermines my own view.

The lack of community engagement in the process has been a message that CCP have received in recent campaigns through falling voter count. For me personally, the best approach of anyone that wants change would be to not vote at all.

Yeah, see the addition to my previous post.