CSM Campaigns

Thank you for your thoughtful answers to my questions! Unfortunately, probably without realizing it, you've answered all four with ship balancing changes. Ship balancing in EVE is primarily in the hands of three devs and as a result so far you wouldn't have much to say to the other several dozen devs. So let's try this again, from a different angle.

What did you think about the recent change to moon goo distribution? In the several months since this change has been implemented, do you feel this has been a net positive for the game, or a net negative? And why?

If you were in a position to influence a dev regarding PvE in EVE, what changes would you suggest, and why?

What has been your favorite EVE expansion, and why?

What has been your least favorite EVE expansion, and why?

My vote will be definetely going to Jayne Fillon. He's not only a knowledgeable person, but he does a lot of work for community already. Definetely someone I would love to see within CSM9 staff.

This is another tough one for me to answer for two reasons, first off I have very little expertise in the area of industry, let alone T2 production which to my understanding was what caused the bottleneck and the resulting economic treaty/warfare. Secondly, your use of the term "recent change" is amusing to me since it occurred closer to when I first started playing Eve than today.

But anyway, let's break it down. In terms of the redistribution of moongoo, the change was needed simply because it was a failure of game design at the most basic level. A design that arbitrarily applies value to a certain object or resource is inherently fine so long as outside factors don't shift the real value of those items, which is always going to happen in New Eden.

In this case, geography, bottlenecks, and co-operation increased the price of a single R32 mineral (tech) well above the value of other (supposedly) more valuable R64s. Looking to rectify this discrepancy, CCP made a number of changes that solved this problem and resulted in a product that closer to what they had originally intended.

My only knowledge about the distribution of moon minerals came from the great K162 blog post that did an excellent job of visualizing moon distribution. Unfortunately, that was pre-shakeup and I don't know how they are distributed and grouped anymore.

The introduction of Alchemy is another subject that I've attempted to understand, but achieved little success against those who actually control moons and conduct these reactions. I viewed the entire mechanic as more of a crude balancing tool, or to use an analogy, alchemy was the "relief valve" introduced to take the pressure off the economy, rather than create more content. Another band-aid.

As comes with not being a subject matter expert in this area, I'm going to answer a slightly different question than you asked.

"Do you feel this has been a net positive for the game?"
Is now going to be answered as if you asked me
"what would have made this a net positive for the game?"

The simple answer to what makes this game better is content generation. Reasons for conflict, motivation to invade, and the grass-is-always-greener syndrome. I understand the reasoning behind labeling resources by rarity, however in a game where value is granted to an object by players, it seems odd to force minerals into that archetype. If I had my way, and (forgive me) I'm putting on my game developer hat, I would forgo the R8-R64 system entirely.

Make everything a bottleneck to a different final product, concentrate and distribute these resources to various regions. For example: Alliance A wants to fly Ship X, but to build Ship X you need a certain moon. You either invade and take those resources, ally with the groups that own those resources, or don't fly that ship unless you're importing them for an inflated price. Maybe Alliance B want to fly Ship X, and if Alliance A conquers those resources they can increase the price of their enemies chosen fleet doctrine.

This is the way I see Eve. Everything with a purpose, a potential for narrative and conflict, and a motivation to fight.

Why bother sorting these moon minerals by rarity or value, when that value can be decided by simple supply and demand?

Would my suggestion encourage the blue donut? Maybe, I don't know. I'm not a game developed and I'll never pretend to be, but the sentiment still stands. I consider any change net positive that encourages warfare, be it with actual ships, economic warfare on the market, or the war of words in propaganda and the writing of New Eden's history.



Incursions are the first things to come to mind, and this is for a few reasons.

First and foremost, Spectre Fleet ran lowsec incursions on Saturday for the very first time. I took out a fleet of T1 cruisers and battlecruisers with new pilots and ran the fleet much like I would any normal PvP engagement: I had no previous knowledge of what the enemy was going to be. We completed both a vanguard and an assault, it was exciting, and we got paid! What a novel idea. I always thought grinding for ISK in this game was boring.

This got me thinking about the new player experience and the transition from highsec missions, to full fledged fleet combat, hopefully even leading the fleet themselves! The fantastic video by Rooks and Kings discussing and documenting their adventures running lowsec incursions instantly comes to mind. The introduction to this video has a very provocative quote that has stuck with me:

"Highsec incursions give pilots a chance to cut their teeth on fleet combat situations, within a PvE environment, and budding fleet commander get a chance to try their hand at marshaling logistics and organizing their forces under fire. The Sansha invasion plans may not make a lick of sense, as indeed is the case in much of PvE, and yet on a meta level the content has succeeded, since new in game professions, roles and communities were created."

.... You know it's bad when I run out of words to answer you. Oh well, not as bad as Ali who got 36 page article of mine to edit last friday, haha! I'll continue this post below.

Jayne for president!! i mean...csm...yes of course thats what i meant...yeeaaasss...

Linus for presi.. Oh, wait.. It's this thread..

Jayne for CSM! (he's the blond guy ;p)


Edit: Before any concerns arise, he approved of linking that picture.

[x] Vote for Templeman N oh wait a sec...
[23:08:59] Bill DaVinci > hey did tamponman quit? LOL

[x] Vote for Jayne...

Jayne Fillon has my full support. He is a phenomenal pilot, CEO, FC, and has taught me much of what I know today about EVE.

He will be a great CSM elect.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions! Yeah, it's tough to know who's working particular issues within CCP from the outside. As with mynnna, I'm not sure I 100% agree with your answers but you were very thoughtful about what you said and digging through the various aspects of each question.

Here's a somewhat tougher question, but still relevant: what would you say to someone who said "I'm not gonna vote for any themittani writers because you're all CFC hacks and why should I put MORE CFC people on the CSM?"

Technically, he's my responsibility ;-) Hence, I'd like to wholeheartedly support him, as I could use a puppet on CSM 9.

Just kidding. I'd like to throw my support behind Jayne because he's a thoughtful, creative, and passionate player, and one who I think would be of great value to the institution. Jayne flies NPSI-- no in-game political attachments to worry about. It's valuable to have a PvP representative who has no conflicts of interest that might make their lives harder. He's also, like me, a relatively newer player (although I think we're both at >2 years in game...man, how time flies), and flies with and organizes a group providing fun content outside the traditional null bloc (or even corp!) structure. His perspective and EFT skills would be a great asset to CSM 9, and I'll have him on my ballot for sure. Plus, I already know I like working with him.

I had a feeling you would, and I am interested in finding out why. This is a key example of what the CSM is 14 members, simply because one person can not possibly know everything about the game. This is ALSO a reason why CCP needs the CSM - because not even the developers have the ability to know everything about this game.

Industry is one of the parts of this game that I struggle with to not only understand, but to motivate myself to understand because I have so much damn fun doing what I do in this game already (not industry). This whole event predates me even starting to fleet command, and truly falling in love with the game. Hell, I've researched tracking titans and the historic use of supercarriers in this game more than recent updates to industry changes, and those things happened YEARS before I joined.

Anyway, CSM is a team. I hope there is someone like you on CSM that could not only know the real answer to Ripard's question, but to talk to me about it so that I can understand as well.