CSM Campaigns

Hello everyone.

I am Angry Mustache, and I am declaring my campaign for CSM 9.

I’ve been an EVE player for one and a half years. I started out in Highsec with E-uni for 3 months, and eventually moved to nullsec after joining Goonswarm Federation, where I have been ever since. More recently I've become involved with J4LP in Syndicate and the Caldari Warzone.

Like Xander Phoena and Ali Aras, I am a member of EVE’s fan operated “press”, as a contributor to TheMittani.com. I primarily write aftermath reports on notable events, such as EVE’s first Revenant kill, and more recently, the story of how a scammer was able rob an entire alliance blind. Occasionally I’m able to get in touch with EVE’s Chinese server, and offer some glimpses into the other side.

How does this tie into my CSM platform? I’ve always liked analyzing information, and much of the work that goes into creating an article is sorting and distilling all available snippets of info into something that can be easily understood by the general populace. I hope to be able to apply the same principles to the CSM; I believe much of the CSM apathy comes from the unwillingness of the average EVE player to dig through the move primary CSM media, that is, the CSM papers and Town Halls. Presenting CSM content in a more digestible manner would go a long way into improving player involvement in this unique process.

Issues

As a relatively new player, I lack the absolute mastery that some other candidates have over their respective fields, i.e. Manfred and fleet command, Mynnna and economics, etc. What I am willing to do is do the reading on every topic that presents itself, so I can make a supported argument or understand CCP decisions.

I’ll defer making “campaign statements” on topics where I do not have excellent personal knowledge on. The 3 topic I do have decent knowledge on I have some pretty strong convictions about.

Accessibility
We all know about EVE’s infamous learning curve, and how unintuitive the game is for newer players. While it can be argued that this difficulty adds to EVE’s flavor, it’s also arguable that much of the learning cliff can be attributed to “unnecessary difficulty” as a result of some fairly lackluster design decisions.

Difficulty and player skill involvement should come from player interactions with the game, not the very act of interacting itself. Players should never feel like they are fighting the game itself rather than fighting game content. There has been continual improvement, but still room for much more. For example, I would like to see EVE implement better tools for comparing modules, and changes to the "mastery" system that actually reflect the impact of a skill on the ship in question.

Beyond just UI changes, I have an interest in CCP taking more drastic steps in easing the learning cliff. For example, drastic changes to the horrendously outdated and cumbersome attributes system, as well as changes to learning implants that will make actually flying in space less punishing. But that’s a long ways off.

Sov Null

I make no reservations about primarily being a resident of Sov Null. I love the community, the organization, and the sense of purpose in the Sov environment. Marching into Fountain was one of the best experiences in my EVE career so far, but the more that I interact with sov, the more the polish rubs off and cracks start appearing. After some 5 years, players have pushed the dominion Sov system to its very limits, straining game mechanics and game servers.

After being involved on a slightly higher level in the recent Halloween war, I’ve grown a great deal of respect for the people who run Sov war campaigns for not walking into the woods and offing themselves. Every aspect of warfare wears on your will to play the game, such that the winner is decided by who has the greatest tolerance for boredom. Endless hours scouting, planting, and destroying SBUs, grinding through millions of structure hitpoints, hours of preparation for a work for a timer fight that more likely ends in being punted or blueballed. War as it stands, is a contest to see which side has more masochists.

Yet, nobody has created a solution that the community can reach a consensus on. I do not have a magical “fix sov” solution, and I do not expect one to be available without much debate and discussion (of which I hope to be a part of).

As an occasional follower of TMC, I can say that Angry Mustache would make a splendid CSM member with his intellect, his mastery of writing and his ever present charm. He has my appreciation as a bold EVE player who started playing EVE at a relatively recent date, went on to grasp it's basics and became one of the premier journalists covering the game.

Godspeed Angry Mustache!

hi

why is your mustache angry

pls respond

Assuming you are elected, how do you feel your contributions to the EVE community outside of your CSM role will be affected? For example, you write for an supposed Goon favoring video game news site, do you plan to use your CSM status to promote various things CSM are attempting to accomplish (assuming it were permitted under the NDA) or do you plan to maintain a tight lip while allowing for others around you to discuss the topic you may be working on with CCP? Arguably one of your CSM mentors could be Ali Aras who doesn't tend to output much in the way of articles, mostly due to her role as an editor for the same publication, on the subject of EVE and the mechanics therein. I'm curious how you'll address that sort of situation if it were to arise. Would we expect to see your take on such a publication or would it be on a non-polarized location such as a CSM9.org website? One could say it is better for "politicians" to be insulated from news sources, though that's more so about real politics and not internet spaceship pixel land dreamed up by some alcoholic Icelandic guys in the early 2000s

Do you then feel that perhaps CSM members in CSM 9 should work with such publications 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")

Very interesting question, because some recent experiences (I made a friend in marmite and had some productive chats) and my viewpoint has changed somewhat. My previous experiences with wardecs have come from being a part of Eve uni, and Goonwaffe. Both organization are under permanent wardecs, and in my 1.5 years of EVE, I’ve yet to get a “fight” out of a wartarget vs. a “gank”. Obviously this colors my perceptions, but talking with the marmite guy has proved to be quite enlightening.

From the start, let’s put the Reddit post in context.



You are familiar with the terminology used in the post, so I won’t waste any words on that.

So what do I mean by “Wardecs are completely in favor of the attacker”?

It means that under current mechanics, a wardec places initiative completely in the hands of the wardeccer. Often understated, initiative is often the deciding factor in a fight. Beyond things like fitting your ship with a scram, initiative includes being in the right mentality for fighting, having the proper awareness, and being able to make that fight or flight decision in a split second. With the way highsec mechanics interact with wardecs, wardeccers choose when a wardec goes up, and 9/10, the wardeccers decide when and where a fight happens, and they hold the initiative. This can be something as simple as being parked behind the Jita undock when a wartarget stumbled out of the station, to getting the jump on a missioner.

It’s easy to say that the wartarget should just HTFU and prepare to fight at any moment, but that’s not exactly 100% possible. Constant awareness wears on a person, being high strung and on the lookout has a mental load that not an awful lot of people can bear. My contact in Marmite states that when they look for a target, they look for corps where members are in space a lot, usually to PvE. These are pilots that rely on being able to mission/mine/haul for a living, and they have to spend a lot of time in space to make that living. Given what is said above, it’s inevitable these pilots are not able to keep vigilant for very long, and eventually their guard slips and they die to a wartarget. If the dec target is unable to PvE, they lose their income and stop being able to function properly (this is when dec targets log off for a weeks until the dec drops).

On the other hand, a wardeccers chooses when he or she wants to undock, and when they do, they are in a fighting mood. They are aware, they are looking for targets, and they can very quickly react to situations. But I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that on average, a dec target spends more time missioning (until he quits trying) than a wardeccers hunting. This principle applies to other aspects of the game as well. For example, I’ve lost less ships in Curse than I have in my home region of Deklein, despite the fact that Deklein is “safe” and Curse is “hostile”. Whenever I undock in Curse, I usually have various escapes planned, I bounce before warping to gates, and take precautions to avoid dying. But I’m in Curse for a few hours at most, while I am required to rat at least 18 hours/month in Dek to pay my PLEX, and even more to have some spending monty. It’s just impossible for me to keep the same state of preparation for 18 hours, and eventually I get sloppy and die to completely preventable causes, but it’s just that I couldn't be asked to put in the same effort hour after hour.

When a war goes bad for the defender, it’s likely the attacker will keep up the war, and the only recourse is to capitulate to attacker demands, stop playing EVE, or disband. Meanwhile, a war that goes bad for the attacker can simply be ended by not paying the bills. Should a defender be valiant and hold off the wardec, the attacker simply drops dec and swaps to a more profitable target. This is what the bloodtears mean in this post



So that’s what I mean by “wardecs are completely in favor of the attackers”, it hands them the initiative on a platter, both in the actual fights, and in the war as a whole. The consequences for starting a bad wardec are laughably small, while the consequences of running a bad defense against an incoming war can be devastating.

cont.

Honestly, from a purely technical perspective, I’m not as good with numbers/economics as Mynnna, nor as savvy with people/communications as Sion, and much less experienced than both. If you can only vote for ONE goon candidate, I can’t honestly say that I’m the best one for the job.

However, you can list up to 12 candidates on your ballot after voting for yourself and Aram. I don’t consider myself a direct competitor to the likes of Mynnna, Sion, or Mangala Solaris, Matias Otero, or even James Arget. Those are people with guaranteed seats, and the task of the newcomers is to compete with each other, for the 4-6 seats still in question after the 5 incumbents and 4 new bloc candidates (Manny, Sion, Corebloodbrothers, Matias).

So with that in mind, what do I have to offer to the CSM?

I’m willing to put in the work, I have a decent writing background to draw skills from, and unlike the older folks, I have the physical energy to sit through meetings and take note over everything. Despite being a member of Goonswarm, I consider myself able to view most issues from an objective viewpoint and I’m not hesitant to state the truth like I did in the first two paragraphs.

Variation on BadAssMcKill's question:

You are now the third TMC writer to run, after Ali and Jayne Fillion. You are the fourth CFC candidate, after Sion, mynnna, and Roland.

Why should someone put you #1 on their ballot?

Because right now, I see your votes dropping into the hands of other TMC or CFC candidates, but I see you yourself getting eliminated in one of the first few STV rounds. You need a sizable number of #1 votes to survive those early rounds. Why should someone give you one of those #1 votes as opposed to one of the candidates above?

I dont think you can win, but you have my number 1 vote.

Your answer to Haedonism Bot question on war decs is why. I havent seen it spelt out so clearly before, how the whole war dec mechanic is fundementally broken and you stated it so well. I left the first corp I joined due to a war dec that locked me out of my trade hub and I will never be "at war" again. Even if CCP nerfed it so I had to stay in an npc corp for a month if I disband my corp, I would just stay in that npc corp for a month. If they nerfed it so you couldnt leave a player corp while it was under war dec, I would set my training queue for a week then go play dota2 for a week instead. I wont undock in a badger or a venture or a faction fit navy raven while under a war dec: Im not r*****ed.


War decs give to much power to the attackers, are to cheap and have to few consequences to them which is why smart people dont try to defend them and morons get griefed to the verge of quiting the game because of them. Make them more balanced and Haedonism Bot might find he has more people willing to play with him.

I don't have an issue with groups war-deccing Goonswarm. To me, wardecs are a non issue because I don't go to highsec on Goonwaffe characters. The quote was a response to a comment that war-deccing an organization like Goonswarm is "prohibitively expensive", when the fact is that 500m/week is pocket change to any organization of note. If a group can't even afford that, they probably don't have the resources to hurt a group like GSF meaningfully anyways. If a random alliance member has a stroke of stupidity and loses his ship in highsec to wardecs, the general response is the point and laugh.

The main point regarding consequences has nothing to do with Goonswarm, but rather that the current wardec mechanics allows aggressors to pull out of war easier than [INSERT WITHDRAWAL JOKE HERE].

The most blatant example of this is probably the year-and-a-half continual wardec between E-uni and various wardec corps, most notably WHORES, who have since closed down. Since the release of inferno, E-uni have pretty much been under constant wardecs, and you had week old newbies joining to learn, then immediately being picked off by wartargets in Cynabals and T3's. I'm quite certain that when CCP made the inferno wardec changes, they didn't plan on the largest training corp being wardec'd 23/7/365. When you look at every large group in EVE, most of them have perma decs, Sov null alliances, E-uni, Brave Newbies, etc. There is zero consequence for declaring a war, and when you get bored/suffer a bad loss, the wardeccers can just drop the war at the tip of a hat, no penalty for poor play at all beyond some ships.

In regards to ganking, i don't see much of a connection beyond "they are both forms of highsec violence". After the barge buffs, crimewatch changes, and changes to insurance payouts, only the extremely stupid can die to ganks. Safety against gankers is as simple as fitting a damage control and shield hardeners, or carrying less than 1.5B in your freighter.

Edit : Edited since seraph has completed his post.

This post is no longer needed, will be turned into an answer for Hendrick talladar's question at a later date.