CSM Campaigns

It was never my plan to run for re-election. I was supposed to be a ‘one and done’, but something happened. Much to my surprise, it turns out the CSM actually plays a major part in influencing the game, and makes sure CCP stays on track with what the players want for each expansion. I know that every former CSM member seems to say something similar, but I promise you I used to be one of those non-believers even as I was running for CSM 8, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

Now I’m hooked. Three hour skype conversations about the most random obscure game mechanic? Sign me up. Arguments over whether the drone assign nerf should be limited to 45 or 50 drones? Meh, seems trivial, but sure I’ll vehemently defend my point for two hours. They want our opinions on refining mechanics and what changes can be made? I mean, I haven’t touched industry since 2008 … but ok I’ll go chase down some of the best industry guys I know across multiple timezones and grill them for information on the mechanics so I can at least follow along.

I don’t know why, but I really enjoy what we do on the CSM. I even get a small amount of joy when I support some change that I know will negatively effect my own alliance. So when the opportunity presented itself to run for re-election, I just couldn't walk away.

At this point plenty of you are probably curious as to who I am or what I do. Basically I serve one main purpose on the CSM, and that is to give my expertise on all things PVP related. I've been a fleet commander for six years now, starting out with small high sec wars in 2008 and moving all the way up to big 250 man fleets in 0.0 sov wars by early 2010. Since then I've been a fleet commander in most of the big 0.0 conflicts, and for the past 2 years it seems I've been one of the major fleet commanders in just about every single war. On top of that I started Nulli Secunda in August 2010, and through some hard work and plenty of sheer luck, we've somehow worked ourselves up to where we are today.

When it comes to the CSM, I’m mostly involved in the tiercide rebalance efforts every patch, as well as other game mechanic changes like the warp speed buffs or the drone assign nerf. I've had some input into just about every rebalance effort for the past year and even had some of my ideas make it into the game (really excited about this summer patch btw). However, I also give heavy input into the ongoing discussions about the 0.0 meta, with topics such as force projection and farms and fields.

So here I am, asking for your votes again so that I can give one more year of service to you guys. I’m doing this because I felt like there are some big PVP and 0.0 related changes that are going to be made in the next year, and I want to continue to be a positive influence shaping those changes. For example, force projection is beginning to gain a lot of traction in the EVE blogosphere, and I’m confident that if we keep working on viable solutions, you guys might be able to read about some progress very soon. You already saw CCP’s first adjustment to farms and fields in 0.0 with the ESS deployable, but that was only just the beginning. Not to mention, there are still the ship rebalancing passes that will continue to be a part of every upcoming patch. If you’ve been keeping score, CCP has done most of the subcaps already, and while I know as much as any of you do about what ships they will rebalance next, if they are running out of sub-capitals to rebalance, then that only leaves the bigger ships.

Unlike some of the issues from this past term, the issues of 2014 are right up my alley, and I would love to have your support once again. I know I’m a bloc candidate, but we looked at the numbers from last year and there is no way I would have been elected had it not been for the votes I received from outside my alliance/allies.

So throw me a spot on your ballot if you can, or if you’re still skeptical feel free to ask questions and I will answer. However, please go about contacting me the right way if you really want to be answered:

- THE BEST way to get in contact with me is to follow me on twitter @progodlegend, and tweet me your question. Those things go to my phone and I always have my phone on me.

- You can post your questions or anything else in this thread really, and I will respond nightly when I get home and have some time.

- DO NOT EVEMAIL ME, EVER. This is not because I don’t like getting evemails, but as a fleet commander, it’s often beneficial to not be logged in to the game on my main character. I’m not going to start listing my alt accounts just so you guys can eve mail me, so If you have a long message you want to send me, DM me on twitter and I’ll give you a character to evemail, or even an email address. I know evegate exists, but it’s so hard to use on a cellphone, and just in general not something I remember to do very often.

In the post below you can listen to various interviews by the usual podcasters or read/watch any other media that is relevant to my campaign.

yaay!

I started reconsidering two weeks ago, and I only got the go ahead from Nulli and made the final decision last week.

As a member of a large alliance, I'm not just running on my own name, I'm running as a representative of Nulli Secunda. So ultimately, it's not my sole decision to run every year, I owe it to the other people who helped build that alliance from the ground up to ask if one of them wants to run or if they want someone else to run instead of me. The original plan was for someone new to run every year, but about two weeks ago we realized no one else was really interested. At that time I then asked the leadership if they would support me for a second term, they were gracious enough to say yes despite some reservations about how it affects my activity as a fleet commander, and so here I am running again.

That alone makes me glad that I'm not involved with coalition or alliance level politics. Anyway, it's great to see you running again, and I did have two more questions for you:

First, your name has been referenced as one of the less visible members of CSM to the general playerbase, and there are a number of candidates currently running for CSM9 who have media ties in terms of blogs, EN24, TMC, or CZ, to name a few. Although your competency has not been called into question, the "radio silence" has worried people that you were less involved with the CSM process than you should have been. Coming from an outsider who has no idea whether or not this is true, can you shed some insight?

Second, are you running as a representative of your alliance and only your alliance? Or do you represent other players from other areas of the game as well, most importantly those that aren't involved in nullsec. Thanks for your answers.

Admittedly I'm not as connected into the podcast and blog world of EVE as some of our other candidates. This was one of the main reasons I got onto twitter and have been trying to expand my twitter presence as twitter is something I can do from my phone during the busy non-eve parts of my day. I don't think I'm ever going to be one of the most consistently visible candidates, not only do I have a busy schedule, but when I do have free time to play EVE, somethings take priority over reading every single forum post and blog post. Because of this, if I'm lucky enough to get re-elected I am going to have a few people from my alliance this year helping me out as "staffers" by reading Jita Park and the various blogs and anything else that a CSM member might need to be tuned in to, and then they will be bugging me with what they think I should comment on based on my expertise. For example, I really don't have much to add to the refining rebalance dev blog thread, but I have plenty to add to any of the ship rebalance threads.

Basically to sum it up, I'm aware of my less than stellar media presence, and I'm also aware of limitations, and because of that I'm taking measures to help address the issue in a realistic manner that I can actually stick to, instead of just saying, "I plan on being much more visible next term".



To answer the first part of your question which is in reference to my previous post, being a representative of my alliance does not mean that they are my constituents. What I mean when I say, "I'm a representative of Nulli Secunda", is that I have a responsibility to the alliance to carry myself properly and be a quality CSM member, because not only is my own reputation on the line, but so is Nulli Secunda's reputation as a whole. It's a big responsibility and something I take very seriously.

However, when it comes down to who I actually consider my constituents, it's a much broader portion of the playerbase. While I am a 0.0 Fleet commander almost exclusively these days, I have pvped at a high level in almost every area of the game, from small gangs to high sec, even wormhole space. So while my main constituency might be 0.0 sov alliances, I do have enough pvp experience in all areas of the game to confidently say that I can adequately represent all pvpers on the CSM.

Outside of PVP, my other area of expertise is for corp and alliance leaders in general. I've been involved in corp leadership for five years, and have built my own alliance from the ground up (Nulli started with 400 pilots and could put 30-40 people in fleet on a good day, we did ALOT of small-medium gang roaming). I know the challenges and struggles that the leadership of EVE go through, and I have been able to have considerable input both during the winter summit and throughout the year on various changes that would effect corp and alliance leadership, as well as logistics people and many of the other thankless jobs in EVE that I have found myself doing from time to time.

Hopefully that helps clear up some of the misconceptions about what a bloc candidate is and convinces some people that just because we are from large alliances does not mean we can't represent your interest!

the pro
the god
the legend
the re-elected

I don't know, talk to powers to work something out? We had a bunch of TEST and PL dudes on ours last year

PGL invented being a great CSM member ;)

CSM8 has done a great job imho and as such, all the incumbents deserve consideration for your ballot. PGL is no different in that regard.

Can confirm, Progod is a stand up dude.

I have a question for you Progod - in my opinion, Caldari ships are currently terrible for PvP except for a very select few. What will you do to bring back the glorious Drake blob?

tl;dr - FC can I bring my drake?

you will not have my vote.