EVE Information Portal

I didn't vote on any of my accounts because:

A: Did not know candidates
B: Could not be bothered to research candidates
C: Didn't think it made any difference
D: You have to log votes individually for all your separate accounts (even though CCP knows all my accounts are linked and even tells me in the Account Management pages)

I have struggled with writing this for some time now.
I have not been a member of eve for anywhere near as long as some of our more prolific forum posters, however in my short tenure I've noticed an unsettling trend. Actually a few trends.
Here is the most prevalent thing I hear constantly from my mates and acquaintances, how much more profitable eve was "back in the day". How much more engaging were the engagements, how much more demanding, challenging and rewarding the officer ratts. How much more bountiful the faction ratts. I hear repeatedly how much better Eve was when... Having not been here in the old days, I cannot comment on how accurate or mythical are these accounts. However I can comment on what I've noticed since I saw Hellmar's A letter to the followers of EVE, when I read his missive back some 3years and a day ago, My perception was, "Wow a management that listens to its subscribers and follows the lead of its base, is something worth investing in."
I have yet to witness a single Devblog article since that embodies or even leans toward typifying the gist and/or philosophy of that letter from CCP's CEO. In fact every patch, every expansion since has been more of CCP justifying its existence, rationalizing it's ignorance of the wishes of its subscribers, denying the claims of those still investing in this game, that their friends and corp m8's are leaving the game, demanding that it's subscribers extend CCP more patience as it sputters about attempting to expand it's technological reach into some other untapped, (and largely untested...and seemingly un-needed) realm of the universe.
All of that rant to conclude with this one hopefully salient point. Eve was at some historical point a game that the players invited other mates to engage in and invest in. I rarely hear any of that anymore, especially new subscribers, even CCP appears to admit defeat in this area, encouraging its subscribers to invite BACK to the game those who've become disillusioned and reward them for doing so.
It seems to me a pretty unremarkable endeavor, simply return to what EVE was when the most NEW subscribers were entering the Eve universe on a monthly basis, keep the most popular aspects that have been introduced since that time, pitch (not sales pitch, but pitch as in remove, destroy, incinerate, do away with) the least popular (according to the fans) and build from there.
The CSM whether voted in by popular vote or manifested in by voting blocks, is pretty secondary to the Community of Eve. As is seen in govt's all over the globe, when the ppl are ignored the govt or governing culture continues to attempt to convince the populace that the govt is relevant and that the populace is out of touch.
I encourage CCP to re-appropriate Pétursson's rather forced philosophy before you become as irrelevant as so many other organizations.

And how exactly is highsec supposed to organize? Are we a lobbying group?

People are in highsec exactly because they don't seek power blocs, but all of a sudden they are expected to be in one to get a representative on the CSM? It's no wonder none of them bothered to vote.

This "election", was correctly identified by the larger playerbase, as a "take your kid to work day" for the major power blocs in the game. And they were right not to vote. CCP isn't exactly the Federal Government, where seats are regulated based on representation. There are no regulations, because we aren't a state.

And next year, you'll have the same people re-elected, because nothing about this will change.

You guys can laugh at highsec all you want, but one day, they'll sell special edition assets with buttons that say, "Dinsdale was right!"


Also, Malcanis, I never said anything about not liking a candidate. I was criticizing the system, or rather the lack of a system with some basic regulations.

What you are proposing as democracy is not really how democracy works in real life. And it's not really defined as democracy. That would amount to corporate dictatorship. Hey, I've got it! We must be Caldari!

And yes, Ali Aras, would not be qualified as an independent, as she is a part of some major power blocs in the game. Noir isn't exactly some back of the woods alliance/corp. She would have to lobby for her seat among the blocs that will put forth candidates, just like in real life, she would have to compete with say, other democrats for a democratic nomination. Basically, anyone in a big alliance, is not an independent.

Any group that directs its members to vote a certain way, and is in the substantial numbers, constitutes a party. And should be treated as such for any democratic election. Like it or not, democracy is first about getting everyone represented, to an extent represented by the voters. Not everything of a certain thing represented.

And if someone is dishonest about that when running, and CCP makes that illegal, their seat would just go to the runner up and so forth. At least that's how it happens in real life, if someone breaks rules of office.

Maybe we should not have this mimic real life and instead, have CCP elections where the staff votes for players they would like to speak with about upcoming things they are working with. It would be more "developer oriented" and not this, death by committee they want to put themselves in the corner in.

CCP have all the power, and regardless of real life applications, they are a business and are a developer, not a government.

It takes a clear vision and a tight ship to run a successful MMO. Enough of this players have the power nonsense. Run things more internally CCP, run with your QA, run things by the players and listen to feedback, but don't do this:
Run things to players, if said players like it, continue, if said players don't like it, scrap it and develop more in the direction they "suggest".

I mean, there is even a thread about removing things from the API of your own website, asking for feedback if the players will let you do this or not. What the heck? And I mean this as just an example, not to be rude, I like CCP, but this is not the way you run a business.

Timid generals never won a war.
You are selling a product, the product isn't selling you.

From a business point of view, and I mean this without any disrespect, that's the worst thing I've ever come across for a development house. No clear direction. No tough as nails vision of this is what we are doing, and this is how we are going to do it. "This is where the game is headed in the future." We don't like A and B, so we are going to do C. That is what you need to be successful, not listen to some player elected muppets, who have no qualifications and no idea what it is like to run a gaming house or the hierarchy of development. No experience to really work there, but log in everyday to blow up spaceships and play the game everyone else is playing. A game that you developed.

I suspect this is why you have so many problems with things not being done on time, or falling short of expectations. Things like the POS code not having been touched in many years. I suspect that it really is too complex for a player > developer interaction, indeed.

organization does not imply that you become a "power bloc" and are thus thrust unwillingly into nullsec

fact of the matter is that nullsec does not have any special tools that allow it to be better at SPACE POLITICS than highsec is, it just has actual leaders and people who actually care about the game and, quelle surprise, that is an asset in politics

try and get that stuff first, then come back next year

why would someone who was completely unable to organize a group of like-minded people to do something so simple as to vote for them have any useful feedback in a massively multiplayer game

Why wouldn't they?

So the message I am getting from this thread is that the Goon-cartel elected CSM, which is unrepresentative of the playerbase, is, together with the playerbase, blocking development of necessary improvements like new sov mechanics and POS code by forcing CCP to work on their own pet projects at the expense of the long-term interests of EVE itself. The solution is to dissolve the omnipotent Goon CSM, which everyone knows is powerless anyway, so that CCP can develop their CEO's grand vision of EVE guided by player feedback but without interference in the form of player feedback, lest they be destroyed by the whims of their players like another company was destroyed by its CEO's badly thought-out grand visions.

Space politics is very confusing.

Why would I want to undermine his achievement, and what are people like me? I'm pretty sure I don't represent any majority when it comes to the game. No, not even highsec. I don't even want to undermine the Goons achievement for voting as a bloc, you are taking a very aggressive approach towards me personally when I have no such agenda. I think they deserve to have representatives and I applaud their hard work. I comment about what I have observed and my feedback on how it can be improved about the CSM election. That no one else seems to be voting, etc.

Is there really no room on the CSM for some more diversity? Is some structure that mirrors real life possible? That's all I was trying to get across, whether or not I think CCP is adopting the right approach with this system itself.

I like Mynna because he/she seems to speak on behalf of others as well as the goons in her posts, which makes me see them take power with a certain amount of responsibility that is evident in reaching out to groups that may not be represented on the CSM. This makes me confident that CCP is getting at least good feedback regarding the general player base.

I think you are starting this CSM term on the wrong foot, personally. Might want to insert some diplomacy in your posts as opposed to being condescending towards a general amount of posters. Frankly, just some of your posts in this thread, are quite inappropriate for a CSM representative. Like the one referencing a "sloppy".

But there is still time to change, and start things off on the right foot.

And everyone can learn from the disaster that happened with LucasArts. What can happen to a studio with a very distinguished amount of IPs and very successful titles, just from being poorly managed. They weren't even poor by any standard. Everyone who is in the gaming industry, should take note of what happened there. It is ignorant to dismiss it all-together, when there are at least even slight parallels.

You might want to check what dinsdale claims the cartels are before going off on one about sov space. Of couse, when it comes to holding space, or in fact doing pretty much anything in an multiplayer game, more players do it easier. Play counterstrike as 2 players vs 20, and you'll have the same results. So in a game like EVE, of course a group the size of null groups will have an advantage over a handful of people. But what dinsdale claims is that the null groups have the entire game shaped in their favour, with CCP working purely for the null groups, the "cartels" who run the game. He completely ignores the hundreds of changes that get made to improve the lives of smaller groups or other regions of space.

Giving feedback and politicing are quite different activities.
Being good at one does not give any useful information on their ability to do the other..