Jita Park Speakers Corner

Now that's a good post ^^ Had to cut some for char limit, sry.

I've met Kelduum in person and known him in game for a while. Personally, I find him quite agreeable on both counts; I just don't think he's the right choice for CSM7 given the issues of aggression and war (and sov to boot, though there's not much to talk about here since Kelduum + Uni don't deal with it) that we will be primarily charged with providing feedback on. In true merc fashion, I suppose the easiest way to say it is it's not personal, just buisiness; and in this case the business is guiding sweeping redesigns of core game mechanics that we (the players) deserve CCP get right. Let me also say explicitly I care a lot about EVE University as an institution. If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother posting in this thread. I will also reiterate that during the week Noir. broke the war dec record, IVY was one of only two alliances that actively fought back and were THE alliance to do it most often.

So where's the beef? My issue is got tons of convos, comments, mails, etc. from the Uni pilots we fought saying how much fun they had. Let me be clear, we had beaten them 5 straight fleet fights with no-losses, finally giving them a 7:1 advantage in the last engagement so they had a victory to cherish (plus it was fun to try to beat the odds) but STILL they had a good time.

Why? I think it's how we framed it. In addition to the Noir. usual WSOP (hah!) of no neutral RR, we talked to the Uni FC's to get them interested (Kelduum was my initial contact but I fast learned he was not the person to talk to as far as getting an IVY fleet running), used different tactics each time to keep it interesting, congratulated them on their effort + gave them and their FCs tips on how to do better. We did this because we saw a willingness to fight that could flourish if cultivated and we really wanted some fights, so we cultivated it. The real question is why wasn't IVY doing all that **** i just said in house?

Because as you said, EVE Uni has been built over 8 years with changing philosophies. There are organizational choices being made about how to frame the Uni frequently being at war. Telling players it's better to leave corp when you get dec'd instead of sticking with it and banding together. Deciding not to tweak recruitment to take advantage of being dec'd to promote "PVP opportunities" (or something to that effect). Developing WSOP instead of investing in a proper PVP + war defense fundamentals program. Advocating the GM dept. legalize all war exploits so you can use a dec shield instead of adapting.

IVY *used* to be more PVP friendly in general, at least it was a few years ago. Since Kelduum took the helm, it (at least from the top down) has never been more PVP hostile. A harder WSOP, focusing on blob fighting instead of teaching PVP, the dec shield, GM-Gate, padding the IVY killboard by adding the cost of war decs to attacker lossmails; these are executive level things, Kelduum things. And while I'm glad Darian (and Unistas like him) are working to change things, he's not running for CSM: Kelduum is. Based on his demonstrated attitudes at the helm of EVE Uni and based on his long, overly complicated, dev resource intensive, structure shooting based war dec proposal I do not believe he has the right idea about how the new war + aggression mechanics can and should should work for everyone, nor the ability to effectively communicate with the CCP development team.

In fact, I can think of no other candidate who would be more counterproductive to that effort.

If you can publically state a plan of what you would like to see changed in the corporation interface I can promote you for voting to my corp.

In my opinion the current corporation role interface would only ever be acceptable in the 80's.

Here is why it is important:

This game, like anything worthwhile is about people working together to achieve a goal. Most people are lead by people who do not trust them, sad but true.

I keep my corp small because I know I can trust the people in it. If i did not trust them I'd spend more time wrestling with the Corp role UI limiting access to my (cough; our) stuff.

My ideal would be a drag and drop interface of names and containers - subsets and groups.
I would be able to hook certificates to roles, roles to ship loadouts, corp loadouts to squads, squads to wings, wings to (wing) formations, wing formations to fleets and fleets to allied battled groups.

The corp UI needs to break from its nasty old Teletype database structure and become a strategists planning tool, with theoretical dps counts and mining yield calculators. It would allow directors to inform themselves on what skill sets they are missing.

If you can not win a seat on the CSM promoting that ideal, I'll youtube myself something jackass. - maybe not, but I'm allowed to hyperbole about things I'm passionate about.

I'll cheat a little here by reposting something from my formspring first of all:



Pretty much the whole corp UI needs to be scrapped and reworked from scratch, which should now be possible with Carbon UI, however CCP will probably need to get a lot of feedback on how people use it versus how it can be used.

Simple things like listing what someone has access to in a easily readable format (other than the current horrible & complex roles summary) should be there, as well as a rework of the whole 'find member in role' screen to something usable by pretty much anyone (ie: drag and drop).

The updated recruitment interface works pretty well (barring the lack of documentation, odd binary-state checkboxes which should be triple-state or radiobuttons, and so on), and with some work would be a good example of how the corp UI should work, but theres simply so much more which can be done with it with a little more development time.

To be honest, I wouldn't expect to see these changes happen all in one go - there's so much involved in just doing one of them, but the foundations are there now.

Why? This would be a pretty big nerf to infiltration ganking.

Keep in mind that it also stops somebody from instantly dropping corp during a wardec.

Thanks for the response Kel.

On Inferno
My read of today's announcement of Inferno was more hopeful than discouraging. For the first time it was officially confirmed that war decs + FW will be at the core of the summer expansion, that these features have been worked on, but development is still early. Given that information, I think a properly armed CSM7 to go at take a look at what's been done + see if adjustments are needed is MORE important than ever, not less. Generally speaking I think the evolution of the CSM + the Summer of Rage + CCP reorg during CSM6 will make our feedback on in-development features more influential than ever.

On the 200th Celebration Dec
I don't disagree that the Noir. dec is the exception to the rule of the kind of decs you normally get. But I do standby the feedback I got from Uni members + FC's we fought. If more wars you got were like that, wouldn't that be a huge improvement? I think a dec system that ends the neutrr/docking games dynamic and encourages the two sides to go at each other is very achievable. It won't change perception overnight, but it's a step in the right direction that both the Uni and the war decers (most of us anyway) can get behind.

On Uni Recruitment and Leaving During War
It's not about saying you can't leave, it's providing them a compelling reason not to and a culture that promotes camaraderie instead of personal asset protection. When I joined EVE I joined a newbie friendly anti-pirate/generalist corp started by the multi-game guild I was already apart of. Within days of me joining, before I had even moved to our HQ system, we were hit by a war dec and my noob behind got ganked and podded; lost almost everything I had at that point. Our CEO didn't tell me it'd be OK if I left till the war was over. They made sure I could afford another frigate, told me what I did wrong, explained this whole "war" thing, and I think we had a fleet or two against the attackers. I dont remember if we won; probably not. But what I DO remember is the veteran players helping me out and instilling me with the "you will die, learn from it" and "corp comes first" mentality that I credit for whatever success I've gotten in this game so far.

As far as changing Uni recruiting practices, or any other practices for that matter, we'd probably be better off having that conversation between me and you and/or your leadership team if you're really interested. Consulting contract ftw ^^

PVP Friendly/Unfriendly
I will grant you that i may be thinking of years past with rose colored glasses. For the first year and a half or so I played (2008-middle 2009) I was not nearly as plugged in to the vast diversity that is the EVE Community as I am now. But what definitely has changed is EVE University being touted as the best place you could stick someone new to the game or tell a friend to go to get him hooked. In the past year or so I have more often heard people refer to IVY as a place they'd wish they could recommend to their friends but really don't feel good about doing so anymore. When I ask, the reason is almost always an anti-PVP stance, whether described as "too carebear" or "that dec shield stuff" or "the thing with the killboard" or some variation thereof.

Considering the Uni's institutional role and contributions to EVE so far I think that's a shame.

Teaching
I've done more than one lecture for IVY, but I wouldn't Teach teach for two reasons:

1. Noir. has it's own training corp where I'm free to teach PVP what I feel is the "correct" way.

2. For many of the reasons above that people I know won't send their friends to join I would not want to get involved. The anti-war activism stuff from the leadership team and the currently ingrained culture turn me off. If it was a "change agent" type situation where I had the support of leadership and a lot of leeway to move the Uni where I think it should be culture wise + PVP program wise, maybe. But as it stands right now, I would not feel comfortable putting my name behind it.

Kel's proposal

I see your response here as an indication of where my experience on the CSM comes into play. Two major parts of your proposal are the creation of an entirely new structure, which not only must be designed from a game play perspective but be drawn + modeled by the art dept one of CC, and creating a pocket of 0.0 space around said structure, which touches on not only the aggression system but the fundamental infrastructure of how CCP hosts individual systems/nodes and gives them a security class. The art dept has been the bottleneck of new feature development for years and was a repeated development flow problem cited by CSMs 4, 5, and to a certain extent 6 (though 6 made much progress here once Incarna got shelved). That you either dont understand or just underestimate how complicated adding a grid worth of 0.0 inside a highsec system is also telling. And all this is besides the fact that almost everyone very familiar with war decs just doesn't like the idea in general or doesn't want highsec warfare to devolve into the worst part of 0.0 warfare: structure bashing.

You may have experience communicating with CCP staff (certainly your communications with the GM dept were very successful, though not wise or detailed considering they legalized ALL the war exploits not just dec shields). However when it comes to the flagship issue for highsec candidates this election, the redo of the war dec system, it seems clear you've missed the mark.

This. Many hisec mercs/deccers are the complete opposite of Noir when it comes to accepting a challenge and showing professionalism. It shows in their usage of RR, logon mechanics, docking games, and corp switcheroos. I have the utmost respect for what Alek has built, but Kelduum's manipulation of the wardec mechanics was due to necessity. He doesn't run a PVP institution. He runs an academy in which PVP is part of the curriculum.

In fact, people here should be thanking Kelduum for doing what he did. It's because of his tactic that brought it to the attention of CCP and forcing them to rethink hisec wardec mechanics for 2012. Had he not done so, we'd still have no hope for how wars could evolve in New Eden.

For Alek to say that Kelduum would be counter productive to the CSM because of his use of this game mechanic is akin to saying Alek would be unproductive to the CSM because of all the the lame mercs he has allowed into his merc channel w/o the proper vetting. Of which many of them uses all the lame tactics that we currently see which has forced Eve Uni and other corps' hand. If you're going to ask for Kelduum to take responsibility for his actions, then you have to take responsibility for your actions in continuing to allow these unprofessional mercs to proliferate and ruin the game for others as have been done in the past

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

I simply cannot say how much I agree with this. It's odd to read about the issues you have with us when we seem to be so similar in mindset.


I'm not sure if you're implying that we don't do this, but this is exactly the same thing we do. We maintain hangars stocked with every type of frigate and vanilla T1 mod that a new pilots could want and it's open to anybody who has been in the corp for two weeks or more. Anybody who has been in for less time can request a ship and fittings - entirely for free - at any time in our corp channel which is dedicated to the task. We also provide free skillbooks so new pilots can easily train into different roles. Before any kind of conflict we run dedicated introduction to war classes that explain the mechanics of a wardec, what people can expect from the experience and what they should do to prepare for it. We run introductory fleet classes to get brand new pilots used to fleet movement and structure, to understand the various terms used frequently and the importance of good discipline. We even hold Q&A sessions to try and clear up any concerns that unsure or nervous pilots might have.

There needs to be a distinction made between letting people decide to leave/not join the corp and making that a painless thing for them to do, and actively encouraging them to leave. We do not want people to leave.


This is a shame and you are correct, there is a growing sentiment that we are anti-PvP or poorly suited to teaching new pilots. It is upsetting because even as that sentiment grows, E-UNI is actually moving in the opposite direction, becoming ever more open to PvP. I can state with 100% certainty that E-UNI as it stands today is a vastly better teaching organisation than it was when I joined three years ago (almost laughably so). I can also state with certainty that we love PvP (I say we because I am referring to E-UNI as a whole), because it is the lifeblood of this game. Without it there would be nothing. Nobody would buy ships, so nobody would make them, so nobody would mine the materials. The game would become a pointless ISK grind.

With any luck the revamped wardec system will better allow us to show that side of E-UNI in a way the current one simply does not.

As mentioned, the 'structure-based' Wardec proposal is a proposal, but people keep missing this word somehow, so I keep having to mention it. For those not familiar with the word:
It's not a platform, something I would push above everything else, or anything other than a suggestion posted for feedback.


Anyway, I entirely agree with Aleks that wardecs need to be chyanged, and E-UNI has a fairly unique position with well over 100 wars declared against it since I started tracking them in 2007, the vast majority of which were the 'remote rep then hide' variety, rather than the actual fights as we have seen from RvB, NOIR. and most recently Siccarius.. which we have no problem with as long as they don't become the norm.

However, I haven't yet seen any details on how Aleks would change the existing systems (although admittedly I may have missed it), so in lieu od this, here is my list of small changes, posted elsewhere, that could be made to the existing system with minimal development time and would also remove the current loopholes:

1. Reduce war to one day rather than one week by default, adjust costs appropriately and use automatic billing to keep it paid if you want it.
2. Change 'mutual' wars to generate 0 ISK bills rather than remove the existing bill.
3. Allow corps to declare war immediately, and declare as many wars as they want, rather than the current three.
4. Reduce war unpaid/retracted cooldown to one hour, leave 'left alliance' at 24 hours.
5. Allow an attacker to 're-start' a war in cooldown simply be declaring again. Cooldown is cancelled and war continues as before.

Heres some optional 'adjustments' which could also be added development time variable:
- Option for the defender to form a 'defence pact' (or 'merc contract' or similar wording) with another corp/alliance which beings them into the war with a short (circa 1 hour) warmup once accepted.
- A deposit paid by the attacker to CONCORD, which is returned if they retract the war rather than leaving it to expire. This would deal with some of the 'I made a mistake, but I refuse to accept it' things that E-UNI tended to see.
- Scale the cost of wars factored on the number of active characters/accounts of the attacker and/or defender. Potentially open to abuse however unless well developed, and this would need a max/min cost and a smooth cost curve.
- Link the cost of a war on market values of materials or similar, as any value set now may not be relevant as the economy changes - 50M ISK used to be a lot when the cost was set.

These are just some of the options available, I especially look forward to Aleks comments on them.

All I see is people taking issue for the sake of taking issue as its linked to the election.

Would you rather a CSM be arrogant or beligerant enough to simply see an idea pushed through, or would you rather a medium for refining certain details on them? After all the suggested approach is to have an open dialouge with the player community. Hence the reason why a CSM forum exists at all.

Expecting or imposing perfection on candiates is simply an unrealistic stance, as such those candidates who enter into a dialouge about ideas with the mutable possibility of improving them is surely better in the time spent with CCP, other CSM or even the suggested open dialouge with players supported by the CSM white paper, than simply sticking your heels in on an idea regardless of any dialouge?

Don't let certain current attitudes fool you that they are the best approach, if anything the manipulative, dissmisive and biased approach in dialouge by others is not a helpful as an ambassador for player relations in my view or for promoting healthy player, CSM/CCP relationships.