Jita Park Speakers Corner

Greetings, capsuleers. I'm happy to let you all know that I'll be running for CSM8.

It took a lot of time to make the decision and the process has had many parallels to when I started Future Corps. Both were ideas that I'd had for a long time and wanted to do, but was unwilling to commit to unless I knew I could do it right. FC is now two years old, in the hands of an excellent CEO, and doing better than ever. That leaves me free to give back to EVE in another way by serving on the CSM.

To me, serving on the CSM comprises two main elements: Advocating for Wspace and making sure that CCP has the Player Perspective.

Advocating wspace is what it sounds like, ensuring that the interests of everyone who interacts with wspace are considered in game development. After talking with a lot of different people and doing some hard thinking, I can break this down into some distinct aspects.

New Content: Apocrypha was released almost three years ago. In that time, there has been no additional content. We’ve had a number of quality of life improvements and bug fixes, but there has not been targeted new content. Without new dedicated content, the space has not kept pace with other areas of the game.

Inclusion: Perhaps most frustrating, many features have affected all space except wormhole space. CCP’s new philosophy on expansions is an opportunity to make sure that new features benefit wormhole space as well as the rest of EVE. It is very important that the efforts being put into new features benefit as many players as possible.

Improvement: All the little things that have kept wormholes worthwhile even when we’ve been starved for new content. Corp bookmarks, persistent passwords, anchoring timers, and the Unified Inventory have all been great improvements to wormhole space, and we need to continue to see these improvements made wherever is possible, especially with things like the user interface and accessibility.

Safeguarding: Each new feature has the potential to affect wormhole space, even if it isn’t intended to do so. For instance, the new inventory was hugely disruptive to anyone living out of a POS on release. Any change that could affect wormholes space needs to be checked to ensure it doesn’t disrupt wormholes in the process of improving some other area of the game.

Taken as a whole, I feel this will be an effective way to keep wormhole space the best space in EVE.

I'd previously listed the Player Perspective as "Teaching CCP their own game", but while the effect is largely the same, I want to make sure the intent is clear. There is no single "right" or "wrong", but instead CCP and players each have their own way that they see and interact with EVE. We get issues when those views contradict one another, so it's a very important role of the CSM to work both groups to build a complete picture of EVE. I've spent quite a bit of time helping teach classes to EVE University and I think that puts me in a good position to give CCP the Player Perspective and equip them with the knowledge needed to do the most than can with EVE.

Lastly, and encompassing both of these, the CSM isn't just a matter of pushing opinions and proposals. It's about working together with other players to help improve the game for the years to come. The views and experiences of all the CSM members come together to work toward improving them game, which is something I've been fortunate to experience in building up my own corporation. With your help, I'd like to do that for all of EVE.

I interviewed James as part of the Crossing Zebras CSM8 Election Interviews project. You can check it out here:

http://c-z.me/csm8jamesarget

The most damaging part of this interview is the section in POS self destruction. Your expert knowledge of WH space mechanics is undermined by forgetting players can fly ships outside the shield of a POS under siege and get them blown up that way, that ships destroyed by any means other than CONCORD get insurance so self destruct/not self destruct is irrelevant from that perspective, and that a self destructed ship is as destroyed as anything else making the risk level in WH space exactly the same if it's allowed or not.

Hang on are you telling me that the level of risk if exactly the same when sd stuff in a pos force field, to sd stuff out side a pos force field (thats mostly bubbled and camped). Now i might be reading it wrong but, Having to go out side a pos force field to sd stuff means yoru probably going to be podded out which in wh space is a huge deal.

There aint no WH's in "Jyta".

It isn't about risk, it's about motivation. Right now, there is little motivation for a group to come and siege another out of wspace, since there are few rewards. In practice, there is no way to destroy more than a handful of ships if they must be taken out of a force field first. Therefore, by disallowing self destruct inside a force field, we've turned someone's home into a loot pinata. Nullsec residents don't have to deal with this, since even if their home station is taken their assets belong to them however difficult they are to access. Wspace residents shouldn't have to deal with becoming a target because they own the ships they need to live in wspace.

Also, if you are not recognized as the "owner" of the ship by being the last to pilot it, you receive no insurance. Any ship stored in a SMA is ineligible for insurance payouts.

thanks for joining us on Comms James, was informative and had a good time chatting with you. disallowing Sd within FF will make sieging a tad more enjoyable. since the primary reasons are loot and killmails, both of which are deprived by SDing everything

so acording to you there is NO difference between sd in a force field or sd outside a force field .

So when people have your pos incapped and reffed and bubbles up and fast lock legions just waiting for you to poke out and self disdruct,, to catch your ship (and our pod) and that there is no difference between from sd in your ff. or will you call in nc. again.

Do wormhole dwellers actually have a chance of getting substantial votes?

In fact, I got the 3rd most votes of any candidate ever (behind Mittens in CSM 6 and CSM 7).