Jita Park Speakers Corner

+1 from YF, smaller power blocks, more people into 0 sec = more fun. Just look at how empty Test space is compared to Providence. NRDS rules.

If you're flying in a group, it's a lot easier to do PvE in PvP-capable ships. I live in w-space, so I'm used to doing PvE in a ship with a point and logistics backup and/or have some PvP mods and a carrier to refit at. I'm fighting things that do omni damage, so I'm not spec tanked. The group mentality is so strong and the profit is high enough that guards and scouts are rewarded just like salvagers because they're just as essential. The terrain and the PvE forces a lot more combat-readiness, so I have more incentive to stand my ground and fight back. If I was ratting solo, I wouldn't have that kind of fit and it's not cost-effective for me to have backup. Having better sov isn't a good, direct reward unless sov changes a lot. An activity-based sov structure would need to sustain the solo stuff while adding incentives for the rank and file to defend their territory.

Ahah, I think we're on the same page now. This is a fantastic point, and I will definitely push for bringing more of this kind of PvE into 0.0. I've done it in wormhole ops too -- it turns out that my alliance in one of our mostly-discontinued PvP fleet comps can do pretty well in a c4, and have fun doing it. Another thing which might help would be to increase the ability for 0.0 alliances to reap some monetary reward from PvE in their space, thus giving them the ability to pay out scouts even for solo PvE. For example, my alliance uses a lot of scouts, but on a strictly voluntary basis, which probably lowers our coverage.

I'm against botting-- I'm not sure who's for it. Without already being elected and signed on to the NDA, I'm not sure how much I can comment about what CCP is doing. It's my understanding that they will ban and remove the rewards of botting for anything which can be proved. Whether I'd support increased sanctions on botters or not depends highly on what the process of punishing botters actually is, something I'm not sure I can evalutate right now.

I think you're actually confusing me and another poster there. I'm against fuel or PI requirements for cloaks -- cloakies who are at keyboard are fine. Requiring fuel would take up caroghold space that's already in high demand for holding torps and bombs, and would on some level prevent cloakies from being able to hold enough fuel to both cloak for a significant period of time and then light a cyno-- an ability which Provi has used a number of time on our enemies, even as they use it on us.

Instead, I support anti-cloak measures that are effective only against cloakies who are afk or not looking at their window. It may prove necessary to limit those measures to null, as WH space has a different set of concerns around cloaking (afk cloaky campers don't affect a world with no local). A probe or something similar means that both the attackers and defenders need to commit the same amount of effort -- one player cloaking and evading, and one player attempting to catch them daydreaming. At present, an afk cloaky camper needs to commit 0 effort attacking, while the defenders have to modify their behavior or commit many players to defense, often at the expense of PvE (this is another area that would be helped by the above ^ about group PvE)

I'm sorry - You've played eve for how long?

Ali's interview with Xander is scheduled! Look for it to come out in the few weeks, hopefully by the end of pre-elections.

Jedi, the language is the least reason children shouldn't be playing eve. You're asking for optional blindfolds for children being brought into a strip club. The language sometimes bothers me too, I understand.

The argument that it might gain subscriptions is absolutely foolish. Star wars doesn't worry that it isn't pulling in the people who'd rather go watch a ping pong match, after all.

I like your ideas and you get my vote in the CSM.

Good luck Ali

Thanks again for the interview, Xander.

For folks who are following along, I got my email confirming that I have 200 pre-election votes today. Thanks for the support, and I hope you all will come back and vote on the final ballot.

I’ve been asked about my experience a few times, in the interview and out of band, namely around how I’ll be able to function as a CSM member in Iceland when issues are on the table. So, let’s pretend the December CSM meeting happened tomorrow with me there. Here’s a snapshot of the kinds of things I’d be thinking about:

Ship rebalancing: T1 cruisers are now really good, armor is now really good, and there’s a *lot* of logi out there after the t1 logi introduction. This is IMO a good thing; the cruiser buff means that a support wing of t1 cruisers in ewar, anti-tackle and logistics roles is helpful in most PvP, and t1 cruisers are something newbies can get into easily. I’m against ECM nerfs -- the sensor strength skills effectively nerfed ECM already, and bringing a blackbird or two is a valuable counter to the tons of logi thing. Outside of a few rrep domis, I’ve basically never seen a Gallente BS used in PvP -- could we address that? The underlying issue seems to be that “short-range BS” is a thing that doesn’t really exist; Rokhs are snipers or smartbombers, Hellcats are the tankiest thing around, and Maels/Pests provide some valuable alpha (see: tons of logi). Battlecruisers seem mostly fine post-rebalance aside from the fact that I don’t see as many of them as I used to -- everyone roams in cruisers instead. Ferox could still use some love. Of the t2 ships, I know CCP has said the frigates are fine, but I’m still concerned that they’re not worth the cost. AHACs are fine, shield HACs are basically never used outside of Vagabond -- what’s up with that? T2 BCs could be cool.

It’d be nice if Caldari capships were used ever for anything other than structure shoots/reps, but I’m less knowledgeable about capital warfare. I’d also like to look at ways of making cap-on-cap fights likely and interesting without escalation to a supercapital blob, the way BS-on-BS (with maybe triage support) fights exist today.

Nullsec Sov: As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m pro activity sov. I’m concerned about sov which is held but not occupied as it’s boring to roam through and could be more productively used by someone else. Sov that’s not being used should be easy to take without a lot of boring structure shooting. Sov which is being used should be at least as hard to take as it is today. Whatever way sov warfare goes, I’d like it if the “SBU to provoke fights” mechanic was changed. The fact that SBUs cost money and blow up is nice, but “hours of structure grinding” is not a nice reward for undocking and fighting for your system (maybe SBU HP could be dependent on anyone guarding it?). My hope is that with activity sov being a real thing, you would have incentive to undock and save your system while camped in-- although the challenge there is balancing that so that it’s not too easy to screw up people’s sov with a tiny fleet.

Ideally, it would be easy to hold one system and the difficulty and cost of holding systems would increase as the number of systems held increases. There should be pressures keeping empires to a manageable size, and the easiest way to do that would be to increase risk and cost at increased size. Additional points of improvement: alliance income from sov (especially in a post-moongoo world), meaningful goals for a commited medium-sized gang which might be sov-related.

Economy: I’m not a fan of isk inflation and would like to decrease it. It hurts newbies, heightens the gap between the rich and the poor, and makes the economy more volatile. This could be addressed by replacing bounties with commodities (a bonus to salvaging and looting your missions/rats (=time spent vulnerable, minor mission nerf), and a reason for high <> nullsec logistics in a post-mineral-gap world) or by keeping a careful eye on isk sinks. Isk sinks have decreased over time with more items being moved off of NPC vendors. While insurance transforms goods to free isk, I still think it’s a necessary evil that helps people stay solvent especially as newbies. It’d be important to manage isk deflation in order to not totally ruin the lives of marketeers. Aside from watching inflation, I’d be thinking through the changes proposed by others and probing when it looks like they’re going to shift things around too much -- a dramatic economic shift isn’t all bad, but it should be justified.

The above is all completely off the top of my head, without benefit of Google or Evelopedia, written in about 20 minutes and checked for typos. It might have a couple of clunkers in there, but the large part feels solid, and clunkers are what talking things out with other people is for. As always, I'm coming at this from a perspective of a non-bloc-affiliated new player with fairly limited resources (cheapfleets are bestfleets, caps are for Special Occasions and uncontested structureshoots, more often the SBU-ee than the SBU-er), and that's still a position many find themselves in and I'd like to see represented.

I listened to your interview Xander and you will get my vote.

I would love to have you guest FC an Eve Uni fleet :-)
We have women in Eve Uni but they dont normally FC and it's a hard role to take on. I'm told I'm not forceful enough but I'm building up experience slowly and the guys are sgetting used to me telling them what to do so having a role model would be really useful.

I've only been playing for six months and the first three months were really hard, it was only when I switched to flying logi that I felt at home. I find logi much more social than other PvP roles and I prefer the carer role to the destroyer role, I just wish there was a way I could FC and fly logi at the same time.

With respect to missions:

I use level 4 missions to train new logi pilots, as a sort of baby incursion squad using BCs and Cruisers for DD. That also trains the DD pilots to broadcast for logi as the new logi pilots do not normally have the skills to pretarget the whole squad. My suggestion would be to make the level 4s harder to do solo as a way of getting mission pilots to team up.

I want to take on level 5 missions in low sec with a Uni squad. However, the risk of getting ambushed by T3s is greater than the rewards from running the level 5s to the point where level 5s are only viable running them solo. My suggestion is to increase the rewards for level 5s and to gate them like a Faction Warfare site so that at least any PvP would be on equal terms.

With respect to the use of language:

I like that Eve Uni has a policy on the use of language. Like you I dont mind cuss words in the heat of battle but I object to having to listen to gratuitous offensive language during my gaming time and that's one of the reasons why I have stayed on at the Uni.

I post on the Eve Online G+ forum and it would be great if you could join us there to answer questions about your candidacy.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/100809037321668050870

Good luck, Niamh