A Project Awakening Update: February 2024

Since CCP Games released the news last March, the general public has seen little news of Project Awakening, the Web3/blockchain game currently in development based on EVE Online. Over the past two weeks, little nuggets of news came out that I think can make up a short post.

First came Pearl Abyss' fourth quarter earnings call for 2023. During the call Pearl Abyss revealed CCP had conducted a confidential test and plans "to showcase Project Awakening within the first half of this year". As the continuing failure to launch Crimson Desert shows, however, Pearl Abyss often underestimates the time required to complete projects.

On the bright side for potential investors, Pearl Abyss returned to profitability in 2023, recording a net profit of ₩15.6 billion ($12.1 million). But the South Korean game makers operating profits fell into negative territory, indicating the potential for CCP to require another round of investment.

The second piece of news indicates the leadership of Pearl Abyss possibly isn't as far off the time estimate as normal. The Council of Stellar Management held a summit with the developers and leadership of CCP Games from 5-9 of February. The CSM is an elected group of players who serves partly as a focus group and partly as a warning system for changes the developers make to the game. If I am correct that Project Awakening is generally a port of EVE Online to Web 3 technology, then the input the CSM gives CCP about EVE Online will impact Project Awakening.

One of the members, Dark Shines, posted to the EVE sub-Reddit his notes about the recent summit. Why should millionaires care what Dark Shines thinks about Project Awakening? Because Dark Shines not only is the leader of The Initiative., the fourth largest alliance in EVE with over 16,000 characters, but is one of the game's top fleet commanders as well. If he says bad things about Project Awakening, that could affect acceptance of the game as well as those millionaires investments. CCP faced a significant player revolt against Web 3 technology in late 2021 and early 2022, so much that CCP's CEO  Hilmar Veigar Pétursson had to issue a public statement stating, "we have no plans to add blockchain technology into EVE Online’s global server Tranquility for the foreseeable future." 

The first passage was Dark Shines impression of the first session on Project Awakening held on day 1 of the summit.

Yesterday I left out one meeting, regarding Project Awakening as I was unsure of the NDA boundries, but having spoke to CCP they confirm it was cool to mention it. Our second meeting yesterday was with the Project Awakening team.

I had a lot of reservations about Project Awakening given the nature of the tech it uses however I was able to voice those concerns during the meeting and was happy with frank conversation that followed. By the end of the meeting I was far more confident in this as a product and the direction / vision CCP have for it and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. I can't go into the specifics on it, but its clear to me that the drive behind the game and the people working on it are legit, so I look forward to seeing what comes next for Awakening.

Perhaps not the most information, but the members of the CSM are under an NDA concerning all the information discussed during summits. The second meeting, held on day 3, was also vague.

Our next meeting was with the Project Awakening Team. I asked several more questions around the gameplay, the vision of progression and how they would manage their messaging to the Eve Community given the massive concerns with Blockchain. I was satisfied with the answers I got, along with the answers to the other CSMs questions. It was also encouraging to see that Eve can benefit from some of the developments made here.

Again, vague on the details. But I was looking more for attitude towards the project, not details of what the project would present to players. And perhaps the most positive statement was the answer to a question, "How much do you know about blockchain technology from OUTSIDE of these meetings?"

Much like when I get a text asking me to click a link to accept a package i've never ordered, I know to avoid NFT, and the bad image with cash grabs on blockchain / crypto related stuff.

However from talking to people at CCP it's clear that it is a game using a specific technology, and not using a technology and tacking a game on as an afterthought.

The answer to the question tends to place into doubt my assumption that Project Awakening is a port of EVE with Web 3 technology added. Then again, how much would an EVE 2 differ from the original game? After twenty years CCP may finally deliver a sequel to the original game.

But perhaps the biggest takeaway is that one of the movers and shakers in the EVE player base doesn't hate Project Awakening. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is something to consider when thinking about the effort.

Fun Facts About EVE Online's CSM 18 Election

Besides the benefits of getting together with friends who play a niche internet spaceship game, EVE Fanfest also announces the results of the Council of Stellar Management election. I normally compose a couple of posts about the results of the election. But since Wilhelm over on The Ancient Gaming Noob did such a good job of covering the news, I'll just post the fun article. That's right, what are the fun facts coming out of the CSM 18 election.

1. Not record turnout. The possibility exists that the turnout rate was the highest in history, but this year's 47,155 votes cast only gets the CSM 18 election into the top 5 elections of all time. The top 5 elections with votes cast were:

1. CSM 7 (2012): 59,109
2. CSM 8 (2013): 49,702
3. CSM 6 (2011): 49,096
4. CSM 18 (2023): 47,155
5. CSM 5 (2010): 39,433

The turnout increase over the CSM 17 of 16,341 votes cast (53%) also did not set a record. That record was set by the CSM 5 election. In 2010, the voting increased by 18,275 votes, an 86.4% increase over the CSM 4 election. The CSM 5 election was notable because CSM 5 was the first body elected to a one year term.

2. Losing with big numbers. In the CSM 18 election three candidates: Dujek Oneye (1484), Arhont Sibirskii (1480), and Torvald Uruz (1032) lost despite being listed as the first choice on over 1000 ballots. But CSM 8, in the first year of CSM using single-transferrable voting, had 6 such candidates. The list of previous candidates accomplishing this dubious achievement is:

CSM 8

1678 - Greene Lee

1616 - Nathan Jameson

1525 - Psychotic Monk

1487 - Corebloodbrothers 

1286 - Steve Ronuken

1213 - Banlish

CSM 10

1099 - UAxDEATH

CSM 12

1291 - Sort Dragon

CSM 13

1091 - ExookiZ

CSM 14

1500 - Sort Dragon

3. The 1000/2000 rule. I have a general rule of thumb about CSM elections. If a candidate can get 1000 first choice votes and over 2000 votes overall, the candidate will probably win. Dujek Oneye (1484/2916) and Torvald Uruz (1032/2220) are the fourth and fifth candidates to violate the rule. The other three were Nathan Jameson (1616/2430) and Banlish (1213/2173) in CSM 8 and Sort Dragon (1500/2321) in CSM 14.

4. Weakness in the Imperium ballot. I have said for years that in the STV voting system, larger turnout hurts the big null sec blocs. The null sec alliances always maximize their voting power. Only when a lot of non-null players vote is their power diminished.

A quick look at the voting file confirmed this belief. As usual, the official Imperium ballot had the most votes. But the candidate occupying the third spot on the ballot, Kontan Rekor, only received 300 votes, exiting the election simulation in the 11th round. The only other time someone in the top three spots of the Imperium/CFC ballot failed to win a CSM seat was Banlish, the candidate in the second position on the ballot, in the first STV election in 2013.

Voting For The 18th Council Of Stellar Management Starts Today

I don't play EVE Online very much anymore. Currently I'm mining to build a Porpoise and running PI on 6 planets. But since I have subscriptions running on two accounts, I get two votes in this week's election to seat the 18th Council of Stellar Management.

By the way, voting is not done in-game. One must log into the EVE Online website and do so outside the game. The voting page is found here. Thankfully a couple of elections ago CCP put in a search function to make finding the candidates you want to vote for easier. Players choosing to vote can vote for between 1 to 10 candidates. Personally, I only vote for candidates I would want to see on the CSM. Voting for people you don't know anything about just to make sure your vote "isn't wasted" is a bad idea. What if the person you vote for has ideas you hate? But I'm a minority, I think.

The reward for voting on an account is a ship SKIN for the Council Diplomatic Shuttle. The shuttle is based on a Pacifier-class frigate hull and has a little more tank than a normal shuttle. A ten-run blueprint copy was distributed for the 10th CSM and individual shuttles were given out during the elections for the 15th, 16th, and 17th CSMs.

I haven't gone into the background or why voting for the CSM is important. For a more in-depth look at the CSM, I think a post I wrote back in 2015 still stands up well.

I know, I know. I really haven't covered the CSM very much this year. Let's just say I'm a little worn out by the subject. But if anyone wants to know who I voted for, who else could I vote for? Go Mike Azariah!

The Council Of Stellar Management Expands To 12 Seats

Yesterday CCP announced the next election and rules changes for the 18th Council of Stellar Management. The key dates for the election season are:

• 1-15 August – Candidate submissions open
• 2-18 August – Application processing
• 23 August – Live candidate announcement
• 23 August – 3 September – Campaign period
• 4 September – 11 September – Voting period
• 21 September – CSM 18 Announcement, live at Fanfest

The campaign takes on a bit more importance due to a change in the structure of the CSM.

With the return of expansions to EVE Online we can now plan even farther ahead for EVE's development, and this means we can better predict what kind of expertise would be useful to have on the CSM.

To take advantage of this, for CSM 18 we will expand the size of the CSM from 10 to 12 seats. 10 members will be directly elected as usual using the same campaign and voting process that the CSM has operated on for years.

Then, from the candidates who finished in the 11th to 20th positions, CCP will select two to join the 10 elected members, forming the new 12-member CSM 18.

Our selection will be based primarily on what areas of knowledge we perceive to be most valuable in the coming term based on our plans for EVE development. Operationally, there will be no distinction made between the 10 elected and 2 appointed members of the CSM.

I am assuming the 11th through 20th positions are the last 10 candidates removed by the single transferrable vote algorithm. I won't say for certain as CCP has two additional options. The first option is to rerun the algorithm for 20 winners instead of 10 and then select two candidates who didn't win. The other option is to remove the winners and rerun the algorithm to get a second set of 10 candidates to chose from. But if CCP makes an election show as they have the past few years, choosing from the last 10 candidates eliminated makes the most sense.

Those last two "subject expert" seats are interesting. One could look at who CCP choses as an indication of the direction EVE Online development will take for the next year or two. Moving away from the possibility of a second "Chaos Era" is probably a good thing. Of course, CCP can simply ignore the CSM and treat everyone as mushrooms.

One point I am curious about is the reaction of those who finish in places 11 to 20 who are not picked to join CSM 18. I rate the odds of at least one of those candidates stating they are a better pick for a seat for X, Y, and Z reasons as rather high. If that happens, those picked by CCP better behave in an exemplary or the experiment with CCP picking members based on development needs will not extend to CSM 19.

Progodlegend Steps Down From The Council Of Stellar Management

Long wars in EVE tend to burn players out, especially those in leadership positions. Sitting on the Council of Stellar Management also leads to many players either leaving or reducing their activity in the game. Someone who falls in both groups is Test Alliance Please Ignore's progodlegend. Today, CCP announced his resignation from the CSM.

Civic-minded Capsuleers!

This week, CSM member progodlegend informed CCP of his intentions to resign his seat on CSM 16. This was done entirely by his own volition, and progodlegend resigns his seat in good standing. Given the duration of the term that he has served on, this will count against his term limits should he seek re-election in CSM 17 and beyond.

Based on CSM 16 election results, the next member-elect of CSM 16 is Arsia Elkin. Arsia has accepted the position as CSM 16 Council Member, completed necessary paperwork, attended her first weekly meeting, and is busy working with current members in the onboarding process for her new role. We expect great things from Arisa, and we’re excited to have her extensive knowledge enhance an already impressive CSM squad.

In other CSM related news - you can expect some CSM Summit news & updates soon™ as existing plans for an in-person summit (scheduled for this February) were postponed due to Omicron-related restrictions.

Below is the official resignation from progodlegend. Thank you, progod, for your time on the CSM and we wish you well on the slopes!

Over the next couple of months I will be actively avoiding most of my electronics while I live in the mountains and snowboard for a few months. As such it doesn’t make much sense for me to remain on the CSM. I informed CCP of my decision a few days ago, and as I understand it they will be giving the spot to Arsia. I thought she was an exceptional candidate during the election, and was happy to see her be in a position to take a spot if someone stepped down. I have no doubt she will do very well on the CSM.

I will be checking discord once a day, but otherwise I’ll be out of pocket for a few months. Don’t burn the place down while I’m gone.

When running for CSM 16, Arsia stated she wanted to concentrate on four main areas:

1. Low Security Sapce/Faction Warfare
2. Ship/Module Balance
3. Story/Lore Visibility and Use as Content Generator
4. New Player Experience

The following description of Arsia is taken from her campaign thread:

I’m predominantly a roleplaying PvPer who has been playing the game for around 11 years. I started the Arsia character (my ‘main’ and first successful character) in mid 2010 after failing to get into the game a few times during some trial accounts spaced out a couple years apart. I started my Eve life as an explorer and ran around high sec and then low sec sort of without many true goals until I got into Faction Warfare (FW) in 2012. I had started the character intending to RP but was mostly quiet and stayed to myself until I started interacting with other RPers in the context of FW.

A little while after getting into Faction Warfare on the Amarr side, I joined PIE (Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris). Back then I played fairly casually and just logged on and kerfuffled around the warzone a few times a month. To this day I think Eve is a good game to play casually (even if I’m fairly not casual at this point). Over my years I began to develop some FCing capabilities within the context of FW but stayed mostly casual and quiet until the Amarr Succession Trials in 2015. In the Succession Trials I was on Mitara Newelle’s team and we became the Sarum champions, breezing through the preliminaries and had a respectable showing in the tournament, falling short one win of making the finals.

After the tournament I was pretty burnt out from the practice and emotional toll of the whole thing. I played very little in 2016. In 2017 I came back pretty strong in the middle of the year and started streaming. I started to become very not casual at this point. My corp was small and had little to no activity in my timezone most of the time, so I started a weekly semi-public fleet that ended up running every Friday evening until early 2020. My public fleet grew over time and started getting more ambitious. We had a citadels in Sifilar and Sahtogas at times and the public fleet formed to defend it alongside the Amarr RPers in LUMEN and PIE. I also spent some time as a director and co-executor of LUMEN (Khimi Harar) from the character Lyra North-Onren after it was formed because ARC didn’t like the corp SFRIM participating in my fleets because it wanted to remain politically neutral and my fleets were Amarr aligned at the time.

In addition to roaming, I also got involved with an increasing number of medium sized fights and campaigns around the cluster. Some of them were done with various RP or FW groups working together and some were done with the public fleet and reaching out to friends around the game. But without getting into the specific details of all the various campaigns I’ve been involved in over the years, the main theme of most of my campaigns has been either kerfuffles over RP politics/events or a bunch of smaller groups banding together to fight a bigger group.

In late 2019, after some RP events that went in an in-character forum thread I made started a major war over game world news, I left PIE. After the Triglavian Invasions started, I served as an FC for the EDENCOM side and was involved in many system sieges and fights in low security and liminal invasion systems. Arsia (who had formally defected) joined Electus Matari where I still am now. I am thinking of starting to do semi-public fleets again and working towards new goals now on the Minmatar side of the RP spectrum. Since I’ve joined there’s been quite a few medium to large sized fights in low sec centered around Snuffed Out’s burning of our FW regions or defenses of our structures or allied structures from various groups. Lately, we’ve been practicing for the Anger Games where we’re participating as the team ‘If All Else Fails.’ Additionally, I still regularly stream and am part of the Eve Online Partner Program. I also am a regular Sunday co-host on Talking in Stations. As far as null goes, I consider myself politically neutral in regards to all null security blocs and mostly use it as a playground for roaming. I use wormholes (especially Thera) predominantly for moving around between regions of space quickly. I do have some opinions and experience regarding high security wars.

While I no longer cover the CSM as extensively as I once did, a member resigning is something worth mentioning.

Fun Facts About The CSM 16 Election Results

The election results for EVE Online's 16th Council of Stellar Management came out on Monday. I know, people really aren't interested in the CSM, especially with a lot of people shouting the sky is falling. But the election deserves one final look. Hopefully people will find something interesting.

Turnout increased. This year's 38,086 votes cast in the election represents a 5.4% increase over last year's 36,120. Overall, the CSM 16 election had the fifth most voters in CSM history. The top five voter turnout elections are:

1. CSM 7 (2012): 59,109 votes
2. CSM 8 (2013): 49,702 votes
3. CSM 6 (2011): 49,096 votes
4. CSM 5 (2010): 39,433 votes
5. CSM 16 (2021): 38,086 votes

Filling out the ballot. For the first time since CSM elections switched to the single transferrable vote format, a majority of ballots cast had votes for the maximum number of candidates. A record 20,446 ballots were completely filled out in 2021, representing 53.7% of the ballots cast. Below is a list of the percentages of completely filled out ballots going back to CSM 8.

CSM 08 - 33.8%

CSM 09 - 33.8%

CSM 10 - 30.0%

CSM 11 - 27.5%

CSM 12 - 30.4%

CSM 13 - 38.3%

CSM 14 - 47.1%

CSM 15 - 40.6%

CSM 16 - 53.7%

Incumbents win. One of the reasons CCP instituted term limits to begin next year was due to the power of incumbency. If a player has a strong organization behind him, victory is almost assured. This year, 7 of the 8 members running for reelection won. The only incumbent to lose was Phantomite, who was eliminated in the 27th round with 720 votes.

The top 10 after round 1. I hear people ask if the candidates in the lead after round 1 ever wind up losing. The top 11 candidates at the end of round 1 were:

1. Merkelchen - met quota
2. Gobbins - met quota
3. Innominate - met quota
4. Kenneth Feld - 3282
5. Brisc Rubal - 3084
6. Vily - 2515
7. I Beast - 2449
8. progodlegend - 1859
9. Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci - 1163
10. Mike Azariah - 1115
11. Suitonia - 1054

Uriel wound up eliminated in round 34 while Suitonia reached the quota in the 34th round of 36 total rounds. With Arsia Elkin only receiving 2241 votes when eliminated in the final round, effectively 7 of the 10 winners were decided by the end of the first round.

The 1000/2000 rule in CSM elections still holds mostly true. When people used to ask whether or not they had a shot at winning a seat on the CSM, I asked two questions. First, could they garner 1000 first place votes. The second, did they have a path to 2000 total votes. If the answer to both is yes, then the candidate is a serious contender.

The rule held true again this year. Arsia Elkin came close to breaking the rule, but only received 978 initial first place votes. The three candidates in the nine CSM elections to break the rule were Nathan Jameson (1616/2430) and Banlish (1213/2173) in the CSM 8 election and Sort Dragon (1500/2321) in 2019.

Voting Blocs. In this year's election, there were nine combinations of votes that occurred over 400 times. These 9 tickets accounted for 34.8% of the votes cast. One of the tickets did not come the major null sec blocs. I am not sure if Northern Coalition. and Pandemic Legion had separate tickets, so I listed them separately.

The Imperium (6496)
Merkelchen, Innominate, Brisc Rubal, Baculus Orden, Broodin, Angry Mustache, Micromancer, Xenuria, Suitonia, I Beast

Pandemic Horde (1782)
Gobbins, progodlegend, Kenneth Feld, RonUSMC, Phantomite, Vily, Arsia, Elkin, Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci, Reicher514, Seddow

Winter Coalition (1068)
Kenneth Feld, Rich Richman, progodlegend, Gobbins, Seddow, Vily, Phantomite, Arsia Elkin, Angry Mustache, Maldavius

Test Alliance Please Ignore (796)
Vily, progodlegend, RonUSMC, Gobbins, Phantomite, Arsia Elkin

I Beast (772)
I Beast

Non-null (765)
Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci, DutchGunner, Baculus Orden, Dr Spodumain, I Beast

The Initiative. (628)
Brisc Rubal, Innominate, I Beast, Suitonia, Mark Resurrectus, teddy Gbyc, Broodin, Phantomite, Mike Azariah, Arsia Elkin

Northern Coalition./Pandemic Legion (519)
Kenneth Feld, progodlegend, Gobbins, RonUSMC, Phantomite, Arsia Elkin

Northern Coalition./Pandemic Legion 2? (441)
Kenneth Feld, progodlegend, Gobbins, RonUSMC, Vily, Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci, Reicher514, Mike Azariah

A lot of players in coalitions don't vote the full ticket. The total count of votes that matched the top 3 spots of each ticket were:

• The Imperium - 7144
• Pandemic Horde - 2410
• Test Alliance Please Ignore - 1655
• Northern Coalition./Pandemic Legion - 1418
• Winter Coalition - 1205
• Non-null - 837
• The Initiative. - 789

When using the top 3 criteria, 40.6% of the votes cast matched one of the seven combinations. Including I Beast's 772 independent votes, the total increases to 42.6% of the vote.

Strong Imperium turnout. What a difference a year makes for Imperium turnout. In 2020, Innominate didn't reach quota until round 29 (out of 30 rounds) and Brisc had to win on his own. This year, Innominate reached quota in round one and Brisc received a trickle down of 706 votes. Combined with the 2171 initial first place votes Brisc received, The Imperium had guaranteed winning three seats early in the process. 

The Imperium vote then trickled down to Suitonia beginning with 47 votes in round 20. By round 34, the trickle from Brisc Rubal reached 824 votes and pushed Suitonia across the finish line.

In raw numbers, the amount of votes cast for the official Imperium ballot increased 57.9%, from 4115 ballots in CSM 15 to 6496 for CSM 16. Using the top 3 comparison, the turnout only increased 51.7%, from 4690 ballots matching the top 3 slots of the official Imperium ballot compared to 7114 this year.

Progodlegend the show stopper. PAPI went with a strategy to attempt to elect Vily, Gobbins, and Kenneth Feld, with progodlegend hopefully winning based on the vote from Brave Collective combined with the trickle from the three main candidates. The strategy worked, but with progodlegend not meeting quota, the trickle from five major coalition tickets ended with him.

How was Chinese turnout? With none of Winter Coalition's original candidates passing CCP's screening process, a question arose whether the members of Winter Coalition would turn out. Using the top 3 vote comparison between last year's turnout and this year's, Winter Coalition turnout fell by 26.3%. If I expand the criteria to include the 470 ballots that only marked Maria Taylor last year, the decline was 42.8%.

Council Of Stellar Management 16 Election Results

Today CCP announced the results of the election for the 16th edition of the Council of Stellar Management. The 38,066 votes cast was a 5.4% increase over last year's election. Only one candidate running for re-election, Phantomite, lost. As expected, 7 of the 10 winning candidates come from the null sec blocs. The winning candidates, and the round of the simulation they clinched victory, are below.

• Merkelchen (1)
• Gobbins (1)
• Innominate (1)
• Brisc Rubal (20)
• Kenneth Feld (26)
• I Beast (33)
• Suitonia (34)
• Vily (36)
• progodlegend (36)
• Mike Azariah (36)

Merkelchen and Gobbins, as the top of the tickets of the two largest blocs, won on initial first place votes. The final two candidates to win a seat, progodlegend and Mike Azariah, did not reach quota. 

For those wondering, the final wormhold candidate, Mark Resurrectus, was eliminated in round 35 of the simulation. The last candidate eliminated, Arsia Elkin, lost by 350 votes. Arsia is a Minmatar/EDENCOM roleplayer who appears on Talking in Stations.

I can't really say I'm surprised at who won. I was surprised at the power of The Imperium's ballot effort this year, as Brisc Rubal received a meaningful trickle down effect for the first time in his three campaigns. The trickle even reached Suitonia, the 9th candidate on The Imperium ballot, in significant numbers.

I'm sure that someone in null sec will try to use the results to chest beat about their coalition being better than the other. PAPI managed to get 4 members on the CSM to The Imperium's 3. Here is a breakdown of the winners by alliance.

• Goonswarm Federation - 2
• Test Alliance Please Ignore - 2
• Pandemic Horde - 1
• Pandemic Legion - 1
• The Initiative. - 1
• WE FORM V0LTA - 1
• Worst Alliance Ever - 1
• No Alliance - 1

I'll dig into the data later to see if I can spot any trends. But for now, the election is over. Let the complaining on Reddit and the forums begin.

The CSM 16 Election: Bloc Ballots

Since the elections for EVE Online's player council began utilizing the modified Wright single-transferrable vote system in 2013, the biggest indicator of electoral success is placement on bloc ballots. Normally, a bloc ballot is synonymous with the major null sec coalitions. But not always. Given that over the last 7 elections receiving 2500 total votes guarantees a win, wormhole and low sec groups that band together can realistically hope to get one member on the CSM. 

If turnout doesn't increase dramatically this year, I think I can comfortably predict several of the winners. Yes, organization matters a lot. Here are the people I think should win based on placement on the ballots of the major null sec coalitions.

Merkelchen - Historically, first place on The Imperium's ballot is an automatic win. That shouldn't change this year.

Gobbins - The head of Pandemic Horde is naturally at the top of the Pandemic Horde ballot. With almost 21,926 members, getting a 10% turnout should ensure victory.

Innominate - Historically, the candidate in the #2 slot on The Imperium's ballot wins. Unless turnout increases dramatically, Innominate should win one more time.

Kenneth Feld - Over the years, Pandemic Legion has overperformed in CSM elections. But if Fraternity. & Winter Coalition turn out to vote close to their levels last year, Kenneth Feld should win. While Northern Coalition. and Pandemic Legion are not normally considered large factors in CSM elections, the combination along with even lukewarm support from Winter Co. membership should ensure reelection.

Vily - Test Alliance Please Ignore finally figured out how to elect a member to the Council of Stellar Management when Vily ran in 2019. I'm still wary of stating publicly that a TEST member will win, especially since Legacy Coalition is attempting to get two of its leaders onto the CSM. With only 16,908 members, is TEST disciplined enough to push Vily to victory. I'll go ahead and say yes.

Progodlegend - Unlike TEST, Brave Collective is very good when voting for CSM. I actually feel better about putting Progodlegend on the list than Vily. Progod is #2 on the Pandemic Horde ballot, which might mean he has a higher vote total than Vily at the end of the first round of the simulation. If I put Vily on this list, then I need to put Progodlegend as well. But I feel really uneasy posting that two members of TEST will win seats.

Brisc Rubal - Brisc is the one candidate not high up on a bloc ballot who I will list as winning, but he may not reach the quota this year. Yes, third place on The Imperium's ballot basically means nothing, especially if the candidacy of Baculus Orden means less players voting the strict Imperium ballot. Still, he's shown that having the vote of his alliance (The Initiative.) along with broad popularity can lead to victory. Brisc has won twice, and I won't predict he doesn't win a third time.

The other three seats - Honestly, I have no idea. Usually a streamer or YouTuber will win a seat. The best bet in that case is I Beast, also known as Lussy Lou. As for wormholers and low sec residents, I have no idea. When wormholers are in agreement, they can get a member on. So I'd say one member comes from either area of the game. High sec might get one player on the Council. This year's favorite is Mike Azeriah. 

Of course, outright vote buying can upend everything. If the turnout for the CSM 16 election is 40,000, then a player buying 3650 votes will win. For an election with a 30,000 voter turnout, the number of votes required decreases down to 2750 to ensure victory. With the existence of skill point farms, vote buying is a legitimate option for the game's very rich.

The Ballots - Below are the lists of ballots I've compiled. Maybe next year, the voting lists will come in handy for evaluating the prospects for candidates for CSM 17.

The Imperium

1. Merkelchen
2. Innominate
3. Brisc Rubal
4. Baculus Orden
5. Broodin
6. Angry Mustache
7. Micromancer
8. Xenuria
9. Suitonia
10. I Beast
    

Pandemic Horde

1. Gobbins
2. Progodlegend
3. Kenneth Feld
4. RonUSMC
5. Phantomite
6. Vily
7. Arsia Elkin
8. Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci
9. Reicher514
10. Seddow

Test Alliance Please Ignore

1. Vily
2. Progodlegend
3. RonUSMC
4. Gobbins
5. Phantomite
6. Arsia Elkin

Fraternity./Winter Coalition

1. Kenneth Feld
2. Rich Richman
3. Progodlegend
4. Gobbins
5. Seddow
6. Vily
7. Phantomite
8. Arsia Elkin
9. Angry Mustache
10. Maldavius

Brave Collective

1. Progodlegend
2. Vily
3. RonUSMC
4. Gobbins
5. Juris Doctor
6. Mark Ressurrectus
7. Kenneth Feld
8. Angry Mustache
9. Arisa Elkin
10. Seddow

Northern Coalition./Pandemic Legion

1. Kenneth Feld
2. Progodlegend
3. Gobbins
4. RonUSMC
5. Phantomite
6. Arsia Elkin

Rekking Crew

1. Seddow
2. White 0rchid
3. Phantomite
4. Suitonia
5. I Beast
6. Gobbins
7. Kenneth Field
8. Vily
9. Rixx Javix
10. Dr Spodumain

Stribog Clade (Pochven/Triglavian)

1. Maldavius
2. Brisc Rubal
3. Xeromus Plague
4. Micromancer
5. Broodin
6. Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci

Thoughts On The CSM 16 Election: June 8-15, 2021

The election for EVE Online's 16th Council of Stellar Management began today and runs though downtime (1100 UTC) on 15 June. Over the past 2 years I've stepped away from covering the CSM, but I thought I'd give some thoughts in a post in case anyone cares.

My list of candidates. If anyone wants advice on who to vote for, I'd list these three candidates, who are all current members of the CSM:

1. Mike Azariah, The Scope
2. Kenneth Feld, Pandemic Legion
3. Brisc Rubal, The Initiative.

Mike Azariah is the only high-sec based player with a chance to win a seat on CSM. He runs a service, which he calls The Magic School Bus, that gives out ships to new players in rookie systems. The Magic School Bus is not an election gimmick, as he began running around high sec distributing ships after his first run on the CSM. Besides that, he's just a good guy in real life. I've voted for him every year he's been on the ballot.

Kenneth Feld is the industrial candidate CCP needs to listen to, especially as they continue to make adjustments to the economy. From the reports I've heard, Kenneth is an effective advocate and probably kept the developers from making a lot of mistakes. The CSM is effectively a focus group designed to keep CCP from making mistakes. Hopefully Kenneth will be around for the upcoming year to continue trying to keep CCP from making too many mistakes.

Brisc Rubal is the titan-owning line member with serious interpersonal skills. A Washington lobbyist and politician in real life, Brisc knows how to work with CCP. While third on the official Imperium ballot, in his two previous CSM wins, Brisc hasn't needed the official ballot support. If for no other reason, a vote for Brisc keeps my ballots counting toward the quota.

Ballots? Players can vote more than once? Yes. Players can cast a vote for each Omega account they own. However, the account must be active for at least 60 days before voting. When voting on multiple accounts, your selections are saved from the first account that votes, saving a player time.

How does the voting system work? It's ... complicated. I wrote a post back in 2018 explaining the system.

You only listed 3 candidates. Can't you vote for 10? Players can vote for up to 10 candidates. But who has time to research 47 candidates to pick 10? Also, why vote for someone just to fill up the number of slots?

Aren't you wasting your vote if you don't vote for 10 candidates? The wasted vote claim is my pet peeve about the single transferrable vote system used in CSM elections. A strain of thought exists that maintains that if someone votes for a losing candidate, that is a wasted vote. 

For those still concerned about wasted votes. In the age of the 10 member CSM, the official Imperium ballot trickle has never positively impacted below the 6th candidate on the ballot. I think that is a pretty fair standard to set for yourself to avoid feeling guilty. Some people have other theories, like first vote for all the wormhole candidates, and then all the low sec, small gang candidates. In those cases, voting for more than 6 makes sense. But the important thing is, don't feel pressured to vote for all 10 slots if you don't want to. It's okay not to.

The origin of "the wasted vote". In 2012 and 2013, "wasted votes" was a meme following the "Wizard Hat" incident at Fanfest 2012 at the Alliance panel involving The Mittani. Without going into the details, the deal worked out between CCP and The Mittani involved the top Goon not serving on CSM 7. The big problem was, The Mittani received over 10,000 votes, or over 20% of the votes cast. As EVE players tend to do, the fact was thrown in everyone's face whenever the CSM was brought up for the next year.

Perhaps coincidentally, in 2013 CSM elections switched from first-past-the-post to using a modified version of the Wright single transferrable vote method. Theoretically, with the STV method, over 90% of participating players should vote for a winning candidate.

Has a candidate ever withdrawn or been removed after voting begins? Yes. In the CSM 11 election, Apothne had to withdraw due to a serious health condition after voting finished but before CCP announced the results. The election algorithm was rerun without Apothne, with Kyle Aparthos and Nashh Kadavr winning seats and Erika Mizune losing instead of winning. And in the CSM 13 election, Creecher Virpio was removed during the voting period due to chat logs with objectionable language surfacing. 

Why vote? Goons are just going to win all the seats anyway. The Imperium is good, but they are not that good. If the turnout this year is similar to last year's, The Imperium will wind up with three winning candidates: Merkelchen, Innominate, and Brisc Rubal. And the only reason for The Imperium winning three seats is Brisc Rubal's personal popularity. The vote trickle mechanic Brisc received last year from the official Imperium ballot was 94 votes in round 29. Brisc began receiving enough votes to win in round 24. In a twist of fate, Brisc reached the vote quota to win due to trickle down votes from Mike Azariah in round 30.

The Imperium, and its predecessor the CFC, used to inflate their effectiveness by putting candidates that were going to win anyway on their official ballot. For the CSM 16 election, the powers-that-be decided to abandon that strategy. I think some people might receive a rude awakening.

Why vote? The null sec blocs will win all the seats anyway. Not true. Last year three non-null sec candidates won.

• Mike Azariah
• Phantomite
• Torvald Uruz

Finally, voting from within the client, kind of!  Excuse the graphics spam, but I'm a little excited about the way CCP is publicizing the election within the client. First, at the login screen players are greeted with a 7-day election event that gives out 5 days of rewards.

Once inside the game, a splash screen appears publicizing the election.

Clicking on the splash screen directs the player to the voting page. You may have to log into the page (I voted before logging into EVE), but voting is pretty easy this year.

The nice part is, if players don't click on the splash screen to vote, they can do so by clicking on the pane on The Agency.

Pearl Abyss will be watching. One final observation to finish the post. Pearl Abyss will be watching. If the turnout is high, expect them to tout the turnout not only on the next earnings call, but in their monthly investors newsletter as well. In a time of declining activity, both the normal summer seasonal slump as well as the launch of The Burning Crusade Classic, a high turnout could convince Pearl Abyss it doesn't need to stick their fingers into EVE any more than they are now.

Council of Stellar Management Elections: Historical Turnout And Winning Margins

The candidates for the election of the Council of Stellar Management 16 are now official. I don't plan to cover the election as much as I have in the past. But I think some of the people who will cover the event might like a little historical information from someone who covered the elections for years. In this post, I'll look back at the previous 15 elections and list the turnouts for each election as well as the minimum vote to win a position on the player council that helps advise CCP on the game they play.

CSM 1 through CSM 4

CSM only had 6 month terms in the first four iterations. Players elected 9 regular delegates with 5 alternates using the first past the post voting system. During this period of EVE's history, the subscription numbers were public, so we know what the percentage turnout was.

Links to election results

CSM 1

CSM 2

CSM 3

CSM 4

CSM 5 through CSM 7

In the next three elections, CSM terms were extended to one year. For CSM 5 & 6, players elected 9 regular delegates with 5 alternates using the first past the post voting system. For CSM 7, all 14 members were considered full members, although only the top 7 members were flown to Reykjavik. Some members did attend the summit meetings via Lync. In the below chart, I left the old CSM 5 & 6 rules in for CSM 7 for comparison purposes.

Links to election results

CSM 5

CSM 6

CSM 7

CSM 8 through CSM 11

In the next four elections, the CSM was chosen via a new system, a modified Wright single transferable vote (STV). Also, due to the mechanics of the voting system, players were no longer able to vote but abstain.

Links to election results

CSM 8

CSM 9

CSM 10

CSM 11

CSM 12 through CSM 15

Beginning with CSM 12, the size of the CSM was reduced from 14 members down to 10. The change was made so that all members of the Council of Stellar Management would fly out to Reykjavik for the twice annual summits.

Links to election results

CSM 12

CSM 13

CSM 14

CSM 15

Plans On Covering The CSM Election This Year

Every year since 2015, I have run a Google site with information on the candidates running in that year's election to fill EVE Online's Council of Stellar Management. I've decided not to do so in 2020.

The decision was a long time coming. As the election rules kept changing to favor representatives from the null sec alliances, I asked myself, "Why keep updating the site?" In 2018, I only did so because of CCP Guard. While at Fanfest in 2017, CCP Guard was asking people what he could do to help people better publicize the election. I gave him some feedback and for the CSM 13 election, he implemented the changes. How could I not run the site after he committed to doing a lot more work?

Last year I was totally disillusioned with the CSM voting process. With only a 10-member council, the null sec alliances were guaranteed to dominate the body. But before the voting, CCP Guard left the company, leaving CCP Dopamine to carry on as the CSM liaison. I figured that while I didn't have a major presence, every little bit helps. So, I operated during the CSM 14 election as well.

At this point of the year, we usually have some sort of CSM buzz in the air. Checking out the CSM section of the official forums shows no new posts in the CSM Campaigns section. Since I always relied on the official forums as my primary information source for updating the site, I really can't do anything. Assuming I wanted to. Plus, we have no information about a future election anyway.

In the future, I plan on just allowing the selection process to occur and maybe writing about the result. Doing what I did in the past was at times a full time job. I'm going to leave that to others. Besides, according to my traffic reports, very few people visited the site last year anyway.

Six Takaways From The CSM 14 Election

The results of the election for the 14th Council of Stellar Management are now known. Instead of a sleepy, null sec sweep, we saw a fascinating, perhaps even controversial, example of a single transferable vote election. Since CCP supplies both a file with the raw vote totals plus an audit file containing how the voting algorithm processes the vote, I can do a little deeper dig into the results than just note who one. While a lot of would-be analysts are giving their take on places like the EVE Online sub-reddit, I’d like to think I might have some additional insight on trends and events others miss. With that explanation out of the way, here are my top takeaways from the results of the voting.

1. Imperium voting power reverted to the norm. While some people are under the mistaken impression that the Goonswarm election team usually causes 6, 7, or even 8 candidates to win, in reality, the official Imperium vote semi-closely following the coalition’s official ballot usually results in 3 members winning a CSM seat. The CSM 13 election was an outlier, caused by the disqualification of TEST candidate Creecher Virpio. The removal of Creecher after the voting started resulted in The Judge winning re-election. With no drama this year, the Imperium ballot reverted back to only electing 3 candidates: Aryth, Merkelchen, and Innominate.

2. Turnout matters. In single transferable vote elections, turnout is a key factor in the power of a null sec bloc ballot. The larger the turnout, the larger the quota, or number of votes required to elect a candidate. The larger the quota, the fewer excess votes available to trickle down to the next candidate on the ballot. So while voter discipline within the Imperium improved, with 1000 more ballots following the Imperium ballot cast in 2019 compared to 2018, that only resulted in an increase of 70 votes in the trickle Innominate received from Merkelchen in the first round of the simulation. The Imperium vote never impacted below the third spot on the ballot as Innominate won his seat without reaching quota.

3. The 1000/2000 rule in CSM elections still holds mostly true. When people ask whether or not they have a shot at winning a seat on the CSM, I ask two questions. First, can they garner 1000 first place votes. The second, do they have a path to 2000 votes. If the answer to both is yes, then the candidate is a serious contender.

In this year's election, Steve Ronuken defeated Sort Dragon for the last seat, 2332 to 2321. Sort received 1500 initial first place votes, compared to Steve's 920. This year marks the 10th time a candidate received 1000 or more initial first place ballots and lost. Sort also earned the distinction of becoming the first candidate to accomplish the feat twice. The previous candidates who lost while achieving 1000 initial first place ballots are:

CSM 8
1678 - Greene Lee
1616 - Nathan Jameson
1525 - Psychotic Monk
1487 - Corebloodbrothers 
1286 - Steve Ronuken
1213 - Banlish

CSM 10
1099 - UAxDEATH

CSM 12
1291 - Sort Dragon

CSM 13
1091 - ExookiZ

Sort Dragon also became the third candidate ever, and the first since 2013, to achieve over 1000 initial first place votes and over 2000 total votes and still not win a seat. The other two were Nathan Jameson (1616/2430) and Banlish (1213/2173), both in the first STV election in 2013.

4. Vily ends the TEST curse. With Test Alliance Please Ignore’s long history as a large alliance, the fact that TEST has never before elected a member to the CSM might come as a surprise. But since the institution of the Wright single transferable vote system in 2013, some event has always intervened to prevent a member of TEST from winning. Most people who follow the CSM are familiar with the disqualification of TEST’s leading candidate Creecher Virpio last year. But such bad luck goes back to 2013, when, as a member of the HoneyBadger Coalition, TEST voted as a bloc for Sort Dragon, the leader of the coalition. TEST wound up moonwalking out of the coalition shortly afterwards.

5. Low sec tried, but came up short. When people from null sec hear complaints about the domination of the CSM by the null sec blocs, the usual response is to vote their own candidate in. No one who knows what went on during the campaign can say low sec and small gang PvP players didn't try.

The candidate players rallied behind was Stitch Kaneland from The Tuskers. He managed to pick up 937 initial first place votes at the beginning of the election, but lost in the 32nd round of the 34 round simulation with 1504 votes.

6. Wormholers get a representative, with a little help from their friends. After coming close last year, ExookiZ won a seat on CSM 14, beating Sort Dragon by 470 votes. But, the wormhole community needed help to get a representative. The help came from two places. The first was from the low sec/small gang PvP community backing Stitch Kaneland. After Stitch's elimination in round 32, ExookiZ picked up a net 359 votes on Sort Dragon, giving ExookiZ a comfortable lead. But without the trickle down vote from anti-null bloc candidate Olmeca Gold of a net 272 vote pickup over Sort, ExookiZ would have lost in the final round.

CSM 14 Voting Starts Today

Barring any controversies over the next week, I can relax and begin enjoying EVE again. The elections for the 14th Council of Stellar Management begin today and run through 17 June. The link to vote is buried a bit on the community site, but you can find it here. The link is probably on the launcher, but I had to leave for work before voting began. Dunk Dinkle provided a handy how-to guide on how to vote.

For those who are just beginning to notice the election and don't know anything about the candidates, I created a Google site with information from the last 5 CSM elections. The one for this week's election is here.

Once again, the podcast/streaming community has covered the election with a series of interviews. Between 3-time CSM member Jin'taan and Talking in Stations, 31 interviews were conducted with 23 of the 44 candidates in the race. One of the candidates Jin'taan interviewed did not make the final ballot, which is one of the pitfalls of having to conduct interviews before the ballot is announced. On my site, I had to delete 16 candidate pages this year. Yes, that many people were either rejected or decided not to run after all. I hear the number was even greater as not all potential candidates posted their intentions on the official forums.

In addition to Jin'taan and his one-man operation, I'd like to give a special shout out to MacCloud, the technical wizard who produces Talking in Stations. He stayed up all Saturday night to ensure that the remaining CSM interviews, including three conducted on Saturday, were posted to the internet on Sunday. A lot of people forget (or don't know) about all the work behind the scenes required to bring a podcast to life.

I'll have a couple of final posts once the election results are announced at EVE North, but for now, I'm finished with the CSM election coverage for this year. I do have a final question, though. What kind of turnout do you expect for this year's election? If you could take my Twitter poll, I'd appreciate it. The poll will run until downtime on Saturday.

Today's the start of the CSM election, running until June 17. Last year, 29,226 ballots were cast. How many accounts do you think will vote this year? #tweetfleet #CSM14election

— Noizy (@noizygamer) June 10, 2019

Thoughts On The CSM 14 Election One Week Before Voting Begins

With 6 days remaining until the Council of Stellar Management elections begin next Monday. I think I am all CSM'd out for this year. I still have to check for updates on the forums, although I think the odds of any additional candidates creating a new threads in the CSM Campaign section of the forums ranges from slim to none. Both Jin'taan and Talking In Stations have additional interviews due out this week. Between the two, 9 out of the 44 candidates have interviews posted so far. I need to keep listening, as some candidates have foot-in-mouth disease. For example, don't say, "I don't care if CCP sells bullets that do a little more damage, frankly. I don't see that as completely destabilizing the game." Wargaming removed gold ammo from World of Tanks for a very good reason. If a game publisher wants to attract players, a reputation for pay-to-win items like gold ammo is counter-productive to that goal.

I also am hearing some big talk from some of the null sec blocs about how they plan to win seats. Legacy is an interesting case study. No candidate backed by Brave Collective leadership has ever lost a CSM race. In Dunk Dinkle, Brave once again has a very strong candidate. Conversely, Test Alliance Please Ignore has never had a candidate win a seat. Last year, Creecher Virpio would have ended the drought but not for some meta-gaming by members of Pandemic Legion. Will Vily break the curse?

Another question is the fate of two incumbents, Sort Dragon and Killah Bee. Last year, the pair benefited greatly from the disqualification of Pandemic Horde's chosen candidate during the application process. With not only the leader of the Horde, Gobbins, running, but Aegaeonos and Arqui Nurbs as well, I don't think Killah Bee can count on help from those quarters. Sort Dragon has the additional handicap of fighing against PanFam at this time, so a big chunk of his support from last year is unavailable for his run for a fifth term on CSM.

The other question is whether high sec, low sec, or wormhole space can elect a representative. High sec's best hope is incumbent Steve Ronuken, who is running to win for a sixth time. Three-time CSM member Mike Azariah is also running, with Lorelei Ierendi, a candidate who's come close with a few strong showings, a dark horse candidate. Low sec only has one candidate, Matthew Dust, lists faction warfare amongst his current credentials to rally around. In contrast, wormholers have several candidates running. If the wormhole community can get together and vote for all 6 at the top of their tickets, in whatever order they choose, a chance exists for w-space to sneak a candidate on. The question is, can the residents of spooky space find that unity of purpose as they did in the CSM 8 election?

One other observation. I won't write an endorsement post or announce who I've voting for until after the election, if then. Like I said at the top of the post, I'm all CSM'd out, and I still have several interviews to listen to. Two more weeks until I leave for EVE North in Toronto and this whole election is over. I think I'll drink to that.

Analyzing The CSM 13 Election Round By Round

As someone who has analyzed the single transferable voting (STV) system used in EVE Online's elections to determine the members of the Council of Stellar Management since its institution in 2013, the discussion of the complicated voting system is sometimes exasperating. Last year, I wrote a post with an example of how the STV works. In an effort to decrease my readership, this year, I'll go one step further. I'll give an analysis of last year's election which resulted in the election of the "GSM", so nicknamed for the prevalence of members of The Imperium on the council.

Council Of Stellar Management Elections Coming June 10-17

With The Briscident behind them, the Council of Stellar Management now moves on to the next event on the calendar: elections. In a dev blog yesterday, CCP Dopamine announce the election schedule and how to apply to run. Here is the basic timeline.

• April 30 - May 12: Candidacy application period
• May 13-17: Processing applications
• May 25: Approved candidates announced at EVE Down Under
• May 25 - June 7: Official campaign period.
• June 10-17: Voting occurs
• June 22: Winners announced at EVE North

The requirements basically have not changed from last year. The only difference is a statement specifying that all personal data will be handled in accordance with European data protection and processing laws:

Important disclaimer from CCP: We will be strict about incorrectly filed or incomplete submissions and reject applications that don’t meet our standards. The rules are very clear, but if you are unsure about anything regarding the process, we are happy to answer any questions. However, once the submission is sent there is no turning back, so it is imperative to get it right. 

To be eligible for the CSM, applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Your account must be older than 60 days at the time candidacy applications close.
• Characters on both Alpha and Omega accounts are eligible to run. 
• You must have a history of honoring the EULA and the Terms of Service. We will screen every applicant thoroughly and EULA/TOS violations on your record can result in a rejected application.
• Your account must have updated and correct information at the time of your application. This includes; your real life name, correct date of birth and the same email you use to submit your application. To view and edit this information go to the account management website.
• Candidates must have reached 18 years of age. If the legal adult age in your home country (the age at which you have the legal capacity to enter into a contract) is higher than 18, that number applies instead.
• As an applicant, you must consent to provide your personal details to CCP, including your real name and a copy of your passport. CCP needs to affirm your real life identity for NDA contract purposes and the ability to travel to summits in Iceland is a key function of the CSM. 
• If you do not currently have a valid passport, we will accept a picture/scan of a valid and approved passport application accompanied with a picture of your driver‘s license.
• You must consent to sharing your country of origin with the EVE Community and having it displayed on the EVE Online website. You will not be required to share any other personal information with the EVE community.
• If you are running as an "alt" and you control a character that has a reputation in the EVE universe, CCP may require you to run under that identity at its full discretion.

As I've done for every election starting with CSM 10, I will provide candidate information on my CSM Wire Google site. I've upgraded the site and CSM Wire should show up better in mobile devices now. I might even get fancy and get a domain. Probably not, but the current URL annoys me enough. The site is still under construction, but I'll keep a list of candidates up to date. As of an hour before I posted this, we had 17 announced candidates.

The Briscident: Exoneration

"Neither Brisc Rubal nor the other players implicated in this incident breached CCP’s confidentiality, the terms of the Non-Disclosure Agreement, or used privileged information to obtain an in-game advantage."

- CCP Grendel, Senior Manager, Communications for CCP

Earlier today, CCP released a dev blog totally exonerating CSM member Brisc Rubal and two alliance mates, Pandoralica and Dark Shines. I personally am glad to know that Brisc did not abuse the trust given to him with his election to the CSM. Let me record the contents of the announcement below, just in case something happens to the dev blog:

Dear Citizens of New Eden,

Following on from our statement on April 17, we have completed our review of the Brisc Rubal investigation and determined that our initial findings were incorrect. Neither Brisc Rubal nor the other players implicated in this incident breached CCP’s confidentiality, the terms of the Non-Disclosure Agreement, or used privileged information to obtain an in-game advantage.

We made a mistake here and we offer our formal apologies. First, to Brisc Rubal and the two other players involved, both for making the allegations and for the disturbance and stress caused by the way in which we handled this situation. Second, for not collaborating with due care with the members of CSM 13, who have acted responsibly throughout. Lastly, we owe our sincere apology to the EVE community for this error. We take full responsibility for any confusion and mistrust caused by our initial assessment of the situation.

After reviewing our assessment of the information on which these allegations were based and having spoken repeatedly with everyone involved, it’s now clear that our initial actions were based on unsubstantiated assumptions. While we were motivated by a desire to protect the working relationship between the CSM and the EVE Development Team with all due speed, had we taken the time to review the information with greater scrutiny, this incident could have been resolved without the disruption that has since occurred.

We aim to make it up to all concerned. Right now, we are in the process of restoring access to the EVE Online accounts of all three affected players, returning any confiscated assets and providing rectification as appropriate. We will work to set this right and will be making changes to our procedures and policies to ensure this kind of situation does not reoccur.

Thank you for your understanding.

Honestly, I figured if Brisc had committed a breach of the NDA he signed, the breach was totally accidental. I was also a little irritated to discover CCP had not adequately investigated the matter before taking punitive steps against the INIT 3. I thought that the procedures included a reference to Internal Affairs to double-check on all charges. I guess not, which is strange since CSM members are supposed to receive the same type of attention CCP employees receive. At least, that's what I've gathered over my years covering the player-elected group.

In the wake of the decision, Brisc decided to resign from the CSM. I collected a few statements he issued today on Twitter.

Thanks to @CCPGames for doing the right thing - CCP admits mistake, reverses bans of Brisc Rubal, @Pandoralica and Dark Shines, clears all three of us of wrongdoing and apologizes for the mistake. https://t.co/suZwRc9Wl1 #tweefleet

— Brian W. Schoeneman (@BrianSchoeneman) April 25, 2019

Since folks are asking, I've chosen to resign from the CSM. There's not much time left in the term, and I need a break after all of this. Maybe in the future I'll consider running again, but this has been tough for me and the fam and I could use the time off. #tweetfleet

— Brian W. Schoeneman (@BrianSchoeneman) April 25, 2019

I know it would be easy to be angry and want to go after whoever accused me, but I'm not going to be vindictive. It was a mistake, it's been rectified and I don't want anybody else impacted by this - I know how bad it was for me, I can't in good conscience do it to somebody else.

— Brian W. Schoeneman (@BrianSchoeneman) April 25, 2019

Also - me, Pando and hopefully Dark Shines (the INIT3), will be appearing EXCLUSIVELY tomorrow night on the @OpenCommsShow on @Imperium_News. Be there or be square. @dirkmacgirk will be providing the memes. #tweefleet

— Brian W. Schoeneman (@BrianSchoeneman) April 25, 2019

And since I have to get this out of my system....NO COLLUSION. :) #tweetfleet

— Brian W. Schoeneman (@BrianSchoeneman) April 25, 2019

For those wondering, Open Comms is on the Imperium News Network Twitch channel at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific Friday, or 0100 EVE time on Saturday. I'm sure Dreydan will have an appropriate opening for the show.

In closing, I do have a few other questions I'd love to know the answers to, but I know I'll never find out. Which, is appropriate. We've seen enough information flying around, and much of it was wrong. We don't need any more.

The Briscident: CCP Reopens The Investigation

"THE CONTENTS OF THIS DEVBLOG ARE OUT OF DATE. WE ARE CURRENTLY CONDUCTING A FOLLOW UP INVESTIGATION INTO THIS MATTER.

"YOU CAN READ THE LATEST INFORMATION IN THIS INTERIM STATEMENT FROM THE COMMUNICATIONS TEAM."

- Update to announcement that Brisc Rubal was removed from CSM, posted 17 April 2019

On 9 April, Brisc Rubal was removed from the Council of Stellar Management for a breach of the CSM non-disclosure agreement. CCP announced that Brisc revealed confidential information to a strategic-level fleet commander in The Initiative., with the information later falling into the hands of a second strategic-level fleet commander who then profited from the information. From the description provided in the original dev blog, Brisc said something to someone, who then said something to someone else, who then used the information to play the market.

I think those familiar with the situation figured that Brisc probably asked a knowledgeable person in his alliance about some aspect of the game and thought he had done it in a clever enough way to avoid disclosing what CCP's upcoming plans were. The other individuals involved, being clever people themselves, figured out that Brisc was asking about something CCP planned to do in the near-term future and one of them acted upon the information. Nothing malicious, but a bad event all the same.

I was prepared to accept that CCP had done their due diligence, performed a proper investigation, and Brisc just was too clever by half and got burned. Then CCP released the following statement, which I will provide below in full:

"Last week, on April 8 2019, we announced the permanent banning of Brisc Rubal and their ejection from the Council of Stellar Management. We also issued one-year bans to two other players involved in this incident and confiscated their associated in-game assets and ISK.

"Following this statement, we have held further discussions with the affected parties. We have also been conducting an internal review to substantiate the evidence available to us and evaluate our handling of the situation. We intend to share a full follow-up statement next week.

"Transparency, fairness and trust is of utmost importance to us, which is why we’re issuing this brief update while also taking the time to ensure that we conduct a thorough investigation. We understand that there are many questions lingering over the incident, and we want to assure you that we take this matter very seriously. Both the sanctity of the CSM and the relationship we have with our players is of paramount importance to CCP.

"As should be expected, we will issue a full and frank apology for any mistakes for which we are responsible, as well as provide appropriate reparations to those affected by any erroneous actions we’ve taken." (emphasis mine)

I learned a lot of technical language when I served in the Army appropriate to describe what I read in the latest dev blog, but I'll try to keep this to a level a layman can understand. If CCP is going to level charges of real-world misconduct, I would hope they would have conducted an adequate investigation before taking the actions they did. According to the statement, CCP failed to do so.

If I had to guess, the source of the allegations probably led CCP to not look into the situation as closely as they should. Here are the quotes that lead me to believe this is the case.

"To be fully transparent, this misconduct was brought to us by the CSM themselves as an immediate threat to the integrity of the CSM as an institution."

"We would like to take the opportunity to thank CSM 13 for their transparency and their respect for the council as an institution, which was demonstrated by their coming together to condemn this kind of behavior and report it to CCP."

Of course, the involvement of other members of the CSM potentially opens up another can of worms. What if someone decided to weaponize CCP in order to settle some grudges or gain an in-game advantage by taking out important members of The Initiative.'s command team? Yesterday's news opens up that possibility. One that I hope is shut down fairly quickly.

Now, I do need to take note of the people asserting that Pearl Abyss needs to step in and clean up the mess. I think CCP's parent company is a little busy trying to figure out exactly what went wrong with its ban wave that apparently caught up hundreds of innocent players. The situation with cheating in Black Desert Online's Shadow Arena battle royale mode was so bad that Pearl Abyss ended up removing the feature from the game. Remember when Hilmar and CCP's communications team stated one of the reasons Pearl Abyss purchased CCP was the Icelandic studio's experience? We've recently seen Pearl Abyss needs it.

We get another dose of CSM investigative news next week. Hopefully, the next dev blog on the matter is the last. Up until this month, CSM had done nothing to embarrass itself. No matter the outcome of this latest kerfluffle, CSM 13 received a stain that will remain with it forever more.

Brisc Rubal Removed From CSM 13

"Brisc Rubal suggests that it should be made clear what results in a player being banned versus their account. Exploits, real life threats, RMT and botting. He also suggests putting out a forward facing document that explains the differences and provides players with an understanding of what activities can result in different kinds of penalties."

-- CSM 13 October 2018 Summit Minutes, p. 19

Yesterday, CCP Dopamine, the coordinator for the Council of Stellar Management, announced the removal of Brisc Rubal from the player-elected body.

"It is with great disappointment that I bring you the following news. Brisc Rubal has been found to be sharing confidential information with a member of his alliance that was later used by another alliance member to conduct illicit in-game transactions. As a result, the following actions have been taken: 

• Brisc Rubal has been removed from his role as a CSM 13 representative effective immediately and will not be able to run in any future CSM elections.
• All his in-game accounts have been permanently banned from the game
• Two other players involved in this incident have received a one-year ban.
• All the illicit assets and ISK gained from this incident have been confiscated. 

"To be fully transparent, this misconduct was brought to us by the CSM themselves as an immediate threat to the integrity of the CSM as an institution. CCP’s stance on this is clear: regardless of the type of information shared, acts like this go against everything that the Council of Stellar Management stands for and will not be tolerated under any circumstances."

The rest of the statement went on with some flowery language about trust and respect. One item that raised my eyebrows was an announcement on the ban on electronics during CSM sessions. That leads to a question, what exactly was the nature of the leak? A voice recording? A screenshot or a picture of a display? That's the big question.

Brisc a few hours later put out a statement on the EVE sub-Reddit. I'll post it here in full:

I received an email from a senior GM this morning informing me that I had been removed from the CSM and permanently banned from EVE Online for a breach of the CSM’s non-disclosure agreement. The email provided no information regarding the allegations, charges or evidence supporting such a ban. I am innocent of these allegations. I have not, and would not, violate the NDA I signed after being elected to the CSM. I have not provided any proprietary information furnished by CCP to me as a CSM member to anyone.

Immediately upon receipt of the email, I contacted CCP Dopamine and CCP Falcon to request information about the ban. As of the time of this writing, I have received no response from any one at CCP in response to my repeated inquiries. The lack of communication, transparency, and due process coupled with the rush to publicize my removal is indefensible and damaging to my reputation.

As an attorney and a public figure in the United States, my ethics and reputation are regulated by a code of professional responsibility and statutory law, unlike CCP's opaque community team. As a licensed attorney for nearly a decade, I have never had a complaint filed against me. I have served in positions of public trust in the United States Government and have never had a complaint filed against me. The claims that I would risk my reputation by providing proprietary or otherwise confidential information to members of my own alliance for personal gain are false.

These baseless charges have had an immediate and negative impact on not only my in-game reputation but my out of game reputation. I have spent the last year working hard on behalf of the community that elected me to represent their interests to CCP. I have done so diligently, attending more than 95% of all of the meetings and conference calls that have taken place. There is no reason why I would jeopardize all of that by violating my word, putting my reputation on the line, and risking all of this to provide a fellow player with an unfair advantage in the game.

In addition to me, two of my fellow alliance mates, both of whom are very senior in our alliance, have received one year bans. These two players, Pandoralica and Dark Shines, are the senior strategic FCs and the backbone of one of the largest alliances in the game. Their bans are wrong and a travesty – neither of them received any information from me and any actions they took in game with their own accounts or money was based on their own decisions and not based on any CSM related leaks. They do not deserve to be banned from the game, even for a year, and I strongly urge CCP to reverse these bans - not only for the sake of those two players but for all of the players who rely upon them.

I will fight these false allegations, restore my reputation and seek all avenues for recourse available to me for these reckless actions.

Thank you to all of those who have reached out to me, and to all of those players who put their faith in me.

We are starting to see the story spread from traditional gaming media like Kotaku, PC Gamer and Eurogamer to more general entertainment sites like Variety and ScreenRant. A story with the hook like this may even make the general news sites.

Normally when a player starts making noises about legal action I laugh it off. Given Brisc's real life profession, though, a lawsuit over allegations of an NDA breach are a real possibility. The situation is about real world reputations, not accounts that allow someone to access a game.

Before ending this post, I need to mention the others who are affected by the scandal. The other two players involved, Pandoralica and Dark Shines, are senior strategic level fleet commanders in a 5100 character alliance, The Initiative.. Even with the prevalence of having multiple accounts among EVE players, INIT still has hundreds, if not over 1000 players. The effects of losing key leadership in a prominent alliance not only will affect those players, but also the hundreds of players they fight with and against. Sometimes people concentrate on the stars and forget about the nameless grunt who logs in and helps make the big stories possible.

Catching Up On Things

Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging. Okay, sometimes playing video games takes precedence over writing. But writing about video games requires playing them, right? Still, real life does get in the way. Instead of composing four or five posts, this post will have to do.

The real-world project, apart from work, which will cut into my gaming time is I decided to get serious about learning Python. I signed up for an online course that is part of a three-course series that leads to a certificate that will look good on my resume/CV/LinkedIn page. My hobbies often spur me to learn about subjects I then translate into work skills. Why not do it one more time?

One doesn’t need to know a scripting language to do the types of economic analysis seen on the blog, though. My latest EVE-related project involves creating my own price indexes to help evaluate changes CCP makes to the game. On Saturday I finally created a Google sheet that recreates the Consumer Price Index found in some of the older Monthly Economic Reports. I tried using the MER released in April, but the file was missing information about tech 3 items. Now I just need to learn how to make decent looking graphs in one of the Google programs, so I don’t need to export the results into Excel.

I hear a lot of hype surrounding a game coming to Steam this month called Bless Online. Not seeing the game released yet, and wanting to play something with a humanoid avatar, I decided to update a game I hadn’t played in two years, Elder Scrolls Online. For some reason I woke up at 3:30am Sunday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I created a new character and started playing. I think I played 4-5 hours, which I never did before. I heard the game changed over the years, and so far, I think for the better. I’m still on the newbie island, and every time I create a character, I never reach level 20. With my goals in EVE, the same fate likely awaits my new character as well.

Returning to EVE, I forgot about the big 15^th year anniversary. Hard to believe with the latest event putting a beacon in every system I travel through, but after awhile all beacons look alike. I only managed to fill my Procurer’s ore hold with hedbergite once before company arrived in system Saturday night. The rest of the time I spent playing Project Discovery. I’m currently on pace to reach my goal of obtaining the Marshall blueprint copy before the launch of Into the Abyss on 29 May.

Finally, I did a little work on my CSM Google site, CSMWire, adding the latest interviews of Xenuria, Mawderator, and Sullen Decimus conducted by Kael Decadence of The Mind Clash Podcast. Just in time, too, as CCP Guard a dev blog announcing the dates of the CSM 13 election as 4-11 June. CCP Guard was kind enough to link to CSM Wire in the dev blog, which means I should see some traffic coming soon. I also need to watch social media and the official forums for candidate activity for the next month, so I know when to update the site.

Hopefully I can tear myself away from the class work and play some video games. Last night I did all the homework for the week, but I discovered I enjoyed working with python. I may need to resist the urge to race ahead so I can work on other things.