CSM X Election: Not Quite According To Plan

After last year's horrendous turnout of under 31 thousand voters, CCP needed to do something about increasing turnout.  Okay, needed is too strong a word.  But CCP's efforts to publicize the CSM elections the past two years were pretty bad.  Last year, the emphasis was left entirely to the players.  I wondered if that was a result of a deliberate policy to keep turnout low or just CCP Dolan being CCP Dolan.

If I can say one thing about CSM 9, the differences with CSM 8 are pretty big as CCP Leeloo works to clean up the mess CCP Dolan left before he left to work for Riot.  Not only was CSM 9 involved in PR situations like the final SOMERblink scandal, but we didn't have to wait months for the summer summit minutes.  And CCP Leeloo has shown she wants to publicize the CSM X election as well.

Yesterday, CCP Leeloo published a dev blog mostly written by seven members of CSM 9.  Finally, before the election season starts, CCP publicizes what the CSM does, from the players own words.  Something in writing so that players who don't follow the CSM can see that the player body is not just a toothless PR tool.  Well, Sion Kumitomo decided to dump a steaming pile of cow dung on the effort with his contribution.  Here is the first few paragraphs:

"This review comes at an interesting point in the term. By this time, particularly given that I’m running again, I should have a string of accomplishments that I could hang my name off of, but I don’t. I should have the dedicated enthusiasm required to stay active for the entire term, but I don’t. I should have platitudes to offer and abounding praises. I certainly don’t have those. Instead, I find that I’m deeply frustrated and increasingly having to defend an institution in which I struggle to believe.

"There will no doubt be council members who sing CCP’s praise and proclaim the efficacy of the CSM. Broadly speaking, I don’t know how any of them could get to that conclusion via any evidenced based rationale. The new release pace frequently means that the CSM is cut out of the development feedback process, sometimes nearly entirely. There’s a growing list of items, some major, that we saw at the same time the rest of the player base did.

"When the CSM attempted to get looped into the new development model better, we sometimes started seeing items one day, perhaps two, before they were released. Even something as major as the 0.0 revamp has been a dead topic since the last summit. This is all the more frustrating because after the scuffle erupted from the CSM's name being used to promote changes we didn't endorse, we had a meeting where we were assured that we would be kept in the loop.

"Actions speak louder than words. The shared Skype channel is frequently home to all manner of defensive, passive aggressive, or antagonistic exchanges.

"All of this makes it very difficult to work as the institution should. Some EVE pundits will say that the CSM is a toothless institution that CCP uses when convenient or as a marketing tool, and nothing more. There's some truth to that. The CSM was designed around a titled system with a Chair and two releases per year. The institution hasn't adapted, and its relevance, such as it was, has suffered because of it."

Sion's section is the main part of the story.  Forget what the rest of the CSM members stated, especially corbexx, who seems to have done yeoman work representing wormholes and providing CCP with valuable data on POS use and PvE content.  When someone establishes a Skype channel that connects CCP devs with wormhole leaders and diplomats to make sure wormhole concerns are at least heard, something positive is happening.

Now, corbexx didn't say no problems exist with the CSM/CCP relationship.  He concluded with the following:

"Some CCP teams/groups make great use of the CSM, but I feel some groups don’t, be it they don’t think we would be interested, They maybe don’t see how we could of helped. I’m not suggesting we can help in every team/department, but if we don’t know about stuff we sure as hell can’t help."

Sugar Kyle also gave some thoughts on interacting with CCP:

"When it comes to interacting with CCP a lot of time is spent advocating player concerns and worries. Even if it does not want to be heard or it is an old topic it comes back up. There is not always resolution. Not all of these make it into a large review. Some are not yet finalized and some are more quiet events. Yet advocating does simple things like create more clarity to players who do not understand what things like SSO are. It will, hopefully, do other things such as a better way to search through channels so that players with unsupported languages can more easily find each other. It is not easy and it is not always successful, but the effort is made."

Mike Azariah, who was first elected in CSM 8, had these comments:

"As a group the CSM has spent a lot of time adapting to the new faster (MUCH faster) pace of the release schedule. Things change so quickly that some does not get seen by us much sooner than it is is seen on the test server. Other broader strokes we try to get input as early as is possible. Do we know everything and see everything? No, and I am not sure that that is even possible. A summit often covers projects coming up but then that project is done and two more run before another summit happens. This goes back to CSM 8's attempt to build more bridges to other teams and get more lines of communication open to the devs.

"Progress and change have been made. The decision to eliminate officers showed that we could function without them. Personal projects and one on one contact with devs started to replace the idea that we need to talk to entire teams taking them all away from the job at hand. Helping bridge the gap between players and the dev teams have lead to a more open and direct exchange of ideas with CSM acting as enablers, not the conduit itself. Hell, if we do this well enough we might manage to organize ourselves right out of a job. Or, better yet, change the job as this one will be done and we can take on a different aspect."

I think what we are seeing with the CSM is an institution in transition, partly due to CSM 8's decision to make CSM 9 operate without officers for the first half of the term.  CSM 9 then decided that if no officers is good for half a term, then why does the body need officers at all?  After all, on paper, the officers had absolutely no power.  What were they good for?

I also think that corbexx judged the matter correctly.  CCP is not some faceless monolith.  Some people love the CSM (think CCP Fozzie) while others think of them as an inconvenience.  I always thought CCP Greyscale fell into the latter camp, but that is just from looking at the situation from the outside.  Then again, who wants a bunch of players telling you that you're wrong?  I can see that perhaps on something as large as the null sec revamp that you want everything as solid as possible before presenting the plans to the CSM.  The plan is going to have holes anyway; why not try to keep the period spent patching the holes as short as possible?

Regardless, CCP Leeloo has now done as much to promote the upcoming CSM election as CCP Dolan did for the CSM 9 election.  I do think, though, with Sion's commentary (which she allowed to remain), that the dev blog didn't go entirely as planned.

CORRECTION:  I was contacted by Ripard Teg about the decision not to have officers for the beginning of CSM 9's term.  Apparently, the suggestion to do so was made to the members of CSM 8 running for re-election by CCP Leeloo as a result of Kesper North's election to an officer position and then going AFK most of the term.  She thought that having a couple of months to evaluate who was really participating before voting on the positions.  So the decision was not made by the entirety of the CSM.

UPDATE:  Apparently my correction was unclear.  Ripard Teg was not trying to take credit for CSM 9 deciding not to have officers.  He wanted to clarify that CSM 8 as a body did not decide that CSM 9 should not have officers at the beginning of the term, just those running for re-election.  As Ripard did not run for re-election, he and the others who chose not to stand for re-election had no voice in the decision.

I apologize for any misunderstandings.

Circadian Seekers In The News

YULAI – The Directive Enforcement Department has recently completed initial investigations into the Sleeper drones designated as "Circadian Seekers" and concluded that they are in the process of adapting to perceived threats. We believe this process is well advanced and are issuing an emergency advisory under the provisions of the Yulai Convention.

We especially urge capsuleers not to become alarmed by changes in the behavior of these drones. We recommend that all pilots exercise caution when approaching Circadian Seekers and are sufficiently prepared for retaliation.

Please report any unusual activity to the lawful authorities or your local DED liaison office.

Are you one of THOSE people?  You know, someone who doesn't follow CCP's channel for EVE Online's game world news?  Someone who believes that the game world news is for dirty role players and all someone needs to do is read the patch notes, and perhaps the CSM summit minutes, to keep up with the important stuff?

Well, I have some news for you.  CCP has stated (I believe at EVE Vegas, but I don't have a link) that they do not plan to put all changes in the patch notes in the future.  Players will need to pay attention to how objects and mobs react in-game as well as read other sources of news like the game world news.  If I read the words with my tin foil hat on, the message is, "We're not going to spoon feed you everything.  What do you think this is, WoW?"

The second example (the first was Caroline's Star) is the Circadian Seeker, a Sleeper cruiser that began appearing outside wormholes in the Rhea release.  Insensitive players began to target and destroy the peaceful little drones.  That wasn't a nice thing to do.  Circadian Seekers have feeling too, you know!

Now, looking in the patch notes for Proteus, the only mention of the Sleepers is in reference to the new Superior Sleeper Cache exploration site that the patch notes call "challenging".  Are the Circadian Seekers part of the reason CCP calls the site challenging?

Reports from the Singularity test server describe how the Circadian Sleepers are "adapting to perceived threats."

@noizygamer @RixxJavix ...to your safespots... even if you cloak... WTB Seekers Cloak Scanner Probes
— Samsara Toldya (@SamsaraToldya) January 13, 2015

@noizygamer @RixxJavix Yes. With ~5 DPS per Seeker it takes some time to lose your pod. No point applied. Dmg might be higher in low/null
— Samsara Toldya (@SamsaraToldya) January 13, 2015

They chase ships off-grid?  EVE now has an NPC that actually pods players?  And the DED advisory tells players "not to become alarmed by changes in the behavior of these drones." I think Angry CONCORD Guy slipped that sentence in as a joke.  He hates capsuleers.

I don't think we've discovered the full ramifications of the new behavior of the Circadian Seeker.  Do they follow players through jump gates?  How long will they camp a player?  If a player logs out, how long before the Circadian Seekers become bored and leave?  Can a player go back to the past ala EverQuest and train the Sleeper cruisers around a system, causing them to attack other players?  Can a player create a Sleeper gate camp by training a group of Seekers to a jump gate?  I think the Circadian Seeker may prove to provide a lot of entertainment in the weeks ahead.

UPDATE:  Seems that players still are not podded on Tranquility.  Remember, not everything on the test server gets updated to the live server, even when a change is apparently in the final test build.

The Rabbit Hole: Monetary Inflation

In last week's post, I wrote about the five reasons that real money trading is bad for massively multi-player online games (MMOGs) according to a paper published by Dr. Edward Castronova of Indiana University.  In today's post, I'd like to tackle a subject that even subject matter experts disagree on: does RMT cause monetary inflation in the virtual worlds in online games?

Who Wants Loading Screens?

Sometimes, playing other games helps me realize some of the things EVE Online just does right.  Currently, I'm playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and fighting through the annoying lag that 40-45 players creates on Alderaan.  Quite frankly, if I had a death star like Darth Vader, I'd vaporize the planet also.  But I'm not here to praise EVE's time dilation (TiDi) system for handling lag.  Instead, I have a more mundane concern to discuss: loading screens.

I've played a lot of MMORPGs throughout the years and EVE is probably the most instanced of those games.  With each of the game's 7,000+ systems plus individual instances for when a player is docked, one might expect a lot of loading screens.  Well, players do see a lot of loading screens, but they are probably the least annoying I've ever come across.

Hurry up, I want to play!

Above is an example of the loading screen I see in SWTOR after I select the character I want to play.  The screen is nice, letting me know generally where in the story I am.  But I have a long time to read the synopsis, as the game initially takes a lot longer to load than EVE.  Okay, but I only have to put up with the long wait once, right?

Wrong.  If traveling off-planet, even if a player only wants to hold a conversation on the ship with one of the player's companions, results in another long loading screen.

At least I learn something ... maybe.

I think just hopping into and out of the ship is the most annoying thing about the instancing.  I don't want to leave the planet, I just want to drop something off or talk to someone!  Sometimes, a quest takes requires a visit to use the hologram receiver on the ship and a short conversation.  Yet, I have to watch my ship take off from the spaceport and endure a loading screen.  Then, once I'm done with my business, I have to watch my ship travel back to the planet, then endure another, longer loading screen.

Admittedly, except during large fleet fights, EVE doesn't have as many objects displayed on the screen as SWTOR.  That said, EVE's loading screens when traveling between instances (i.e. systems) look a lot better than SWTOR's.

Skip to 1:28 if the video starts at the beginning

In the Odyssey expansion, CCP replaced the old loading bar with a warp tunnel effect to link two systems.  While I had a period of adjustment due to the effect making my stomach queasy, the warp tunnel definitely does not break my immersion in the game.  Unlike in SWTOR, the game does not take me out of the universe with a loading screen.  That's really good, because sometimes I'll travel 25 jumps to visit a particular agent when I want to grind out Sisters of EVE loyalty points.  If I had to endure 25 loading screens like I see in SWTOR, I'd probably rage quit. 

I realize that loading screens seem like a small thing to criticize a game about.  However, the little things do matter.  Let enough annoyances build up and some people will stop having fun and unsubscribe.  That's one of the reasons I'm okay with CCP trying to fix things like the New Player Experience, PvE content, and the UI before really marketing the game to new players again.  EVE is hard enough to learn already without having annoying features.  Fixing some of the major systems that either enhance or detract from the game will help the retention rate.  And for a subscription MMO, a company needs to hang onto the players it attracts in order to pay the bills.

Time To Make The Decision

With Proteus launching on Tuesday, I have to make a decision over the weekend.  What ship do I use to replace my Hound when I'm mining.  The Hound is a nice ship that's served me well as a scout in low sec, but with combat recons getting the d-scan immunity, I think I may need a tougher ship.  My first line of defense when mining is mining while aligned, but with the d-scan immunity, low sec will get a little bit more dangerous.  Not that much, really, but enough to worry about.  I finish training the last of my Tengu skills to V today, so here are my options:

Tengu.  Not really my first choice, but the Tengu does offer PvE possibilities.  Also, I'm pretty sure ships would peel off to have a chance at a tech 3 cruiser.  On the plus side, the ship shield tanks, which is what I'm most comfortable doing.  Add in heavy missiles and I should have the ability to kite.  Or at least run away once the mining barge has escaped.  The major drawback is cost.  Do I really want to use a ship worth close to a billion ISK to protect a 25 million ISK barge?

Stratios.  The Sisters of EVE cruiser also offers PvE possibilities.  With a built-in probing bonus, sizable cargo hold, lasers as primary armament and drone bonuses, I could use the ship to run off on long exploration trips when I'm not mining.  The negative is that I'm not experienced with drone boats and I haven't armor tanked in years.  I'd need a shakedown cruise or two before actually using the ship in low sec.

Falcon.  I suspect to see a lot of Rooks flying around low sec once Proteus launches.  What's the best way to counter ECM?  More ECM.  While training a Griffin alt is a possibility, the Falcon looks like the better option.  The only problem is the firepower.  Can a Falcon drive off NPC battleships?  I don't like warping off due to NPCs and I'm afraid the Falcon can't do the job on the PvE front.

Rapier.  I already own a Rapier, I'm just waiting for the revamp to fit the missile launchers.  I have used Bellicose to run complexes in low sec in the past, so I think the Rapier can provide the DPS needed to battle the belt rats.  I think with its web bonuses that the Rapier can hold an enemy at a distance, but I'm not sure.  All I need is to drive off an interloper.  If the enemy warps off, mission accomplished.  The Rapier is possibly a good choice for mining escort duty.

Arazu.  If I want to kill rather than scare, then the Arazu is possibly a better choice.  Web and scram bonuses (did I mention I have Recon Ships trained to V?) plus sensor dampening?  The only downside I can see is DPS against battleships, but the ship definitely looks viable against smaller rats.

Pilgrim.  A ship that may prove the flavor of the month with the changes the Amarr force recon ship will see on Tuesday.  The ship has energy vampire and neutralizer bonuses as well as a drone bonus.  The ship probably doesn't have the ability to stand up to NPC battlships, but I think a player may face a surprise if I decloak in one of these.

Those are the six ships I'm looking at.  I'm sure someone will suggest buying them all.  I probably should, because unpredictablility is a good thing.  But I still need to figure out which one will work best.

CSM X: Where To Find Election Information On The Candidates

Even though the official campaign season for electing CSM 10 (or CSM X) begins in about 3 weeks when CCP Leeloo posts the official dev blog, the candidates are hard at work already.  As of today, 30 candidates have announced their intentions to run for the 14 seats up for grabs by making a post in the CSM Campaigns section of the official EVE Online forums.

Over the past several years, podcasters have served the EVE community by conducting interviews with the candidates.  For the second year running, the Cap Stable podcast is attempting to interview as many candidates as possible.  So far they have published three interviews, with Borat Guereen, Sugar Kyle, and June Ting.  These thirty minute interviews are pretty well done and informative, so those who want a little more information about a candidate can hear exactly what the candidate things about some of the issues.

In addition, candidates usually make live appearances on both EVE Radio and Podside as well as other podcasts.  CSM member Mike Azariah is known to frequently hotdrop both sites, so at least one candidate will appear live.  Declarations of War, run by former CSM member Alekseyev Karrde, usually has one or two shows with candidate panels.  Jade from the Lost In EVE podcast historically has hosted candidate forums, although I don't know if he will do so on the latest incarnation of the podcast.

On the blogging/forum front, Foo has posted the responses he has received from a list of questions he asked the candidates.  Also, the Eve News 24-affiliated Warp To Zero forums has a section where CSM candidates are answering questions.

One effort I will keep my eye on, however, is on the newly created Just For Crits blog.  Created by the executive editor of TheMittani.com, candidates are answering questions about their views on low sec and other questions tailored to each candidate.  So far, seven candidates are listed as having agreed to participate.

One other resource that usually is available after the candidates are approved is Dierdra Vaal's Vote Match website.  I don't know if he is planning on running the site this year.  If he does, candidates will fill out a form about issues and then players can go to the Vote Match website, answer questions, and find out which candidates they are most in agreement with.

I plan on listening to all of the interviews and write a brief news post that will appear on the much neglected CSM Wire.  In addition to the news posts, I have created a page for each candidate that contains the RSS feed for the candidate's EVE Online forum posts as well as copied their campaign posts to the page.  I'm hoping to add such things as contact information and links to social media and campaign appearances by the time the official campaign season begins.

Last year was a pretty dismal year for turnout.  Hopefully, EVE players will turn out a little stronger to choose which players will have direct contact with the CCP developers working on EVE.

CCP's War On Illicit RMT: Buyers Beware

Since the beginning of 2015, CCP has implemented some new security policies.  The one I'm most interested in concerns the new policy concerning those who purchase ISK or PLEX from illicit ISK sellers.  I haven't found any tears to post so far, but CCP Peligro from Team Security did give out a figure on Monday via Twitter.

Reminder: ISK Buying is now a 7 day ban on 1st offense, as of 1/1/2015. 300+ accounts missed the memo! http://t.co/ncaF5GEIBC #tweetfleet
— CCP Peligro (@CCP_Peligro) January 5, 2015

That's right, in the first five days of 2015, CCP has already banned more players for buying from shady RMT dealers than they did in all of 2014.  From the graphs and charts in the December security dev blog, I estimated that CCP banned appoximately 250 players for that offense.  Of course, before 1 January, players only received a warning plus had their purchase confiscated for a first offense.  Now?  They receive a seven day ban.

While I haven't seen any tears in the reviews of ISK buyers for the site I watch, the number of sellers is down.  If CCP is banning buyers, that means they are also catching the sellers.  I am hopeful that the reduction in the number of sellers is due to Team Security convincing people that selling ISK just isn't worth the hassle.

Update: I got home from work and dissatisfied customers are starting to complain.

First blood documented

The Rabbit Hole: Why Is RMT Bad?

Over the past 2-3 years, I wrote thousands of words concerning the subject of real money trading in MMORPGs, mainly in EVE Online.  I attempted to write a comprehensive post on the subject of RMT on a few occasions in the past, but much like Lewis Carroll's Alice, I always find myself distracted as I venture down the rabbit hole into the world inhabited by botters, hackers, and gold sellers.  So, instead of a comprehensive work, I decided to write about the subject on Tuesdays.

This initial post in the series will address a topic I have never addressed directly before: why RMT is bad.  But first, I must define the term real money trading.  At the end of 2013, I defined RMT as, at its most basic level, the exchange of virtual goods, including in-game currency, and services for real world currency.  I then, relying on the work of two researchers from the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, divided real money trading into a primary and secondary market.

Looking Back At An Old CSM 9 Controversy

Sometimes waiting for all of the facts to emerge means not writing about an event or controversy.  I'm not referring to the kerfuffle this weekend over Nashh Kadavr's Titan Smash event.  The facts were pretty much revealed in the course of 24 hours.  No, I'm referring to the force projection changes and the extent that the CSM was consulted on the changes prior to CCP Greyscale's 1 October dev blog, "Long Distance Travel Changes Inbound."  I wanted to explore the CSM/CCP relationship angle, but by the time the CSM Summer Summit minutes were released on 29 October, the force projection changes story had pretty much played itself out.  However, with the beginning of the CSM election season, the story once again becomes relevant.

CCP's War On Illicit RMT - End Of Year Rush

While many people are waiting on the results of CCP's enforcement of input broadcasting, input multiplexing, and the general enforcement of Section 6A3 of the EVE Online EULA, I'm more interested in the price of illicit ISK.  Following CCP Falcon's post about input broadcasting, I started monitoring the Player Auctions website again to see if anything unusual would occur.

The first was a sharp rise in the purchase of ISK following the publication of the security dev blog on 19 December.  In the dev blog, CCP Grimmi announced a change in the punishment for those who purchase ISK outside of the PLEX system.  The penalties increased to a 7-day suspension of all accounts for a first offense and a permanent ban of all accounts for a second offense.  I'm not sure that the following day's sales volume of 109 billion ISK sold the next day was a direct result of the dev blog, but the possibility exists.  I don't have figures from December 2013 to do a proper comparison, but 58% of the ISK sales I was able to track occurred in the final 13 days of the month.

Of course, another reason so much illicit ISK was sold in the final two weeks of the year was due to someone holding a fire sale.  A new seller created an account Christmas night and started selling ISK at 40-45% of the going market price.  From 26-28 December, the individual managed to sell 185 billion ISK.  The dip in the graph on those three days shows the effect the one seller had on the market.  The same seller then delisted until 31 December, when the account sold another 21 billion ISK.

A funny thing happened.  The seller appeared on the site by noon EVE time but by 8pm when I looked again, the seller had disappeared.  Either the seller ran out of ISK, or CCP tracked down the seller's assets in-game.  Currently, I don't have enough information to say one way or the other.  But distributing that much ISK that quickly may have made the seller very noticeable.

What does January have in store?  I'm not sure, although with the new policies hopefully players will turn to purchasing PLEX from a reputable source instead of going to shady ISK sellers.  But only time will tell.  Then again, perhaps if a lot of players start receiving bans, that will get the message out about not patronizing the ISK sellers.