I am going to list what I think the three biggest issues should be this year, as well as some things that I think would be bonuses for success.
Priority One: Null-sec Soverignty Issues 

Right now, Null-sec still has problems.  The Sov system needs a massive re-work, something that allows options for both large invasions and defense forces, resource control, better distribution of assets, as well as giving smaller groups better options by removing the problems and challenges brought about by Supercaps.  While I still think that low-sec is eventually where the focus of Eve Online should be, right now it isn’t there and null-sec is the breadwinner and still needs a lot of work.  The big issues that still are on the table:

• Supercap Proliferation – Supercapitals are still being produced in such large numbers that no new alliance can get a serious foothold into null-sec without a fleet of these.  Ideally, in my mind, Titans and Supercarriers should either a.) Take on a much more logistical role and scale back their combat abilities even more, or b.) Require that these Supercapital ships need more than one pilot to operate successfully.  Both of these would not necessarily reduce their need/use, but it would reduce their ability to dominate the battlefield exclusively.
• Soverignty Control – Soverignty Mechanics suck.  In many ways, even the old way had better options.  To be honest, I have no idea where to begin on this.  Ihubs, POSes, Stations, the whole thing needs to start from scratch, hopefully finding ways to make sov confrontation to work beyond the “n+1″ model.
• Wealth Distribution – Tech Moons, Taxation, Supercapital Fleets – Time and time again we keep hearing about how the grunts on the ground, the typical null-sec player who doesn’t have multiple bot alts making him isk while he’s sleeping, often struggles to make enough isk to keep his PVP habit going.  On the flipside, the leaders of many of these organizations, as well as industrial corporations, often siphoning ships, materials, isk, with no easy way of fairly distributing resources.. or even just documenting what resources the alliance is maintaining.  Perhaps a system needs to be determined where players get more of the isk generated from sov, and can reduce their efforts in their own personal isk operations, but are required to spend more time maintaining that sov through various activities, unrelated to invasion and invasion defense.

Priority Two: Low-Sec and Faction Warfare Complete Redesign

While Low-sec and Faction Warfare are two different entities, they do tend to deal with each other more than most and both have the same problem: Purpose.  There isn’t much of a reason to be in low-sec for industrialists and mission runners.. the very fuel of pirates.  The problem stems from a conflux of issues, concerns, and doubts.. along with a number of tears.  Faction Warfare on the other hand is supposed to be an aspect of Eve where people can pick up quick PVP fights in smaller gangs.  Not sure where I read it but the amount of actual PVP’ers in Faction Warfare range around 9% to 15%, a failed mechanic if there ever was one.  Most FW players just spend their time running plexes and making isk.  Not really anything like it was meant to be.

A big, upcoming problem for low-sec and faction warfare is that there is a fundamental difference in how to do that.  Many null-sec leaders, especially those running for CSM, would like to see low-sec to be a “null-sec lite”, in which low-sec carries some of the benefits and some of the heartache of sov control, so as to prepare ones for the supposedly better benefits of null-sec sov control.  However, running counter to these arguments are the low-sec dwellers as well as some in the faction warfare group that say that null-sec can be all about sov control and sov entities, but low-sec should be something different.  One big aspect they hope to achieve appears to be around getting pirate factions set up to work much like the major factions do, which would require ways of improving factions with all the pirate groups, some of which have no way to improve their relations.

Another downside that I see is the disconnect between those that like to pirate and the rest of the known reasonable universe.  This group is a very vocal group that seems to think that the more freedom you give them to slaughter industrials and miners, the more industrialists and miners will want to line up in nice neat rows to be slaughtered.  Often their proposals are pretty short-sighted to say the least. 

Things that are also considered on this list:

• Bounty Hunting Changes – As everyone knows, Bounty Hunting is a staple of the Sci-Fi world, ever since Boba Fett came on the scene.  However, the Bounty Hunting mechanic in Eve Online is.. for lack of a better term.. awful.  Do whatever it takes to make Bounty Hunting a career choice.
• Crimewatch – This needs to be radically different, and fortunately, lots of CSM candidates are actually wanting to fix this, so that is good.
• Wardec Changes – With CCP basically saying that a major exploit is no longer an exploit to escape wardecs, the ability to wardec is no longer viable.  On the other side of the table, the case can be made that wardecs are too easy of a tool for griefers to use.

Priority Three: Mining and Bots

Of all the activities in Eve Online, mining is by far the least interactive.  You point your mining laser and shot a rock until its gone.  The rock doesn’t move, you pretty much get all the material so long as you have enough space for it, and it goes on endlessly and repetatively.  True, some people like the monotonous activity because its a way of making isk while you do things around the house.. like make sure the kids don’t catch themselves on fire or something.  Nothing wrong with that.. but.. the mechanic is so old, so easily exploited by bots, that it just needs a complete redo.

There are already some great ideas out there, like having the asteroids.. well, move.  As well as having to scan down asteroid belts in every system (shoot, would be kinda cool to have those ice belts move from system to system to system within a region or constellation…), much like finding wormholes or anomalies.. just much easier.  And having to scan down asteroid belts do give a measure of added security.. enough of one that it might embolden more industrial types to take the risk.. particularly if better belts are harder to scan.  But that’s just one thought of many being looked over.

Ah, I miss the sound of those guns...

Today I will take possession of a ship that has seen quite a bit of combat at my hands.  The Naglfar Dreadnaught named, “Tax Collector”.  It was a ship purchased by m3 Corp back in the day when we as a corporation were trying to get into 0.0, and back then, the best way to do that was to have a capital fleet.  Let me say that again.  It was purchased back when the best way to get into a 0.0 alliance was to have a “CAPITAL” ship fleet.. not a supercapital ship fleet.  I used it nearly exclusively because I was the only Naglfar pilot in the corp for a very long time.

The “Tax Collector” managed to survive the CVA/UK war, the downfall of IRC, the fall of the NC, and the CVA/Ev0ke/NC. Conflict.  It lived through CCP’s constant changing, where it went from being a somewhat useful Dread to be a near worthless Dread back to being an awesome Dread then to being about average.  The vertical lines, the roar of its massive guns, the wonder about what the AC version might do..

The ship almost has too much history behind it..

Maybe..

The current state of Eve null-sec conflict is largely based around the conflict for resources.. most particularly Tech moons.  Prior to the tech moons it was R64 Moons.  Prior to that.. well, it was something else.  This is true even to the individual level.  Most people go into null-sec initially because they hear of how rich one can get either by ratting, or by exploration, or by anomalies.

The case is an easy one to extrapolate into how it affects not only null-sec.. but it trickles down into other aspects as well.  T3 production for example is exclusively a Wormhole resource/product.  Raw minerals and Ice from High-sec has become the centerpiece for all production in the game.  Even the bastard child of low-sec nibbles in all of these.  You can go back from the beginnings of this game, and find the resource conflict has been the most predominant aspect of null-sec life.  In other words, isk became the end not the means.

Now, it has been promoted by the CSM (generally speaking) that wars are based mainly on the social interaction of ”hate”, and certainly some of the Coalition versus Coalition as well as Alliance versus Alliance null-sec conflicts can be traced to some bad social interactions, but that is by far not the norm.  Usually Social conflicts happen internally first.. and when they do happen,  it is almost has been exclusively because of how resources (i.e. mooon profits, supercaps, etc.) were distributed.  External social conflicts usually are just the public face of another resource grab or resource denial campaign.

A New Way?

Now, CCP has started toying with the idea that it needs to move away from resource conflicts and develop more “social” conflicts.  As I mentioned before, true social conflicts are rare at the coalition and alliance levels.. they tend to be far more common at the individual or corporate level.  The reason is pretty obvious.. in larger organizations there are more stopgaps where a social conflict can be prevented by cooler, more calculating heads.  Another big reason is that while an alliance or coalition leader may get personally upset at another alliance or coalition, that leader is stuck trying to “sell” it to the other members.. and if things don’t go well.. then morale plummets and more serious internal strife begins.

So, both of those conflict sources have their place in a sandbox game like Eve.  But the problem really is, those conflict drivers aren’t enough and on top of that, they aren’t very fair or balanced.  Current Wardec mechanics are so easy to manipulate on both sides that it removes the ability for “social” conflict completely.  Tech moons are so profitable and so valued that they are often more of a source of internal conflict and alliance/coalition disruption than for external invasion.  Supercapital proliferation has become so absolute that it is impossible to invade any nullsec space without having a fleet of them for your own.  Faction Warfare, CCP’s attempt at social conflict, has become a little more than an afterthought.. with most players pretty much doing missions to gain isk, rather than actual PVP combat.

However, it is wrong to think that the “rare” true social conflicts involving alliances or coalitions aren’t spectacular.  In fact, they often infusing most of Eve will new life or sustaining Eve during long, dull periods.  But, really, they weren’t so much “social” conflicts, as they were a more “Religous/Nationalistic”-style conflict.  Since both touch on social aspects in real life, one can hardly be faulted in thinking they are one in the same.  There is, though, a difference.  A significant, game altering, life altering difference.

In a typical social conflict, say for example, “I hate you.”, the justification for that hate is started and rationalized by the one, single person.  “I hate you.”, or “I hate Goons.”, or “I hate ice cream.” sentiments, since they are personal, will constantly be assailed by the actions of others and it takes a lot of work to keep rationalizing them, to keep proving that social conflict to yourself.  Saying to yourself, “I hate Goons because I’m better than they are.”, is a hard line to maintain as you are running missions or eeking out a living mining, while Goons get more and more media coverage and glory.

A Second Perspective

Now, when you switch that into a religous or nationalistic – style conflict, that rationalization, that justification of the conflict gets reinforced by others, and perpetuated.  So, instead of “I hate Goons because they blew up my Mackinaw.”, it becomes a more powerful, “I hate Goons because they blew up my friends Mackinaw, and WE are going to fight back.”  That hatred may last even after the war or war(s) are long over.  And that hatred will come back time and time again when the opportunities present themselves over and over.  In fact, it becomes easier because as human, we do better in groups naturally than we do alone, and let’s say that ice mining corp starts to make profits, or starts getting into PVP, they can count those achievements as victories against whoever their adversary is.

In essence, you begin to have both a justified hatred for your enemy, and more importantly, a justified love for those you consider your brothers.

The two best examples of this revolve around two conflicts:  The Goonswarm/Band of Brothers Wars and the CVA/Ursha’khan Wars.  The Goonswarm / Band of Brothers conflict is an excellent example of a “nationalistic” – style conflict.  In the beginning, they were simply a bunch of ass-hats who pissed off the most powerful alliance ever to grace Eve.  Yet, they were able to foster, both from defeat and from ongoing victories, a very strong comrodere.  But it worked both ways for many years.  Band of Brothers reformed itself twice just to go up against Goonswarm.  And there was a time in Eve Online when you could (and would) ask, “Who are you going for?”  And they would say either BoB or Goons.  The Eve Universe revolved around that conflict.. far more so than it does today.  The conflict DEFINED Goonswarm.  It could be rightly said that if BoB had just ignored the Goons way back then.. Goonswarm would have never gotten the notoriety, or fame, or its large piece of Eve history.

The second example, is the best example of “Religous”-style conflict.. the Roleplay war between Ursha’khan and Curatores Veritatis Alliance.  While it did not achieve the same widespread fame as the Goonswarm/Band of Brothers conflict did.. it was longer lasting.  And it had a certain uniqueness in that it was a “serious” RP alliance during the vast majority of its life.  You had to swear alligence to the Emperess, you had to follow NRDS (not a complicated system to individual members, but having it successfully operate required a huge amount of dedication and time on back end), you had to fight against ”Minmatar Terrorists”, a mantle that Ursha’khan decided to take up fully (and quite personally).  The idea, along with a bit of fortune and good circumstance,  flourished enough that eventually all of Providence was under the control of CVA. Oddly enough it became a haven for both Pirates and self-described Pirate hunters, as well as those who like to be “police”.  It was null-sec for everyone, fought over by Amarr Loyalists who believed in the divinity and rightness of the Amarrian cause against Minmatar Rebels fighting to free others from Tyranny and devot in their belief that justice was on their side.  That strange conflict has allowed both Ursha’Khan and CVA to survive experience, falling outs, complete devastations that would have erased other alliances.  And yes, they are still at each others’ throats.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Eve Online exists because of its ability to use conflict.  But it is also just as true that conflict in Eve is not as fun, nor is it very useful, or even important as it used to be.  And whether you are a low-sec pirate, a high-sec miner, a null-sec soldier, or a wormhole producer.. above all your concerns, how conflict is handled and changed is going to be your upmost issue.

And thus, it will be THE crucial issue that CSM 7 will have to tackle with CCP.

I reset the bios.. everything sorta happy.  SW:TOR still pretty buggy.. but it works.

Because it is always interesting to see how the Candidates move and operate, I have set up a page where I plan to link interesting information about various candidates, such as threads they’ve commented on, interviews,  or blogs that they run.  So, if you are planning on trying for a seat on the CSM, I’ll put a link to your stuff here on my webpage.

Now, onto the rules, My Unofficial Ones…

Rule #1:  Thou shalt not be clueless.  If you are going to run for CSM, please have the decency to know what the CSM can do, and in particular, what it can’t do.  Maybe the new guys to the game may think you can cause all of null-sec to be converted into high-sec space.. but the fact of the matter is you’re going to need the votes of those who have been in the game a long, long time.  And if they figure out that you have no idea what you can or can’t do, they aren’t going to send you to Iceland.

Rule #2: Thou shall speak to the peoples, legibly.  Have interviews, speak with good grammar(*see comment), and know what you are talking about.  However, most importantly, know what your opponents are talking about.  Things to avoid: l33t sp3ak and “i no like punctuashon & spel chek to hrd 4 me 2 us capit0l leaters bad 2″.  In the words of Samuel L Jackson: “English Motherf***er!  Do you speak it?!”  Russian works too.

Rule #3:  Thou shall have a blog.  Yes.  Blogs are FREE.  Get that.. FREE.  Say it with me.. FREE.  There is no excuse for a CSM candidate not to have a site up detailing their positions.  If an interviewer wants to discuss your case for CSM.. you are going to need something for him to pull from.

After seeing the chaos of 50+ CSM Candidates, the majority of which forgot that they were running after announcing that they were running,  and the fact that the vote comparison tool wasn’t all that useful in giving detailed viewpoints of individual candidates positions (in some cases, it was detrimental), it would behoove the candidates to follow the above rules to give them a better shot at reaching the people they want to reach.

So, this post is a bit of a reflection on that:

Thought #1:  CSM 7 Elections

It seems pretty clear to me that there is quite a bit of backlash against CSM 6 as being too “null-sec” focused.  Personally, while I am a HUGE fan of low-sec upgrades, calling CSM 6 out on that was pretty lame.  Null-sec game play was badly, BADLY broken with the Dominion release and needed a fix.. in fact, it needed that fix years ago.  Supercap ignorance (which still need to be continued), bad game and sov mechanics, and CCP’s disconnect with Eve, the spaceship game, made null-sec (CCP’s cash cow) unfun.. in a game.  CSM 6 did a good job getting CCP back on task, and YES, dealing with null-sec right away was crucial.

Now, CSM 7 seems to be, at least from the outset, starting to refocus its view more game wide.  The low-sec push seems to be the most outstanding.. and even seems to be gathering more steam than null-sec pushes.  It seems that both the high-sec and low-sec communities are starting to understand the inherit advantage null-sec alliances have, and are beginning to make efforts to counteract that.  But, Ripard Teg makes a good point regarding this situation on his blog: http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2012/01/herd-ducks.html.  I suspect that Ripard is correct in that Mittens is definately going to try to dilute the field.. and probably be successful enough with it that he will retain the chairmanship.

However, I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing.  Mittens has proven himself to be quite.. adapt at forcing CCP’s hand, and even he is subject to popular control.  The more serious issue will be controlling the other seats in the CSM.  Now, you already have Seleene and Trebor who are just strong advocates of the game in general and will likely be good to keep around no matter what the ebb and flow is.. so the real problem for High-sec, Low-sec, and WH voting blocs will be organizing themselves in such a way that they are able to strategically spread their votes across their best 3 or 4 candidates, while not wasting votes on ones that never will get picked or on ones that already have plenty to get in.  Oddly enough, I don’t think it is as much of an uphill battle as it seems to be.  Even if they get only one or two more HS/LS/WH candidates added to the CSM, it should be enough to see real changes start to happen.  CCP has already acknowledged how broken Low-sec is.. and really the difficulty is determining if low-sec should be a Learning bed for jumping into Null-sec, or if it should be something unique and wholly different from the null-sec experiece.. both ideas have good points.  In regards to one Eve University candidate, you might want to check out Poetic’s blog here: http://poeticstanziel.blogspot.com/2012/01/counting-sheep.html

Thought #2:  Supercap Balance

Are they balanced?  In my opinion.. no.  In fact, they still have a long way to go.  The problem with supercaps has always been two-fold.  The first problem is production related, which I will discuss, and the second is power-projection, which has partially been tempered with the Crucible expansion.  As far as the production problem goes, note how many Titans and Supercarriers were produced in the last few months:

August, 2011: http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4878&tid=4
September, 2011: http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4884&tid=4
October, 2011:  http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4885&tid=4
November, 2011: http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4886&tid=4

You’ll notice that production way, WAY outstrips losses.  While this now doesn’t have as much of a bearing on sub-cap fleets.. it still has a major impact on Sov control.  Sure, you can assault a system with sub-caps now with out much worry about Supercarriers coming down and swatting your fleet and let’s pretend that Titans’ XL weapons get nerfed so that they cannot be influenced by tracking links or computers, what happens next? Well, first.. your sub-cap fleet is going to take a few hours/days just trying to get sov in just one system.  And the MOMENT you drop any SBUs, a Supercap fleet is going to wait til you are gone.. and reinforce your SBU in just a few minutes.

Not a good situation if you are one of those new, small alliances trying to get a foothold into null-sec, is it?

The simple reality is that CCP waited far too long to deal with this issue and now Supercapitals have, in a sense, broken the game mechanics.  How so?  Because now they are so many and they’re proliferation is so absolute, that there is no hope for new alliances to gain a foothold into null-sec by any traditional means.  The only way for a new alliance to get into null-sec is to recruit Pandemic Legion, or to steal a big Supercap wield corp out from another alliance.  Both of those options are likely to involve the loss of at least a few metric tonnes of isk.. something new alliances are very unlikely to have.. as well as probably losing a considerable amount of self-control too.

I was pondering a couple ways to deal with the production issue.  The first idea has been mentioned before, and I think it is probably the easier idea to impliment of the two, and it involves adding a monthly “maintenance” fee to each supercapital.. either in the form of a monthly isk charge (the least effective), to a resource requirement to keep them active.. like having them burn through so much Zydrine or other precious metal per month.. irregardless if it is sitting in the hanger or in combat.

The other idea is based off of the original flaw in the supercapital ship concept.  The original supercapitals ships meant to be used by very large alliances.. a rare weapon or tool to bring out either in the most dire of circumstances or at critical junctures in battle.  Unfortunately, the problem was that it still only required a single pilot.. a single person to skill up and operate it.  That also means that a single person can own it, move it, etc.  Hardly an “alliance-only” asset especially since it operates EXACTLY like any other ship.

My thought was that you can make it so that the ship does not work unless you have several pilots operating it.  Now, this is much more difficult to do, both from a logistics standpoint.. but also in a coding standpoint.  However.. what if, a Titan for example, could not move from system to system as one whole unit.  But instead, had to be moved.. somewhat “Voltron-ishly” as several components to the target system THEN after it is put together will it operate as a Titan.  The individual components still would require the same Titan skill, and each of the components would fly under their own power (though effectively defenseless) and once in system could then be set up in such a way where only one pilot operates it, and the other three or four or so.. just watch.  Now THAT would be a true “alliance-only” asset.

Whatever configuration the nerf to production is, the goal should be to keep the desire and need at a high level, but to reduce the availability to near zero.

Well, that was pretty much all I was pondering Eve-wise.  Have a good one.

it was my install of XP.

Sometime, you just gotta hate Microsoft.

Anyways, during this time I was able to re-configure and try out some new Assault Frigate, well Wolf configurations.. Hurray for Assault Ships V!  Things are staring to become more stable in Real Life as well, so that means more game time.. more play time.. less worry time and less being distracted even playing the game.

.. bout time…

And here comes CSM 7 now…

I reformatted my hard drive and re-installed Windows XP friday.

And I still don’t have my PC back on the internets…

To add insult to injury, my skill queue just finished up yesterday.  Yeah..

Here it is again.. yes, it is that good:

The teams were disbanded because the influx of developers making spaceships was too great, so we had to be split them into three teams (or as I call them, friendship-bands). Please welcome Team Super Friends, Team Game of Drones and Team Five 0. All three teams are full of good looking men and women, with some familiar faces and some new ones.  Hopefully we can introduce you to some of the people on the teams at a later point, but right now, let’s focus on spaceships (and safety).

To celebrate this transition, Team Best Friends Forever and Pink Zombie Kittens decided to do one last push to get features out and we’re happy to give you this list of items on January 24^th:

• We’ve rebalanced small, medium and large Null ammo. I came back from vacation and Tallest had done this. He’s a pretty cool dude. – Starting to learn Gallente now.. so this might be cool.
   
• We’ve changed the CPU on cap shield transfers. Much needed, high five. – This.. this change is EPIC!  I have complained about this for YEARS..
   
• Assault ships have been rebalanced. We’ve wanted to do this since forever and were originally planning to do it for Crucible. It fell out due to time constraints, but has been completed for the coming release. – Hooray!  From the Devblog and the Minutes!  Hooray!
   
• We’ve buffed some of the modules launched in Crucible. You can now whine about how overpowered they are.
   
• When one of your friends logs on and get an annoying pop-up with his picture, you can now click the picture and start a conversation, telling him how annoying the pop-up is.
   
• The skills list now has a filter box so you can track down your individual skills. This is pretty great if you have a lot of them.
   
• Starbase fuel notifications are now shown in your calendar. You know why? Because it makes goddamn sense, that’s why.
   
• Overheating can be done by shift-clicking a module. This is a viable alternative to clicking the worlds smallest button. – Smart, smart, smart.  Try S-MART!
   
• The agent list inside a station will now display your current status with an agent (mission offered, accepted etc). Hopefully less people will be cursing after undocking without pressing “accept” on a mission. – I like this too..

• The chat member list can now be condensed and have been given some more intuitive icons. This should be more in line with the actual chat, which you can already condense. - Joyful tears.. joyful…
   
• Shield bonuses are now applied like armor bonuses. Remember when you got a shield bonus and LOST shield? Yeah that, we fixed it. - More joyful tears..
   
• The session change has been lowered from 20 seconds to 15 and hopefully we can adjust it even further in the future. Death to session changes.
   
• The watchlist now holds 15 people and you can drag and drop to re-arrange them. If you don’t have any friends, this isn’t relevant to you. - Um.. I can’t get any more joyful.. I am out of joyful tears…
   
• We’ve started re-naming modules (missiles and ABs/MWDs) in a schema that tells the user what they do, while still maintaining a lot of the sci-fi feel. The aim is to make everything make sense, instead of today where everything is as confusing as possible. – My god, you mean.. you mean labels will make sense? 
   
• Meta 11, 12 and 13 Invulnerability Fields have been added to the game. We stumbled on them in the basement of CCP one day. Someone must have left them there.
   
• We’ve iterated on locations. You can now choose if it’s a personal or corp location when you create them. This means less dragging and clicking.
   
• Alliances can now join faction warfare. This is the first of a series of Factional Warfare iterations CCP Ytterbium is working on. We’ll tell you more as we get closer to fanfest, but we’re working on Factional Warfare. In other news, a flying pig just passed my window.
   
• The old Neocom has been replaced by a younger, prettier model. It’s customizable and has a ton of cool features you can play around with. – Hurray!  How customizable?
   
• We’ve added autocomplete and search hints to the asset search function from Crucible. SEARCHING HAS SUDDENLY BECOME REALLY EXCITING. Or not, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, that’s what we have for you here. Thanks from Team Best Friends Forever and Team Pink Zombie Kittens.