2018

My candidacy makes the following assumptions

Point 1

Eve isn’t just a “game” or “MMO” – it is at some level meant to be simulating a persistent, credible universe. Eve isn’t some game of 4 dimensional chess – it’s a persistent and rich history and an epic tale.
If you insist on playing only a pew game, a minmaxing gamea goddamn spreadsheet , a salt mining game, don’t vote for me. If you like exploring, reading on background stories, roleplaying, immersive world, conceptual variations then I seek to represent your interests in Eve Online. Yes I don’t give a damn if eve attracts a bunch of “care bears” that want to play some kind of new in-world niche space farmville, as long as the game starts rapidly growing its user base.  My motto – if you build something that’s worth the money, people will come.

Point 2 

My assertion is CCP has been playing a decade of catchup in minmaxing ships, haphazzardly creating too many “more of the same” game features and updates to service the addiction patterns of established paying customers, and has assiduous avoided betting on implementation of new features to “maybe” attract new players and expand a significantly bigger player base.

I am personally convinced Eve can attract significant numbers of new players if these are serviced with a wider palette of gaming experiences. I am personally convinced CCP has been too consistently and predictably managed to “farm” an ever more elusive, esoteric player base for monthly revenues.

I in no means wish to detract from sustaining the current set of experiences, as eve needs all the players it can get. I am for expanding the range of experience and ath the same time keep servicing “old dog interests”. Yes, CCP would attract new paying participants by implementing substantially more diverse (emphasis) gaming experiences. These experiences should be based on above point one – by taking the existing narrative framework and seeking any and all logistically sensible gaming in-game structures and attaching a rapidly increasing set of things to do.

If you think CCP should play catchup with your established pew only , then don’t vote foe me. However if you think a large number of new players, many of which would be carebears, can and should be attracted to the game then don’t vote for me. If you think the game can sustainably grow at the very least an average of several ten thousand online account concurrency (and corresponding subscription rates) per month growth (and hence, a year from now, average several ten thousand online players) then vote for me.

Point 3

Science exists, “hard” science fiction is a thing, and yes – in terms of real world science eve is quite unrealistic. But every day new science fiction storytelling comes online in books, novels, competing games. Eve is becoming increasingly what should be characterized as “campy” or “gernsback continuum” features. I propose a rapid catchup, where Eve more symbolically represents dawning understanding of hard Science Fiction. This is a fairly abstract point, so I’d best summarizing it as follows “while eve does not pretend to be Newtonian realistic, at one time it did have this pretense, and I’d want eve to more strongly aspire to taking stuff from the real world and at least symbolically represent it in the game”. Yes that means black holes, double star systems, extremely detailed gas planets and lots and lots of advances in astrophysics and accelerating technology. CCP should be gently coaxed in to rapid expanse of these features, as realistically as will mesh with established gameplay. Yes CCP should be gently coaxed to “non-disruptively” retcon certain in-game systems. And much more.

Point 4

The game involves large numbers of people, politics, star systems, cultural frameworks and plausible world mechanics. I mean I really like eve as it is, but I think it would be better by gradually (and non-disruptively) extend the simulation of high end in world politics. That means – the end game should offer existing players new things to do and exert dominance in and I actively propose these should be things new to the game – intra-planetary politics. Players should be able to change aspects of gameplay by controlling interests in the world at large. This could be as simple as players paying pirates factions to more actively engage targets in enemy territories and thereby disrupting competing alliances, but this would just be an example of many. I am in favour of a shadow player of moguls and power brokers working in the shadows and being able to exert universal dominance in completely new ways, in particular in ways that don’t ruin the gameplay of new players. Vote for me if you think CCP would easily be able to expand storytelling detail, and create in-game systems to allow high end factions to exert dominance. Do not vote for me if you think descriptive storytelling of, say, star systems would add nothing you find meaningful to the game. Do not vote for me if you think a power play mechanic involving NPC factions and “cloak and dagger” gameplay involving NPC’s, espionage, politics is desirable.

Point 5

One aspect of eve is the absolute vacuum in terms of ship crews and all implications thereoff. One important aspect of my candidacy is to make CCP graduall but persistently implement ship crews and the almost unimaginable richness in new game mechanics, storytelling, intreraction models, market options that entails. Yes I am aware a lot of players, corporate blocks and established alliances would freak out about such a vast and expansive new range of choices complicating their already bloated logistics, and I’d say “cry mich ein rivier”. I’d say, CCP should be seduced in implementing a gradual (even if it is moderately disruptive to status quo) implementation of ship crews. Yes that would mean ‘trading’ ship crews, cultivating the in-flow of a set of extremely diversified types of cyborg, humanoid, genetically modified or wholly android crews. Some crews would actually come with disadvantages, and so be it. Yes crews would pen up new in-game vulnerabilities, such as completely killing the crew of a vessel and capturing it largely undamaged – by expending considerable effort. Vote for me if you want ship crews. Period.

Point 6 

I am of the conviction that current CCP design and game management policies have devolved from the original objectives for the game. I am concerned that current CCP manages the game to stay afloat and continu to make money, but without lack of long-term interess or vision. I believe CCP can be persuaded to gradually start acknowledging a more interesting, immersive, aesthetic, all-encompassing game design style, and with such a new philosophy can attract a significantly larger subscriber base. I am personally convinced that Eve might literally fail on account of lack of foresight and aesthetics, and that certain elements in the company CCP don’t really care as long as they are generating revenues now.

Summarizing – I love eve not just for the opportunity to get my ass ganked by goons, but also because caldari ships look cool. I play eve not just to mine salt from carebears, but largely because even after more than one and a half decade I still get the tingles when I see animated T2 destroyers unfold their wings when changing operational mode, or when I see a sun in such ferociosity and detail as it is now. But I can’t help myself from asking, what should be *exciting* and plausible side effects of being at a particular distance (very close or very far) from a star? Why are there no doubel star systems? Why don’t ships have simulated crews? Why why why? My thesis as your elected candidate is allowing the player base significantly expanded in-game options and freedoms, a lot more realism (even if it’s just make-belief realism) and immersiveness. I am in favour of, say, expending the ability of the player base to actively discuss new features and make sure they get implemented in the game in a rational, level-headed, consistent – but unabating – set of steps. If you think this should be done and yes, eve can be made to grow again, vote for me. If you are a cynical old coot that can’t stand all these structure and game mechanic upgrades because, goddamn, your sand castle now occupies a constantly alternating  “cryogenic” versus “superhot” spot in the star system, because the spot you are in now has bloody a sun-sized star, a red supergiant AND a goddamn pulsar with a goddamn high energy accretion disk, then don’t vote for me.

What do I bring to the game?

– Life’s experience, a very strong sense of determination, having played eve since 2005, a sense of proportions, a unique personal style and a “serpent’s tongue”,

– Some experience in real world politics,

– Decades of roleplaying and world building experience,

– A background in project management, game art and concept design, philosophy,

– Being a fairly famous and activists transhumanist or technoprogressive. I mean they shot RW documentary of me farming anoms with my carebear VNI, for fuck’s sake.

– low key, polite and nuanced (as oposed to “SJW”) representation interests of alternative lifestyle players (I am M2F transgender myself),

– unshakable self of sef-importance, almost no sense of shame, a considerable tolerance for alcohol and an actual sexual, intellectual, social and artistic life outside of eve.

– someone who had her legal name change in a manner that just happen to coicide with her already established eve online character name.

Khannea SunTzu

 

 

 

I reject eve is a game.

Yes, for many people eve online is “merely” a game, like chess or space invaders. I find myself in disagreement with this oversimplification. Yes, eve has game like qualities and features, but there’s no denying it has a strong pretense of  being a world, a mythology, a story, a history.  Similar venues (which are wholly not gamelike) are Star Trek and Star Wars, and even those have a lackluster mythology (or consistency!) compared to what eve conceivably has. he amount of meaningful statements I can make over any Eve Online system is several orders of magnitude greater than with either of the above two franchises with regards to every system.

A lot of regular subscribers to eve are religiously and militantly focused on the pew, the min/maxing and the endless grind of warfare. While I understand and respect those realities, they are not mine. Thus I reject eve as a “mere” game. It is so much more – or better – it has so much more potential.

Eve has grossly neglected its storytelling, descriptive, world building sides. It can be the same old game a lot of people love, and in having ambitions of being more it does not detract from the former. Pew people can still do pew, but in the meanwhile game content can expand in numerous directions. There are doors ajar in the game everywhere. I see opportunities, or “low hanging fruit” all over the place.

I think CCP is scared. CCP is scared of “rocking the boat” and introduce things that make the subscribing niche of players start whning of “misallocation of resources”. If someone at the CCP offices starts making better gas giant ring models and SFX, a lot of the old crowd fall over themselves screaming on the forums that CCP “squanders” its “scarce” resources.

I think that’s bullshit. I see so many opportunities where CCP can fairly easily expand the game with a minimum of effort, or even crowd-sourced by dedicated and fanatical players. There are ways to decide on having your customer base generate proper, SFW (and consistent!~) in-game content. I am absolutely certain there are 3D graphic artists that can produce quality ship models in-game and would do so for free. I am absolutely certain the freedom to submit descriptive texts (i.e., via some sort of wiki) could fill in all those barren and empty system and star popups.

 

The New Cormorant

I am delighted by this new Cormorant design. This is a massive improvement to an already quite interesting design style. I like the skin as well, in particular the emphasis towards oldschool  Homeworld design, and tip-of-the-hat towards Chris Foss.

Without color, here’s the new design for the Chimera. Design done by Pavel Savchuk – and he really gets it. I hope an artist will step forward to do similarly evocative Gallente vessels.

Chimera_redesign.jpg

Truly Awesome.  One day he’ll do a second Minmatar and Caldari Titans. I guarantee it.

 

 

 

 

CSM12

I have made myself available for the electoral cycle of CSM12, starting march 6 this year.

I won’t actively lobby at this stage. I just run as a candidate, and gradually building towards CSM13 I will cautiously aim to make myself gradually more visible.

My relevant identies are,

(in game character)  – Daugar Draaken, male

(real world identity) – Khannea S. Dirven, female

Yes I am member of the mining corporation Mine ‘N Refine, which is an active member of the Goons. Goon political and gaming values are not part of my running for CSM. My interests lie in a completely different direction.

This is my candidacy text

CCP has been alleged to have a cautious, defensive, “status quo” oriented design & development style. It can also be alleged that CCP game design relies insufficiently on world building centered design. Nonetheless there are many ideas out there proposed by a solid minority of the player base that visualize a more proactive, encompassing world building effort.

That’s why I run. I am personally not all that interested in the same old ship pew, but I’d love see new game affordances that center on better storytelling, more player input and a substantially more diverse style of play.

:Let’s face it, a lot of militantly status quo players want nothing changed that upsets their power base “apple cart”. This mindset has infected the game, to the point CCP can be argued to be intimidated by the old school crowd. This alienates a lot of new players. Thus i strongly advocate creating a far more diverse gaming environment in eve where new players have a substantially wider range of game options.

As CSM I will represent a position that will help CCP to evolve in to a game where more people try the game, more people play the game, more people subscribe and more people return to the game over time. That will require a paradigm shift from the same old – and yes, it entails advocating a game design style that does collide with the “more of the same” status quo mindset.

Meanwhile on reddit

I jokingly posted some ideas for a future Eve on Reddit. The post is here. Let me copy the content of the post. The question is “It’s 2022. What’s happening in Eve?”

  • there are no tech-4 ships (yet). There are however Tech-3 modules which are exceptionally rare, are difficult to trade, have very intricate and confusing benefits as well as striking drawbacks.
  • All ship models for all ships, as well as Citadels, have been overhauled – primarily focusing on animation and rendering of “close up” structures – that is, if you fly very close to a station more detailed close up structures render in view and make the experience a lot more aesthetic.
  • all grandfathered stations have been completely redesigned and look awesome, extending the improvements offered by citadels, with multiple docking bays, varied docking and the option to exit the station from a specific angle.
  • inside stations environments have been completely revamped and upgraded. When you are docked you see you ship in a docking clamp, with umbilicals and bridges and robotic activity. When you insert a feature in a ship, this now takes a small amount of time and you literally see the feature being embedded in the vessels before your eyes, i.e. deckplates being opened and robots working inside the ship for some 15-30 seconds. This is beautiful to see. When docked you see other ships that are docked. Docking is now realistic and *there are docking limits for stations for small stations vis-a-vis large ships. In other words, small stations will allow only a limited number of capital ships docking, etc. I.e. a LOT more realism and persistence.
  • there will be a new mining mechanic involving a mass project, involving an alliance, where a small moon is detonated in to a humongous and very volatile mine swarm.
  • ship crews have been announced and implementation is under development. The new emphasis on ‘people’ in eve creates for a plethora of new narratives, mechanics, interaction models and game affordances. There are a lot more NPC mechanics, NPC territorial disputes, a lot of NPC system traffic. You can pirate NPC cargo ships, and new cargo ships have been introduced. There is a new ablation layer to ships (shields, armor, structure, crews) and it is under rare circumstances possible to destroy a crew, leave the ship somewhat intact – so the ship can be boarded – these features are introduced too slowly, too cautiously by CCP.
  • there is now an in-game wikipedia that describes planets, offers lore and background fiction, describes systems and their history. This is a very popular feature and CCP allows players to propose lore to the wiki, and you can literally watch history of systems (and occupation by alliances) affect the history thread in the wiki. These stories are actively read outside the game and become a major recruitment feature drawing in new subscribing players.
  • stellar systems have been massively revamped in favor of astrophysical realism. That is – a whole bunch of new planets that follow current as well as evolving understanding of real-world astrophysics . There are temperature ranges in systems from hot to temperate to cold to cryogenic, each zone having profound effects on ships features. THis has major effects on occupation of systems (say – certain ship categories function a lot better in the kuyper belt of a system whereas completely different vessels are benefited in the inner zone of a system. New categories of ships monopolize on these system zones, including specialized categories that operate near jovian planets – which now are an awesome and intimidating part of the game, with deadly radiation zones. Fleet activity near a large gas giant (or even worse – a brown dwarf) functions completely differently.
  • there is a system with a black hole (neutron star, wolf-rayett star, multi-star system, giant red star on the verge of exploding) with a massive accretion disk in realistic, credible and awe inspiring graphics. These “exotic systems” are a damn lot more realistic and game play challenging than the current “underwhelming” crop of exotic systems and are intensely popular places to explore, and a lot more dangerous. Most these systems are part of the now extended range of wormholes (although some are also situated in nulsec) that runs from 1 to 10. Level 10 systems are near impossible to survive for any lenghh of time by even the most well-equipped and experienced players.
  • there is a completely new environment that allows combat “under very extreme circumstances”, i.e. something like subspace or warpspace. In this environment there are dangers, strange artefact NPC’s, and a great way to destroy new ships
  • a fairly new feature of the game involves players with new 3D design and VR technologies, acting out major scenes of drama in real time that are treated as major parts of the game lore. You can now watch alliance commanders in game give instructions, motivational speeches, etc. There is a new school of “eve online acting”, where people enact key scenes. These scenes are occasionally introduced as critical backstory machinima in the game lore wiki. To the chagrin of CCP these machinima are abused for VR porn, and for some reasons these feature a lot of futanari scenes.
  • the amount of ships has increased significantly, extending to a lot of NPC vessels, a second tier titan (which is hyperspecialized) and a range of T3 variants of established ships.
  • there is a range of very cheap ships that offer no skilled bonuses – these vessels are used by NPC’s.
  • the balance of powers has been largely disrupted by an NPC faction, probably jovians. Planets have been destroyed, systems have shifted alliance, there’s a large patch of neutral and destroyed systems inside highsec space, controlled by Jovian occupyers. These have an “understanding” with the four empires.
  • there might be a fifth faction in addition to amarr, gallente, Minmatar, caldari.
  • there is a range of a few dozen citadels with very intricate, hyperspecialized and quite beautiful citadels. There are factional citadels. There are citadel skins.
  • You can order content from CCP collaborative design agencies. The design agencies approve content by these contracted agencies (such as ship skins, factional ships – such as Goon faction frigates) and players are able to express their design, third parties produce the item, propose features to CCP, and CCP decides if they are good to introduce. This feature works fairly well – the new vessels start out weak (low bonuses) and gradually the bonuses increase to the point of consolidation and stablization.
  • There is a new way to travel, say a giant artefact ship asd big as a station. This ship goes around in circles through a few dozen systems. You can dock inside this massive structure, and get teleported from system to system, whereupon you can disembark. This allows players to reach systems that can not be reached by ordinary methods.
  • A few rooms have been added in “ambulation”. These are “low hanging fruit” solutions to the otherwise dead-end of ambulation. These features are very popular and very useful, but limited.
  • Players can invest in to massive trade, commerce, industrial, servicing structures on planets, or as systemic and visible add-ons to citadels. These add-ons require very esoteric and intricate skills and are thus quite difficult to realize. A citadel is can now be studded with a range of servicing entities (with visible objects) that offer a massive and wide range of services, tricks, specialties, benefits, etc. Players can rent citadel real estate, make profit in this manner, and often players are hired to service citadels in a very rare manner.
  • some features of the game are now played on handhelds, phones and other environments. These are unpaid and serve to hook in new subscribing players – and this genius strategy by CCP actually works, believe it or not. Where in 2015 people were playing pokemon and ingress, many people world wide now play similar game that actively mesh in to the Eve Online universe. You can see kids in high schools now occasionally discuss the merits of certain Caldari ships or more arcane aspects of eve space.
  • Players can rent mercenary NPC factions, after attaining respectability in such organizations, and can instruct NPC action – such as incursions, a high NPC pirate presence, etc. These “puppeteer” actions remain elusive and mysterious, and you never know if there’s a faction behind an incursion or whether it’s just random NPC hickups. These power games are becoming a rather important part of the game.
  • There have been added several completely new gameplay modes, that draw in new prospective players. These features are strikingly novel, mesh fine with established gameplay, and have resulted in a steady increase of new players. Many of these new subscribers ignore the staple of eve (spaceship pew) and focus on these new gaming models (and hence, skill structures) and at times benefit, bewilder, hinder or plan old annoy established player power factions. A Very popular feature introduces trade, traffic, exploration, commerce, transport, servicing with a whole category of new (and relatively small, frigate sized) ships, that function inside the game with a by and large new gameplay philosophy and ship interface.
  • CCP is now a widely admired, competent, a lot bigger game company. Paying subscribers have doubled since earlier peak concurrency. Players are now more satisfied with service, game design and affordances. Eve is Great Again.What do you think?