This months topic comes to us from @evepress, and he asks: The CSM: CCP’s Meta Game? – The CSM, an eve players voice to CCP. Right? In the grand scheme of things yes, the players bring up issues and the CSM presents them to CCP. But in its current iteration the CSM was supposed to be given small authority to assign CCP assets to projects that the CSM thought needed work on. As it has now come out this is not the case. So fellow bloggers, is the CSM worth it, has the CSM improved the game in any way, or is it just a well thought out scam by CCP to give us players a false sense of input in the game? What’s your take?

This BlogBanter comes at a delicate time, when the shit has hit the proverbial fan after the minutes of the latest CSM – CCP meeting had been released. If I have to answer this question at the moment, then I would say, No at the moment the CSM isn’t really worth it if no development time can be assigned to any issues. Of course it’s useful to keep the conversation going, but if it’s just talk and no action it’s pretty much useless. CCP does send out press releases about the CSM (at least I see the same type of articles on various press sites) so it’s still being used as a PR tool. Reading the latest ‘18months’ devblog and the responses by various CCP employees, I get the impression that at the moment CCP doesn’t really know what to do with the CSM and CCP_Zulu even seems annoyed by them.

Overall though I think the CSM has been useful, if not only for the skill queue and various other accomplishments. It’s a really nice idea to have some people represent the players who bring forward concerns by the players. It’s then up to CCP to decide what will be addressed and what will not. Of course we do understand they can not do everything that’s being proposed, but at least some issues would be nice. I assume that was the original idea behind it…

See other participants:

1. Growing Pains | CrazyKinux’s Musing
2. CSM: Hoax or Serious Business? « Lost in New Eden
3. CSM-Power to the people or puppets of CCP « A whole lot of Yarrrr!!!
4. Gaming the CSM | A Mule in EvE
5. A Taste Of Democracy | StarFleet Comms
6. CSM: Player Power or Paper Tiger? | I Am Keith Neilson
7. Governance Thrash Redux? « The Ralpha Dogs
8. CCP Doesn’t Care: Blog Banter 19 « OMG! You’re a Chick?!
9. The Cataclysmic Variable: It’s Crunch Time!
10. The 19th EVE Blog Banter is upon us… and about the CSM and CCP | Victoria Aut Mors
11. CSM: Lame Duck from the beginning?
12. Blog Banter #19 << Dense Veldspar
13. Be careful what you say, Roc « Roc’s Ramblings
14. Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers « Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo
15. Blog Banter #19: Assumptions
16. EVE Blog Banter #19 | EVE on Real Life
17. A Reality Check | A “CareBears” Journey
18. Quit your bitching | Fly Reckless – EVE Online
19. War has come to EVE | Scram Web
20. CCP and the CSM | Morphisat’s Blog
21. More to come…

Today CK posted the new list ! And I am glad to be still on it. I know this blog isn’t the best or top notch ones out there, but we can’t all be ‘elite’ . Some post I make still get quite a few comments, and I try to give a somewhat more critical view on CCP and their decisions. And of course the view from a regular player in Eve. Someone who missions, occasionally mines and goes out on corp ops every now and then.

A must read, also on CK’s site is the history of the blogpack. I was among the very first to be in there, and it sure has come a long way. There are some amazing and very insightful informative ones out there, while others are just fun to read. Make sure you check the rss feed on the right side, and put it in your favorite RSS reader. I like to read some posts on the bus on my android phone while going to work !

The new, improved blogpack By CrazyKinux

But there is more to Eve than meets the eye. It’s the players, the people. The subculture around it.

This time a special Blog Banter with a few prices attached !

Whether you’ve logged into the game every day since its launch in 2003, or you’ve taken one or several sabbaticals from your capsuleer career, you’ve always come back to New Eden don’t you. Why is that?

We know the EVE Online Community is unique in so many ways, and that EVE Online is like no other MMORPG out there. But what makes the game special for you?

What is it that makes this particular virtual world so enticing, so mysterious and so alluring that we keep coming back for more. Why is EVE one of the very few MMOs to see a continuous growth in its subscriber.

To put it simply: Why do you love EVE Online so much?

At the moment this is a hard question for me to answer. I have only been playing very occasionally the last few months. Once you have done a lot of all the things Eve has to offer, it’s hard to motivate yourself to get back in the game and do those things again. Exploration, mining, production, Factional Warfare PVP, at the moment I have a feeling I have seen it all. I am a bit Eved out. It seems I am not the only one in the blogosphere at the moment (letrange and rettic posted similar thoughts).

All those things I summed up are the plus points of Eve though, so don’t get me wrong. There is a lot to do, to discover, and especially to learn ! But it doesn’t come by itself, the content isn’t slapped in your face, you have to go out and do research and find everything yourself.

But there is more to Eve than meets the eye. It’s the players, the people. The subculture around it. The blogpack, the tweetfleet, and who knows what else ! It keeps you connected to New Eden even when you’re not playing that much.

But lately I have also been concerned about the state of the game. Eve’s lack of decent customer service. People with paid for accounts getting locked out and it takes over five days to get a response. The recent server problems and apparent lack of Quality Control on the last patch (the 0.0 part didn’t seem to work to well if I have to believe all the forum whining, although it did shake up 0.0).

The last ‘expansion’ didn’t add a lot to the game, neither Quantum Rise. At least Apocrypha brought wormholes and T3 ships, but for some reason I don’t like wormholes at all. Maybe that explains why I am a bit Eved out at the moment, even in a sandbox, you need a few new tools to play with every now and then. It could be that this is because of the new console game that is being developed, but I doubt that that is the case, as it is an entire separate development team in China doing that. Which makes you wonder what they’re working on at the moment ? It can’t be Incarna (walking in stations) can it ?

Anyway, I love Eve regardless, and it’s healthy to have players worried about the state of the game, rather than them just leaving, and unsubbing without a word. The Eve Playerbase cares a lot about their game and I assume CCP does as well.

The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read!

This month’s topic comes to us from CrazyKinux, and he asks: “What 3 things haven’t you done in EVE and why? Would you be willing to try one day? Why so? Why not?”

1) Flying capital ships. The Orca is the biggest one I can fly at the moment, and I don’t thin that will ever change. I almost exclusively live in Hisec, and have  no plans to change that soon, so I have no use for them at all. Also they are quite expensive, and so are the skills. I got isk, but can’t be bothered to spend that much on something I will probably never use.

2) Fleet warfare in 0.0. Which is probably just hanging around a lot, or jumping from system to system for hours, only to fight for about 5mins. No thanks.

3) Invent / produce something bigger than a T2 cruiser. I might do this someday, maybe invent and produce a marauder. Don’t have any immediate plans to do this at the moment, but I might some day .

From what I read so far, no. 1 is pretty common, so is no. 2. Are there any bloggers actually involved in 0.0 wars ? Don’t read a lot about that, maybe the eve bloggers are a different kind .

People participating in blog banter #7:

• Blog Banter 7: Trinity
• Wandering Druid
• Expanding my horizons – 1 man 1 ship
• Roads Not Followed
• Roads Not Taken…Or Not Yet
• Blog Banter #7 – The me I am not
• Stones left unturned
• BB#7 – Aspiration – Broadside
• Possibilities – life in lowsec
• Crazy Kinux’ Nobody told me you could do this in Eve
• Fleshfresh – This isn’t me

This might be true in other games, though I cannot think of a good example at the moment. But in Eve it’s just very handy to have a sidekick ! Also the game lends itself much better than other mmorpg’s. The client is not too heavy on the computer’s resources and you can easily run 2 or even 3 windows at the same time. Windowed mode works fine, so you can easily switch between them. Furthermore, a lot of activities where you can use an alternative character, aren’t too stressful that you have to keep your eyes and hands on the keyboard all the time, like in some other games where you need to press keys all the time and have to resort to technical utilities and tools in order to sync your movements.

So for what purposes do you use another account ? Quite a few possibilities come to mind. From my own experience, the idea behind my alt was to pursue another career in Eve and have her go another direction. A combat alt who would do pirating and maybe even go to 0.0, while Morph was missioning and doing industrial stuff in Empire.

But somehow that plan never worked out. The combat part did though, she can fly Gallente, Caldari and Amarr ships very well (Minmatar are next on the list). But she now aids me in missions, and hauls in mining or does some other transports for me.

Another good usage is Factional Warfare. A fw alt to get the grips on pvp, who is financially supported by the main is a nice way to go and enjoy other areas of the game. I did this for a while and it works out fine.

In Eve it seems a lot of people use more than one account. It’s almost as if the game was intended that way (Power of two comes to mind). The thing is, that you can only have one character in training at any time. In wow you can level up a druid, a hunter, a pally etc, but in Eve you can only train one. The other two character slots can be used for research, or a market checker in Jita, but nothing that can be used very well. So if you want to do something else, like doing industrial and combat etc, it takes a very long time for your main to become proficient in both areas, and that’s where the multiple accounts come in.

To answer the question is this “ruining the game”: no I don’t think so at all. It actually enhances it quite a bit. Especially mining is much easier, and running missions gets a lot more convenient as well. And it’s not like you don’t need other people, the game is much nicer while in a good corp and participate in group activities, but if you have an extra account, it makes it more enjoyable as you’re not dependant on other people to do things you otherwise would have a hard time doing !

Blog Banter #5 participants:

• A mule in Eve
• One man and his spaceship
• Inner Sanctum of Ninveah
• Wandering Druid of Tranquility (props for best title!)
• Epic Misadventures
• Ombeve [OOC]
• Ecliptic Rift
• Everybody needs somebody (also props for a nice title !)
• Dense Veldspar
• Mad Rant
• Eve Chick
• Diary of a pod pilot
• New Eden Diaries
• Eve Chick
• Omberzombie’s Blog
• RalphaDogs (title sounds familiar )
• CrazyKinux’s Musing
• Roc Whieler (most original entry !)
• Everyday Eve
• Keith Nelson
• A merry life and a short one

More to come as they are posted !

The link to the RSS 2.0 feed is at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/eveBlogPackViaCrazykinuxInGoogleReader.

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↑ Grab this Headline Animator

This month’s EVE Blog Banter comes to us from Manasi of A Mule in EvE. Manasi asks “How do we, EVE bloggers, adapt to changes as they are thrust upon us (speed changes, no more ghost training, all the Dev blogs, etc), or as our lives make playing the game different (more time, less time) ?”

Let’s start off with the last part: just go with the flow ! If you have less time to play Eve, just play less. This is a problem if you’re in some 0.0 pvp corp that expects you to be online 23/7, but for most people this should be doable. Even if it’s not, go and find another corp or another activity in Eve that’s more suitable to your new time constraints ! Don’t let the game rule your life…

The first part, actually can be answered with the same response. Missiles got changed in the last expansion, along with the speed changes, and you can either keep whining that the game now sucks, and quit, or try new ways to do your thing. Start using cruise missiles and drones, instead of torps. Fit a target painter instead of yet another hardener etc..

The thing is though, if some sort of activity you like, or a ship or whatever gets nerfed into the ground, so that you don’t enjoy that activity anymore, you’ll have to find something else you will enjoy. There is plenty to do in Eve, so that shouldn’t be too hard. There are also an abundance of ships to fly, and even more to come in march.

So even the ‘adapt or die’ slogan is used a lot on the forums, whenever a change is coming to Eve, it’s actually kind of true. Not quite sure about the we, Eve Bloggers part. Don’t think it’s much different for a blogger than for the ‘regular players’.

Participants:

• Attitude is Everything
• “If I could save time in a bottle….”
• The Game with the Thousand Faces
• [OOC] January’s Blog Banter
• New Ballgames, Same Home Team
• EVE Blog Banter #4: I Don’t Know
• Adaptation
• CK’s Blog Banter #4
• Roll With the Punches
• Blog Banter 4: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
• We, the EVE-bloggers
• Adapt or Die
• I’m in ur blogosphere, hijackin’ ur Blog Banter (4)
• Blog Banter
• Opportunity or Burden?
• Mystic Pizza
• Adaptation

Update: Participants copied from CK’s blog

EVEolutions

1man1ship

The rules:

Here are the rules (I’m just cuttin’ & pastin’ here):

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

I am never comfortable talking about myself, but here we go !

Seven Facts:

1. In the eighties I wore black clothes and listened to the cure
2. Also had the Bono hairdo late 80s, early 90s
3. In 2001 I cut off my pony tail as my hair was getting a bit too thin to pull off the look
4. I also have a wow-blog at http://www.wow-blog.net
5. Got 2 cats named felix and streep (which is dutch for stripe)
6. Studied social history for two years, then later on ended up in software engineering
7. Used to be a big tape (you know TDK SA MAXELL XLS) live music collector

I am supposed to tag 7 other people here, but I think just about everybody I know has been tagged already . If you want to volunteer, let me know !

Now I should really post something captivating, interesting post to capture my audience…