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…

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.

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. 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! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

"Last month Ga’len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith "WebMandrill" Nielson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?"

It wasn’t very easy to come up with something. I know a lot of things in the game could use some improvement or changes, but totally removed ? Even the things I don’t bother with in game, but other people might like, I wouldn’t want to remove.

Then one Saturday morning when I checked my invention jobs, and 6 out of 7 Hammerhead II jobs had failed, it came to me: RANDOMNESS in invention ! Wikipedia says (amongst other things) : there is the sense of lack of predictability. And that is exactly why I hate it.

Sometimes you’re doing great and 4 out of 5 jobs succeed, then you hit a bad streak and you get one bpc for seven tries. Especially with things like HACs it is really a downer when three jobs, even with expensive decryptors fail in a row !

Of course the cost of invention would have to be changed. Six datacores for a hammerhead invention job, maybe up to 30 for a HAC (from 8 now) and so on. I am sure someone smart at CCP could figure out the economics. But at least you would know what you’re getting and how much it is going to cost ! Especially that last part is important, you can now estimate how much an invention job costs using the online tools, but it’s not ideal.

The title of this blogpost might suggest that I would want to remove all randomness in the game. Well, some of it is needed. Like officer spawns, exploration sites etc. Ecm as well, as loosing control over your targeting really sucks, especially when you would just totally get locked out in a fight, and you know it’s going to stay that way for as long as the falcon or blackbird is on the field. But I guess that could be the subject of another blog banter .

So there you have it, my blog banter #9 contribution ! Other participants:

1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE! (ah just noticed someone else uses this phrase)
2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!"
6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
8. EVE’s Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
9. Miner with Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
10. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won’t You Die?
11. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
12. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
13. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
14. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
15. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
16. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
17. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
18. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
19. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
20. Facepalm’s Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
21. Memoires of New Eden, You’re Fired
22. Kyle Langdon’s Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What’s a Titan?
23. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
24. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
25. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
26. Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
27. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
28. Estel Arador Corp Services, You’ve got mail
29. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
30. Deaf Plasma’s EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 – Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
31. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 – Do we really need to go AFK?
32. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
33. More articles as they are posted

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