Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

I don't think that's necessary. The folks that voted for Mike didn't vote for him because he has a wide range of EVE Online experiences, they voted for him because he has a very specific and particular EVE experience. I'm not sure that Mike heading into areas of the game where he's not going to be comfortable serves any valuable purpose. He was voted in so that he could advocate for highsec and roleplaying directly to CCP.

I told Unforgiven, if he's going to suggest to Mike that he try nullsec, he might as well suggest that I try out industry. Which he immediately did. But I don't have the patience for industry, the thought of all that training time, just to become competent, it gives me a headache thinking about it.

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I didn't want to post about the CSM. I've already gone a month and half without a CSM post. I was hoping to go the year. (That might have been a pipedream.) I have been in some Twitter debates about the CSM recently ... so it seems appropriate to talk some about it here.

I suppose if I'm only posting once every month or two on the subject, that's a lot better than the one or three posts a week I was doing during CSM7's term.

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CSM8 is already a tonne better than CSM7. It's looking like there are at least twelve active people in the group, and another two semi-active. Which is the most active CSM of all time. Much better than the five active people that CSM7 had, of which three were ass-hats and two (Two Step and Alekseyev) were quality representatives.

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If I ever said that the CSM should be more active in their communications ... well, pelt me with stones ... I was dead wrong. The problem is not quantity, it's quality. CSM7 gave us middling-quantity, with not much quality. CSM8 so far, lots of quantity, but only a small increase in quality over their predecessors.

It's over-saturation now. To the point of annoyance. You have more active representatives, and all those representatives want to be out there gibbering about all the things they can't talk about. So there's a whole lot of CSMers right now all saying nothing, and sounding like iPods on repeat. Twelve different perspectives on "We're working on this thing which we can't tell you about" is both tiring and frustrating.

I've decided to just get all my information from Ripard Teg's weekly CSM updates. They're well-written. They're often amusing. He's as hogtied as anyone else by the NDA, but he does tend to give up a couple small tidbits more than anyone else. It's the only quality available in all the quantity. He seems to have a better handle on the restrictions of the NDA, what he can and cannot say.

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I keep wanting to try out some new podcasts, but every time I check out a new one the show notes announce another CSM guest. So I don't bother downloading. It's like every podcast has decided that to draw an audience, they need to have some CSM representative on every week.

Even EVE Online's #1 podcast has shamefully got into the "must do CSM" game. Although, in Xander's defense, he at least recognizes the value in separating out the shitty content from his usual excellent content. His CSM stuff is completely separate from his regular Crossing Zebra stuff. And Xander does the CSM stuff alone, because Jeg Elsker has some scruples.

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I was really looking forward to giving Alekseyev Karrde's Declarations of War podcast another shot. Now that he is no longer a CSM rep, I figured he could just get back to his strengths. The sort of podcast content he did best and that made Declarations of War popular.

But no ... he now has Ali Aras as a co-host. As nice a person as she seems to be, could there be a less informed member of the CSM that he could have chose? Outside of telling us what she can't tell us about the CSM, does she have a clue about what is happening with the rest of the game? Has she ever left Providence? Her commenting on the war in Fountain is about as informative as pulling some random unista out of Aldrat and asking their opinion on the CFC and Test Alliance. (Okay, that's a bit of hyerpbole, Ali is obviously a tad better than that, she at least blows people up.)

Other than the CSM, Ali's other area of expertise, lately, seems to be porn. Or, how much it makes her uncomfortable, even though she's admitted to looking at it occasionally in private. Perhaps there is special lesbian porn where you're challenged to admire a woman's intellect and inner beauty, rather than just the nudity. (Librarian porn?) She has a lot to say about how much she "dislikes" it, though. I wrote one post about pornfleets, which has set her off on a two week rant about it on every medium available to her.

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I've checked out a couple of Hans Jagerblitzen's CPM updates (the CPM is DUST 514's version of the CSM). Why didn't CCP hire Hans, rather than Mintchip, as the DUST 514 evangelist? Hans is downright obsessed with telling the world that DUST 514 is a great game. Whereas Mintchip's most recent tweet congratulated her CCP colleagues on playing her favourite game, DOTA2, with her the other day. I don't think I've seen a DUST 514 tweet from her yet.

Hans > Mintchip, when it comes to selling the DUST 514 experience. I suppose CCP realizes that they get Hans for free.

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There are six times per year when it's interesting to talk to CSM representatives.

Xander's interviews with Alekseyav Karrde and Two Step, in May after CSM7 was complete, are two of the best CSM interviews ever conducted.

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Maybe this bit of CSM talk will do me over until August or September. There's really not been much to talk about with CSM8, because it does seem like they are doing a bang-up job. It would seem that thirteen capable people were elected.