With the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) Elections coming up soon we at EVE NT have contacted all the running candidates who have announced their intentions to run and provided them with a standardised interview template. The goal of this is to give each candidate a set of standard questions for them to respond to with the aim of helping you, the voter, to choose a candidate who best represents you and your play style to CCP. The same questions have been asked of every candidate as to allow easier comparison. The responses posted are unedited and will be published in the run up to the opening of the voting period on February the 29th in the order that they have been received. You can find out more about the CSM elections here.
Today's candidate is Borat Guereen.
 
Please start by giving us a short introduction to who you are and your history within EVE Online. Include how long you have been playing and the groups you have been involved with.
I started playing the game in 2009. I once have been part of Large alliances, and lived in null sec for around 2 years, then left the sov holding coalitions when b0tlrd accords were signed. I lived for around two years in wormholes, mostly solo living off sleeper sites, hunting in null sec and WH space and performing PI. I have built my first capital myself, participated to multiple fleets, small and large, and have contributed to faction warfare in low sec. Nearly half of my playing time has been spent as a mostly solo player, and I am now the Speaker of Chao3, advancing the objectives of our Minarchist Revolution in New Eden.
My role is to help players that have already a few years of experience playing Eve transition from being a cog in a larger machine to achieving their own independence. As a secretive resistance group, we are waging a war on taxes, and within the Minmatar lore, we are outcasts and freedom fighters, fighting against the oppression of the Amarr Empire. We also fight all the players' alliances, large or small, that are choosing to tax their corp members or wage war on the free circulation of goods in High Sec.
 
Who would you consider to be your key constituents? Who you would best represent within the playerbase?
Whoever believe that there should be real avenues for doing guerilla warfare in New Eden. This includes solo players, small groups of sov holders, and any group that want to promote their own Pax Romana and want to be able to truly have a shot at challenging already established stronger forces.
 
Please summarise your platform. (Preferably using key bullet points)
- One term limit for CSM members
- Develop exposure to lore in-game while continuing the efforts to support the new players experience better.
- Encourage new ideas that would facilitate a nomadic life style.
- Support guerilla friendly features:
* Defend and promote new mechanics that could be effective guerilla tools, like siphons.
* Add some amount of fog-of-war to existing out of game API data, and limit new API sources.
* Put bridging ships at risk
* Allow capital ships to cyno to any system's sun in range
* Require that all players link all their alts publicly, with a slight change in the EULA, and remove the character bazaar.
 
Why have you decided to run for CSM this year?
For the same reasons I decided to run last year. The CSM is plagued by joke candidates, absentees, leakers and controlled by the largest groups who want to keep a strong hold on the feedback CCP receives from the CSM to protect their established interests. The CSM needs players that can bring different perspectives to CCP for the sake of all game styles.
 
Have you run for or been a member of CSM in the past? If so please list each year and if you were elected
Ran for CSM X, not elected.
 
What makes you a unique representative when you compare yourself to other candidates?
I am not hiding behind vague promises of ?reform?, my campaign platform details the ideas I would advocate for if I were elected. I am not supported by the largest groups, as my platform is designed to threaten their established interests.
 
Do you have any out of game experience and skills that make you a good candidate?
Out of game, I used to be an IT project manager, and now own and manage my own business. I am familiar with rapid release cycle and AGILE, as well as communicating through tools like Confluence . I have some podcasting experience as part of the CapStable FR crew.
 
What areas of EVE are you weakest at knowledge wise?
High sec, as I never really played in high sec for very long.
 
If you were offered unlimited development time - what's the biggest change you would lobby for in EVE?
Continue developing in-game events merging the NPC lore with the player's lore, and establishing depletion of resources in the areas that are heavily subject to PVE activity to force conflicts, to make players agreements like b0tlords more likely to be breached over time.
 
If you could wind back the clock - what feature or change would you remove from EVE?
Remove full APIs, and limit APIs data to public information only.
 
If you could pick one candidate to be elected with you who would they be and why?
Ashterothi, as I believe the efforts done on Lore spearheaded by Hydrostatic is awesome, and we need more integration of in-game lore mixed with player events.
 
What is your favourite memory in EVE and why?
Building my own carrier in a WH by myself, it was the first ship I ever built, and the first capital I ever flew. It was a six month long project, with a lot of risks as I did not had any Low Sec or High Sec static. It did cover its building cost multiple time over before Bob claimed it as a sacrifice.
 
What platform(s) do you use currently to engage with the wider player base? If someone wanted to contact you what is the best way to do this? (Include Twitter/Emails/Skype/Slack etc.)
twitter @boratguereen
in-game mail Borat Guereen
 
If people wanted to find out more about your platform - where is the best place to do so? (Include blogs, forums posts and podcasts)
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6069221#post6069221
www.chao3.net
 
In short - what is your closing statement (no more than 500 words please!)
In its first decade, Eve online was a wild west where dreams of empires were achievable. The mechanic of the game so far has encouraged players to join larger groups to find security in numbers and organization. Still, the domination of N+1 fleet has been correctly identified as a problem for the game, and the stagnation of null sec has been called out as an issue. This second decade must be the age of revolutions, and the game must offer mechanics that can threaten established alliances, forcing the largest groups into actively defending their territories, or become splintered. It should also prevent hidden influences by established power players protecting their personal interests. There are no revolution without the ability to wage effective guerilla warfare, and the CSM needs voices that can lobby to make sure features that are designed to be guerilla friendly do not end up being nerfed to uselessness to protect established interests.