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.
Today's candidate is RF Gnaeus Crassus.
 
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.
Pupils didn't trust it at all: a math teacher playing an online game, (math teacher should be boring and doing math during free time), but still there i was in 2009. One of my friends in another game directed me towards Eve, so I joined him there. With him and his friends I soon found myself in a wormhole. Not the easiest of places to start as a noob. The best I could help was by scanning exits and mining for isk. Alas the group dissolved and I was left to myself in this big universe. Ice mining proved to be a nice income besides missioning. Áfter a while I convinced a friend to follow me to Eve and a friend of his followed. Those left too and I knew I hit a nice game that wasn't fit for all people. For some time I played solo, but was looking for a group to work together with longer then some months. I found that in Red Frog Freight in 2013. My rl job changed twice in that period. But Red Frog stayed to be my favourite corp.
I took up trading beside my hauling job in Eve, besides a bit of production and posses.
 
Who would you consider to be your key constituents? Who you would best represent within the playerbase?
The non fighting people. I am not saying the care bears. A load of the non fighters live in zero and low-sec too. They are the people that make sure there is enough to blow up in space. And not only themselves :). Although I think the PvP part is very important in Eve, I feel that the non shooting part needs an overhaul. Contracting, producing, researching, mining etc. is all not up to speed with the rest. Besides the non-fighting I have a soft spot for the starters. Not to dump things down, but to make sure we get new people in to stay.
 
Please summarise your platform. (Preferably using key bullet points)
The non fighting parts of Eve need a big overhaul
The contracting part is so 20th century :)
The asset module is terri...I mean not real fine
The gui in total is a not nice feeling in the lower backside
So..let us, for instance, make sli working so we get to see space instead of windows
Give us gui masks to switch with one push
Where is our promised science part in Eve?
Hate afk playing? Then let us make it more attractive to play atk
We need almost all players, So keep the old and bring in new.
We seriously need to promote Eve more. Why is Eve never mentioned in teh Big Bang Theory for instance? :)
Add player driven content. HiSec Freighter Ganking alone will kill people of boredom at the end and if that happens for whom can I haul then? :)
And we need to take good care with the SP changes. We can not have a 3 week old toon with 10 years of SP at any rate. That could spoil it for the newbies (getting to much to soon) and for the 10 year oldies, who see that others earn in short time what they spent years on collecting.
 
Why have you decided to run for CSM this year?
For years I think the contracting and other non fighting parts need to be rebuild. If I see the big progress on the other fields I think it is time now. I am much online, but spent loads of time in clicking around and looking at windows full of numbers and characters and hardly see a ship. Of course I could quit the hauling and trading, but l like that part too much. Could I do it in less time I would fly into the big universe more often.
But the greatest trigger was the ganking last year. The economic principle will make sure that if the gank rate goes up the rewards for hauling will go up too. So No complaints there. Still. Some say they gank because they hate auto piloting. Not sure why since there are loads of ways people earn far bigger isk afk like with trading, PI, production, research and even by training new alts. But why think you can force atk flying when a freighter stands no chance atk? Make it interesting for a freighter to be atk :) But also for the hi sec freighter gankers. Shooting at unarmed slow ships can't be anyone's idea of a great evening night after night. For me ganking means basically that there is nothing to find in eve that is more interesting ...and that would be a sad thing.
We need to improve on the basic handling of stuff and we need to spice things up to keep people interested in Eve.
 
Have you run for or been a member of CSM in the past? If so please list each year and if you were elected.
Nope, never
 
What makes you a unique representative when you compare yourself to other candidates?
I see a lot of candidates talking about solutions to problems. Eve is too complex to have a simple solution for all that can be better. I want to make sure that non fighting problems are known and come on the table for solving. A lot can be done with small chances (low dev time). I want them at the table and then sit with a group to work them out. Of course I have ideas, but basically if another idea solves the problem that is fine for me. As long as we take the problem from the game. And of course I see a lot of life Eve players during events like Fanfest, Evesterdam, and G-fleet, so I know a lot and what they think.
 
Do you have any out of game experience and skills that make you a good candidate?
I have management experience. I also was a math teacher for 9 years and believe me, it teaches you patience, endurance and the skill to communicate with all. At the moment I am a Functional Application Teamleader trying to keep the users happy.
 
What areas of EVE are you weakest at knowledge wise?
PvP. I know I said that it is the heart of Eve. And yet I know least of it. Since I know the importance of it does make me not taking away all resources from it for my plans. But I want to concentrate on the non PvP part, there lies my heart, and I am sure the PvP population will at the end profit from it too.
 
If you were offered unlimited development time - what's the biggest change you would lobby for in EVE?
To make the atk flying and fighting more attractive. For that I would introduce T4 ships that would outweigh all other ships as long as you be actively behind the controls. So that skills outside Eve would matter more, and not (only) the fast clicking but somehow the working of the brains too. (remember I have unlimited resources here :p)
 
If you could wind back the clock - what feature or change would you remove from EVE?
The jump fatigue for jump freighters. Although I (think I) understand the why in general, I wouldn't have introduced it for the jump freighters.
If you could pick one candidate to be elected with you who would they be and why?
Argoni Brinalle of course. He is a fellow Frog and a very good guy, and I trust him fully, what means a lot in Eve :).
 
What is your favourite memory in EVE and why?
We spent some time in a wormhole and I was mining with corp mates in a belt. Suddenly a group of bad people came to the scene, and we all hurriedly went back to the safety of the pos. Since it appeared that we would stay in hiding for some time I went out for some coffee. When I came back I was floating in space, but not in a ship. One of my mates wanted to take a peep at the belt and had hit the warp fleet button. The rest could undo in time?. It was an expensive cup of coffee.
 
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.)
Gmail, sometimes skype and an occasional twitter.
If people wanted to find out more about your platform - where is the best place to do so? (Include blogs, forums posts and podcasts)
It will not show specific csm issues, but shows hopefully the joy I have in what I do, the way I can communicate and the love for my profession in the game and the non whining, non hating, non whatever behavior, against those who do like to shoot at things.
 
In short - what is your closing statement (no more than 500 words please!)
Eve online is not ONE game. In fact it is a PvP game, A PvE game, a traders game, a management game, a production game etc. It's is so various that one could say ... Eve is REAL!
PvP is leading and it should be, but don't forget the rest. Besides that we need new players, without dumbing Eve down and we need our old players as well. So All for Eve and Eve for all!