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 Diana Olympos.
 
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.
Well I?ll try to make it short. I?m quite a new player. It's been just over a year since I came back to Eve and I have, up until recently, been flying with Phoebe Freeport Republic (PFR)
Previously I had short playing stints with an highsec French missioning corporation but RL changes made me leave the game after two months.
PFR is a diverse group of players that is fighting in Sov nullsec to open Freeports. Freeports are Sovereignty stations that are controlled by PFR but open for everyone to dock and use, for free. I loved the ideology and fought for it, gaining an understanding of Aegis sov, entosis tactics and small/medium fleet warfare.
In game I?m a marketeer, a logistician, have been a teacher for PFR Academy program, an avid EWAR and entosis pilot.
Outside of the game, I?m an active member of Tweetfleet and a writer for Crossing Zebras. In real life I?m a developer and a data scientist.
 
Who would you consider to be your key constituents? Who you would best represent within the playerbase?
Players that believe that there should be a way for CCP to know players general feelings and for players to gain insights into CCP vision and thinking. I?m not talking of breaching NDA, but about providing some thinking, some ideas, that lie behind what is happening.
The majority of my experience lies in market seeding/manipulation and in the new balkanised nullsec. I'd like to think I can also relate quite well to small organisations that are attempting to grow using the opportunities presented by the new sovereignty mechanics. I also hold hope that I link in a small fashion to everyone in New Eden, because understanding the market means that you understand how Eve ticks.
Finally I?m French. Which mean I can also represent those that can't speak Shakespeare's language!
 
Please summarise your platform. (Preferably using key bullet points)
-Nullsec based
-Primary focus Trading and Hauling
-French
-Lover of emergent gameplay
-Community Content Generator
-Easily approachable
-Experienced with similar organisations for other games
 
Why have you decided to run for CSM this year?
I?m an avid reader of news and identifying and understanding patterns. Players around me can tell you I?m always attempting to consume all game related information, be that opinion pieces, proposed game changes or meta-shifts and then discussing them at length through all available channels. As such the CSM feels like a natural next step.
I also believe that I?m one of the few members of the new balkanised nullsec that is willing and ready to represent the smaller groups to CCP. Eve and nullsec is changing, and that change need to be represented.
 
Have you run for or been a member of CSM in the past? If so please list each year and if you were elected.
No.
 
What makes you a unique representative when you compare yourself to other candidates?
Firstly I have previous experience in a similar role - I used to be part of an equivalent group handpicked by developers in another game.
Secondly, I?m one of the few candidates that has spent the last year in the new Aegis shaped Nullsec and helped define its shape. The ?eve media? aren't talking a lot about it (because it is not a massive battle or 100s of billions of isk lost) but nullsec is now moving and balkanizing. We are seeing a lot of small groups taking pockets of space, creating a moveable puzzle of small groups, making null live and breathe ? I'd like to see those opportunities available to players across all regions.
 
Do you have any out of game experience and skills that make you a good candidate?
My job role is to coordinate with a large number of teams in a big company, analysing what they do, and to try to help improve and find efficiency gains. I believe those skills would translate well into the CSM.
The CSM are players from outside CCP that try and bring their viewpoint and practical knowledge to specific CCP teams, on demand. They are the definition of a transversal asset ? Something that a team uses when they need a fresh take on something.
As I mentioned above, I have experience working on game balance and community feedback when I was a Marshal for the Wargame series, an equivalent to the CSM for that game.
 
What areas of EVE are you weakest at knowledge wise?
LowSec and to some extent Wormholes - I just haven't had time to explore that much!
 
If you were offered one year of unlimited development time - what's the biggest change you would lobby for in EVE?
At the risk of sounding flippant, with how many developers? Honestly, right now I would say advertising is the biggest problem for New Eden. When was the last time general gaming media talked about Eve? B-R??
This year CCP changed the whole mechanism of Sovereignty, made the lore bigger than ever, killed the most important NPC of Eve live in front of the players, created tons of new ships, had two long extended events... And we saw almost nothing on gaming media. There is something wrong here.
Other than that.. the UI. Especially the tactical overlay; A vector showing where you are going (your speed), a compass all around the tactical overlay enabling you to know how many degrees you are turning, things like that. That would make a big difference in learning positioning and tactics but without 'simplifying? the game ? Presenting information which the client has but doesn't display obviously to the player would help new and old players alike and might be approachable in a way that doesn't use huge resources at CCP HQ.
 
If you could wind back the clock - what feature or change would you remove from EVE?
It's hard to tell. Eve is what it is nowadays thanks to that past and I love the game. I would say that the bounty system right now has nearly no purposes and I'd like to see that become more meaningful
 
If you could pick one candidate to be elected with you who would they be and why?
Steve Ronuken. Not gonna lie, he's doing a lot of work, he has a good working relationship with CCPers. He is independent. And he can be trusted.
 
What is your favourite memory in EVE and why?
My first time leading a wing of entosis ships, fighting a node event for PFR home station. We defended our ground, I was part of it, it was tense, stressful, with a lot of information to gather and different alliances to organise. At the same time, I was helping. I was having a real impact; I was seeing the timers moving as a result of my actions. Every pilot on my orders were seeing their own impact. It was personal. It was creating our own story. That is what I love about sovereignty.
 
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(@DianaOlympos).
· Evemail (Diana Olympos) .
· Tweetfleet Slack (@dianaolympos).
· Reddit (/u/diana_olympos), even if i don't use that account that much. I have a forum post up (bit.ly/DianaO4CSM)
 
If people wanted to find out more about your platform - where is the best place to do so? (Include blogs, forums posts and podcasts)
I?m trying to appear in as many podcasts and open comms as possible. My forum post is the place where I will centralise everything. If you are interested in knowing more about me or your group of players is interested, feel free to contact me for an open comms session. I would be happy to hang with you for an hour or two and answer any questions you may have.
 
In short - what is your closing statement (no more than 500 words please!)
Good luck to every candidate, and if there is one piece of advice I could give to the Eve player base, it is that you should elect people you believe that are competent and reliable - more than someone with a platform of changing things or ?reforming?. Ideas change but the skills and abilities of people stay.