1. 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 am part of ProviBloc, based in the region of Providence, a newbie friendly group, that allows neutral entities to experience 0.0-space for the first time. We only shoot reds (NRDS - "Eve in Hard Mode"), so anyone that wants to rat or mine or whatever can safely try out this gameplay in 0.0. A lot of mayor players started out in Provi and most have still some connection to this region.
I started out in High Sec with our Corp OASY, we lived a bit in Low Sec and finally moved out to 0.0 in Providence and joined AFK. I stayed there ever since and am quite happy with our little (dys)functional family out in space. I am naturally interested in what CCP wants to do with Citadels and other structures and want to be part of this process.

 

2. Who would you consider to be your key constituents? Who would you best represent within the playerbase?

• Everyone who makes Player Content
• Everyone who wants to integrate own content into the game
• Everyone who wants to see more lore in-game and in PVE
• Newbie-friendly groups
• New Players and smaller entities

 

3. Please summarise your platform. (Preferably using key bullet points)

• Story-based Player Interaction/PVE:
  Short wishlist: Integration of player-made content, like player-made PVE-missions, integrating content like short-stories and Corp/Alliance history, perhaps even individualised missions for new members of alliances (alliances design their missions, new players do them and learn about the alliance history and so on).
  Explanation: When CCP discontinued the EVE-Wiki, they also deleted part of the player-history of the game - and I'm still waiting for the promised replacement features. I want to have a better technical bridge between the meta on external sites, the stories, info and content and the actual space we all are flying through.
  CCP should make better use of the history the players develop and integrate it better into the geography of our game… Let's give players hooks to anchor their content in the game!

• Tools
  Short wishlist: better in-game management tools for market, members, corps/alliances, structures, better mobile integration, actual content that is also manageable mobile, APIs
  Explanation: With all the new structures the new market and so on we need better tools to still be able to manage it all. While CCP did streamline it I think there is still some room for improvement.

• 0.0 / Structures / Newbies
  No wishlist, as everything is in motion atm. I want to be part of the process and - if you look at the other points I made - want to see CCP include good management tools and better options for individualising the player structures and the occupied space. This naturally includes a streamlined sov process, useful structures and perhaps we will even get answers as to CCP's future plans concerning POSes and stations.
  What I want to add is that I wholeheatedly support the idea of NRDS (Not Red Don't Shoot) as it is practiced in ProviBloc, as this allows new players to get out into 0.0 without having to declare for one of the powerblocs and still be able to rat, mine and experience Nullsec.
  I think that NRDS is important as part of the player-provided "New Player Experience" and most of the actual powerblocs do have roots in Providence - for exactly that reason.

 

4. Why have you decided to run for CSM this year

In hindsight it started when CCP took the EVE Wiki offline. It felt like they deleted part of the player history. Just like that. It was outdated, had a lot of misleading information in it, but also stories, edit wars, alliance descriptions, war accounts, maps and other interesting stuff that is part of EVE’s rich history. (...) When I asked about EVE history and the deletion of the EVE-wiki at Evesterdam last year, I got the feeling that there weren’t any concrete plans. I think that the player content is not sufficiently factored into CCPs plans for redesigning EVE and I want to be there to remind them to look at what’s there and also use it.

- See more at: http://evenews24.com/2017/02/17/eve-history-deleted-or-meant-to-stay/

Now is the best time for that as a lot of the topics will be up in the changes during CSM12.

 

5. 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, this is my first run.

 

6. What makes you a unique representative when you compare yourself to other candidates?

We all care for EVE, want to play the game for a long time to come. Most of the candidates are good, they are like different - unique - flavors. If you like mine, put me on the ballot.

 

7. Do you have any out of game experience and skills that make you a good candidate?

A lot of soft skills I picked up the hard way, good people skills, IT and History knowledge - believe me, it helps (although sometimes not - you have to suppress the urge to hit people’s heads with a history book...)

 

8. What areas of EVE are you weakest at knowledge wise?

Wonderful Wormholes.

 

9. If you were offered unlimited development time - what's the biggest change you would lobby for in EVE?

Make it a real living universe with endless integration and cross-game-possibilities for players and game designers alike… (much more fun than eliminating all those old code bases and bugs)

 

10. If you could wind back the clock - what feature or change would you remove from EVE?

The infamous POS-Code…

 

11. If you could pick one candidate to be elected with you who would they be and why?

I would pick Jin’taan - he did a great job with csm12 and also communicated a lot - something that is equally important.

 

12. What is your favorite memory in EVE and why?

I think the first few month in low sec - we were a little corp, freshly war dec’ed - and we learned as we went along. We were all glued to our keyboards and had a lot of fun… it really energized the corp.  the only other time I had that much fun was during the Provi-war of 2013.

 

13. 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.)

For starters Twitter @GeckoHareka / for walls of text: geckobase@gmail.com

 

14. 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 would start with the article “EVE History – Deleted or Meant to Stay?!”, where I also list my reasons for running this year: 

For my stance concerning new players and how to allow them experiences in 0.0 I would recommend the slightly dated articles on NRDS as it is practised in Provi-Bloc:

The mysterious workings of ProviBloc 01
The Mysterious Workings of Provibloc 02 – Redux

For German-Speakers there is a podcast-interview by the guys from EvePodcast.de.

I also got mentioned in a nice round up by cosmo.

This is the link to my EVE Forum Post with more detailed information.  

And I hope to be on “Talking in Stations” and the “Mind Clash Podcast” if we ever find a time when one of us is not asleep or busy - so look out for that, too - hopefully.

Oh and in general check out CSM-Wire for candidate-infos.

 

15. What is your closing statement (no more than 500 words please!)

I know the CSM-members cannot magically cook up new features but I will try to remind CCP of the topics i mentioned, so that they think about integrating them in a way while cooking up new stuff...

I think that there are a lot of different topics that are important - but that the next CSM will give a lot of feedback on the specific topics I mentioned. And if they don’t get factored in now, we can wait another 10 years for the next chance.

So I would really appreciate it, if you could put me on your list - right after your fav. alliance candidate or best friend - because every second vote counts!