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 started playing EVE mid 2013 after seeing a friend try it out on his stream. Within 3 days of playing I joined TEST as a newbro right the Fountain war was just kicking off, then left when they abandoned sov null entirely. I then went to fly with some friends I’d made in TEST in Insidious Empire <EMP> whom I flew with throughout the Halloween war. EMP disbanded in the fallout from B-R, and I ended up switching corp to TSK who I’d flown with a lot in EMP along with some other friends from old corp as we mutually decided to disband and go our seperate ways.

After a couple months doing our own thing in NPC Fountain fighting Li3, we joined Black Legion where I made a name for myself doing cynos, logistics, and eventually leading the alliance until it’s eventual disband in late 2015. Following BL TSK joined Psychotic Tendencies <TISHU> as we wanted to try out the low sec lifestyle. In TISHU we participated the low sec fights that led into WWB, got the first mercenary contract of WWB harassing SMA until it disbanded largely due to us, then played out the rest of WWB helping out PL. We made a name for ourselves using supercaps a ton right after the Citadel patch, but eventually disbanded due to personal disagreements. During my time in TISHU I got a lot more experience FCing since I’d been too busy to do so in BL due to other needful activities taking up my time.

Following this, I decided to go try out wormholes and after liquidating all of my supercap assets, I joined Hard Knocks and also left a couple alts in TSK who had now rejoined TEST and FC’d most of the large fights during the recent Tribute war against NC and later PL. After that war drew to a close, I decided that the big alliance thing still wasn’t my calling and moved my characters from TEST to Adversity who were now doing their own thing while blue to PL, all the while still participating in HK and getting to know wormholes. A couple weeks ago (from the time of writing), Adversity finally got into PL so my playtime is now roughly 50/50 split between this two groups.

I’d say my time in EVE could be best characterised as jumping from group to group who the phrase of “the flame that burns brightest burns shortest” is an apt description because that’s the kind of intensity that I enjoy when I play.

 

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

I think EVE is at its best when you write your own story. Groups where every man truly counts are the most fun and that’s who I represent. Harassers, Guerillas, etc. Anyone who looks at the tale of David and Goliath as a blueprint for how to play.

 

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

I don’t have a clear platform in terms of desires going forward because that isn’t how the CSM works. The CSM is a sounding board for CCP to bounce ideas off. However I’d submit my experience and posting as proof of my knowledge. However here’s a few beliefs I have that could roughly summarise where I stand:

• Capital Warfare is an interesting aspect of the game that should be encouraged but also have counters
• The null sec sovereignity system’s primary goal is create content, however in it’s current form it’s too focussed on the ownership aspect than the conflict aspect.

 

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

I’ve decided to run for CSM this year because I don’t see any other candidate who really represents those ideals. There’s something of a boom and bust cycle when it comes to coalitions, but the game right now is at an uncharacteristically large boom period right when major changes are happening and it’d hate to see the current situation cemented.

 

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.

I ran for CSM last year unsucessfully, coming in at 16th position.

 

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

There are other candidates who have the quality of experience if not more than I have, but none of them quite have the breadth. When you’ve been in a single corp or alliance for a year or two it becomes hard to see the game from any other perspective. However I’ve spent a ton of time in the past 2 years on both sides of the blob advantage, the capital advantage and the supercap advantage.

 

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

I’m a strong believer in the Dialectic, that there’s an objective truth best reached by constructively arguing positions against one another and comparing the reasoning behind them. Having had this attitude for a long time, I’m quite a friendly chap about it and can seperate the subject from the person. No matter how much I disagree with someone’s position, it doesn’t affect my ability to talk to or work with them. I think that social grease is critical when working from an angle of disagreement.

 

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

High Sec (the lifestyle, not the mechanics) and faction warfare. I have no experience with either of them and do my best to defer to people who do.

 

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

If jump mechanics are to stay as they are mechanically, even with numbers tweaks, I think we need to see a serious redesign of the map. There’s nothing wrong with the layout by gates, but there’s simply too much space as it stands. You also have regions like Fountain and Period Basis where vast swathes are useless for local geographic reasons, and then regions like Outer Ring and Great Wildlands that lie mostly empty.

 

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

I think the Phoebe jump changes were extremely poorly thought out and the ramifications it would have on the playerbase were unseen. The basic mechanics are okay, but the numbers need serious work. While these could be changed now and have been a little, the reason I’d point it as “rolling back the clock” is to reverse the huge numbers it caused to quit the game.

 

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

Noobman. None of the other wormhole candidates have even a fraction of the knowledge and experience he has. It’d be a shame to see W-space lack representation.

 

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

Mainly anything to do with BL and Dreads. They had a gung-ho attitude to throwing them around that made them the boogyman to anyone who abused supercaps. My favourite time would be when we dropped almost 100 dreads alongside nulli on a CFC titan fleet and killed an Erebus in late 2014.

 

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.)

Mainly Reddit, although i’m also on Discord, TweetFleet and have my blog. Jin’taan plans to set up a CSM communication discord open to the public if he’s re-elected this year. I’d be happy to participate in that or set it up myself in the event he doesn’t get re-elected this year.

 

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)

My CSM candidacy thread and my blog.

 

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

As I said earlier the CSM is a sounding board for CCP. Far too many candidates especially this year are running on a “platform” of getting x, y or z “done” or purely to represent a supposed voter bloc they’ve identified with. When CCP talk to the CSM, what they need are a diverse group of super knowledgeable and experienced players who can poke holes in their plans. That’s what I represent, and even if you don’t feel I represent you, pick someone else who does based on that understanding.