DutchGunner for CSM 19 - Highsec, Pochven, Lore and more

Council Of Stellar Management CSM Campaigns
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Hello and thank you for wanting to learn more about me as a CSM candidate.

I am running for CSM because the numerous sub-cultures and environments of EVE are so deeply intertwined, I feel it is vitally important to have a CSM consisting of representatives from all parts of the wider community and that it should have members with different backgrounds.

As such I would like to put myself forward, citing my wealth of experience and expertise in Highsec, Drifter Wormholes and Pochven gameplay; further, my wealth of knowledge on the games Lore coupled with my experience leading PVP and PVE fleets means that I can draw on 21 years of involvement with the EVE Online community.

The complex and interconnected nature of EVE means that the smallest change in one environment can have a massive impact on other areas of the universe; and by making sure that CSM 19 is made up of diverse voices within the community, I believe we can help make sure that the balance of risk, reward and effort is not only maintained but improved for all players.

My EVE Online story
I have been playing this game since July 2003 and EVE is my first MMO and the only one that still has me hooked after all these years. During the many years Iā€™ve been playing Iā€™ve spend years in highsec, lowsec and nullsec and enjoyed it all. I have also lived in WH space for a little while but quickly realised that it wasnā€™t for me. As for Pochven? I think the region has a lot to offer but I will probably remain a day-tripper or tourist who will be ā€œjust visitingā€ as I have not sided with the pro-Triglavians at the time.

It was during the Triglavian invasions that I really found my niche within the game and made a name for myself. I started to run public fleets on behalf of the Arataka Research Consortium (ARC) to help people experience the new content and what it had to offer. At the same time we were openly trying to figure out the backstory and go over the lore to discusswhat would come next. Something I still love to do today.

After Pochven was created I learned from others about the mechanics behind Drifters and their doomsdays in the Drifter Hives and started to experiment to see if they also applied to the Drifters in Pochven. This turned out to be the case and I wrote a guide about how you can dodge their doomsdays and give the information needed for others to to come up with their own doctrines and approach. I focussed on getting the info out there that you donā€™t have to spend a lot of isk on expensive fittings and implants to make it work. If you are interested, you can read the manual here .

All of this resulted in me becomming part of the leadership of ARC for several years. Because I have started to participate in the AT as a mercenary and running for the CSM I had decided to step down from ARC leadership last year. It was not an easy decision but I know it was the right one as this will ensure the scientific focus of the ARC community and avoid any misconceptions of insider knowledge and/or favouritism from CCP if I am elected. I still consider the ARC community my home though and I still run public fleets on its behalf.

My areas of expertise
As mentioned above, I have been an active member of this community for 21 years; in which, I have been able to get a broad understanding for a lot of different areas in the game. This means that I, like others, have a solid understanding of goals, playstyles and issues many players face, and it allows me to quickly understand the (unique) challenges different groups are faced with when changes are made to the game.

What I feel sets me apart from others who have been with us as long; is my experience in the mechanics and gameplay of Pochven, Drifters (-9.9 standing, so close yet so far), LowSec and HighSec and caring about the lore. You truelly end up with a unique combination of knowledge and experience from engaging with and understanding high-end PVE content, PVPVE content and community or story driven events.

All of the above has made me deeply familiar with the delicate equilibrium between making sure we have fun and challenging content; and making sure, that said content balances play-and-counter-play between (groups of) players. This balance is vital to avoid overly rewarding one over the others with regard to those who wish to run, contest, or just disrupt that area of the game.

What you can expect from me
While I have not been on the CSM before you can expect me to:

  • Actively pay attention to and follow up on whatā€™s happening with EVE and things that are brought up by you the players, either through Discord, the official EVE forums, reddit and direct messages.

  • I will (as always) pay close attention to ensuring that there is a good balance between risk, effort and reward; both for specific content and/or areas in the game, and how that content effects other components of the wider game.

  • I will be there to represent all of you no matter your background; to listen to feedback and input, regardless of how you play the game, and how long you have been playing it. Be you alpha or omega.

  • I will work together with the other CSM members, to reach out amongst our communities, to help make connections, share expertise and collect your input. All in order to provide well rounded and constructive feedback, or if needed critique to CCP.

  • I also want to work together with the other CSM members to provide regular updates on the CSMs work, within the limits of the NDA.

Areas of the game that deserve attention
I believe that the following things deserve attention within the game, regardless of the development focus from CCP:

  • Keep going with the story driven delivery of content;
  • Have the right balance of risk, effort and reward for those who wish to run, contest or disrupt
    PVPVE content;
  • Further establish The Deathless as a unique faction, along with Zarzakh and the Fulcrum;
  • The awoxing within the sites of insurgencies and FW;
  • The current unbalance between defending and using the Skyhook and raiding them;
  • The Triglavian LP store;
  • The World Ark Assault Vector site in Pochven.
  • The big bottleneck to being able to gather LP for EDENCOM;

Media section

6 Likes
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hey dutchgunner, nice to have you hereā€¦

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Do you think that CCP should return the proving grounds, as well as other events like the hunt or guardians gala?

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Whatā€™s your take on the recent Drifter siege on Zarzakh?

What connections do you believe there are to the initial emergence of the drifters, their focus around the old second Jove Empire outposts and the strikingly similarity to the architecture of the Fulcrum.

One other interesting question surrounding the Drifter lore that seems to be resurfacing after all these years. Why did The Other choose Jamyl Sarum for their plans?

5

Happy to be here. Good luck with your CSM run

I enjoy the seasonal and proving grounds events and I would love to see them return. I do believe that bringing them back will require considerable development time and resources to maintain and I prefer they focus on the further iteration on Nullsec, The Deathless and insurgencies for now. Once those are in a good spot, and there is room to review bringing back the seasonal and proving grounds events, I would happily support and push for it.

None of these questions are really CSM related as it is completely up to CCP on how they want the story to develop and what agency they give us players in it. I will gladly give ideas and suggestions but in the end it is all up to CCP and not really what the CSM is about. I am just very happy that CCP is making more use of the lore and embraced the story driven delivery of content.

The Horizon Siege Point sites were a lot of fun but they certainly needed a better balance with regards to the risk, effort and reward. I felt that the officer modules were too much of a reward and the sites had the right difficulty level if it was just a PVE site. However as it was PVPVE content, you had to keep applying nearly all of the fleet damage on the structure in the later waves to not run out of time and fail the site. This meant that it would not take a lot of efforts or pilots to be disruptive enough with ecm to cause the site to time out.

If a group of players was just out for blood or disruption, they only had to enter the site and start killing the players running the site as they also have the incomming and spread damage from the NPCā€™s to deal with. The warp disruption field would also help the attackers and once the site had timed out, the field would be gone and the attackers would to be in the clear.

Concentrating all sites in just 4 systems with 2 in nullsec and 2 in FW and insurgency space opened the door for any large group to mostly monopolize the sites in their choosen system. Something Snuffed Out and Deepwater Hooligans capitalized on in Lowsec and good on them for doing it.

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I agree that itā€™s of course, completely up to CCP, on how they wish the story to develop. Thatā€™s of course provided they remain dedicated to including the actions players have -on- the story. While on one hand, I agree that CSM has never really focused on much of the story related content, and has always been more of a think tank in regards to mechanics and feature rollout. I also feel this is a potentially overlooked aspect of the game as whole. EVE Lore has always been very rich and in depth, in no small part due to the actions of players that have followed along and participated over the years.

Unfortunately the number of players that choose to partake in that aspect of the game seems to have dwindled over the years, almost to a minority fraction of the overall player base outside of ā€œeventā€ interaction.

Which leads me to my next point, and why I brought the topics up in the first place.

Story driven delivery of content is only truly enjoyed by those wishing to engage in said content. We all understand the story has been a train of sorts by which to cannonize new features, but aside from being fluff for those that remain interested, it seems the story matters little to the majority of players that interact with whatever event is tied to a feature roll-out.

What sort of things would you suggest as ideas to encourage more players to remain invested in the story as a whole?

For example, what are your thoughts on the idea of something like a null bloc being capable of declaring war on one of the empires? That sort of intermesh of story content and player content could be a massive potential for emergent gameplay in ways never seen before in New Eden.

Back to the initial questions I asked, and why I asked them in the first place. The lore of the game may matter to only a small portion of the player base, but that portion of the player base knows of your involvement in the lore over the years, so would it not stand to reason that your opinion or perspective on the lore would be of reasonable concern to a potential voter interested in what you have to say on the topic? Even if they arenā€™t directly CSM related.

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CCP is well aware of the potential and added value of the lore in EVE and the story driven delivery of content. Otherwise CCP would not have hired new writers to help and support Delegate Zero.

When it is fitting and appropriate, CCP will acknowledge, mentions and build upon the actions, reactions and interactions of players. At the same time people can fully enjoy the game and not miss out on anything when they ignore the lore or story driven delivery of content. I think this is an amazing feat and how it should be as one of the core aspects of EVE is that there is no single way to play or enjoy the game.

This is what FW is for.

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@DutchGunner Do you support hiring (EVE Vanguard) Warclone Mercenaries as an attack/defense vector in Capsuleer conflicts? Like attacking/defending Planetary Infrastructure, Skyhooks/POCOs and Upwell Structures?

As a CSM would you try and pitch for CCP to make stack multi-split (splitting a stack of items into multiple stacks of same size in one go instead of just on split at a time) happen?

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Switch 4 and your candidature are almost identical. Why should the average lowsec enjoyer vote for you instead of Switch 4?

Do you know something about highsec ganking?

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O7 Dutch Gunner,

Last year I asked eight questions and then compiled the answers into a huge mega-thread. It was massive. With the exception of MILINT_ARC_Trooper, no one had a thread bigger than mine, to be fair MILINT_ARC_Troopersā€™ thread was so weighty and knowledgable it teetered on the edge of collapsing into itsā€™ own core.

That catalogue of replies is now a time-capsule and encapsulated within are the hopes and disappointments that CSM 18 candidates considered worth speaking about during the year of EVEā€™s 20th anniversary.

The responses gave voters en masse an opportunity to test and compare each hopeful CSM 18 candidates commitment to their claims of being community oriented, knowledgable, responsive and representative of player values. Given that the CSM does not directly control any aspect of EVEā€™s development and that the successful candidates are those that can identify existing and future consequences, co-operate with other CSM members, and communicate issues -from a player perspective- to CCP staff one-to-one, Iā€™ve formulated a set of questions designed to seperate the compressed ORE from the Long-Limb Roes in this years election race.

Year-on-year the Independent Representatives, Solo players with single accounts, Worm Holers, Triangle People, Semi-nomadic Role-Playing Sandbox Explorers, and Salvagers, have been organising and gaining traction against the self-secure Null-Bloc Empire Candidates and their vast hordes of leather-skinned, evil, flying-monkeys. More-and-more players are choosing to vote in members they believe can positively impact CCPā€™s approach to the game regardless of their in-game affiliations.

Exposure matters, who are you, what is your clue?
As was the process last year I will post each candidates reply in a super thread, first-in first-served.

This years questions:

  1. What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCPā€™s attention?

  2. What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?

  3. What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?

  4. What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?

  5. How will you present your findings to CCP?

If you have already identified and spoken about a problem in your CSM candidacy bio at the top of this thread feel free to copy pasta that response where applicable. Iā€™ll copy paste directly from your response to this post. Choose your gobletā€¦. wisely.

Let the games begin, and may the odds ever be in your favour.

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I would say that Dutch is more focused on lore and interacting with NPCs than just pure PVP that Switch 4 seems to stand for. From my perspective, Dutch really specializes with fighting Drifters, be that with Pochven, Drifter Holes, or the latest siege of Zarzakh.

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This is something that sounds really awesome, but I do see several things that need to be taken into consideration before it could be implemented. One of the biggest thing is the resources it will take to link and maintain the databases of both games and how EVE Vanguard can be itā€™s own game within the EVE Universe instead of a FPS aspect of EVE Online. Another big hurdle is going to be safeguards to avoid it being gamed/exploited to make sure only a very select few get to become dominant and unassailable.

This seems like a solid option for quality of life improvements. However I would like to know more about the background for this request and itā€™s application to determine where it would list compared to other QOL improvements and their benefits and implimentation requirements.

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The great thing about the CSM election is that itā€™s not a zero-sum thing. There are 10 slots on every ballot so people donā€™t have to limit themselves to just a single candidate. I always recommend people to put the person they want to be on the CSM the most at their #1 spot and fill the other slots with other candidates they want to see on the CSM and put them in order of who they think can use the votes the most. By filling in the 10 slots on your ballot that way, you get the best shot at electing a CSM that is closest to what you want to see.

There are bound to be multiple candidates during an election who have been playing EVE for a long time, with an overlap in experience. If you feel that candidates are very simular, look at their interviews and interactions. Being on the CSM means building relations with departments and individual Devs within CCP and the player communities. Pick the candidate who you feel can do that best in order to help make EVE grow.

Looking at the campaign post of Switch 4 I see several differences. I am focussed at working together with CCP and the CSM and provide my expertise with regard to Highsec, Pochven, Lore with story delivery of content and the higher-end of PVE such as the Drifter Wormholes and the recent Horizon Siege Points. I am not pushing for that specific agenda or prioritizing issues specificly tied to them.

I believe that, based on the recent expansions, CCP picks an aspect of the game to expand upon and then further iterate upon it for a while. That means itā€™s no longer a big expansion with minor changes before switching to the next expansion. Instead it has become a process of tweaks, reviews and smaller expansions over time. As example: two years ago it was about FW and insurgencies and this year the focus is on Nullsec.

Focussing on one part of the game can result in a mismatch if it doesnā€™t allign with the development cycle. A candidate who understands this and wants to add their expertise to bring up potential issues or unbalanced situation with their area of expertise with regards to what CCP is developing will be more effective. I know that with regards to this, Iā€™m a good match.

In the end though, people can cast their vote how they want and if they choose they put me on their ballot, Iā€™m thankfull for their vote, regardless on where on the ballot I am.

And yes I am familiar with highsec ganking. I have lost ships to it in the past and Iā€™m sure I will lose the occasional ship in the future. After all, if people want to blow your ship up they 100% will. As long as they put in the effort. Being ganked may make it look simple but I know from talking to people who occasionally gank, it takes effort to set up a succesfull gank and to find the right target. I feel that itā€™s in an ok spot right now between gankers and their targets when it comes to the balance of play and counter play between the two.

1 Like
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I will answer this question from my area of expertise and say that iterations on and balancing content is something the game is in dire need of.

I can provide multiple examples. When the seagulling in Pochven was adressed, it only applied to the sites in Pochven. Seagulling can still be done to the observatory flashpoints within Empire space. And instead of leaving room for play and counter play by forcing players to be within a certain range like 100km from the objective, it was made a zero-sum gain that resulted in the current stale meta.

Another great and recent example is the change to the Skyhook where the balance was massively tipped in favor of the owner. Just going for 50-50 but be raidable 23/7 or every day within a 1 hour timeframe would have been fair. But not the current state.

Finally I want to point out the balance in PVPVE. You have the World Ark Assault Vector in Pochven and the Horizon Siege Points near Zarzakh where the PVE in the site is very challenging for people to run and it only takes a little effort with ECM ships to break the fleet that is running the site or when you enter the site to attack the people running the site the odds are disproportionately in favor of the attackers.

When making changes, make sure they are applied across the game and if you want to keep introducing PVPVE mechanics, make sure that those who want to run the content or disrupt or attack those who run the content are in a comparable position with regard to risk, effort and reward.

The World Ark Assault Vectors rarely get run and with the Horizon Siege Points and this is something that the Pochven candidates can confirm and CCP will have statistics on.
As for the Horizon Siege Points, a few big groups could monopolize the sites by pushing others out of the sites by killing them or make sure they could never complete the sites. That too will be confirmed by data that CCP has access too and what others who have interacted with this content can confirm.

By collecting and combining feedback from other players, collect and analyze data and statistics to strenghten the findings and present it calmly and clearly to CCP to explain and pinpoint the issues in order for it to get iterated on or taken into account with future content.

A good example of the latter is that with the Horizon Siege Points, only people within 100km of the objectives would qualify for sharing in the rewards for running/clearing the site. This limited the options for seagulling and adressed one inbalance for that content.

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Thank you so much for coming out to talk to myself and my viewers about your campaign as well as you thoughts on rookies and community! Hereā€™s the interview link.

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Links to all my interviews have been added to the origiginal posts.

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Here, I explained my reason in more details:

If there was something like this available,

kits like the kite described earlier above would be ubiquitous and more :slight_smile: You could support it too, if you get elected :stuck_out_tongue:

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I can see the value in that QOL change and I do support it being implemented. But as mentioned in my original answer, that will be weighed against what would be needed to implement it vs other QOL improvements.

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The voting period for CSM 19 (2024) has ended. Now we have to wait for CCP to announce the 10 CSM members that are elected and what 2 additional candidates CCP has chosen.

Hopefully the election process and the results will be streamed by CCP, but we will have to wait for any official announcements.

Thank you to all who have voted, regardless of who you have voted for!

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I am asking all CSM candidates
Fighting against toxicity is a strong case, as it comes with the territory of gaming -everywhere-

However. How would you handle a hypothetical stalemate wherein both parties are believe the other to be toxic, but only one party can really be telling the truth.

But then again, truth is based on the perspective of the perceiver.

How would you handle this?