Gustav Mannfred for CSM 19 - Vote the Old Arena & Proving Grounds (again)

Council Of Stellar Management CSM Campaigns
1

Eve Story:

I started playing on March 21, 2009. In the early times I did mainly PVE stuff such as mission running and exploration. Later, I dipped into PVP. In 2015, I joined a nullsec corp for the first time. It was in pureblind. I did nullsec ratting sites and pve there. In 2016 to 2018, I lived in providence as a neutral person. In 2018, CVA lost control over Provi and then I went back to hi sec . I did FW PVP from time to time, but focused on missions and exploration again. I did wormhole daytripping. In fall 2018, I did Level 5 missions for the first time and made quite some money out of them. In December 2018, after the old arena came out, I got deeply into abyssal related stuff. The old arena was probably the best content I ever got in EVE. I made some friends there, and one of them lead me into TEST. I joined Dreddit in Summer 2019 and ran abyssal arenas together with my friend there. 2019 is also the year I started streaming. The old arena was best suited for it.

In Summer 2020, after the old arena closed, I moved again back to Hi sec, doing mostly missions (Lvl 5 specifically) and other stuff. It is also the time the request for the old arena was born. Towards the end of 2020 and in early 2021, motivation to play EVE went to an all time low, but with the arena events getting better in spring 2021 and T6 Abyssals, it became better towards summer 2021. After that time, it was mostly switching between Abyssal PVE and the arena events. In summer 2021 I did my first community event to celebrate one year request to bring back old arena (link). I did another issue of this event in summer 2022, and it got promoted by CCP in the community beat and I was able to do parts of it on the CCP Twitch channel. In 2023, the request to bring the old arena back got a little buddy: The request to bring back the proving grounds as well. In that time I did mostly Frigate abyssal multibox content and sometimes PVP in low/nullsec. In 2024, I did my first streams where I used my mic and came back to level 4 mission running and exploration content.

Expertise areas:

I have expertise in most areas of the game, this includes a variety of PVE and PVP activity. But mostly it is Abyssals, Events, Proving grounds/arena and missions, as well as exploration.
Ships & Modules are also a part of my expertise.

What sets me apart from other candidates is that I have some expertise in many parts of the game, with the exception of industry (I know how to use a blueprint, thats it!).

Why run for CSM:

Because I want to help develop this game. I have been playing for 15 years and I wanna feel involved into it. The CSM came more to my attention in summer 2020 when the old arena was taken away, and now even more with the Proving Grounds beeing no longer around.

What to expect:

I will bring up whatever you bring up to me. I will also try to communicate as much as possible with the community and with respect to the NDA. I will listen to people.

Contact:

Twitch: Twitch
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxUDvUwON_oX6RXqSbXqvRg
Discord: Discord

Changes I want so see (example):

Most important: Returning the old arena & Proving Grounds (Not negotiable!)

  • continuing the events (The Hunt, Guardians Gala, Empire days), they should be more than pack sales!
  • rebalancing all modules to make faction/officer modules useful and not just more expensive versions of deadspace modules, faction guns should be worth fitting, the specialisation skill should affect all modules with meta level higher than 5.
  • Finding ways to reduce botting, RMT and hacking
  • Reworking the escalation system from anomalies (accessing the sites and the escalations itself)
  • Rebalancing DED complexes
  • New abyssal weathers where the Gila wont dominate, a “turret dark” abyssal site
  • Mutaplasmids for more modules, such as remote repairers and dps support modules like guidance computers
  • Changes to bring mineral prizes down to make T1 ships and capitals cheaper and more affordable
  • Improving Customer Support

Old Arena & Proving Ground Forum posts:

If you don’t know what the arena & proving grounds were:

9 Likes
2

Hey Gustav,

Since you mentioned multiboxing, what is your stance on it? Setting CCP financial incentives aside, do you feel it is in a healthy state? In abyssal space it is capped by its mechanics, do you feel it should be limited also outside of it, if so, how?

Follow-up question: how many omega accounts do you have?

1 Like
3

Make sure that you also ask about the number of multiple character training pilots on those omega that are also active.

4

Multiboxing is good as long as it is done with brain. If imput broadcasting and botting becomes the case, then it is not good. This affects stuff like pochven sites or homefronts.

The solution would not be to limit multiboxing, but rather rework these sites so that they are harder to multibox and require interaction between players.

I have 4 Omega accounts.

2 Likes
5

Thank you for the honest feedback!

Viel Erfolg!

1 Like
6

For those not familiar with the old arena and proving grounds, I made a video explaining them https://youtu.be/qZaczrWj5yI?si=3M2fPspRbfKUrIWK

1 Like
7

No we don’t need arenas, it’s not something most of the game uses, it was ended for a reason. Most players don’t want it. It’s not needed. It’s a niche thing.

2 Likes
8

It was ended for a reason we don’t know. Also, how would you explain that CCP planned 2 new arena events in January this year (1 year after the arena ended) when no one wants that?

Why are niche things bad for EVE? And when most players don’t want the arena, why were there a lot of players taking place in them and watching streams of them on Twitch?

2 Likes
9

Keep an eye out for the date and time of my CSM Interview.

On October 14 and 16 (99% sure) I do streams where I use my mic and talk about CSM related stuff, that is still before the voting period starts.

And as some people asked on Reddit or ingame, my campaign is not only about returning the arena as you see under the changes I want to see section, its also about other stuff.

10

@Gustav_Mannfred 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?

11

I dont know much about Vanguard, but sounds like an interesting idea.

The stack splitting is a good idea that should be implemented.

1 Like
12

O7 Gustav Mannfred,

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_Troopers’ thread was so weighty and knowledgable it teetered on the edge of collapsing into its’ 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 EVE’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 EVE’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, I’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 CCP’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 CCP’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. I’ll copy paste directly from your response to this post. Choose your goblet…. wisely.

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

13
  1. Botting mainly, there are a lot of bots around, be it in homefronts, low tier abyssals or FW. There must be something done.
  2. Just check FW and see a lot of Algoses that warp off when you enter the site. Check characters doing homefronts, some of them are new toons with similar character names.
  3. Possibly more limitations to Alpha clones, such as limiting the amount of normal skill injectors they can use, as well as some changes to the 1m skillpoints for accounts created using a referral link. That when you are alpha you get like 100k sp, but once you upgrade to omega you get the remaining 900k SP. A lot of these bots in Homefronts and FW are alpha clones
  4. There are a few others that have botting mentioned in their campaign posts.
  5. Most likely at the meetings we have, but as I am not yet on CSM and have never been, I don’t know how exactly that works yet.
1 Like
14

Thanks for answering, have you watched the EVE security team deep dives from previous EVE Fanfests?

If so, what is your take?

Best of luck in this years election.

15

I did not watch them, resp. I don’t remember them. In the past few fanfest I think these were just QA sessions where players can ask questions about that.

1 Like
16

Hi! Thank you so much for the interview!

2 Likes
17

Solid proposals and well communicated platform, happy to give my endorsement.

1 Like
18

3 days left to :ballot_box: Vote!

19

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?