I have been clicking around here for a few days now and I cannot find anything that clearly outlines what exactly is the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). I have read a lot of brief opinions here and there about what they are and what they do, but seriously, this is the most basic information of all and I cannot find it in one clear official statement.
The main thing I would like here is a link to a page (if one exists) that clearly outlines and details the form and function of the CSM. At this point I have no real hope that such a page exists, and even doubts that such a clear statement of form and function exists anywhere but as some private company document. Of course I am also interested in the duties, privileges, powers, etc. of the Council.
Due to the possibility that there is no such page publicly available I am open to opinions about it all in the hopes that such a page or sticky will be created because seriously, this is the foundation for the entire deal.
I will say now that I will consider any talk of what the Council SHOULD be to be off topic. Please stick to what the Council IS in its present form and we can talk about change in a future thread.
Thank you Brisc Rubal! I was bouncing around in the forums and I think I even did a web search.
Still, all that is rather brief for me, especially this: "The role of a CSM member is to represent the player community in the development of EVE Online. " It pretty much ends there. Am I to take it that the actual only stated duty a CSM member has to the player community begins and ends with getting elected?
I see a lot of details concerning the relationship between CCP and CSM, but nothing beyond the above for the relationship between CSM and the player community. Are there no more formal guidelines/duties/expectations for how CSM is to be there representing us?
It’s really nothing more than a popularity contest and they get to be like the test audience for upcoming features and ideas. Individual CSM members take their in game identity and roll with it as a representative or sometimes they’re just a meme the goons wanted in, or the fourth best YouTuber. You get the idea.
They get flown to Iceland and have a direct conversation with developers. They gotta behave in regards to their NDA.
They have no real power or really influence either I guess. Someone else will have to fill you in on why we have a CSM, there was some bad drama back in the day.
I think the expectations are whatever the players have. Each member decides what they want to make of the job, and what they’re going to focus on while they’re on the CSM. I’m treating it like I would treat any other elected office - I make every meeting, go to every event I can, read and participate on the forums, reddit and in various discords, do the podcasts and shows as asked, pass on comments and concerns players send me, gather ideas and put them in a format to pass on to CCP, and generally try to be available both to the Devs and to the players. Going to be putting together some townhalls here shortly, as well.
Others do it differently, and there’s no right or wrong way to do it - although I guess the wrong way would be whatever way ends up with somebody not getting reelected if they run again.
It depends on who you ask. Some people say we have no influence, other people blame us for every bad idea the Devs have and try to implement. It depends on the day. I will say that I did not expect to have as much influence as we have had in the last few months when I first ran.
That being said, you’re right - it is a popularity contest. But that’s what every election is.
The CSM was created after a pretty bad scandal where a Dev was a member of a major alliance, and was caught spawning in game items (BPOs) to benefit that alliance. The result was a breakdown in trust between the players and CCP, and the CSM was created to provide players with a direct voice to the developers.
From kicking about it is obvious that you are here communicating/representing in what is the most obvious/logical place for a representative to do that…and I cannot think of any others and that is a bit of a problem if the goal of having CSM is to keep the player base feeling empowered/represented.
To be honest, I opened this thread in large part as a reaction to the Voter Apathy thread (as the lack of clarity of form/functions/process will create voter apathy). I just wanted something more constructive than I thought posting there would accomplish.
I think you overstated as CSM could never be a direct voice. I think you meant to say “Provide players with representatives who have a direct voice to the developers.” As such CSM appears to be in concept/sales pitch a funnel for the players to get ideas to the developers, while in practice (according to many) it , might be more like a cup to scream in and feel better just for doing it. And even if that’s true I understand why that would be and its because there is a lot more whinging from players to be read than constructive ideas in my experience. And even most of the constructive ideas don’t take into consideration the difficulties of implementation (including simply being appealing enough to the developers that they actually feel enthusiastic enough to do it).
I will also ask here, but is there a short list of the accomplishments of the CSM? I mean things that CSM proposed and was implemented by CCP? I found the minutes of meetings and are grateful for those, but they are not word for word, thus it would be difficult if not impossible for me to conclude what CSM proposed that got implemented.
Just look at all of the changes to the game since the election of the new CSM last May. Most of them came with input from the CSM. Many of the changes in the most recent releases, as was noted in the Dev Blogs, included stuff the CSM requested or pushed for.
I wish I could give you a direct “we asked for this, here’s what got implemented” but that’s NDA.
As a politician, what I would tell you is anything you liked that was changed since June was all me. If you didn’t like it, that was Sort Dragon’s fault.
I cannot see how that is possible in a strict sense since the minutes are there. If it was proposed and included in the (redacted and published) minutes, then it should be above board to post at least that information here. I myself could surely post a list of what I matched between proposals and actual changes from those minutes, even if the last one is from 2017.
What am I missing?
We have weekly meetings, we have off-line discussions with developers, and the minutes themselves don’t include every discussion we had because they’ve been redacted to exclude any NDA related stuff. Further, the Devs make the final decisions, after all, and how they implement those decisions is up to them. Me taking credit for all of that work is just inappropriate.
That being said, folks can look at the list of things that I campaigned on (that included fixing war decs, FAX nerfs, interceptor nerfs, among others) and the list of stuff that’s been done and do the math.
Any development team that doesn’t listen to the people playing their game is going to have problems. That the Devs are willing to listen to player representatives is a positive, not a negative.
It’s amazing how you worked that into my above statement, considering our biggest victory so far was getting the Devs to do something about war decs, which is primarily a highsec issue.
Nobody on the CSM is wasting their time trying to secure “big nullsec blocs’ dominance and safety.” First, CCP isn’t that stupid and they’re always on guard to make sure they aren’t getting played - it’s actually one of the biggest barriers to trust between CSM and CCP. Second, the big nullsec blocs don’t need to change game mechanics to dominate - they already do, primarily based on size and organization, and game mechanics changes generally don’t help or hurt them as they’re big enough to adapt to whatever happens.
It’s really tiresome to hear the same old conspiracy theories being trotted out over and over again.
Thanks again for the responses. In no way do I feel that mentioning specific CSM suggestions which were implemented would be taking credit. That would be like suggesting my wife bake a pie and when she does, people exclaim what a wonderful pie I baked. I don’t think that would happen. I think we all know who does the actual work. That said I won’t poke at you any more over it but I will just say its unfortunate as I think a clear list of successful suggestions would GREATLY boost faith in the CSM (not that I am in any position to gauge current faith).
I find that MOST unfair. Its akin to saying "Why didn’t you just do what you know what I wanted you to do?..even though I never told you. " I get sick of that enough IRL from a certain gender (sigh). CCP could come up with a boat load of ideas I am sure, but, just assuming the customers would be completely pleased with that would be a pretty stupid business model.
And how you arrived at your second claim is a mystery to me.
I agree, and that’s one of the reasons why I wish we could relax things a bit or have CCP specifically note when something is introduced that was CSM suggested or influenced. Hopefully we can still work in that direction.
When it comes to faith, that’s of secondary concern. CCP wants a CSM, regardless of whether the players do, so they’re going to keep doing it and they’ve made that clear. This is why the guys who run on a platform of “end the CSM” never get qualified to actually run.
Don’t bother arguing with Tipa. He’s one of the guys who follows me around screaming.
I think CSM would be a tough job.