Who is Winter?
My Eve journey actually started 6 months before I started playing. A good friend of mine saw an opportunity for a video game to help his friend. He pushed me to play and I shrugged him off. Until one day, he said he was coming over for the weekend and that I better have the game downloaded. After that moment, after the countless Eve promotional videos he had sent me, it was here that I was hooked.
I logged in and started doing what everyone in Eve does - the starter missions. Within the first week of that, I was bored to hell. Within that first six months, my friend told me that Eve was what you made of it. The story was yours to create and you could become whatever you wanted to.
So I decided to become a space pirate and shamelessly started stealing mission runners loot and from jet can miners in HS. This unfortunately did not sit well with the newbean HS corp I was in. They politely had a conversation with me, asked me to leave, and helped me find a new corp that more fit my play style.
So naturally, I found myself in a WH corp which was where all the cool pirates hung out in back in the day. The vets quickly became my mentors and pushed me to not just play in WHs or learn game mechanics but to experience aspects of the game which caught my interest, such as my first Hulkagedon. It was from here that I first started learning about corp politics and intel gathering from, my humble opinion, one of the best teachers I could have had.
During this time I became more involved in the player community. Eve is and always will be for me a social game. So I spent countless hours with the Eve Radio community, the incursion community, and other communities such as NPSI fleets and newbean help groups. During this, I got to know the people who played the game. The stories and adventures that other people had inspired me. I was fascinated by their various tales of conquests, defeat, and epic battles. It was here during many late night conversations that I learned that the community made the game.
Since then, I moved onto LS and follow my heart. So I became a pirate living in what I considered was one of the most dangerous systems in Eve - Rancer. This was home. I realized here that my influence could be used to inspire others. I developed a sense of finding others with similar goals to mine. In helping others reach their goals, I was achieving my own. This idea has become a fundamental one in my current play style and how I approach problems and dealing with other players.
Finally, I have once again found a home in null. I am currently a member of Slyce. (Glory to the CR3W!) Most of the things I am involved with here must remain Opsec. Needless to say, I hold a unique position within my corporation and alliance and have influence.
I have held various positions within every group I have been a part of. Those titles include FC, moderator, diplomat, alliance director, and corp director. The groups I have been involved in include the incursion community, NPSI groups, newbean groups, B4R, Eve Radio, and more.
Why do you want to be a CSM?
That answer is easy. To give back to a community that has given me so much.
A year ago my corp mates suggested that I run for CSM. I thought that they were joking at the time. However, they saw in me something that had been developed during the course of several years - the ability to reach out and communicate with others, to get others involved in a game and community I so dearly love, to make the impossible a reality, and to engage others in ways that make them feel involved. Basically, they see in me a leader whereas I see me as just being myself.
There has always been a constant though. I have always been willing to step up when needed.
My focus as CSM is the retention of old players (those that are playing and others that are not), getting new players into the game, and creating an environment that keeps our content creators from burning out.
What do you want to do as CSM?
Okay. So enough of the flowery speech. This is what I want to do, change, and influence.
Point 1 - Make UI changes that allow corporation, alliance, and coalition leaders to better manage their prospective groups.
Our leaders spend an unimaginable amount of time on administrative things and not enough time playing. These are our content creators and the people who help us play the game. Letās get CCP to make their jobās easier! Suggestions include:
- Adding things like alliance and coalition BMs and ship fittings.
- Being able to search through eve mails by text or sender.
- Being able send eve mails to specific corporations in an alliance or coalition.
- Share DScans without alt tabing.
- Streamline applications to coalitions and alliances.
- Streamline corporation roles.
- Setting up alliance taxes (as a flat rate or percentage).
- Having contact lists within eve mails.
Letās free up the content creatorsā time so that they can actually create content!
Point 2 - Give new players influence and power through a change in the bounty system.
Letās face it. The bounty system is broken and has been broken since I started playing. So we as a player base have two options. Either CCP fixes this or we will step up as a player base and do it together. And yes, I will use my position as CSM to get this done.
Point 3 - Promote content creators who fall outside of the traditional corporation, alliance, and coalition roles.
I have two idea for this.
- In-game rewards.
- Since communication is everything, a better system to promote their events.
Point 4 - Make an in-game instructional video for new players on some of the more technical aspect of the game (like grouping drones, etc).
Letās give the people who reach out to the newbean community opportunities to actually spend time with them other than just explaining how to do things.
How do I get in touch with you?
My in-game channel is ā.Serious Business.ā Eve mail me. Open a convo. Seriously, I will listen and reply.
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