Twitter: @bomberjayne
Website: Spectre Fleet: The Content Machine
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With the starting of the new year, I am proud to announce my candidacy for CSMX.
My name is Jayne Fillon, and I've been playing this wonderful game without pause since early 2012. Like many, the sandbox nature of EVE was overwhelming to me at first, and I struggled to find my place in New Eden. After a very brief stint in highsec running missions, I joined a small PvP corp in Syndicate, only to be robbed soon after joining. From there, I tried to start my own wormhole corp, which failed early on. Finally, I moved onto lowsec where I tried, unsuccessfully, to become a mercenary.
At this point I was on the verge of quitting the game, and would have, had I not found the NPSI community.
My love for the NPSI community started over two years ago - eight months after I started playing - and I have not looked back since. My experience flying NPSI helped me learn how to PvP and eventually led me to become a fleet commander. Before I knew it, I was the CEO of a successful PvP corporation - and from there, I founded a completely new NPSI channel called “Spectre Fleet,” where I spend most of my time.
My Eve story is far from unique - I've heard countless stories just like it.
Unfortunately, unlike mine, these stories often end with “I was on the verge of quitting the game, and then I did.”
Out of all the the things NPSI showed me, the most important was the need to be engaged in what you do. Playing this game alone is not enough, you have to be an active participant within the community to truly experience Eve. The community as a whole is what makes this game fun, it’s why we stay. The community is the sole reason why we still log in despite no shortage of other games to entertain us.
Despite all this, the tools players have to facilitate forming groups and playing together are severely lacking.
Thankfully, CCP is aware of these complaints and are actively taking steps to address the current issues.
Last year, during the FanFest keynote speech, CCP Seagull outlined Eve Online’s development roadmap. There were two main focuses during 2014: Industry (released with Crius), as well as a redesign of corporations and alliances. The latter topic was discussed during the summer summit with CSM9, and the details were published in the meeting minutes later that year. The twelve page section covering Team Five-O’s meeting with CSM9 placed the scale and difficulty of this project into perspective:
“Fozzie explained that CCP had their external testing partner come in and map out corporations and alliances. The information was so thick and obscure that there were things no one knew about. [...] The partner company has produced a one hundred and five page document [...] that explains the current corporation and alliance system and how it relates to the rest of Eve.”
Unsurprisingly, during the Eve Vegas keynote speech in October, a new development roadmap was released, listing the redesign of corporations as an ongoing project. This means that whether you like it or not, redesigning corporations has become a priority for CCP, and will be the precursor to both sovereignty warfare and starbase management. This is an important project. This project will lay the foundation of future releases and development, and it goes beyond just corporations and alliances...
Whether it’s been called “Corp Lite” by CSM9 Funkybacon or “Social Groups” by CSM9 Mangala Solaris , there is a need for something more than what the traditional corporation structure can provide. There are a myriad of groups operating all over New Eden who operate outside of the current corporation and alliance mechanics: nullsec SIGs, highsec incursion groups, roleplayers and lore aficionados, gankers and anti-gankers, podcasters, traders, bloggers, and of course the NPSI communities themselves.
None of these groups operate in game with anything other than a chat channel and a mailing list.
There is literally nothing else in game for these groups to use, and this needs to change.
The list of things that could (and should) be either tweaked or completely redesigned is rather substantial, but I'm confident that with my experience both as a corporate CEO and leader of the largest channel based community in the game, I can help CCP make the right decisions. If you are a part of any of the communities I listed above you should know that your most vocal advocate on the current CSM, Mangala Solaris, has elected not to run for another term. Let me be your voice in his stead, and help CCP create an Eve that promotes and encourages social interaction, building a stronger Eve community.
Cheers,
Jayne