Kyle Aparthos
Twitter: None
Greetings to all of New Eden,
My name is Kyle Aparthos, and I have finally made the decision to run for CSM XI.
As some of you who read TMC may know, I have been writing and publishing columns about the state of EVE Online for some time. Where we were, how we got to where we are, and where we might go from here. If you haven't read any of those, and you're still interested in what I have to say by the time we get to the end of this post, then here are a couple examples.
To condense a whole lot of long-winded writing into a few short statements: I am a deputy diplomat (among other things) for Spacemonkey's Alliance, a member of the Imperium coalition. My roles have ranged from a simple conflict resolver, to a middle-manager, to an administrator, to a space politician. Over the course of my career I have gained a fair bit of insight into group interaction, as well as how medium and large groups have reacted to the changes to EVE over the last year.
My experience has led me to believe in two things:
- That player agency, both at the level of the individual and the group, is the single most important aspect of EVE.
- That player agency can only be enhanced through both "little things," and broad, sweeping alterations to the game.
As a result, when I examine announced changes to EVE, my primary concern is how groups of players will react to these changes. The human element, as it were. I feel very strongly that many members of our community have focused too heavily on analyzing these changes from a mechanical perspective only - how the mechanics fit into one another and trying to make the people fit into the mechanics, rather than give equal weight to both the mechanics and the players using them.
Because of this belief, I am basing my campaign on the notion that player cooperation is the mainstay of EVE, be it in huge alliances or smaller groups. More importantly, all of these groups deserve a greater sense of agency and individual involvement, and more tools to further their personal goals, no matter how large or small the group is. While there are a huge number of different ways to achieve this goal, I shall (at least initially) focus on a few of these in my campaign:
One: Alliance-level management deserves some love. Currently, just about every medium-to-large alliance must rely on out of game tools in order to support themselves. Some of these out-of-game functions, such as teamspeak servers and alliance websites, are spectacularly useful and hard to emulate. However, alliance leadership also finds itself forced to utilize out-of-game tools for such tasks as blacklist management, tax collection (for those who do so), and SRP. In addition, the existing in-game mechanics such as role management and hangars simply do not exist in any fleshed-out state at the alliance level. I firmly believe that if we can overhaul and add to the number of in-game tools available to prospective alliance leaders, both old and well-established alliances, as well as those who are struggling to get off of the ground, will prosper.
Two: Player customization of space should be an integral component of the investment in Sov. While the upcoming structures due to be released in Spring of 2016 are slated to be usable just about anywhere, some of their possible functions (specifically, those proposed at Fanfest 2015 that would allow for serious customization of space, such as alteration of security status, rat type, and warp speed within a system) should be specific to players who have invested in their space. Not necessarily invested a boatload of ISK, but rather invested their time and effort in acquiring a Sov system, and living in it and defending it. The more time and effort you put into your little slice of paradise, the more you should be able to customize and alter it to suit your particular playstyle, so long as those customizations are still occupancy-dependent . This would allow the ability to utilize, enjoy, and defend your space to be more dynamic than simply "how much have you ratted and mined in your space in the last week, and how high is its strategic index," while simultaneously retaining the underlying theme of occupancy sovereignty.
Three: Players should have multiple different avenues for taking and holding space. As I detailed in one of the columns linked above, while Fozziesov certainly has its merits and I am not advocating for a return to Dominion Sov, I do not believe that Entosis Links should be the only method of Sov acquisition. This is especially pertinent given the current usage of Entosis Links to destroy Sov structures outright: it simply does not make any logical sense in my mind that a Sov Lazor should be capable of making a huge structure detonate. As a result, I think that CCP had the right idea with how they treat stations currently: Entosis Links cause the station to flip once all levels of node contesting have been completed. With the announced return of a partial structure grind to destroy the new structures, it is my belief that the most reasonable way to proceed with Sov is to allow Entosis links and node contesting to be used to capture structures, and the limited structure grinding to be used to destroy them. When combined with the different force multiplication tools that are possible with the new structures, this produces a much wider variety of ways to engage in Sov warfare, and thus more ways to engage the player base.
In short: we have succeeded in making Sov somewhat more accessible in that an enormous blob of supers is no longer required to hold your space. However, we have not made either holding Sov or fighting for it much more engaging at all. The updates that the next year holds must make being part of an alliance, sov or no, more engaging for everyone involved.
If you're interested in getting in touch with me to share your ideas, comments, or concerns, you can contact me in-game at Kyle Aparthos, via Tweetfleet slack.
I hope to hear from you guys soon :D