Major JSilva

CSM 9 Campaign Post

I am Major JSilva and I'm announcing my intention to run for CSM 9. I've been playing Eve Online at nearly every level for going on 4 years now. I believe Eve is an ever-changing game influenced by its players both new and old. My goal is to earn your vote for a seat on CSM so I can do everything I can to contribute to this process.

During the 4 years I've played, I've mostly spent my time playing in sov 0.0. I was a member of Morsus Mihi, Northern Coalition. and now currently Pandemic Legion with some faction warfare and low-sec dabbled in the middle. I've flown everything from a lowly T1 Drake in the Bleak Lands, all the way up to a Ragnarok in the recent slugfest of B-R5. While a large part of my focus in Eve is on the PvP side, I also help manage the largest renting alliance in game, Brothers of Tangra. As such I understand what small-to-medium sized players living in null sec need, be they industrialists, aspiring PvPers, or just people who want to live in the "dangerous" parts of space.

So why should you vote for me? I'm not a flashy name, but my background, experience, and diversity within the game is unique amongst the potential candidates. Additionally, I come from a group that is very active in the CSM process and I've been able to discuss at length with them (Elise Randolph CSM 6, 7 and Sala Cameron CSM 8) what the CSM entails. I'm not going to promise that I'll fix all the things you hate, because I simply can't do that. But what I can do is promise that I will be hardworking and keep an open mind. In light of that, here are a few of my views on some of the ~hot-button~ CSM issues.

Power Projection:

For as long as I've played Eve, force-projection has existed in Nullsec combat. When it was impractical to expect everyone to own a Carrier, the resourceful alliances merely kept a cache of ships in various NPC systems scattered across the universe. While nerfing the ranges of capital ships jump drives and jump bridges seems like an obvious solution, I'm hesitant to agree it's even a viable solution; while larger entities may only feel a slight inconvenience, for smaller to medium size groups the effects will be detrimental. The blessing and the curse of Eve is that it's an incredibly complex game, when you mess with one thing there are unexpected knock-off effects. I feel the reason force-projection is becoming an issue now is more because of the way sovereignty works - or rather, doesn't work - than anything else.

Sov Rework:

Lets face it grinding structures in general sucks; its terrible in stealth bombers, it is terrible in supercapitals. I have been part of conquering nearly every region in the Eve universe and it typically goes something like this: fight over systems for a few weeks in a few pivotal systems, grind the rest of the region uncontested. It promotes a certain bloc culture that lends itself to very large-scale fights. While these fights are interesting, and the mega-bloc dynamics are a fascinating draw to Eve nullsec culture, this comes at the expense of small-to-medium sized fights. Often these battle end in each side trying to put x amount of people in a single system resulting in slow hour long engagements causing massive stress on the servers. This is not enjoyable for anyone playing. On top of that, the huge coalitions that dominate in nullsec space now leads to situations. In which 25 of the 35 conquerable regions are now largely controlled by two groups.This isn't a fluke, either - in fact it's the easiest and most profitable result.

Placing the value of nullsec into space, where manpower has to extract it instead of static moons was a great first step into fixing the nullsec dynamic. However, it on addressed part of the problem. Players should be able to make large space empires should they so desire, but it needs to be costly and not at the expense of everyone else.

The Tidi Bandaid:

While time dilation is a great alternative to what was the norm in the pre-crucible expansions(black screen of death) and I’d absolutely love to see more optimizations made to make large fights more playable, I still feel that TiDi has become too much of a crutch. If TiDi kicked in for the massive quarterly or bi-annual fights like Asakai and B-R, spending 10 hours at the computer would be fine. However, TiDi fights are becoming more common than the majority of players would like. The “TiDi Trap” as it were happens once a fight reaches TiD levels, at which point everyone and their dog can make their way to the system and jump in. This is not a matter of force projection - an entire Battleship fleet can easily go 40 jumps in the time it takes a single Titan DD to cycle. People that die can reship and get into the fight near-instantly by TiDi standards. Of course as Eve players we are a little bit sadistic, so we keep fighting these fights knowing full well the outcome. While it may be a bit crazy for us to fight this way, the current sov mechanics actually promote this type of behaviour. Again we fall back to this issue about the mechanics causing a problem. While many people are focused on patching up the symptoms as they pop up, I’d much rather solve the underlying problem causing all of these symptoms. If, for whatever reason, that is not a viable option then of course I’m on board to play whack-a-mole.

While my experience in Eve certainly isn't as vast in comparison to some of the other candidates, age doesn't make someone more qualified. I understand what being a CSM means, and I’m eager to do the work. Through hard work and creative insight we can make Eve a better, more fun, place for both new players and game veterans alike. I will happily answer any feedback, comments, or questions you may have on a daily basis both here on the forums, in-game mail/convos, podcasts, and on twitter.