First off the mark was Mino Noud, an apparent Editor at EN24 (who knew, EN24 has editors!) who, while being a nullsec resident, seeks to represent everyone. Sound familiar? It should – riverini ran on much the same platform. However, riverini had name recognition going for him and a much larger platform from which to campaign (just being honest) than Mino does today.

Second into the fray was Mynnna, better known as Corestwo on the Eve-O forums, a writer at TheMittani.com (one of mine, in fact) and a Director in GSF. Mynnna is very smart, knowledgeable about everything financial in Eve, and articulate – all things I think will serve him well in his CSM tenure (yes, tenure, not bid – mynnna is likely to be the official GSF candidate, and thus virtually guaranteed a spot).

There was also a drama involving Placid09 of Podside podcast and Arydanika, my corpmate and host of Voices from the Void, a show I was previously a cohost of for a few months. You can find all the gory details on Poetic Stanziel’s blog. Unfortunate that such things must be aired in so public a fashion, but the part that actually relates to this blog post is Placid’s stated belief that Arydanika plans on running for CSM8.

Now, I don’t talk to Dani as often as I used to, but I can say this: from what I know, CSM is not on her agenda. If anyone from the terrible amokdotte corporation is going to be running for CSM, it would probably be me. I’ve harbored some quiet aspirations towards the CSM for some time now, but seem to never have found myself in a position to really pursue the goal.

If I were to run, of course, I wouldn’t be an official GSF candidate. I’m in the terrible Am0kdotte member corp, not a proper SA Goon, and even within the corp I am literally unknown. The other day the CEO said in jabber: Marc_Scaurus who are you? So, not really a strong base from which to launch a campaign.

My best shot at riding into office would be through my relatively strong background in lowsec. I also fancy myself quite the proponent of the New Player Experience, small gang and solo PVP, and big picture stuff like having actual design goals for all parts of space, rather than tackling issues as they come. I feel like these are things that no one on the current CSM really fulfills adequately and that I could do so. The problem?

Nobody cares. Seriously! Every single person running for CSM8 this year is going to give lip service to lowsec. Bounty hunting is great, they’ll say. The crimewatch changes are wonderful, but lowsec could always use more attention, they’ll say. You want to know how much of it they will actually mean? Not a fucking bit. Lowsec remains the awkward redheaded step child of High and Null, raised with Null’s habits but forced to follow High’s rules – to an extent.

The same goes for the New Player Experience. For God’s sake, the E-Uni CEO – you know, the one guy who should probably be gunning for more and better New Player Experience revamps – is a fucking nonentity according to every bit of info I’ve picked up from the CSM this term. Literally disappeared. Not even Kaiser Soze disappeared, either – just flat out stuck a feather in his cap labelled ‘CSM Member’ and called it a day.

EVE is still at a very vulnerable point in its life. It’s gotten on in years, but has managed to stay up to date. The road got really rocky, but things have been more or less smoothed out with the existing playerbase. What we need now is continued renovation of old and decaying features, as well as a renewed focus on growing that playerbase. What we need now is both the big picture and a grand story to describe it. Who is going to give that to you? Not a single person.

CCP is floating along thinking that the ship is righted and all is well. They have mollified the most indignant among the population and seen numbers stabilize. The Summer of Rage is a thing of the past and the game as a whole is being revamped on a level never before seen with initiatives like Tiericide, the UI improvements from CCP Punkturis and Co., and through the masterful direction of CCP’s saviour, Jon Lander.

Where is the growth, though? Where is the high drama? Where is the ability for a relatively new player to make an impact? We look to nullsec and see recycled alliances duking it out for worn out hovels in the South, and the return of hegemony in the north. We look to lowsec and see the same rag tag bands of pirates, now fighting for life against the faction warfare hordes, doing meaningless things in a meaningless space. We look to highsec, where miners may have abandoned Hulks for Mackinaws, but still plug away doing the same old shit, day in and day out.

All the while the rich grow richer and the new grow poorer as inflation continues its slow insidious growth. But CSM7 will declare a victory because they got to sit in on the meetings leading up to the release of Bounty Hunting, and they will say they were instrumental in the delivery of such a revitalizing concept to the game. They will say that there was no need for them to yell at CCP, to demand answers to hard questions, because CCP is doing the best they can – and gosh darn it, so where they!

I say bullshit. I say there is never enough. No matter how good things may be now, there is always room for improvement. There are a million and one ways in which the game could be improved, and for relatively little total development time. There are murals that could be painted to guide the way for EVE’s development for the next ten years, rather than looking at the last ten years and trying to fix all the mistakes. Not to say that mistakes can’t be addressed, but instead let’s try addressing them in new and inventive ways. Let’s kill two birds with one stone – set past wrongs right while also providing new and exciting content, or the frameworks for content generation, to attract a whole new generation of EVE players.

In the end though, does it matter what one dude with a wordpress install says? Not really. So, as my bottle of wine draws to a close, so too does this blogpost. No matter what happens this election cycle, demand more from the people you vote for. Demand more from CCP, and demand more from yourself – after all, you’re the person who will elect the new slew of Council members.

This is what happens when you succumb to Anti-Goon Disease. I was gonna write a post about this EVE phenomenon, but have decided against it, because, well, :effort:.

Here’s the tl;dr of it all, though.

I made a post two days ago asking for community input on three things: the value of keeping around institutions like the Eve Blog Pack; if we should keep it, how might we go about opening it to the community at large in terms of the judging aspects, as that is the most challenging part of maintaining the Pack (and the Eebees); and I wanted to start a discussion on what exact format that crowd-sourced Blog Pack/Eebees initiative may take.

Literally nowhere did I say I was closing down the Eve Blog Pack, Evebloggers.com, or even The Eebees. Rixx, however, seems to think I did. In fact, he thinks he has done a good job by derailing the discussion into an Anti-Goons discussion. He genuinely appears to believe that the community is now better for his ability to shut down a topic of some interest and concern, substitute a rather dumb one in its place, and unilaterally declaring the death of the Pack.

I used to consider Rixx a good friend of mine, at least in terms of Eve. We flew against each other in Lisbaetanne. I joined my pirate corporation to his alliance, Burn Away. We even ended up in Tuskers at more or less the same time when he decided to close down that alliance. Now, though, he seems to think that The Mittani is my puppet master. Others, like Mord Fiddle, seem to agree. I find this disappointing and, to be frank, pretty fucking disgusting behavior from people whom I used to respect.

I have maintained a very clear line between my efforts as an Editor at TheMittani.com and my efforts for the community (which, by the way, came way before TMC ever existed). I believe that both entities can not only co-exist, but can in fact thrive together by serving distinct purposes. Others just want to focus on their obsession with a figure in Eve politics, and the organization that he currently leads, to the detriment of actual substantive debate about how to move forward in these changing times.

This is probably the part of the post where I have words of a certain sort for those individuals – but really, I don’t have anything to say to them other than ‘I’m sorry for you.’ I unironically feel bad for these people who can’t see past their grievances with The Mittani and the Goons in general and work for a better community.

Now, with that out of the way, here’s what’s happening with the community stuff (based on what actual useful feedback I got):

I now have on my to-do list a complete revamp of the EveBloggers.com website. As part of this revamp, I will be including a system by which the top 30 blogs in Eve are voted on (in an organic way) by the community at large, to form a new, more natural and less arbitrary ‘Eve Blog Pack’. I will also be renewing the Eebees in a similar fashion, though I haven’t quite worked out the specifics of that. If you have input on how to go about creating these systems, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me via Twitter or Skype (marcscaurus is the name).

In the meantime! I will be continuing the Eve Blog Pack and Evebloggers.com in their current formats. Expect updates shortly. The Eebees I am shelving until after the revamp, whereupon they will be bigger and better than ever. Perhaps with a little social media savvy, Evebloggers.com can become the portal that its creator, Black Claw, and I myself have longed for it to be.

Inheriting both the Blog Pack and Evebloggers.com has been a tremendous honor for me and something that I’ve tried to approach with integrity and professionalism (insofar as helping out a video game community goes). However, it is also a tremendous challenge at times, being tasked with judging the merits of so many excellent Eve blogs, both for the Pack and for the Eebees.

There is also the matter of consistency. Originally, Crazy Kinux (or Social Dave as he is now known on the interwebs) essentially controlled three huge community items: The Monthly Blog Banters, a listing of Eve Blogs, and the Eve Blog Pack. From Crazy Kinux, these items all went their separate ways: the Blog Pack to Rixx Javix, the Blog Banters to Seismic Stan, and the Eve Blog List (in a spiritual form) to Black Claw. Then there was more turnover: the Blog Pack and Evebloggers.com both came to me, while Seismic Stan valiantly soldiers on with the Blog Banters. He and I then decided to add to our worries with the creation of the Eebee awards. The more things change, the more they stay the same – I am now at a point where I don’t think I have the time to properly administer my charges. However, I want to end the cycle of handoffs if possible. It is a fact (a sad one, but still) that people always move on.

I don’t want to see this continue with institutions like Evebloggers, the Blog Pack, and the Eebees. I think all of these entities have a great potential value to the community, but have been unable to realize them because they have all (more or less) been confined to the hands of a very few human beings. What I want to do is open these community-driven things to the community itself.

When there is an opening on the Blog Pack, I would love to see the community come together and vote on who should take that spot. When the Eebees need handing out, I would love to see the community determine who should be rewarded. To that end, I now turn to that community and ask:

How should we do this?

What is the best format for getting this done?

And perhaps most importantly, do you agree?

You see, traffic numbers aren’t great for Evebloggers.com (where the Eebees and the Blog Pack both also reside). I would hate to go through the trials and tribulations of crafting a community-driven site if that same community doesn’t really care. So, I’m putting this post out to not only gather suggestions, but also to see if there is enough interest to warrant going forward.

Pass this around to your like minded community friends and let’s see what the future has in store for us!

The real life stuff I won’t bore anyone with (except a quick shout about my job, or rather the lack thereof – if you know of IT positions open in the San Diego area, hit me up!). TheMittani.com, however, I am happy to speak on.
This blog has been featured in the past on Evenews24.com. Back during Mittani’s little debacle at FanFest, I got a taste for writing in a journalistic fashion (as opposed to the more casual blogging style I had commonly utilized) and found myself wanting more. However, EN24 was not a place I really wanted to be associated with. Hell, I never even wanted to read it.

Then a new site dedicated to Eve Online news (among other things) appeared – TheMittani.com. You might think that I, being a member of GSF, simply walked into a position from the get go. You would be wrong. I hadn’t a clue that the site was even being planned. I was big into DayZ at that point and had written a piece for this blog delving into the Eve community’s love affair with the zombie survival mod.

I had read some of the posts on TM.com, especially Endie’s, and was impressed with the overall quality of the content. So, I decided to submit my humble DayZ article to Indie on the GSF forums to see if I could get on the team. As is apparent now, it worked, but it took a couple weeks to get on-board.

Since then I have written a fair few articles for the website – ranging from an interview with Chris Roberts (godfather of the space sim) to my personal views on gaming journalism; from nullsec battle reports to ALODs. Over the course of the first month as a writer (and proofreader), I found myself more and more heavily invested in TM.com. By the beginning of October, just over a month after initially joining the site, I was made an Editor.

It turns out, this is a job that I am pretty well suited for, not to mention enjoy doing. This, of course, brings me to the point of this post:

I am moving on.

Right now, I am nominally in charge of the Eve Blog Pack, Evebloggers.com, and the Eebees Monthly Blogging Awards. I say nominally because, for those paying attention, these are all duties that have fallen into the same roadside ditch as this blog. I haven’t decided yet what will happen with these other things. the only thing I can guarantee is that evebloggers.com and the Eve Blog Pack aren’t going anywhere. I made a commitment to keep these things alive and I am happy to make sure that these things remain funded.

If you have suggestions on what should be done, I’m all ears. Right now I’m leaning towards ‘crowdsourcing’ the decision making aspect of the Eve Blog Pack and the Eebees (the latter is something Seismic Stan and I have been discussing for some time) and getting a custodian for the applicable duties of making sure things happen.

As far as this blog goes, it too will remain nominally open. I may even post here from time to time, likely about life behind the scenes of Eve’s best news site (is it really even in doubt anymore?).
In the meantime, here are some links to things I have written at TM.com that you may have missed:

A Lack of Vision: Lowsec
Abhor Safety, Embrace Ease
Interview with Chris Roberts
The Appearance of Integrity
The Case For and Against the CSM

If there is one thing I’ve learned in EVE Online, it’s that there are no true goodbyes. So rather than say ‘this is the end’, I will instead say ‘this is the end of this chapter’. Catch y’all around.

Nominees:

Team Avatar’s Tinkerings by ugleb
The Ridiculously Quick Faction Warfare Guide by Drackarn
Eve’s End Game: Have We Arrived? by Kirith Kodachi

So many great posts, so little time to read for all of us judges in the month of July. These were the three that piqued our interest the most. However, there can only be one (or so they say). Our winner for the month of July is none other than Kirith ‘I Fly Coward Rifters’ Kodachi! Congratulations to the venerable writer of Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah – an excellent blog all around.

Nominees:

Flying Silently by Firstly
Poetic Discourse by Poetic Stanziel
Mabrick’s Mumblings by Mabrick

This slate of nominees was a very, very tough choice. All three judges nominated a blog, then voted for another nominated blog – resulting in a deadlock at first! Through some well reasoned debate (read: a particular robot threatening to crush a particular Goon’s head in should a vote not be shifted), one of the votes was shifted. Poetic Stanziel has made a huge impact on the Eve blogosphere since entering it with rants about Kelduum Revaan and Eve Uni in general. This is not the first time Poetic was nominated – but it will be the last (at least for the next six months). Poetic Stanziel is July’s Eebee Award Winner for Best Blog!

Congratulations to both winners as well as the nominees and every blogger out there. I have written in the past about how difficult it is to narrow all the blogs and posts out there down to three – and then to select just one of them! However, the real difficulty with the Eebees is the fact that sometimes RL takes over one or more of the judges, resulting in painfully long delays in getting awards handed out. Stay tuned for some revamps coming tomorrow!

Write Smart,

Marc

“Some say a man’s home is his castle. For others it is wherever they lay their hat. The concept is just as nebulous in the New Eden sandbox.

In EVE Online, what does the concept of “home” mean to you?”

The responses have been varied. Some have taken the literal interpretation, showing screenshots of each and every station they have ever based out of in their Eve career. Others have chosen the warm, fuzzy “My corp is my home” approach. For me, neither of these things apply – and yet, in a way, they both do.

One glance at my employment history will show that I’ve not been particularly shy about shifting corporate allegiance. A couple stints in RVB, a tour of duty in the front lines of Suddenly Ninjas, jaunts through high sec griefing and low sec piracy. Monsters (the ‘TGA’ version), Monsters again (the non-TGA version), taking on CEO duty of a pirate corp called Sinners., a short ‘retirement’ in the company of The Tuskers, and now a longer one with the terrible members of Am0k. in Goons. Clearly, a corporation is not what I would call a home.

And yet, there is a certain group of people who share corp histories very similar to mine that create a ‘homecoming’ atmosphere on the (now rare) occasions that we all manage to be subbed and active in Eve Online. Names you’ve probably never heard of (unless you are one of them), names like Myd’Raal, Professor Terror, equincu ocha, Crocodile Tear, and even (in a dysfunctional uncle sort of way) Neville Longbottom. For a glorious period of time – the best time I’ve ever had in any game – we shared corp tags, drunken jokes and life’s tragedies with each other as we blasted anything that moved too slowly to escape in lowsec. For a time, that was pretty much home for me in Eve Online – hanging out with a bunch of random guys, drinking beer and shooting shit in lowsec.

Today, that home is broken. As so often happens in Eve, people are forced to go their separate ways. Neville was the first to go, real life preventing him from appearing with regularity online. Myd got sucked into the maelstrom that is Goonswarm with some of his alts. Terror’s RL hit in a big way and he, too, was forced away from the game. Slowly, we spread apart (though it is ironic that out of those named, three of us are in Am0k. now), picking up different corp tags, logging on to different comms, growing distant.

In the same way, I cannot really identify with those who say a particular station is home. If referred to in a geographic sense, home for me would just be lowsec – all of it. Despite the fact that there are still some areas I’ve yet to visit, I have since my arrival in the space that vikings forgot found it to be very comfortable. If I had to narrow it down to one area, I would have to say the Aurohunen/Dantumi/Mara area of Lonetrek’s lowsec space would be where I am most comfortable. I found my pirating feet in Dantumi, under the guiding hand of Neville. I found good friends in Mara, people I still chat with from time to time. In Aurohunen, I took my first steps into corporate leadership with Sinners. However, this would also neglect the impact that areas like Lisbaetanne and Hevrice have had on my Eve career, where I picked up numerous more friends like Rixx Javix, Jaxley, Abellona and others. So no, I can’t say any particular system is home.

Lowsec as a whole has always been the real draw for me when it comes to Eve Online. I’ve spent significant time in High Sec, and recently I’ve been trying to find my way in Null sec with Goons. However, the last time I logged in (about a week ago), where did I find myself? Amamake. Not VFK, not UMI, not Jita nor anywhere else outside of lowsec that I would have a reason to be. I was in lowsec.

Lowsec, too, is broken. Not unplayable by any stretch of the imagination, just as that core group of Eve friends are still my Eve friends. There is just something missing. We have grown distant, lowsec and I, and I’m not sure things will ever be the same as they once were.

At any rate, if pressed on the issue I would say I don’t truly have a home right now. That isn’t a dig at Am0k. or Goons in general. I just feel listless, ill-at-ease, and altogether disaffected with in-game activities in Eve right now. Nonetheless, I press on, because for all its flaws Eve Online is still the game for me.

Fly Smart,
Marc

BLOG OF THE MONTH

Flying Silently by Firstly
Poetic Discourse by Poetic Stanziel
Mabrick’s Mumblings by Mabrick

POST OF THE MONTH

Team Avatar’s Tinkerings by ugleb
The Ridiculously Faction Warfare Guide by Drackarn
Eve’s End Game: Have We Arrived by Kirith Kodachi

Congratulations to the nominees! Winners will be announced within 5 days (no, seriously, five days I swear), so stay tuned to this page! Also, keep your eyes out for a major change to the way the Eebees are run in the very near future.

Write Smart,

Marc

First things first, the Eebees are obviously still on. We’re getting our nominations for July together now (if you have any suggestions, feel free to comment below!) and should have winners next week.

Second, Evebloggers.com got a badly needed update – 17 blogs were added to the feed. You can visit here to see the new ones, or just keep checking the main page to get your blogosphere fix.

Third, The Blog Pack is getting some TLC today. 3 blogs will be removed and 3 new ones added. Well, actually 2 new ones, as Tgl_3 is back among us and will be reclaiming a well deserved spot in the Pack. Mabrick will likely get one of the remaining spots (when did that guy become legit?), while the last remaining spot remains a bit of a dogfight in my head – lots of good candidates! And yes, a Goon is giving an Unperson some credit. That either makes me a crappy Goon or a good Blog Co-Parent.

Finally, I’m looking at getting into the Minutes. I’ve read a little bit and have to say that the Transcription method was first amusing, then informative, then tiresome – all in about 10 pages. I, like some others have mentioned, would vastly prefer clear and concise Minutes to be released in a timely fashion, with full transcripts released later on. I believe there is value to the transcripts, especially in terms of judging a candidate by more than claims, but inside the actual Minutes it just gets in the way.

I might even play some Eve soon… I hear Merlins and Incursuses are suddenly all the rage. My Minmatar heart withers…

Fly Smart,
Marc

Winner:

The Player’s Guidebook to CCP Developer Interaction by Rundle Allnighter

Shockingly, Rundle is as long-winded with his blog post titles as he is on Lost In Eve podcast. However, his contribution to the community with this succinct guide to getting the attention of CCP Devs is something that can’t be ignored. Humorous, less than 10,000 words, and actually useful?! Rundle, you may be on to something here! To provide the proverbial carrot to spur on  his creative juices, Rundle is the proud winner of 1 PLEX for his post, courtesy of SOMER Blink – your first stop in adding gambling overtones to your Eve addiction!

Winner:

Sand, Cider and Spaceships by Drackarn

Drackarn was nominated last month for the same category, something that I am usually loathe to do (wanting to spread out the love, as it were). However, one can’t really ignore the steady, high-quality content coming from Sand, Cider and Spaceships (also, he has an amazing name for his blog). Covering everything Eve related, from Fan Events to the latest CSM shenanigans, Drackarn is as close to the Robotic Overlord as we are like to see in actual human form – and for that, he is the deserving winner of 1 PLEX, again courtesy of SOMER Blink!

Thanks again to everyone out there blogging away – Eve Online would not nearly be as cool if it weren’t for the vast metagame (of which blogs are a major component) that surrounds it. Stay tuned, as very shortly (within the week) we will have posted up the July nominees! Congratulations to Rundle and Drackarn – two well-deserved wins for the month of June, 2012.

Write Smart,

Marc

Nominees:

A Trail of Tears by Hans Jagerblitzen
The Shift Click, It Does Nothing by Tippet
Rationality by Mord Fiddle

This actually was quite a hard one (aren’t they all?), but in the end there could be only one. Each post nominated was top notch quality and each judge had their favorite. Unsurprisingly, voting looked like it would end in a deadlock, but one brave judge decided to cross the aisle, so to speak, and give the winning vote to Hans Jagerblitzen for his post, Trail of Tears. Well done Hans – quite an insightful post and even more impressive when considering Hans also faces the pressures of actually playing the game as a leader of Minmatar Faction Warfare, as well as a delegate on CSM7.

Nominees:

Eveoganda by Rixx Javix
Poetic Discourse by Poetic Stanziel
Sand, Cider and Spaceships by Drackarn

Rixx Javix has, for what seems like decades now, consistently put out one of the highest quality blogs around. Through RL turmoil, alliance demise, and inner soul searching, Rixx manages to always pop out some of the most insightful and funny blogs in the Eve community. For that, Rixx Javix can proudly sport the new and improved ‘Hero Logo’ of the Eebees as winner of Blog of the Month, May 2012.

Congratulations to both winners as well as the nominees and every blogger out there. You have answered my call in a big way by making not only the voting process but also the nomination process immensely difficult on Stan, Ripard and myself – which is just as it should be!

Keep up the good fight and stay tuned – June nominations are just around the corner!

Write Smart,

Marc