Hello!

It’s been a little over 2 weeks since the CSM Election results were announced and I wanted to give a short update.

CSM 14 is still going through the start-up period of gaining access to CCP information, basic briefing, and initial discussions of CSM members. With 5 new people in the mix, it takes a bit for the team to begin working together. I’ve been busy in game fighting, arming structures, and building stuff.

As expected, most of what I and the CSM do/say/hear with CCP will be confidential and can’t be shared publicly.

So far, there has been one formal meeting with CCP that was really a simple meet & greet for the new members and a brief discussion of current issues. The meeting went smoothly, and I’m hopeful we can keep them productive.

Without much CSM news, I can discuss a couple of the two biggest topics:

Invasion – The Drifter attacks created a significant amount of anger and schadenfreude in the EVE community. I can understand both sides, but have my own opinions. While I welcome now content and new challenges, the Drifter attacks seem poorly communicated and the execution left much to be desired. Risk vs. Reward is a key element of EVE and I felt that there was very little reward for very high risk. I’m in favor of similar events, but they should be challenging and enjoyable, not frustrating.

Overall, the arc of Invasion is interesting, with Sansha into the mix, it looks like a year full of surprises and changes. The new ship and industry opportunity, lore deepening, and rewarding PVE content seems to please a lot of players.

Local Blackout – Again, a polarizing topic. I see people unsubscribing and resubbing. A rough count of comments in the community show people are roughly split. “wormhole local” for null sec has been discussed before many times, and now we are going to see it. In the past, this topic has regularly been tied to cloaky campers, but this change does not address that gameplay.

Personally, the change seems one-sided in the favor of the hunters. Null sec has cynos and the related escalations that wormholes do not, so I think drawing a direct equivalency is not realistic. Considering Recon Ships in the mix, hunters will have the ability to travel, gather intel, and execute basically undetected with no reasonable counterplay until after an attack has commenced. I’m sure that there are many that will disagree with me. 🙂

Hopefully, this change will help reduce the amount of botting that occurs, but I have no doubt that the bot software developers are already at work on a “no local” version. That said, any work in this direction is welcome.

We will see how it goes and be assured that CCP will be closely watching what players actually do, not what players say they do on forums, Discords, and Reddit. The game data will speak for itself.

Communication – Lastly, my role is to serve the entire EVE Community, not just the people I play with or the playstyles I enjoy. If you want to let me know your thoughts or what you want to hear, please do. I can be reached in game, via Discord, and via email. Thanks!

Twitter: @dunkdinkle

Discord: Dunk Dinkle#1095

Email: dunkdinkle@gmail.com