First few days

Four days back from fanfest, and things are starting to come together.

CSMX wise, NDA's have been sent out to all the new members, It seems like most people are getting these sorted fast. Sort Dragon's already has his done since he was at fanfest. A CSMX skype channel is already up and running everyone's in there already. Its been fairly active and everyone is speaking, No one is afk yet, which is always a good start.

Once everyone gets confluence access I can see a lot of ideas being put up on there.

GRR Goons, I've been in corp two days now. I haven't bothered moving ships, I just intend to buy them in Deklien. Getting registered and set up with admin was pretty simple, even for me who most people know, a techno noob. I got a travel interceptor sorted as well ratting ship (cant be corbear without a ratting ship). That being a Gila, first time I've ever used one and they are really fun, I rarely use drones but, holy shit Gila drones kill stuff fast.

I also spent a evening chatting to a mate, Porkbutte who is the CEO of Karmafleet, Its a super newbee friendly corp that by all accounts is doing really well. I said I'd help out where I can with basic stuff and once stuff settles down I'll do a weekly chat about w space  and maybe even take them in to w-space if I can find handy wormholes. The time I do spend on GSF mumble its normally hanging out in the karmafleet channel helping where I can.

My alt is lined up to join its first wormhole corp and spend a couple weeks playing with them to see what they do and if they have any issues. I'm really looking forward to this. There is some interesting stuff on the forums especially about structures, a fair bit of panic with people jumping to conclusions.
Hopefully I'll have the first sounding boards for w space on this topic sorted soon.

All in all its been a fun week and probably the most excited I've been to play eve in ages

Fanfest 2015

Fanfest is over and its been a blast.

I met up with some mates at the airport, On arrival we topped up on duty free beers and spirits. A must for anyone going to fanfest as alcohol is heavily taxed in Iceland. I was lucky enough to see Ali, a taxi driver CCP often uses and said hello to him, He was nice enough to sort us out a cheap taxi that took us right to our apartment.

The apartment itself was super nice easily sleeping 10 people it had a really nice kitchen (which we didn't use) and a couple of shower rooms. The only down side is we couldn't seem to turn the heating down or open the windows in bedrooms. It was also seemed great value as well, you can see pic of the place here. I'd highly recommend it to anyone going as a big group its about a 5 to 10 min walk to the harpa, with plently of pubs along the way.

There were a couple none wormhole people I really wanted to meet Noizy gamer and Neville smit. Yes I now know Noizy is in thera so not really a none wormholer. I was lucky enough to bump in to Neville at Nora's and we got to have a good chat about stuff in general. Noizy was slightly harder to track down but luckily Sugar just sent him a message and asked if he wanted to meet up for food.  I didn't realise he was going to be doing a presentation but was good to chat to him and hear some stuff on RMT and Isboxing It was also really cool to hear he was in Thera and the stuff he was doing. When I get time I'm hoping to put a alt in his group to hang out with them for a couple weeks.

I got meet up with alot of wormhole people, It was great to meet Proc and Bernie in person, as well as the Artic light guys who are all batshit crazy. At the charity dinner I got to meet a few more and have a natter about general stuff, atleast till it turned in to api/crest stuff. At that point I called Steve in to help.

It was also nice to meet up with the other CSM in person Asay, Mangala, Gorski, who I have never met in real life all were really nice. Its one of them funny things we argue alot on CSM. But everyone is super friendly and chill in person. Its especially true for corebloodbrothers, we argue alot but he's one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.

What else happened, Well the CSM panel happened more on this later, I'll be doing that in a separate blog. I managed to get to both the wormhole workshops and they were really good, I won't lie, they had alot of really good and interesting ideas. I spoke to a couple CCP Devs about it and they felt they were productive as well. I made it to all the keynotes and was well. For the last keynote on day one with the CSM announcement I was sat with CCP Masterplan and Sugar. I won't lie we'd both been worrying if we would get in. So was really nice to see we did, only to have CCP Masterplan giggle about it. Looking at the numbers now sugar WTF owned it, and justifiably so.

I got asked to do a few interviews with media, Its pretty strange as its not something I am used to. First Sion and I got interviewed by a Chinese reporter. Then I got interviewed for a German PC gamer magazine and then TMDC. The last one was by Cassandra Khaw who wanted to speak to me about wormholes. Turns out she had interviewed me along with several other people two years ago. Which surprised her when i remembered. We spoke about a few things that had changed and then I mentioned BOB. She was amazed that a god/religion had been created in game. She was amazed and asked me loads of stuff, how it all started, what people did, who followed it, the history. I had a few answers but it was obvious she wanted to know more, and luckily both Proc and Asay were at fanfest. I left saying I'd return later with more knowledgeable people. I found them both sadly Asay had other stuff he had to do but Proc was more than happy to come along.

They sat down talking with him explaining the history, she couldn't believe it, I had to laugh when at one point we pointed out how people often sacrificed exotic dancers to BOB, She seemed very shocked even if it was just a game. Proc sent her a whole load of info, which apparently has been recorded by a BBC radio journalist.

The party on top of the world was great fun, had alot of laughs I don't think my shirts offended to many people. By the end of the event I was super tired.

CSM Ballot

Below you'll see my ballot along with a brief comment on why people are there.

1. Myself - So I'm biased.
2. Sugar kyle - Incumbent lowsec hardest worker on the CSM.
3. Ariete - Wormholer
4. Steve Ronuken - Incumbent, hisec industry, 3rd party stuff.
5. Sion Kumitomo - He'll get in so you can leave him off but this is where I'd put him. So feel free to leave him off.
6. Cagali Cagali - Brave NPE
7. Chance Ravinne - Newbie wormholer.
8. Ashterothi - Wormholer and podcaster.
9. Bam Stroker - Eve down under organiser.
10. Khador Vess - RvB fc.
11. Psianh Anyvander - Noir Academy
12. Jayne Fillion - NPSI 
13. Manfred Sideous - Null sec rep
14. Endie - The left hand to Sions right hand. 

Sugar's been the hardest working CSM, She's not affraid to speak to people and on a personal level and will happily listen to anyone. She has her monthly chit chats on eve uni mumble, where people can come ask her stuff. She blogs loads to let people know whats happening. Hell tbh if I had more sense I would just guest blog on her blog since I really don't blog enough to warrant my own. She's that good I've actually put her ahead of my wormhole second choice, she pretty much a shoe in.

Ariete joined late in the race but is the best wormholer  running on a wormhole only platform, after me.

Steve if you live in hisec, do industry, 3rd party stuff you need to vote for this guy. He's a god damn legend, My only issue is he should let people know more about the stuff he does.

Sion, probably a surprise to some to see him this far up he'll get in, so as I said feel free to level him off. But he deserves to be on the list. I share alot of his views on general stuff. His null understanding is second to none. He's also not afraid to speak his mind with stuff thats controversial. I'll be honest I'm surprised more people haven't put him on their list my guess is probably because they, know he will get on, and secondly GRRR Goons.

Cageli, I've known him for several year, since I first started donating to brave dojo and chat to him often, I'm super glad he's running, I nagged him loads about it. He's the godfather of newbies and really understand them and the issues needs they have. His down under presentation was excellent. 

Chance, Is really enthusiastic has alot of interesting. He's also a wormholer so got to give him credit for that.

Ashterothi. A podcaster and wormholer, I don't know him super well only spoke to him a few times, and I'll be totally honest I'm not that in to media types, I agree with Funky when he says about them not making good CSM reps. But #wormholer #yolo.

Bam, I haven't actually got to speak to this chap yet. However a couple people I really trust have spoken very highly about him and there is nothing bad about him I can find at all, yes I did look.

Khador, Is my hisec of choice.

Psianh, very knowledgeable, If it wasn't a wormhole ballot I'd almost certainly put him higher.

Jayne, with corp and alliance roles being looked at this is a good time to add a NPSI pov in there to help out there and he's the logical choice.

Manny. he's a given to get in. But is really needed for his nullsec knowledge and ability to think outside the box even if his ideas hurt his own allaince, He's also super helpful, I've spoke to him several times to get more info on various things, null sov and T3's in null. he's always been happy to give up time and chat about issues.

Endie, quite simply you don't get to be super high up in Goons unless your really good. Love them or hate them, their leadership knows their shit. If he is half as good as Sion, he'll be a asset to the csm.

Wormhole report 2. NPC Kills

Following on from the previous blog post, I'm looking at NPC kills.

I'll be looking at from Cruis to today.

C1 Increased from Cruis to Hyperion, then dropped the same amount to Oceanus. Only to rise again and then stabilize around rhea at approximately 50% higher than Cruis.

While the pos's in C1 did increase it was in no way anywhere near as much as npc kills, meaning there is a lot more ratting happening now than before.

C2 Had a slight dip leading up to Hyperion and a bit after. only to start increasing again sharply to Pheobe and then continued at a steadier pace up to today, showing a overall increase of nearly 100% npc kills.

Whilst looking at the previous blog we see POS's increased by 10 to 15%, The increase in npc kills is probably do in some part to C4's having the extra static as well as the sites being coming a lot more profitable, encouraging people to do them. C2's seem a lot more active now than Hyperion.

C3 At Cruis C3's had more npc than any other class. They showed a slight rise just after the expansion but then dropped before Hyperion, which continued to Oceanus, this was a fairly significant drop of about 20 to 25%. It gained this back by Pheobe and then slowly increased to Proteus where it dropped slightly. Although its still slightly higher than it was Cruis.

As the POS's stayed pretty stable throughout this whole period its fairly safe to assume the drop in npc kills leading up to Hyperion and a bit after was down to people being concerned at just how safe it was to run sites in the time. But the increase in income coming up to Pheobe encouraged  people back to killing red crosses.

C4 Between Cruis and a bit past Hyperion C4's took a massive drop in npc kills (about 30 to 35%). It stayed at this leave through Oceanus to Pheobe, then picked up with increasing pace to Proteus where its dropped slightly. But still finishing at the same level as Cruis.

The huge drop in npc kills happens a month or so before the very slight drop in POS in C4 space. I'm not sure if this is people panicking or super active farming groups packing up. The increase in npc kills is also a month or so after when POS's pick up although its a much, much steeper increase than the POS increase. I'm hoping its just the delayed time in people packing up moving out and new people moving back in and setting up.

C5 Saw a steady drop npc kills through Cruis in to Hyperion, the drop was about 15%. It then rose sharply come Oceanus to Pheobe where it dropped a small about, before bouncing back at Rhea to a all time high today. The total increase from Cruis to now being close to 35 to 40%. They now also  hold the title of having most npc's killed of any class of W-space.

While there was a slight drop in POS's around Oceanus this doesn't fit in with the npc kills, which were increasing. There was a small increase POS's over the time from Cruis to now but nothing what so ever like the increase in npc kills. My guess is that a lot of these npc will be capital escalations. But I need to check on that.

C6 From Cruis to Hyperion the number of npc's dropped a small amount  only to bounce back by Oceanus, although its slowly dropped since to were it is today. The drop from Cruis to today is about 10 to 15%

The graphs for both POS's and npc kills are very similar. C6 are the only class that is lower than at Crius, so a bit gutted there.

Total npc kills from Cruis to today has gone up. Its hard to say exactly how much, although my guess is approximately 15 to 20%. I'm pretty happy at this, especially as this is just npc kills it doesn't include people doing the null sec data and relic sites, which I hope to get some info on soon.

C1 to C4 seem a lot more active than Hyperion. It's also worth remembering that the data and relic null sec sites in C1 to C3 don't show up in this graph, I'm still trying to get some numbers on them. C5 and C6 show some interesting stuff. People probably expect most npc kills in these wormholes will be from capital escalations. While C5 npc has gone through the roof, in C6 they have dropped. On checking with CCP Fozzie it appears that while some of the increase in C5 npc kills are from sleeper guardians the greater part is from other sleepers, Showing that its not all from cap escalation farming but other PvE as well.

Wormhole report

I know alot of people have been asking for some graphs and figure's for wormhole changes for the last half year or so.

I finally have some. Its worth me explaining a bit about some of the figures and info CCP can give the CSM (and potentially the player base).

1. Basic simple numbers from Evemetrics. This tends to be fairly simple stuff, like kills in certain areas, amount mined. This is fairly easy for Dev's to find for us as its a simple check. The down side is it also tends to be rather basic info.
2. SQL requests. This is where they actually have to go and run a search for a specific queary and can take a bit longer than just looking up simple stuff from Evemetrics. An example of this might be something like, characters logged off in a C5 space.
3. Lastly you have the Analytics Department. These are the guys and gals who can sort pretty much anything out and do it in great detail with fancy graphs and tables as well. The down side (atleast to CSM) is we have to put requests in then have it checked by various people on the way. So it can be along wait (fact there often stacked with work doesn't help) An example might be ship kills by ship class in a percentage manner for each class of wormholes.

So what do I have.

We (the csm) got some super sexy graphs, on some stuff I have been asking for a while, Sadly I can't show you them (I did ask). So what I have tried to do is put as much info below as I can, I'll also be writing up the next graph for next week, it just takes a while since I have to get it okayed by alot of people.

One of the basic ways to see how many people are in W-space is to look at total pos's. Its not ideal but it gives a indication.

From C1 to C6

C1 Didn't seem to be affected by hyperion at all, with POS numbers slowly increasing since Oceanus where Blue loot was wanted to decide in what order T3 destroyers would be released, and then the follow up increase in blue loot value. So pretty happy here.

C2 There had been a slow decline in POS numbers from Cruis through Hyperion and Oceanus, Then picking up from Pheobe onward, ending up about 10 to 15% higher than at Crius when they started dropping. The slight dip may have been from the mass/distance change being annouched although its very hard to tell. POS wise C2's are better than ever. With them being significantly higher than any other wormhole class (40 to 50% more than the next highest).

C3 POS have been pretty stable with a very slight drop around Hyperion, Although coming back up to slightly above that level today. Not much to see here at all.

C4 Had a slight drop at Hyperion, but have steadily been raising since. probably due to alot of pvp groups moving in for all the lovely connections they now have. A rough guess would be maybe a 20% increase in pos's since Hyperion. Looking at purely POS numbers C4's are looking really good.

C5 Didn't change around Hyperion although they did drop around ocenaus. This could be people moving from C5's to C4's its hard to tell, however in the last month or so there has been a slight increase in POS's taking it above Ocenaus level when it dropped. Pretty good news.

C6 No change at Hyperion, a nice increase around Pheobe and then a slow decline taking it back to Hyperion levels, Its hard to say which way it will go from here but could be either way.

Summary for POS.

While there has been some small declines in POS's around Hyperion its most likely down to people shifting around from wormhole classes. Total numbers of POS's in W-space is Alot higher now than Hyperion, with C2's and C4's really shining, This could be down to people wanting them for pvp due to multi statics or also the fact that C1 to C4 saw a big increase in income due to blue loot income and Null data and relic sites being added. Good news,

Its out

I mentioned in my last blog i was really excited to see the results of the dev blog. Its out and holy crap is it good.

If you haven't seen it yet you should check out the trailer HERE.

Its my fave trailer now, while I'm a bit biased since NoHo is in it (1.19 baby) should be mentioned it was a new FC and that was his second time FC'ing.

I waited up for it to be released, and was glad I did, I messaged CCP Prawn saying how great it was, it was 1 in the morning and he was up thanking players who had helped with the trailer. So huge respect to him. I know there team has been working there arse off to get this sorted, so really glad it went well. They deserve so much credit for this.

NoHo has a new video out The Defense of Polaris. Great video of the main fight when we got invaded (will cover this in another blog).

On other news, was the wormhole townhall today. I had split it in to 3 sections, which I don't think is necessary. So will alter it next time. Asay going boss mode recorded it (cos I'm a techno idiot) and you can get a download here.

Last week was also Sugar Kyle's eve uni mumble chat which was really fun, the early one had me and Asay there, with a guest appearance from a freshly awoken Sion to answer nullsec political questions, Which was really funny. he sounded so tired. The evening one being just Sugar and I.

I'm hoping to sort doing these townhalls more often along with the "sounding board" ones. The feed back I have gotten has been really useful.

Its not all feedback

Most of what we do on the CSM is feedback on various stuff so its nice once in a while to help in a different way.

A couple months ago CCP Falcon posted a Dev blog. We knew a bit more about it. I was super excited about this. CCP wanted videos and some of the best videos out there are wormhole fights. They often have various class of ships from cruisers up to capitals, but being small to medium scale you can zoom in and get a real feel for the size difference between sub caps and capitals, you can see all the effects happening and whats going on, rather than it be a view that's super zoomed out with just dots.

After a couple hours I managed track done the CCP Dev (CCP Prawn) who was working on this and have a chat to him about it on skype. I sent him a load of links for various videos of our fights as well as a link to the W-space PvP videos thread.

We spoke a bit about what sort of stuff he was looking for as well formats and stuff, I suggested about some wormhole PvE since (while boring) its pretty cool for new people to  see capitals and subs used to kill red crosses, It turns out thats also something he wanted to try and get filmed.

A quick chat to NoHo and it was all sorted. Both CCP Prawn and CCP Zond 3 moved themselves in to Polaris cloaked, We started to run sites and they recorded it all. Was a few funny things CCP Zond 3 decloaking, and the our scanner trying to scan him down straight away.

CCP Prawn asking me if it was ok to thank NoHo in local, showing great wh etiquette.

I put a post up on the wormhole forum and while it didn't get as much response as i'd have liked. I did get loads of skype messages asking about it and if CCP wanted to come and film them while they did stuff, so that was pretty nice. Its also worth mentioning just how important getting a blue post on the forums is as that hugely attracts attention, its something I always try to take advantage of and something I think CCP could make much better use of. In this case CCP Zond 3 was good enough to post on it.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the end results from the CCP Dev blog.