CSM Meeting Minutes 4.003

See also CSM Meeting Minutes 4.003 raw log

CSM 4 meeting 003, Sun 3rd Jan - Meeting Minutes

Present

ElvenLord, Alekseyev Karrde, Zastrow (Late), TeaDaze, Korvin (Late), Z0D, Song Li, Sokratesz, Helen Highwater (alt), T'Amber (alt) (Afk at first)

Absent

Mrs Trzzbk, Farscape Hw (alt), Meissa Anunthiel (alt), Serenity Steele (alt)

Discussion

Meeting started at 14:22

ElvenLord set out the agenda.

1 Alliance action confirmation windows
2 Identify and remove price ceilings
3 Mining crystals change colour of mining laser beam
4 In game Events Menu
5 Standings list import/export
6 Hybrid guns balance
7 Forum Censorship
8 Boost Warfare Links and Revisit Information Warfare
9 Battle Recorder
10 Tracking for Fighters lost in combat
11 Destroyer Improvements
12 In game Events Menu
13 Lock Characters to Prevent Theft
14 Put More Faction Items On the Market
15 Suicide Ganking Discussion

TeaDaze provided links confirming that the meeting could go ahead with the 6 representatives and two alternates online.

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Alliance action confirmation windows

ElvenLord classified this as a minor matter but asked for comments.
TeaDaze asked if the scope for these windows was to be for creation only. Song Li confirmed the proposal as on creation but that it could be added to.

Z0D thought it was self explanatory and didn't have anything to add.

Helen Highwater didn't have an argument against the proposal but felt that the CSM needed to push for a redesign of the alliance and corporation interface as it is just horrible on the whole. TeaDaze agreed with Helen.

ElvenLord stated he has raised a proposal for an overhaul of rules and grant-able roles as a perquisite for overhaul of management tools in general which will be on the agenda for next meeting. http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1243317

Alekseyev Karrde suggested that the confirm window should have alliance name and ticker in the text box so the confirmation window confirms you're creating the alliance you want to create. ElvenLord agreed and asked Song Li to update the proposal to include it.


Passed 7 for, 0 against (T'Amber was AFK and 7 is the minimum number of votes required)

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Identify and remove price ceilings

Helen Highwater complained that there was still no concrete details or actual research on this proposal and requested it be removed from the agenda until it meets some kind of minimum standard.

TeaDaze asked if there was any reason to restrict this to NPC sell orders and suggested that NPC buy orders should be looked at as well.


Alekseyev Karrde pointed out POS structures as one of the first examples of this and also didn't object to TeaDaze's addition.
In Z0D's opinion this is general, but applies to the many NPC non player build-ables.

Song Li stated this would also slide into T1 loot drops killing the T1 module production viability. Sokratesz agreed with Song Li and also mentioned that it ties in to the t1 loot and insurance isk faucet and wanted these topics packed together to address the entire flawed thing.

Alekseyev Karrde requested this proposal be amended to include loot drops not just market orders. ElvenLord asked for volunteers to make this new proposal with Alekseyev Karrde. Z0D, Song Li and Helen Highwater expressed an interest in this.

Proposal put on hold for reworking

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Mining crystals change colour of mining laser beam

ElvenLord classed this as a minor thing as it is already in the game with Amarr lasers. Alekseyev Karrde saw no reason not to do this as Mining is boring.

Helen Highwater asked other than looks, what would be the actual benefit. ElvenLord pointed to the cons on the proposal that it would make it easier for gankers to know the value of the ore in the hold. Helen Highwater countered that most gankers will scan a ship before suiciding it.
TeaDaze added that it is pretty easy to see what asteroids the lasers are mining but didn't have any issue with colour changes. Z0D agreed with Helen that a ganker would scan if its even worth the effort.

Song Li stated that in the end yes this is just a graphics change but would add some flare for miners.

TeaDaze pointed out that some people don't care what the miner is mining, just wanting to gank the ship they are in linking to http://hulkageddon.wordpress.com/


Passed 6 for 1 against (Helen Highwater)

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Ingame Events Menu

Z0D stated this was a suggestion made by T'Amber and it would be interesting for corporation / alliance members to be able to create their own events for game.

TeaDaze didn't think this needed to be in game as such and it would be better suited to spacebook (New Eden).
Alekseyev Karrde pointed out the events area of forums was terribly cluttered and would love for something like this to be in game accessible and sortable by things like day or jumps.

ElvenLord agreed with TeaDaze that this would be more suited for New Eden than in game. Helen Highwater agreed too and pointed out with the new browser, checking the forums and links in game is no longer as horrible as it used to be. TeaDaze added that with the new browser it can have the level of integration needed to sort by jump etc. and suspected it would be far quicker to implement than an in game window with all the limitations of the current UI. Z0D agreed. TeaDaze also said it would be nice to have the option to view / maintain events from out of game which would be possible if logged in to New Eden.

ElvenLord pointed out that New Eden is not out and we don't know much about it. Helen Highwater suggested a web interface on the Eve-Online site that could later be hooked into New Eden. Alekseyev Karrde also agreed that as New Eden isn't out CSM should not make design assumptions about it. He suggested this be passed to CCP so they know we would like it and let them decide if it should be put it into New Eden. Z0D agreed.

ElvenLord called for a vote on the proposal with an addition of a browser option and recommendation for browser version. TeaDaze preferred to amend the proposal to remove the in game version and only support a web based version to use via the IGB.

ElvenLord agreed and called for a vote on an amended version of proposal to provide player events functionality via IGB.
T'Amber joined the meeting just before the vote.

Passed 9 for 0 against

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Standings list import/export

ElvenLord wanted to point out that everybody is waiting for treaties and additional option for standings etc. so viewed this as a temporary solution for standings mirroring till then (or until announcements are made on an overhaul of standings management).

TeaDaze complained that the proposal was very light on any details, such as how to handle issues arising from importing a new standings list over existing standings etc.

Helen Highwater suggested it might be an easier / better solution to allow standings to be set for an entire alliance rather than at just corporation level. Z0D thought it would be useful when passing standings and blue / reds to friendly corps / alliances living in a common area and that it reinforces something wanted in the future.
ElvenLord stated his understanding of the proposal was the addition export and import buttons on standings tab

Korvin joined the meeting.

ElvenLord said he thought it to be a minor issue and didn't have anything against it. However he still classed it as a temporary solution and felt that the entire standings management needed an overhaul along with rest of management tools.

TeaDaze suggested that standings export would likely be easy to implement but that import would probably be a non trivial amount of work and would prefer to see this rolled into a proper overhaul of the standings system with some proper detail.

Korvin claimed it as a minor change that had been discussed already and he had left it only to raise a discussion on corporation management. He said the main idea was to separate alliance management from corporation management and make it more flexible.

T'Amber agreed with ElvenLord that it could be fixed as part of a corporation management overhaul. They also suggested a quick solution to have a box like in the mail menu where you could drop multiple names, with the API export already available this would be an easy fix.

Alekseyev Karrde said that from reading the proposal it seemed targeted to coalitions and in that case hiding blues would be that much harder for surprise drops against blobs, and blob building that much easier which could have some unintended consequences.

Z0D also saw this as something to be added via future standing overhaul as a list you can subscribe to as well as permissions, operators, so a few persons responsible for it could manage it and who can subscribe to it etc.

TeaDaze summed up that there was no detail in the proposal on how it will work and questioned if it would do a merge or a full reset and replace. They went on to suggest that without a full reset you would end up with issues after resetting somebody to neutral because it wouldn't export them in the new list and standings would remain whatever they were at before. TeaDaze ended with the request that the proposal either be rewritten with more detail or rolled into something else.

Korvin suggested this could work as per the fitting export works, when you mark the fits needed. Song Li thought this should be in parallel with the export/import ban
T'Amber offered to mock up an image using the ui gfx which would explain the idea better as they had something similar to this already half done.

ElvenLord asked Korvin and T'Amber to rework the suggestion a bit and raise it for next meeting because as it stands now it is missing a lot. Korvin and T'Amber agreed.

Proposal put on hold for reworking

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Hybrid guns balance

TeaDaze agreed with the idea of looking at hybrids but stated they could not let this proposal through because it contained no detail and instead pointed to an external website. TeaDaze continued that the detail needed to be put on the wiki and that by pointing to an external website it mean changes could be made to the proposal outside of CSM

Korvin stated that there were a lot of tables so couldn't put it on the wiki. Helen Highwater disagreed saying tables were available on the wiki.

ElvenLord said he had no problem with external sites as referral but not entire content of the proposal.

Sokratesz felt that it was too easy to just say that they are 'not powerful enough' and that there are many things to consider. Sokratesz also gave the example of their superior range not always taken into account and said it was impossible to vote based just off of this small proposal.
Alekseyev Karrde said that superior range was only due to the bonuses on sniper specific Caldari ships and didn't relate to the weapons themselves. He added that he thought blasters were fairly well used and that it was Rails that needed the most attention.

ElvenLord thought blasters to have a bit of a problem especially on Gallente ships since they usually miss the range bonus. He added that hybrids do need a bit of a work on them but that this proposal needed a solution.

Helen Highwater said they couldn't support this either because the external site began by saying 'let's assume the ranges and DPS are the same' which weakens the point when you choose biased datapoints for comparison. Helen added that ranges, alphas and DPS most certainly aren't the same and that you can't apply the same fix to rails and blasters as if they are the same weapon. TeaDaze agreed with Helen and also wanted to point out that ranges, alpha and DPS should vary otherwise everybody might as well just throw away 3 races and just have the same ships and guns.

Korvin stated the problem to not be only range and DPS, as he put in the external link. He added the examples of double tracking for lasers with the same DPS as rails and that the dps for snipe ammo on artillery is higher than hybrids. He wanted to the balance the whole advantages list including reload, capacitor use etc.

Helen Highwater complained that the external site was assuming binary conditions for the advantages and disadvantages giving the example of no cap use is an advantage for missiles and projectiles but not referencing the huge difference in cap use between hybrids and lasers. TeaDaze agreed with Helen.
Korvin said it didn't matter when you were dried by neutralisers and can't shoot at close range and that you can't look at small guns the same way that you look at big.

Alekseyev Karrde was curious as to what the detractors from this proposal see as the role or advantage of hybrids and their evaluation of how well they do at it now? He also agreed with the notion that rails and blasters needed to be tweaked in different ways.

TeaDaze replied that they didn't support this proposal due to the way it was presented (in that the actual proposal contained no detail and relied totally on an external footnote). TeaDaze said as far as roles for hybrids that it was for the proposal to suggest why the current system wasn't right. TeaDaze ended with stating they used blaster boats for close range DPS and found them to work fine.

Sokratesz agreed that it needs looking at but that there was no easy solution that could be voted on now.

T'Amber agreed with TeaDaze and suggested a vote to reintroduce this topic once the suggestion was more complete.

Helen Highwater said they use rails a lot as a Gallente fleet sniper and had no real complaints with the way they work for that role.

Korvin countered that TeaDaze used blasterboats for the dps bonuses they have not for any blaster advantage. He went on to ask if TeaDaze had ever used blasters on non dps bonus ship. Korvin then said regarding rails and range fights that you use eagle only when you cant use zealot or munin. He ended by saying he could use an iteron for shooting but that wouldn't put them in line with other boats.

Alekseyev Karrde wanted to amend the proposal to say hybrids are a bit on the weak side with an ill-defined role and wanted to let CCP poke around with the numbers since the CSM doesn't have access to a Q+A department Alekseyev Karrde also said Korvin makes a good point on the ship/gun thing because Rails on Caldari ships have no bite but lots of range and the opposite is true on the Gallente. He stated neither ship is as good for fleet fighting as the other races, by a wide margin.

TeaDaze replied that they didn't use blasters on ships not bonused for them and asked why they should saying what right do people have to complain that hybrids don't work as well on an unbonused ship and wondered how can you balance hybrids if you want to ignore the ship bonuses. TeaDaze again suggested the proposal be rejected until it is reformatted.

Helen Highwater took exception to Alekseyev's point about a QA department saying the CSM were capable of crunching numbers and running tests and that simply passing it over to CCP like that without actual data is laziness and undermines the CSM's mission.

Korvin replied to TeaDaze that every ship has limited bonuses and that blaster boats can't have 6 bonuses while laser could make do with 3. He added that the balance of guns with no bonuses be looked at to begin with. He then asked why beam lasers have more DPS and tracking than hybrids and why large blasters have 20km range when projectiles have 50?

T'Amber said drone bay size balances their DPS on some ships. Sokratesz added that you can't put a DPS figure on utility slots either.

Korvin complained that once again that's ships and not the gun balance. Sokratesz countered that you can't balance guns without looking at the ships they will go onto. Sokratesz then stated you can't make it so that when you add up all the statistics, every different gun type magically gets to the same number.

ElvenLord called time on the discussion as it is because it was not going anywhere. He called for a vote on the proposal as it is.

Failed 7 against, 2 for (Alekseyev Karrde, Korvin)


Korvin complained that he would have to raise every blasterboat problem instead. ElvenLord stated the proposal was not passed and recommended looking into this again. He asked Korvin to consult with the other delegates and players through an Assembly Forum thread and raise the issue again when it has more specifics. He added it could be raised as blasters in general but should have a specific solution.

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Forum Censorship

TeaDaze wanted to draw a distinction between claimed censorship based purely on post count differences between the eve-online forum and eve search cache which in many cases was caused by people not adhering to the forum rules (which is moderation to enforce the rules and not censorship) vs actual censorship if any (and was still waiting on any proof).

Alekseyev Karrde based his judgement on the number of people who claimed that their post got snipped and then posted reasonable content according to them for a second time. If that was the case then post count numbers would seem to lend credibility to their claims. Alekseyev Karrde admitted this wasn't representative of all of the cut posts but it was more than a few, and really shouldn't be any.

Song Li agreed on the shortened post timer part of the proposal but felt it was light on how to improve the "censorship" issue and make the moderation more transparent. Song Li also agreed that CCP have the right to remove material they feel is inappropriate to the forums.

Sokratesz claimed Applebabe was on the rampage last month deleting post content everywhere and shushing people, mostly in threads related to motherships. They felt that while it is CCP's own forum that there was a feeling that they are using their powers to silence undesired opinions and make issues 'go away'.

Alekseyev Karrde wanted a frank and serious discussion with CCP during the Iceland summit about how the forums are moderated, stating an example of an announcement banner cut to a link because "images are not allowed". He said consistency is important and agreed that it is their forum. However he added that it is OUR community and the forums are a big part of that. Song Li agreed with Alekseyev that CSM should discuss the forum moderation with CCP.

TeaDaze suggested removed posts being shortened to "Removed for spamming" or "removed due to content violation" as opposed to just being deleted to help the playerbase trust the moderation. TeaDaze also supported CSM having a meeting with the forum mod team. Z0D and Song Li agreed

There was a discussion about the 5 min forum timer and how it can be circumvented. It was decided this should also be discussed.

ElvenLord asked if the proposal could be amended to "Discussion about forum rules and moderation with CCP"

Passed 9 for, 0 against

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Boost Warfare Links and Revisit Information Warfare

Alekseyev Karrde said the formatting got trashed when the wiki page was approved.

Sokratesz questioned if it was fair that a T2 ship can do something better than a T3 ship or are T3 supposed to outclass a dedicated line of ships like the command ships.

TeaDaze disagreed with the part of the proposal stating gang links were only useful in near blob level gangs stating the use of skirmish linked battlecruisers.

Z0D pointed out that fleet command boost on fleet subsystem T3 ships have a higher bonus than on T2. Alekseyev Karrde agreed that T3 can get more mileage out of a single link than any commandship but pointed out a Command Ship can field the entire link set with no fitting mods. He also agreed with TeaDaze about skirmish links but strongly disagreed with the current state of info links, having given the EOS its fair shot and finding it underpowered

T'Amber recalled that CCP stated (in 2008) that they were working on a tactical combat map which may require command ships to impliment (i am guessing) which if true would be a very handy boost to command ships also stating that only the EOS seems to be lacking after the bonus changes. Korvin agreed that the EOS needed some buffing but disagreed with the rest of the proposal.

Z0D provided the example of a command link fitted legion T3 ship giving a command bonus of ~28% vs ~24% on a damnation at max skills.

Alekseyev Karrde asked if it was right that the two tank rig lines give more benefit to ships NOT tanking the corresponding way than those that do. He thought they should be normalized higher but having them not stack would be a midway boost.

TeaDaze was happy to support looking at info links, but was not sure about the flat rate 3% on all links from the proposal. TeaDaze thought it might be the case that 3% wouldn't be enough for an info link.

T'Amber suggested this be split into two separate issues.

The first vote was on a buff to the EOS.

Passed 9 for, 0 against


The second vote was on "Looking into Fleet links and possible fix together with CCP"

Passed 9 for, 0 against

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Battle Recorder

T'Amber worried that if done wrongly this idea could put a great strain on the server and added that any implementation of this MUST not effect game play just to watch something that happened, although thought it would be handy as just a FRAPS like tool.

Song Li stated that this kind of idea has been very successful in things like FPS that have built in machinima tools but pointed out the downside of development time needed and potential server strain.

TeaDaze said this have been done in other MMOs where the position information is saved as a text file and can later be played back through the client. TeaDaze also thought it shouldn't cause extra load on the server and would be far less load on the client PC than trying to capture frames and pointed out the additional bonus of potentially being able to edit the file to make new movies.

Z0D though this would be good for fleet commanders to be able to get a recap of a fight to learn from mistakes etc.

T'Amber stated that implementing a Fraps like tool would be easy and it wouldn't effect the server as the information would be sent anyway. They also thought it would be good to allow importing other players' data to give more information without server lag.

Helen Highwater thought that nobody would turn it on in a fleet fight because while it wouldn't affect the server they thought it would cripple the client. Helen Highwater also stated that in the smaller fights were this might be used that the additional overhead of a third party program like FRAPS isn't a problem.

TeaDaze suggested it could be used by CCP as a debugging tool because it would be far easier for players to send a text file of activity than a movie file and also stated that there was a log server of sorts available on SISI which could be the basis for this. TeaDaze also said that CCP should not waste time building a fraps like system because people can use fraps for that functionality. Song Li, Z0D and Zastrow agreed.

TeaDaze thought a text replay system which then renders via the client in offline mode would be good.

T'Amber hasn't run fraps during a battle over 300 people but said with 250 people or so it didn't make much difference to the lag, it was bad either way.

Alekseyev Karrde pointed out that lag was mentioned in the proposal as a possible con and stated he would rather have a smooth game than this feature adding that everyone he's talked to about the proposal seems to think it can be done without much lag.

T'Amber agreed that being able to export data that has already been sent to your computer is cool but thought the time CCP would need to spend on making the engine to replay it may take alot of time even though the idea is very cool and would be Extremely useful. T'Amber broke the idea into 3 parts that could be done in separate stages to make it feasible. a) Video capture - simple, b) Data recorder - easy, c) DATA Replay and editing - lots of work

TeaDaze countered that for video capture people should use fraps and that the data recorder could be a modification of the SISI log server. TeaDaze did agree that playback would be where the majority of the time would likely be, though suggested it could use a modified client and that CCP had talked about the client being able to handle multiple render-threads now (e.g. preview window) which mean the hard work might already be in place.

Sokratesz wasn't sure what data was transferred between the eve server and the client but thought it couldn't be much because eve works even on slow connections. They thought it wouldn't be hard to record and re-play it.

Korvin thought the idea was cool and added that it would allow capturing large fights and then recording then later with high video setting for better quality. He added that the priority of this idea should be low so that the main game development is the primary focus.

T'Amber stated that this idea was actually on their agenda and on talking to a developer friend (on another game) said that it would be relatively easy as information gets sent to your client already but converting it into a format is one issue and that a potential problem is what isn't sent to the client, such as what's not on your screen. They added that this extra information might increase server load as it would need to query things you normally don't see in game.

Song Li summarized that there was general agreement on the concept it was just down to implementation which would have to be up to CCP. Alekseyev Karrde agreed and suggested calling a vote.

Helen Highwater stated that all the relevant information is sent to your client but you typically only store it for as long as it's important adding that once it stops being important you lose it.

TeaDaze pointed out that the proposal wasn't to allow you to see anything past what your screen showed, though being able to pan around would be nice. They added that you certainly shouldn't be able to pick any ship on grid and look at its status etc., comparing it to a blackbox from your ship and not a deep dive on anything on grid.

ElvenLord amended the proposal to the concept of having some type of battle recorder

Passed 8 for, 1 against (Helen Highwater)

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Tracking for Fighters lost in combat

Zastrow Joined the meeting so T'Amber stepped down from voting.

TeaDaze liked the idea of having a tally of how many fighters killed etc, but was concerned on the additional server load in generating the "killmails" or whatever they become. They also pointed out that question will come up about normal drones. T'Amber agreed with the idea too but wanted to ask CCP if this is possible and not something that is restricted by fighter drone code.

Korvin painted a picture of a 500 vs 500 fight where the primary target gets enemy fighters on them and uses smartbombs which would crashes EVE in a killmail spam.

Sokratesz agreed that if the feature is added for fighters that people will want it for drones too and thus unless CCP can make it work without any drawbacks on performance they were against it.

Alekseyev Karrde pointed out that normal drones don't cost as much as some T2 frigates and wondered if killmails were really breaking the servers back in a 500 v 500.

Helen Highwater stated that nobody cares about regular drones and if they argue that this should also apply to normal drones they need to wait until an Ogre II costs the same as a fully T2 fit cruiser. TeaDaze countered that some people are bothered about a 1mil frigate and that some drones cost that or more.

Korvin replied to Alekseyev Karrde suggesting in the 500 man fleet with 15 fighters each dying at the same time from a smartbombs the killmail spam that would occur

Sokratesz disagreed with Helen saying it would be different for everyone and asked why the arbitrary distinction. They also pointed out that right now killmails are horribly malformed and delayed during lag, pointing out the Pandemic Legion titan losses.

Sokratesz had to leave the discussion at this point and passed their vote to T'Amber in the meantime.

TeaDaze agreed with Korvin and said the overriding issue is how this can be put in when it is clear the servers are not up to huge battles as it is. TeaDaze also stated that while they were not bothered about drone kills and losses that some people very fussed about K/D isk ratios and might.

Alekseyev Karrde pointed out that it doesn't have to be a killmail and that the proposal was just asking for some tracking mechanism which even a simple text import/export would do. He also said the proposal didn't say anything about normal drones. Helen Highwater stated that the tracking has to be bilateral, in other words the killer and the victim have to have independently verifiable records otherwise it's pointless.

Korvin stated that augmented ogres cost more than fighters. T'Amber added that so do hellhounds.

Proposal passed 6 for 3 against (ElvenLord, Z0D, Korvin)

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Destroyer Improvements

Z0D stated that this proposal has multiple angles but that they are split with potential solutions which can be discussed and voted for differently

Helen Highwater thought that CCP needed to revisit the role of the destroyer and come back to the CSM with a clearer definition of what they should be. If they are just enhanced frigates then they make T1 frigs obsolete and added that other suggestions move them into AF territory. Helen Highwater wanted to see them made into something with a specific role such as aoe anti drone defence or small ewar platforms.
Zastrow said that destroyers were anti-frigate platforms

Korvin wanted T2 destroyers to be looked at as well.

T'Amber suggested redefining or refining their role to be something to talk about with CCP at the Iceland summit.

TeaDaze brought up the issue that the ships are used for close range or sniper and that trying to change their bonuses (such as falloff for thrasher) would cause worse problems. They added that CCP either need to split them into close range and long range with appropriate bonuses (which would be bad because then you would know a close range ship vs a long one before you engage) or the bonuses should be implemented so you could have X bonus to close range guns or Y bonus to long range guns bonus. TeaDaze also stated that the -25% rate of fire penalty cannot be removed because that would put destroyers into battlecruiser DPS range with no tracking issues and that a fully skilled thrasher can put out around 450 DPS and blaster catalysts were around that range too.

Zastrow stated that buffing destroyers would either hurt frigates because destroyers are a frigate-counter or cruisers would be less desirable as these destroyers would encroach on their role. Zastrow also said that Goonswarm had a program that gets newbies into a destroyer doing 200+ DPS in 10 hours so they can gank Hulks in highsec and added that he thought they were viable ships already.

TeaDaze suggested that if anyone thought destroyers were useless that they needed to look at the Agony Unleashed destroyer wolfpacks class which has been running for 3 years.

Z0D thought this should be something CSM could bring to CCP as well in terms of balancing.

Alekseyev Karrde suggested a vote for Destroyers to be looked at and possibly redesigned to better serve their role. He added that they aren't useless but that they are not shining even against frigates compared to cruisers or assault ships.

TeaDaze suggested most destroyers could use a bit more Powergrid to ease fittings and that if CPU was controlled it should stop people fitting an extra damage mod instead of a micro auxiliary power core. TeaDaze added that in the class you have the flexibility of ~400dps at close range or less but at out to 50-70km (100km for cormorant) this kind of flexibility on a single ship being what Eve should be about.

ElvenLord called for a vote on "Looking into the Destroyer class for possible tweaks to better serve their role".

Amended proposal passed 9 for, 0 against

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Suicide Ganking Discussion

ElvenLord modified the order of the meeting at the request of one of the delegates, bringing item 15 forward.

ElvenLord thought this was similar to the self destruct discussion from the last meeting.

Alekseyev Karrde suggested that insurance payouts on suicide ganking being removed but leaving the rest untouched. TeaDaze agreed suggesting no insurance payout on a concord kill would make people pick targets a bit more carefully. but still allow it as a valid game mechanic.

T'Amber wondered how the server would identify suicide gankers to take away their insurance stating it would need to be bug free otherwise it could cause tears. Song Li said this would be on any concord kill, T'Amber agreed.

Sokratesz though that no insurance payout would only increase the value threshold of cargo that could be transported without risk by 50 mil or so. Sokratesz added that having done many ganks (several marauders lately) they felt that a little increase in risk wouldn't hurt, but that any suggestion to make ganking obsolete would be a step towards hello kitty online and would be fought with vigour.

TeaDaze didn't have an answer for stopping recycled alts etc other than CCP deciding it was an exploit and monitoring people who keep re-rolling chars or logging IPs to link accounts.

Helen Highwater agreed that suicide ganking should be an entirely legitimate activity because even ignoring the grief element it was the only way for example to interdict hostile logistics in Empire space if the targets didn't have their freighter pilots in corp. Alekseyev Karrde agreed.

Helen Highwater suggested that CCP could make suicide ganking harder on prepared targets by making fleet members get kill rights on aggressors which would allow convoy ops in Empire for valuable targets, but didn't want to remove the risk for unprepared / lazy people.

T'Amber thought that changing something like this to completely remove a play style from the game would have negative effects elsewhere and thus agreed with Sokratesz and Helen.

Alekseyev Karrde agreed that it is a viable tactic but thought raising the cost a little would be a good balance, it would still be possible to do to hurt logistics but doing it for economic gain would require more planning and discretion.

ElvenLord added his support for suicide ganking as an game play and its goals, but the insurance added as a bonus reward as most suicide ganking are done in T1 BSs with T1 fit which in terms of ISK made them risk free.


Zastrow pointed out that there were lots of concord deaths every day unrelated to suicide ganking and that removing insurance for those would be like the CSM griefing the entire newbie base. ElvenLord agreed.


TeaDaze admitted it was tricky because with insurance there wasn't any risk in the suicide gank but agreed there had to be some consideration for noobs getting concorded due to (for example) shooting ninja salvages.

Z0D thought the insurance part should be removed if caused by an illegal act or reduce the payout or make a higher premium for insurance for any activity type including suicide. This would be like insuring your own car in RL with two ways.

Sokratesz wanted to add that the loss of security status is severe and that ratting it up is the only way to compensate for it which takes lots of time and cannot be circumvented thus even with no ISK loss there is a 'punishment'. Sokratesz added that not giving any insurance will make lots of newbies cry so suggested giving only base insurance instead of none.

Helen Highwater stated that there was a risk then, just not a financial one. They also said there was the time investment in waiting for a target that might never come as well as the security hit and the chance of not getting to the loot your target dropped before others on the gate and so on. Helen Highwater pointed out suicide ganking is not the free money that a lot of anti-gankers claim it is.

Alekseyev Karrde thought base insurance could work, i,e, void the insurance contract but not deprive altogether.

T'Amber admitted to not knowing much about suicide ganking but wondered if an exponential modifier to the next concord related kill security status loss would be useful for this idea, though added they had nothing against this game style.

Sokratesz said it had been suggested that SCC start keeping books about people and after losing lots of ships or losing them to cops maybe stop insuring for a while but also added that it might be beyond the scope of this proposal. ElvenLord agreed that should go into the insurance overhaul instead.

Alekseyev Karrde thought that security status loss would impact noobs more since they start in 1.0 systems. He agreed that voiding insurance contract or Sokratesz's suggestion was much more elegant and wanted to vote soon as he had a plane to catch.

Z0D liked the possibility of the insurer denying insurance for certain time as well if done too much. TeaDaze agreed that putting in insurance tracking would be an interesting change but that it wouldn't address the disposable re-rolled alts problem and thus it would be lots of effort and need to be justified past a penalty for dying lots.

Helen Highwater pointed out the discussion was presupposing that there was even an issue to address asking why the CSM were discussing fixes when there was still a debate about whether there's was problem? T'Amber agreed. Zastrow suggested the problem was not nearly as widespread as the forums make it seem.

TeaDaze asked if the CSM were saying that suicide ganking was bad and needed a fix or if the consensus was that it was a valid game mechanic that just needed a tweak to balance the risk vs reward a bit. Alekseyev Karrde thought it just needed a tweak for risk vs reward. Z0D and Song Li agreed.

Sokratesz didn't see a problem other than possibly the recycled alts but once again stated support for suicide ganking.

ElvenLord summed up that it seemed there was agreement on suicide ganking as a legitimate tactics and it was just the risk vs reward that needed investigation.

The vote was called on "looking into risk vs reward ratio for suicide ganking"

Passed 7 for 2 against (Zastrow, Helen Highwater)

Alekseyev Karrde had to leave and passed his vote to T'Amber

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In game Events Menu

Duplicate of topic 4. No further discussion.

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Lock Characters to Prevent Theft

Z0D stated the proposal was pretty straightforward that you should be able to block character transfers to anyone and if you decide to transfer to require a petition to unlock the character adding that it was too easy to scam now.

TeaDaze suggested that the character transfer system be modified asap to do something like the following..
1) Lock all transfers by default
2) To unlock a Character you must confirm using a code sent via email.
3) Changing email address should lock transfers for 3 months (for example) as well as email the old address to notify them of the change and finally flag the Account. The old address would remain on the account as well and be notified of any changes until the 3 months were up
4) Changing account owner, address or billing details should send a notification to the email address(es) assigned to the account and also flag the account in some way

TeaDaze added that with this in place you can only transfer if you have the active email address and that an account hack can't simply reset the email and transfer before you can get CCP to stop it

Korvin thought this would do nothing

Helen Highwater wondered how this proposal prevented someone accessing your account, changing your email and passwords so you can't get into it yourself, unlocking your characters and then selling them. Helen added that if someone can sell your character, they already have control over your account.

Korvin claimed most account stealing was due to the email being hacked first

Helen Highwater wondered how TeaDaze's proposal would work given CCP's response times and general responses.

T'Amber had a similar idea to TeaDaze as they trade in characters alot and 30day timers or such would be a pain.
T'Amber suggested that if you wanted to sell a character

1) Select it in your account and you get 7 days to unlock
2) When it unlocks the original email address supplied on the character from 1 month ago is sent a confirmation email, so you can stop it if you didn't do it
3) If you change email address then resets after 30days or whatever

T'Amber added that something to enhance this from Chribba's post 3 years ago would compliment this idea.

TeaDaze replied to Korvin that most of these hacks don't steal the email instead simply sending a spam email into which the victim puts their username and password. At this point the hacker logs into the account page and changes the registered email which gives them control. TeaDaze confirmed to T'Amber that the 30 day lock would only apply after an email address change. T'Amber thought this was good.

TeaDaze confirmed that if the address was unchanged then you could chose to unlock the account which would send a confirmation code via email which you would have to cut and paste into the account page. TeaDaze stressed that there should be no links to click on in this email because otherwise hackers will send out similar looking emails to trick people.

Sokratesz linked to Verone's proposal to block all character transfers http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1239439 and stated that even though there are many ways to make it more secure there is no definite and the only real solution would be the ban of character sales or limiting them to be sold only once per year, 5 years or lifetime. Sokratesz added that changing the system into this (after a long notification period) would make eve a better game for the many reasons listed in the linked proposal.

Helen Highwater thought the way forward was to make it harder for people to change account details without your knowledge such as requiring confirmation of all changes to the original email address etc. rather than a specific fix to a part of the overall problem - fix the main issue that it's too easy to take control of an account.

T'Amber quoted from their CSM agenda post about making characters non-transferable by default with a toggle which must be enabled in the account management page with email notification. T'Amber also quoted Chribba's idea of an optional login feature that allows only certain IP addresses to access an account which would for experienced users only.

TeaDaze linked to the reply in Verone's thread http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1239439&page=2#45 restating that it would ensure you are emailed if somebody attempts to change the account details which isn't specifically for transfers. TeaDaze stated that unlocking transfers would be fine as long as only the original email address ( or a new address after a 30 day cooldown ) can do it. TeaDaze disagreed with stopping transfers completely. T'Amber agreed with this.

Z0D thought that any changes should be confirmed and not just changed without more to it. He also wondered about a separate password for account management to the one used when logging the char in

T'Amber asked if the idea of restricting logins based on IP address needed to be raised separately as they felt it was related to this topic. Z0D thought it was related.

ElvenLord didn't like the IP idea because many people have dynamic addresses. T'Amber stated this would be optional.

TeaDaze didn't think separate username and password between account and in game char would help if you could get into the account management and change the game password. T'Amber agreed/

TeaDaze also pointed out as per the linked post that CCP should run a query over the user database looking for any accounts where the account name is the same as a character on that account and offering those (active) people the option to have their account renamed. TeaDaze felt this was Basic account security.

ElvenLord asked TeaDaze to add to the wiki proposal the entire design and mechanics. TeaDaze agreed.

Z0D thought this was something that should be discussed with CCP while in Iceland as well.

TeaDaze pointed out that if you get your email account hacked that is a far greater problem than Eve but that CCP should put in something like we've discussed to help with the Eve side of things.

ElvenLord decided TeaDaze's mechanics of locking the char in should be put into a full proposal containing the entire solution for the next meeting. TeaDaze agreed.

T'Amber wanted the new proposal to include an optional login feature that allows only certain IP addresses to access an account for experienced users who would like an extra layer of security for their accounts.

Proposal put on hold for reworking

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Put More Faction Items On Market

ElvenLord found this to be a minor thing. Z0D agreed especially for modules, as they are very common in their nature.

Helen Highwater commented that because they are all on contracts it meant that the prices are mostly normalised across the game and that making them a market commodity would move them to regional variances. They saw the point for consumables but thought mods etc should probably stay as they are.

TeaDaze pointed out that Navy cap boosters were already on the market which was the main thing in the proposal but otherwise agreed with Helen.

T'Amber asked if this was for all items not linkable (hellhounds, guardian vexors, some faction mods etc) and items that cannot be seen on the market or just specific items. ElvenLord said he wouldn't like to see all stuff on market but that things like faction hardeners or faction tracking computers which clog the contracts like dark blood energized adaptive nano or Navy tracking computers would be ok.
S
Sokratesz replied to Helen saying it wasn't a problem and would improve the opportunities for traders to make some ISK with these items and possibly decentralise jita a bit as the place to be for expensive stuff.

ElvenLord wanted to say no to officer mods on the market

Z0D wanted modules and other loyalty point related common items but wanted ships to remain only on contracts.

TeaDaze suggested all navy faction items be put on the market but that deadspace and officer items remain contract only. T'Amber agreed.

Song Li thought the the volume threshold should be looked at stating that high volume items like navy modules and stuff should be on the market as they are so prolific.

Helen Highwater clarified their position that they were happy to have faction stuff on the market but just wanted to point out the consequences of it. Song Li stated those were opportunities, not consequences.

T'Amber wanted to amend the proposal to bring it up with CCP and discuss their reasoning why this hasn't happened already saying there might be some design reason for the way it is.

ElvenLord called a vote on "discussing with CCP about putting More Faction Items On Market depending on volume threshold"

Amended proposal Passed 9 for, 0 against

Other Business

ElvenLord reminded everyone that the CSM needs to submit the list of proposals to CCP by 28th January. ElvenLord then proposed 2 meetings, one on 16th or 17th January for new issues (and amended ones from today) and another on 23-24th for finalising the list.

After discussions the next meeting was set for 17th January at 15:00 eve time with a further meeting on the 24th time to be decided.

Meeting closed at 18:21