CSM Meeting Minutes 4.006
See also CSM Meeting Minutes 4.006 raw log
CSM 4 meeting 006, Sun 7th Feb - Meeting Minutes
Contents
Present
ElvenLord, Alekseyev Karrde, TeaDaze, Mrs Trzzbk, Korvin, Z0D, Song Li, Sokratesz, Helen Highwater (alt), T'Amber (alt), Meissa Anunthiel (alt - afk at start)
Absent
Zastrow, Farscape Hw (alt), Serenity Steele (alt)
Discussion
Meeting started at 15:17
ElvenLord set out the agenda
1 More control over medals
2 Tower under Attack Mails to POS Gunners
3 Increase forum signature file size limitations
4 Reconnect to lost drones
5 Increasing fleet size
6 In-Game Account Expiration Countdown
More control over medals
Korvin addressed point 2 stating that CCP had changed his medal text misprints via petition and that being able to simply change text with a fee could be abused.
Z0D summarised the proposal. 1) that corp members should be able to reward other player in other corps and also to allow awarding medals to alliance people. 2) the ability to modify text. 3) make medals disappear for real instead of being there forever.
Alekseyev Karrde thought that having medals grant-able outside the corp would lead to medal proliferation and that they will stop being cool. Aleks added that while he liked "alliance" medals he wouldn't go further with it and that while the proposal had a lot of good stuff in it he couldn't support it due to that.
Helen Highwater asked if the "medal griefing" issue could be solved by requiring the awardee to accept the medal before it appears on their character sheet or having a public/private option as for certificates. Mrs Trzzbk thought that medals were already uncool but that "medal griefing" would be hilarious and awesome. T'Amber suggested that if the awardee has to accept the medal and it costs a fair amount of isk to award it in the first place that "medal griefing" wouldn't occur. As much a surprise to them as everybody else, Song Li agreed with Mrs Trzzbk.
Sokratesz pointed out they had a cool medal and agreed that the awardee having to accept them sounded like a good idea.
TeaDaze stated that by default medals were private and thus to "accept" a medal would be to make it public. Tea continued that if the delete option was broken it should be bug-fixed and lastly it would be funny to be able to award daft medals to random people.
Alekseyev Karrde suggested the awardee having to accept and increasing the cost to 10m with the charge applying even if the medal was not accepted.
Helen Highwater stated that awarded medals show up in the corp info of the awarding corp as well as in the character sheet of the awardee and that if there is talk of public/private options then that needs to be taken into account too.
Z0D thought that putting a cost to it would stop spam and that a 10 mil fee to award a medal would be nothing to a crop to reward players who help to shape a battle or a titan kill etc.
Song Li replied to Helen's comment. Song didn't see the corp info having to be private for the corp that awarded it because it is only viewable in corp anyway and that private would be for the individual's display.
TeaDaze suggested it could be more expensive to award medals to players out of corp but unchanged for within the same corp. Z0D agreed.
ElvenLord wanted to call a vote on the amended proposal. Alekseyev Karrde asked for a summary of the changes. ElvenLord replied: 1. Giving medals outside corp with higher price. 2 awardee accepting medal.
T'Amber suggested a button to automatically ignore all medal rewards from a player or corp.
Song Li asked for clarification on accept to make public, or accept at all. Song indicated a preference for accept to make public with them automatically receiving the medal. ElvenLord replied it would be to accept at all and that making them public or not is already available (up to awardee). Song Li wondered about the accept feature only allowing a medal to be awarded once to cut down on medal spam. ElvenLord thought a medal can be awarded just once to a person and you couldn't for example award same medal to same person 5 times.
Vote passed 9 for
Tower under Attack Mails to POS Gunners
There was initial agreement on the proposal from Alekseyev Karrde, Korvin and Sokratesz.
ElvenLord was worried about mail spam. Song Li suggested the use of mail filters. ElvenLord pointed out that everyone that has starbase config role already gets these mails and moaned that he gets loads of those everyday because retards like Tri like to shoot a pot at a tower and leave it.
TeaDaze summarized the proposal: You trust the gunners to defend the POS but not enough to let them monkey with the POS settings. So instead you let them know it is under attack. Tea added that we've seen what hilarity ensues if the directors are offline.
Helen Highwater asked if you have starbase config and gunner roles separately would you get two mails per tower. Song Li thought Helen had a good point and asked if it should filter so one mail per person. Song also suggested this should also be part of the revised roles discussion. TeaDaze wanted only one mail per person, but would rather have two than none. ElvenLord complained that he used to get 20-30 mails a day before they fixed it adding he was fairly sure CCP would screw it up and send him 4-10 duplicate mails a day. TeaDaze replied that it was down to implementation and not something CSM can control.
Song Li joked that if ElvenLord was worried about too many mails he could right click and drop roles.
Vote passed 7 for, 2 against (ElvenLord, Mrs Trzzbk)
Increase forum signature file size limitations
Sokratesz liked the idea, Korvin did not.
Sokratesz wanted greater file size but not pixel size. TeaDaze referred Sokratesz to the proposal where it clearly stated the Pixel size limit stays.
Mrs Trzzbk wanted to be able to go back to a neon pink "Jade FOR CSM" sig all blinky and so on.
Song Li also wanted an increase to the text length of the the sig because it was annoying to have to bit.ly all your links just to get the stuff to fit. Sokratesz wanted a horizontal line between the post and actual sig.
Vote passed 8 for, 1 against (Korvin)
Reconnect to lost drones
Sokratesz stated that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't that it was really weird and needed fixing.
Mrs Trzzbk preferred a carrier-like solution where if you warped off the drones would go inactive but if you disconnected your drones would return to your bay adding that it was horrible to be ratting in a Dominix, get disconnected and come back just in time to see the rats blowing up your last Ogre II.
Helen Highwater thought the second con (easier setup for sniping) sounded like a pro. TeaDaze stated that it could be an "unintended" buff hence why it was down as a con - I.e. a way to exploit the new mechanic. Alekseyev Karrde thought it could be an incredibly interesting, fun and challenging change to sentry drone sniping which may buff fun factor. TeaDaze agreed with Aleks but added that it wasn't the point of the proposal so it would be up to CCP on that score if it was allowable.
Song Li had an issue with the timer wondering if the server crashes during that time and it takes a bit to restart or if you disconnect due to technical issues you could be over that time period. Song thus wondered if the timer was really needed. TeaDaze stated the timer was there to encourage people to log back in and not simply setup drones and stay logged off till a target appears.
Sokratesz wondered about being able to warp to drones if they are listed as 'in faraway space'.
Song Li continued by suggesting people would just relog every 10 minutes to reset the timer. ElvenLord thought that CCP would make the decision on how the proposal was coded as well as what specific exploits were possible. TeaDaze replied to Song Li that if people wanted to spend their time logging in, warping back (emergency warp), reconnecting drones then disconnecting again every 9 mins or so then that was up to them. Tea indicated they would find that tedious.
Vote passed 8 for, 1 against (Mrs Trzzbk)
Increasing fleet size
Alekseyev Karrde asked if the CSM really feel good about making blobbing even easier. TeaDaze also expressed a dislike of the proposal.
Sokratesz didn't think it would change blobs much because they will "still form up in the billions" but it would just make it slightly easier. Mrs Trzzbk thought that capping fleet sizes doesn't discourage "blobbing" but that it just makes it annoying as hell to fight. Mrs Trzzbk also joked that capping alliances to 200 people would avoid blobbing. ElvenLord agreed it was the same but just allowing better fleet manipulation.
TeaDaze suggested it was a huge change because of fleet wide broadcasts etc having to go to more people thus increasing traffic. ElvenLord claimed that was the risk people would have to cope with if they wanted 500 man gangs.
Alekseyev Karrde stated that the fleet size limitation is the only (arguably one of the two if you count lag) disadvantage(s) to piling infinity members into a system to try to fight. Aleks added that Eve needs more disadvantages to doing this not less.
Helen Highwater suggested a better solution to be able to link fleets and share broadcasts etc between them. Helen added that way you would still need FCs per fleet but you get more in game co-ordination tools.
Korvin pointed out that such a change can cause new bugs and secondly that a single person would be able to boost 512 people which was a serious boost to gang bonuses and could ruin that balance. Sokratesz countered that it was not like they were in need of a nerf. Alekseyev Karrde pointed out that it doesn't boost gang bonuses at all rather it just requires fewer characters to apply them to an equal number of people. Aleks added that of the things wrong with this proposal the effect on gang bonuses was marginal and not a meaningful warfare link buff.
TeaDaze asked for clarification on max fleet size because the original proposal thread called for a new level above fleet command and not just another wing per level. ElvenLord asked what wasn't clear. TeaDaze again pointed out that the original proposal was for a level above fleet command but the proposal in the wiki didn't reflect that. Tea also took exception to no cons listed when there are clearly issues to do with extra lag etc. ElvenLord believed there was no issue with extra lag as the system stays the same just the limit of it is raised a bit. Sokratesz thought CCP would have to judge that. ElvenLord also suggested there was more lag from 2-3-4-5 gangs then 1 gang with same numbers as calculations are done 1 time not 3-4-5-6 times.
Mrs Trzzbk didn't think the fleet system as is discouraged you from bringing 800 people and simply allowing more people into a single fleet instead of requiring that they make 3 of them will not add any lag and also believed it might reduce it due to there being less calculations on the server. Mrs Trzzbk didn't see how gang bonuses being applied to more people is a "boost" to them since the bonus was the same just pushed to more people. Mrs Trzzbk liked Helen's idea for "fleet linking" but suggested it would require considerably more coding and would introduce all manner of hilarious bugs such as being able to warp to hostile gang members.
Z0D also liked Helen's idea of fleet linking but wondered about different elements of a fleet at the wing level being able to be created by different wing commanders and then linked to a fleet. Z0D suggested forming up a fleet could then be faster.
TeaDaze suggested that broadcasting to more people and sending gang boost messages to more people could only end with causing additional server load pointing out that these messages are sent the instant the gang booster enters the fray. Tea also added on the subject of boosting that this would allow a single gang booster to apply bonuses to hundreds more people without having to have additional command structure in place and that they didn't want to support anything that makes it easier to throw bigger fleets around.
T'Amber liked Helen's idea if it could be made bug free and suggested another skill to add to the command tree - Fleet Communication Systems Operation which would open up some interesting possibilities but allowing more people to benefit from one persons skills was not so good.
Helen Highwater replied to TeaDaze that the biggest obstacle to getting 500 people in a system is getting 500 people, not having to put them in separate fleets. TeaDaze countered that it doesn't appear to be a big issue for many alliances / naptrains etc to get 500 people into fleets. Helen Highwater replied that those people aren't suddenly going home now because they have to be in two fleets and that increasing the max size of fleets doesn't magically conjure up more x's in alliance.
Z0D thought that as the game grows it was only logical that system be improved to allow room for more people to play in bigger fleets if required, provided CCP can fix lag etc.
ElvenLord called for a vote to end the discussion.
Vote passed 5 for, 4 against (Alekseyev Karrde, TeaDaze, Korvin, Song Li)
In-Game Account Expiration Countdown
ElvenLord thought this was a straight forward suggestion and wanted to just call a vote and end the meeting. Mrs Trzzbk wanted to have the countdown longer than 24 hours but agreed it was a pretty straight forward proposal.
Alekseyev Karrde preferred some kind of countdown or billing cycle warning on the log in screen instead of annoying in game popups which might get in the way of shooting somebody.
TeaDaze suggested adding configuration options to set the time from when it warns (24, 48hours etc) and maybe adding email warnings too.
Z0D thought the shutdown style warning can be annoying but to some but it was pretty much the only way to warn without having a more annoying pop up.
ElvenLord called for a vote on the amended proposal
Vote passed 9 for
Other Business
There was brief joking about scheduling the next meeting for Feb 18th in Iceland (the date of the Summit). Meissa Anunthiel suggested tasting the rotten shark.
Eventually the next online meeting was set for March 14th with the time to be announced closer to the time
Meeting closed at 16:33