A too late victory

This is my last EVE-Offline post. I have a new mini-project. Unfortunately I can't blog about it until it's complete (somewhere mid-next week).

I blame Sugar! She worked so hard and was so enthusiastic that I believed she can make a difference. So at the CSM 10 election I gave another shot to the Council of CFCPL management, just like 25% of the voters and she won a permanent seat. No one ever, not even The Mittani on the peak of his power had 25% voter support. It was as good as it possibly could: a very motivated, very intelligent, very hard working, absolutely metagame-free candidate with unmatched support. We believed she will finally make CSM what it's meant to be: a council representing the players as whole. A year later she practically quit blogging, I don't know if she plays at all (she stopped PvP for sure) and she didn't run. Her debriefing is openly bitter.

I should have boycotted last year and maybe EVE wouldn't be devastated by New Jita. Maybe there were already NDA free focus groups instead of the horrible CSMX. Only after Sugar gave up I realized that CSM is institutionally rotten: any decent candidate is meaningless while any indecent is a huge asset to his group by leaking and by corrupting devs.

Today I "celebrate" my last EVE achievement, one that will surely won't have some LennyKravitz jump out of nowhere to claim credit for: I was absolutely the only community figure who called for a boycott, with the explicit idea to make it obvious that CSM represents only the Imperium and NC/PL. The results: only 3 winners (Steve Ronuken, NoobMan and Jin'taan) aren't (weren't at the time of nomination) from Imperium, PL or NC. The turnout was 40% lower than last election. If we consider that EVE has more players now (PCU increased), the voter % is even lower. Everything went exactly as I predicted and called for. I'm absolutely sure that this harmful organization will be deleted this year.

But it's too late now. They managed to lobby in a game-breaking design and by this, they already fulfilled their purpose: to allow their groups safely monetize EVE until the game dies. When I started the boycott, I didn't see this. I still strongly believed that EVE can be salvaged and I can defeat the corruption rotting it. I won the battle of CSM but lost the war for EVE. I know now that I should have left when Falcon jumped on me. By then, my work was already done, with MoA I've already proved that the Goons are weak and showed the optimal way to beat them. Eep and TISHU would have finished them without me. That last half year was indeed a waste, especially since it didn't even count as a "I had fun playing". You don't have fun in a game where prominent devs are openly hating and sabotaging you. So I don't play anymore.

Since the group with New Jita will be so unbeatable that not even box-of-frogs-mad players will challenge them, those who are lured to EVE with the PR of World War Bee will leave due to the complete stagnation. Could we save it with a CSM boycott a year ago? Maybe. But you know what? It's not our job! We are players, our part is to fight other players inside the game and not fight for the game outside of it, against Sion-like corruptors and Falcon-like corrupted.