EVE Isk wormholes, which are unique unexplored systems that allow players chances to explore the unknown and make lots of money, require a lot of probing (which is, the act of using probes to scan out things). The previous probing system was difficult, cumbersome and horrible to use. Roughly a month into the wormhole expansion’s – Apocrypha – release, CCP added some useful features to the probe scanning system, like the ability to ignore scan results you didn’t care about, or the ability to bookmark a location from the scanning screen. The CSM also claims that their concerns about the (horrible) original probing system lead to CCP introducing these changes.
The game’s upcoming sovereignty capture and null sec improvement changes – a previously discussed in another feature – could potentially rock the EVE’s player base to its very core, and in May of 2009 (four months before CCP announced these changes), the CCP dev named “CCP Xhagen” announced that the CSM had brought concerns about 0.0 space to their attention. Four months later, shattering changes to the way null sec runs is announced, and one can only assume that the CSM had a role to play in this.
Despite all the good deeds of the CSM, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the player-filled committee. First, less than 10% of the players eligible to voted in the last CSM election (held in May 09), which begs the question, does the CSM really represent the entire player base? EVE Isk is a diverse game, filled with many niches, including the game’s bitter null sec alliance wars, to ‘carebears’ mining in high sec, to traders in Jita who never undock from the station. As some of the game’s larger alliances could certainly pull their massive numbers together and get certain candidates elected, one can’t help but wonder if the entire EVE player population feels represented by the CSM.
Unfortunately for the already controversial CSM, three weeks ago, it was covered in a scandal, one that rivals the t20 scandal that lead to its establishment. Player Adam Ridgway, playing character Larkonis Trassler, was elected to the CSM on a platform of representing the game’s seeder player base, the ones who play pirates, scammers and mercenaries. Ironically enough, after a CSM meeting in Iceland, Ridgway purchased over 2.5 billion in undisclosed items. These items, following an upcoming change in EVE Isk (that was revealed to him at the CSM meeting), would allow him to make a profit.
