Yes, folks you read the above image correctly.
I am indeed running for a place on the 9th Council of Stellar Management. Expect more information in the coming weeks.
Feb 012014
Nov 122013
This coming Thursday – 14th November 2013 – CCP will be streaming more details of Rubicon, the upcoming EVE Online expansion, as well as looking further ahead into the future of EVE. This will be live streamed on the CCP Twitch channel from 19.00 UTC, hosted by the excellent CCP Guard alongside the EVE Development team.
While you can watch this alone, discuss it on the forums, or even brave the stream chat channel, I invite you to join me on the RvB Ganked Mumble on the day to talk about the Rubicon. its features and anything else discussed by CCP. I shall be online from 18.00 UTC for those interested in watching the stream with me. Additionally for those unable to use a mic, please join the RvB Ganked channel ingame to discuss the expansion at the same time.
I am hoping any available members of the CSM will be there as well.
For those of you who play Planetside 2 with me on Thursdays, lets play on Wednesday 13th. So get downloading that 1.7GB performance patch!!! Everyone else, I shall see you on Thursday.
Sep 242013
Xander Phoena, the host of Crossing Zebras, one of the foremost podcasts in EVE, came to me with a great idea. A community FFA featuring the CSM, the podcast community, bloggers and best of all YOU, the public! So join us on 5th October 2013 from 20.00 EVE in the system of Asakai. Bring frigates, destroyers or even cruisers and meet us at the Sun.
Do not miss out on a killmail of your favourite CSM members, or podcast hosts!
What we would love from you is people to stream the event live & in person, so if you use Twitch and stream ganked, or solo roams or indeed anything, drop by the system and get the coverage rolling.
We will have some prizes to offer, including random contracts of Slicers & Firetails from me, courtesy of Judontknowme a former RvB Ganked regular, as well as other items to be arranged between now and the 5th October.
Check this post out over on the Crossing Zebras site for more details, or to ask any questions join the ingame channel CZ Community FFA.
I’ll see you there!
Sep 052013
August 28th through 30th saw the CSM8 Summer Summit with CCP.
7 members of CSM8 got to attend in person: Trebor Daehdoow, Ripard Teg, Ali Aras, Mynnna, Mike Azariah, James Arget & Korvin, with the rest of us being able to digitally attend thanks to the magic of technology. Before I go on it has to be said that Chitsa Jason was easily digital man of the summit, he was there for everything & even webcammed in too, unlike the rest of us who are shy and retiring.
Over the 3 days of the summit we took part in around 20 sessions with a VERY large number of teams from inside of CCP – see a rough line up here:
Overall it is my opinion that the sessions themselves were very positive with just one or two exceptions, however even those finished on a good note, thanks in part to fellow CSM members really plugging our role as stakeholders.
The standout sessions for me were as follows:
- Economy: EyjoG was as ever well prepared with a serious amount of graph porn related to numerous financial statistics, all of which kept the small time financier in my head happy;
- Art: What can I say I am a sucker for pretty pictures, and the Art team did not fail to deliver, including new looks for various in game items. I would go further, but I could be breaking my NDA and Dolan will hurt me if I do that;
- 5-0 sessions: 5-0 is the team of the moment at CCP – helps when you feature the likes of CCP Fozzie – and what they showed the CSM was very well received, and I know you all will enjoy the content to come in Winter & beyond from this team as much as we enjoyed hearing about it;
- UI: Spoke with reps from several groups for this session, and I came away very much looking forward to what the connected teams have to offer in the near future.
Every session that I digitally attended – and there was a couple I was not present for due to real life getting in the way – were just as good as the above, but the standouts were the ones that really made ME sit up & take notice for my own reasons. Each of us on the CSM had sessions like that, for examples check Ripard Teg’s daily writeups over on his blog.
All in all it was an excellent Summit, even with a few technical niggles for those digitally attending – bad sound on day one & unable to be heard for half of day three – and I do look forward to being on the in-room version of this picture during the Winter:
As for the minutes, we have started the task of working on those this week, now that we have videos of the sessions available. We will be doing a two paragraph summary of each session, as well as more in-depth minutes for those people who REALLY want to read every word said. I cannot say with any certainty when these will be ready, just that with Ali shepherding us around, they will be ready sooner rather than later. And to the members of previous CSM’s who I may have offended when it came to comments on how long the minutes took to be publicised: I feel your pain now, I am sorry!
Jul 082013
AT XI kicks off in 12 days with the matches below making up the opening games of the first day of the tournament. Below you find my predictions for these matches – my chosen winners are highlighted in BOLD:
Circle-Of-Two vs SCUM. (The team with an AT pedigree v some lowsec gate-campers? No contest.)
Of Sound Mind vs YOUR VOTES DON’T COUNT (While I like SOUND, I have had many more good times with & against the waffles.)
Curatores Veritatis Alliance vs R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N (T.O.O M.A.N.Y D.O.T.S. So I am favouring CVA, although will they form up before the match begins?)
THE R0NIN vs CAStabouts (Another team with AT Pedigree v ? Yeah.)
Goonswarm Federation vs Sleeper Social Club (I’d like to see Goons get far this year so I can take their scalp for the RvB scalp collection.)
Verge of Collapse vs Outbreak. (VoC riding a wave after last year, so totally favouring them.)
Wormhole Holders vs Rote Kapelle (I would love to face RK again this year, without them flying out of the arena.)
Perihelion Alliance vs The Fourth District (I like the 4th, and root for them every chance I get.)
D3vil’s Childr3n vs Late Night Alliance (Not a clue who either are, so I flipped a coin)
Clockwork Pineapple vs Rainbow Dash Friends (Ponies. Nuff said.)
RAZOR Alliance vs Babylon 5.. (I just finished a rewatch of B5)
Sicarius Draconis vs Test Alliance Please Ignore (Id like this scalp too)
Moist. vs Transmission Lost (Not a clue who either are, so I flipped a coin)
Surely You’re Joking vs Nulli Secunda (Scalps for the scalp throne)
Exiled Ones vs Choke Point (Not a clue who either are, so I flipped a coin)
JIHADASQUAD vs Exodus. (Exodus. seem like a pretty good group of small gangers, so I went with them.)
Noir. Mercenary Group vs Shadow Cartel (This was a hard call, both are good groups of pvpers, but in the end I also flipped a coin)
HUN Reloaded vs DarkSide. (HUN should do really well this year.)
Darkness of Despair vs Quebec United Legions (Lets see what these russians can do)
M.I.F vs Angeli Mortis (I have at least heard of Angeli, so I am going with them.)
Kill It With Fire vs Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork (Kill it could surprise me, but I know a few pilots in Ministry and totally will be rooting for them.)
The G0dfathers vs Urine Alliance (Urine are a scalp I want, and a group I want to do well, will they become Kings of Tourney space?)
SOLAR FLEET vs HYDRA RELOADED (Solar cant bot the tourney.)
End of Life vs Darkspawn. (Not a bloody clue.)
Heretic Initiative vs No Holes Barred (Fuck the franchise.)
WHY so Seri0Us vs RvB (Seriously, you expected anything else?)
W-Space vs Mildly Sober (Flipped a coin)
The Obsidian Front vs The Initiative. (Totally expect Initiative to take this.)
Confederation of xXPIZZAXx vs Dead Terrorists (Pizza will be great to watch I am sure.)
Sadistica Alliance vs Agony Empire (I like Agony, and know many of their pilots. Friendship, best ship.)
Pandemic Legion vs Synthetic Systems (Too easy a choice)
The Kadeshi vs Drunk ‘n’ Disorderly (The Kadeshi is a long term tourney participant, they should do this easily.)
If you have your own ideas, feel free to post them in the comments.
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Not really too much to say on the CSM, except that the past 3 weeks or so have in my opinion been really good for our interactions with CCP, I cannot say on what subjects, but I have felt like I have been contributing a lot more. Additionally the summit dates are the 28th to 30th August, I will not be “live”, but I will be there remotely due to work commitments.
Also, please join me on the EUNI public mumble on the 13th as per this post on their website.
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This past weekend Ganked 75 rolled over 120 talwars into space and scored over 120 kills. It was a strange roam, we had a quiet time in Syndicate, helped the blues of a fleet member defend a sieged POS, and got to Fountain were comms proceeded to break down enough that I got really annoyed and kicked everyone…
Now in my defence I had 2 guys giving varying intel, 1 guy rehashing a fight some slackers had just had, and a few other people continuing to sing – after an admittedly great fleet wide rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody – and someone else calling a cheetah on a gate as primary, just to see our own bubble go up as some bombers decloak while half the fleet is warping into our bubble and the other half is jumping away from the bombs, no wonder I was annoyed.
Anyway, I soon calmed down and we reformed around half the fleet in Stacmon – usual after a whelp – and went and fought an Agony Empire PVP Basics roam. Welcoming newbs to pvp always feels good.
We did have an array of Somer.Blink sponsored prizes too, and here are my winners for the night:
Spots: Hookbill (Rexanna Gold, Stian83, Rebbeca Naresh, Jeff Spartan, Saintcav, Lenier Chenal, Targan Yaken, mach eon, coat hanga strangla, kitty baugh)
Distinction: Navy Drake (Telemachus Rheade, FishySquirrel)
Excellence: Raven Navy (Ceofore Aideron)
Final Blow & Top Damage on our 7000th Mail: Osprey Navy Issue x2 (Redbad)
May 212013
Hi guys.
Going forward I have decided to post a regular blog entry that will summarise the past couple of weeks of my EVE time especially the following:
- Ganked Prizes listings for those Ganked’s I do not write about seperately
- Fun things RvB may have got up to since the last of these articles
- Updates about CSM: how I am finding it, the people, CCP and so on
- Videos I have seen that I think more people need to watch
- Anything else I feel you want to briefly read about
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Ganked 69 was held this weekend, and it was a glorious 5 hours in Rahadalon fighting the forces of Brave Newbies Inc, TEST, CVA & Friends, and many others who I forget at this point. Suffice to say the system was rammed. I had plenty of prizes to award over the evening from both SomerBlink and the wonderful guys over at Angeli Mortis.
First up are the SomerBlink sponsored prizes:
Fed Navy Comet x15 (1 per) – Bandsaw1961, VALENTLEADER0524, Trinneth, Brutor Adtur, Ian Lemmy Killmeister, Sun Seer, Rexanna Gold, Gyouzac, 2Larmer, Mogubu, Mourning Souls, Melancholy707, Rida Carter, Rasputin1979, Serenety Steel
Eris x3 (1 per) – Local009, Butch Cassidy, Fishysquirrel
Exequror Navy x1 – Charlotte Winter (A none rep hull for an awesome repper!)
Deimos x1 – Xan Drakov (Because a man should care about the sanity of others)
Vigilant x1 – MirrorGod (BNI POS hates Mangala, so again he came to the fore!)
Navy Megathron x1 – Meirantean (Didn’t want that corp anyway)
The above will be contracted out by a rep of SomerBlink this week.
And now for the prizes generously donated by Angeli Mortis. (Who assure me they are always recruiting new members, so look into them if you are looking for a new home!):
Vulture & Aliastra Catalyst – John Hartley (Excellent Warp-ins)
Harpy & Aliastra Catalyst – Horus H’kaan (Fix Rails Mang!)
Basilisk & Aliastra Catalyst – Charlotte Winter (Love reps)
Sabre – PVDNS77
Wolf & Stabber Fleet Issue – Miss Snuggless
Vexor Navy Issue – TGL3
Keres – Equinox Starborn
Gnosis – Caterpil
Raptor & Taranis – Sascha Naskingar
Daredevil – Irodanis Maricadie
Dramiel – Miri Boirelle
Ishtar – Xallaxa
12 Rifters – VonSpaky (for asking if he won anything!)
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In RvB news, we are at war with Brave Newbies Inc. Despite appearances to the contrary we have done this for fun, and boy has it been fun! The BNI guys really are mostly a great bunch and the fights I have had with them have been bloody good ones. We have a few days left in the current war period and I am hoping for even more explosions before it comes to an end, although it may not end – watch this space!
For those wondering, RvB are closing in on 2000 kills in 5 days, including a couple of freighters and a rather shiny strategic cruiser. Neither side has lost carriers yet despite RvB moving a couple over. I have hope for a sweeping capital engagement though!
Good thing about this war, I get to stop losing sec status from spending time in Rahadalon. Which is good as I am far too lazy to rat to get my sec back up. So roll on Odyssey!
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As you will be aware, I have been a member of the 8th CSM for around 3 weeks now, and for the majority of that period I have spent a lot of time reading super sekrit CSM forums, getting to know both my fellow delegates (many of whom have vast knowledge on parts of the game I only have the most basic conceptual grasp!) & the members of CCP to whom we currently have access, and digesting much of the material released about the upcoming expansion than I normally would, especially anything relating to the changes and additions that I am not very confident on. I would sooner be able to represent you all by understanding how everything fits together than just spouting something because I feel a need to be seen to do “something”. All of this just ends up with a very quiet Mangala, not the person you are all used to I know. However, as time goes on I hope to become more vocal, especially if anything happens in the content area’s to which I have concerns or hopes for change.
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And that guys is the first News Round. Not much to say, but lets hope I can improve that over time.
Apr 272013
Thanks for the support all of you gave me.
I have just seen the CSM election results, and I have been elected to the 8th Council of Stellar Management.
I hope that over the next year I exceed all the faith you obviously have in me. And that together with the other delegates we will keep EVE moving forward.
EDIT: Mynnna & Ripard Teg are the permanent summit attendee’s, they will go to each and every summit due to winning the most of the voting tallies. See this link.
Apr 052013
Voting has now started for the 8th CSM and runs until the 18th April 2013.
What you need to do is go to the community voting site, login and then drag and drop your preferred candidates into the numbered slots. While you start with 3 slots as you add candidates more will appear until the 14 are filled. Once this is done, your page should very similar to this:
After this simply click the Submit Vote button and you are done.
Congratulations you have now voted for the 8th CSM.
Should you wish to follow my lead, I posted my own recommendations very recently, so list the following candidates:
Mangala Solaris; Ripard Teg; Ali Aras; Malcanis; Trebor Daehdoow; Nathan Jameson; Mike Azariah; Psychotic Monk; Corebloodbrothers; Unforgiven Storm; James Arget; Mynnna; Steve Ronuken; Roc Wieler.
Every vote matters, so please do not waste your vote by not voting or just picking 1-14 random candidates.
Apr 022013
As with many other Candidates including Trebor, Ripard and the oh so obvious Bloc members, I am going to provide a list of recommended candidates and here we are!
Without any further ado:
1. Mangala Solaris – Well you all know me, are all supporting me, and I would relish the opportunity to represent you on the 8th CSM.
2. Ripard Teg – Very experienced in EVE. Understands many different aspects of the game and its mechanics. Is a damn prolific blogger too so no worries on potential lack of communication!
3. Ali Aras – very focused on the experience of new players in game. Which is something the CSM really needs, new players are important to EVE (and to us in RvB!).
4. Malcanis – While in a null bloc, Malcanis is not officially a bloc candidate as far as I know. I have chosen to recommend him as he has been around EVE for a long time, knows his stuff really well, knows how to put across an excellent argument and has pretty good opinions/ideas on all aspects of EVE.
5. Trebor Daehdoow – When it comes to CSM experience, Trebor is the man here. Has a strong presence in anything CSM related and with CCP Xhagen no longer working on CSM things he will be especially needed by CSM 8. Additionally while his ideas on certain aspects of the game arent to my own tastes, he argues their points well as both devils advocate and actual advocate. Also he makes Poetic really mad.
6. Nathan Jameson – Nathan is the first of my 2 WH picks for this ballot. He is very well grounded in WH’s and in Talocan has founded one of the largest & most stable WH alliances.
7. Mike Azariah – Casual players (and by that I don’t mean bad players which some equate Casual with) need a voice too. Mike would make an excellent rep for people who play as casual and have tried varying aspects of EVE, never finding a single niche. Future expansion releases could give this type of player even more to do, so CCP need some guidance from players such as Mike.
8. Psychotic Monk – A candidate who is for a better “alternative lifestyle” highsec. He has solid ideas, doesn’t have the rabble rabble nonsense that James 315 did and with belligerent undesirables is teaching people to get out and create their own stories in EVE, which is something that drives people to play this game in the ways they do.
9. Corebloodbrothers – Provi guy, who like me wants to see the game keep evolving, and even though he is Provi, has a solid love of PVP. 2 excellent reasons to list him in my book.
10. Unforgiven Storm – Another guy who while in a bloc, does not have the official bloc representative tag. His main platform is industry and improvements to all its forms. He has a solid industry background to support him and the CSM in general in this endeavour.
11. James Arget – my other WH pick. Probably the most likely to get onto CSM out of the WH groups due to his broad appeal amongst those groups, and I think he is the most knowledgeable of the WH candidates when it comes to the actual mechanics of them.
12. Mynnna – Yes the CFC’s main candidate gets a recommendation from me. The guy has a very solid grasp of what the CSM is and should be doing during its term, backed up by a wealth of game knowledge.
13. Steve Ronuken – Totally a “little fish” in the CSM 8 Candidate pool. I like the guy’s perspective on war decs, non-consensual pvp, & his view of null is similar to my own. He would also be a valuable candidate for the 3rd party app community to have representing them on the CSM.
14. Roc Wieler – He wants the 8th CSM to be the best it can for as many as it can and will work to make it happen, and is a very strong voice in the community overall.
Please note, this listing is not in any particular order after the top spot!
Voting that requires a list such as this should start on the 4th April. When it does I will send a mail around, and edit this post with a link that “should” let you just click it, login and vote – either by following my recommendations or voting your own way.
Mar 262013
After a short – and increasingly worrying – 4 day wait, the Pre-election for the 8th CSM has opened.
I am an officially listed Candidate and can be Endorsed by following this link and clicking the big yellow Endorse button once you have logged into the site.
In a week CCP will then open the second part of this Election cycle and allow everyone to list their preferred 14 candidates. The winners of this section will go on to form the 8th Council of Stellar Management.
Thanks in advance to everyone who endorses me, and I hope I win enough of your support to advance to the second phase next week.