Cancel of Stellar Management

I was quite sure there was nothing to the rumors about CCP planning to get rid of the Council of Stellar Management. Until I read this.

Especially the following excerpt made me think:

Eurogamer: The Council of Stellar Management [CSM] has been increasingly vocal and rebellious in recent months. What's your relationship with them like at the moment - your personal feelings and those of the company as a whole?

Hilmar Pétursson: The CSM has been under constant evolution based on what's going on in the current environment, what's going on with CCP and Eve, who's on the Council and all that. The CSM has helped greatly through the years in getting feedback for aspects of the game.

But some of my concerns right now relate to whether the CSM is maybe focused on a particular aspect of the game and I'm starting to get feedback from players that they worry the CSM is too pre-occupied by a certain playstyle. That might mean we may need to change the structure, but definitely the CSM has worked as a feedback tool greatly throughout the years. We will have them over at the end of the year, after everything that's gone on, and we will have a chance to talk about that. We'll just see where we are and take it from there.

I read it twice, then a third time. Is Hilmar really going to boot the CSM? Even if some players complained about the CSM-choices - they were voted by a majority of players, and are therefore committed to these players' needs. They can't pass on every single request of every single player. They have to focus on those issues that are requested by most.

The pre-occupation by certain playstyles would be a bad thing, if it was just a single cousellor. This is not the case, though, as we have far more.


I hope, the "change of structure" will not be a cancellation of this institution, but perhaps a change of voting-techniques for the upcoming election. To address the issue of pre-occupation by certain playstyles, I would suggest to have CCP divide the CSM and the playerbase in fractions, like high-sec-dwellers, null-residents, faction-warfare-soldiers, wormhole-explorers and so on, so every one of these fractions can vote for their representative within the CSM. This is, of course, a complex thing to do.




Another idea would be to make the players vote for a representative of one of the above fractions, but for only one. High-sec-dwellers would be able to vote for a null-resident, but their vote would not address their own needs.

These ideas are very frail to manipulation - so I am open for other suggestions.