Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Q4-2015 PLEX Forecast - Recap

Back in October, I put out an "official" forecast for PLEX over the winter months.  Check out the details on the original post here: Q4-2015 PLEX Prediction which includes source data and code.



Honestly, this went better and worse than expected all at the same time.

The Good

The major problem I had originally was picking a t0 starting point.  I originally used a 60-day moving average, but fans of the show will know I switched to a 30-day t0 with much better accuracy.  Though I don't love the GBM method that is working under the hood, the first period (pre-holiday) is actually pretty not-bad considering the prediction was created in the most unstable period of the last year.  In the future, we can probably stick to a simpler exponent model rather than the more expensive GBM model used here.  For more info on how it's made, check out: Developing Price Predictions.

Given how blind a shot the prediction was, I'm extremely happy to be in the ballpark, even if the ranges at the end are pretty wide.

The Bad

There are 3 big screw-ups going on here:
  1. t0 starting point
  2. GBM vs exponential modeling
  3. Mis-predicting discontinuity
Though the first two were expected before starting, I was a little surprised at the December performance in PLEX.  Specifically over the last week where the price dropped.  I did not really expect PLEX prices to slump under the 1.15B mark, or to continue their slide so strongly after black-friday.  This peak/slump mirrors last year's behavior, even if the specific timings don't line up.  Also, the current weakness is strange to see, where last year we could point to ISboxer policy changes driving changes.

 2014-Q4 PLEX

2015-Q4 PLEX


I tried to cook "down in December" into the model, but I expected things to stay flat at 1.2B rather than slumping under 1.15B.  Some of this might be attributable to Frostline drops including PLEX/MCT's, but the yields there seem extremely low compared to daily Jita trade volume.

Conclusions

If you were waiting for a chance to buy in, now is the time.  The IRL price of PLEX is a little squishy at the moment, but things should stay in the <1.2B region until March when we should expect news/release of Citadels.  I am stealing a page out of delonewolf's book to point at growth into that release and Fanfest.  I will try to cook up new predictions for Q1/Q2 in the upcoming weeks.  Without a date for Citadels in stone, it will be hard to get ranges correct.




Friday, November 13, 2015

Monday, November 9, 2015

Market Maker Interview - Special 01 - Delonewolf



Direct link: http://dl.eveprosper.com/podcast/Prosper_Special01_delonewolf.mp3



Our first Market Maker interview, delonewolf, produces the first (and only other) regular market review at EVE Talk



A trader and industrialist, delonewolf has made a name for himself with his impressive presence on youtube; producing both EVE Talk the market show along with editorials and tutorials.  As a major influence to the EVE Prosper show, we were very excited to get him online for our first interview.  Specifically for his alternate perspective giving players a chance to see the market in a different way.  Tune in for his thoughts on content, money making, play style, and future projects!

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Prosper Monetization Survey

Note: wrote this before the TMC/Fountain War kickstarter was launched.  Personal opinions are complicated, but I have no connection to that project.  Still interested in feedback from fans about Prosper vs Monetization 

Monetization is always a touchy subject, but I try to make efforts open and transparent.  Up to now, EVE Prosper has had all ads turned off wherever possible (blog, YouTube, Twitch), and hosting a Patreon for those who wish to contribute directly.  There is no pay-wall and no subscriber-only content.  The goal is to provide the content as freely as possible, and give those who want to contribute more an avenue to do so.

But the truth is: producing the show is not free.  To get the show to YouTube quickly I use Premiere, and there are costs for hosting and hardware.  In addition to that, I try to compensate direct contributors for contributing to the backbone that makes the show possible: code and hosting.

I am not writing this to shake the tip jar or start an NPR-style guilt drive.  Quality content takes time and energy and some IRL cash, and Prosper is by no means taking food off the table.  I only mean to echo that compensation is a motivator and the more the show supports itself, the more time and energy I can commit to it.

What I do want to talk about is YouTube Red.


I am tempted to enable ads on the YouTube videos because of this service.  On the one hand it feels like leaving free money on the table from Red users.  And on the other it seems like a negligible impact on non-Red viewers because of ad blockers or "regular YouTube experience".  I honestly expect the revenue to be paltry with the current consumption rates on YouTube... but I would like to actually get some hard numbers.

But before I go down that path, I'd like to hear from the community about it.  Do you appreciate/notice the lack of ads?  Do you expect some amount of ads in modern web browsing?  Do you think that this should be a fully altruistic labor of love and it's tasteless to ask for IRL monies?

SURVEY HERE

Also, feel free to put opinions in the comments below.  It will probably be a couple of weeks before any decision one way or the other will be made.

Friday, October 30, 2015

EVE Prosper Market Show - EP042 - Podcast Returns



Direct link: http://dl.eveprosper.com/podcast/Prosper_2015-10-29_EP042.mp3



Show Slides
Raw Charts

Support the show on Patreon! https://patreon.com/eveprosper

Thanks to Randomboy50's website upgrades, the podcast is back.  #1 requested feature should be working here on out.  Still not sure if fans want me to post the backlog, because the feed is going to get pretty messy if I try.

Thanks again to everyone at EVE Vegas!  It was so much fun meeting fellow producers, fans, and devs.

News:

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Signal to Noise

I have been working with the crew at CapStable for the last couple of weeks on a news project. With all the hype CCP has been generating about capital changes announcing at EVE Vegas, there have been rumors of those changes being leaked by someone on the CSM.

I have no hard evidence pinning any CSM member to a leak, or specifics about what was even leaked. What I do have are some suspicious flags turned up for EP040 of the EVE Prosper Market Show:



I don't want to dive into specific politics as I am not entrenched enough to really build a compelling case confirming or exonerating any specific rumor.  But, I do want to cover the methods of what flagged, expand on why, and see if there is any actual merit to the rumors or if it's just a case of confirmation bias.

What Did The Tools See:

If you're interested in exactly HOW Prosper flagging works, please check the Price Flagging blog.  TL;DR: looking for deviation from a moving average.


After doing this Prosper project for a year, I tend to categorize flags 3 ways: 
  • General market noise
  • News related flags
  • Unique flags
That last category is specifically for "weird" behavior.  Things like item groups that never flag, core basket items like minerals or PLEX, and high-meta items that look like loot-table changes.  In EP040's flagging these items piqued my interest (note: SIG is a factor of strength/direction of a given flag)
Just looking at the charts, either side could be vindicated. On the one hand, the basket is pretty damning looking at so much capital equipment tripping flags. Specifically Siege Modules and Drone Control Units triggered my interest because they have never flagged up to now. On the other hand, this could just be scrupulous speculation; capital changes are in the pipline, a positive outlook could be rewarded ahead of time.

Zooming In

This is exactly why we collect EVE Central data as well as CREST market histories. Though I do not use the other hubs in the show this was a great opportunity to use some additional data. Where before I would just push the flags as the main evidence, we have the EVE Central intra-day data to back up or refute any claim.

The plots are included after the break, as well as some links to more expanded versions. As for conclusions, I think the project is a wash. I find the Siege/DCU flags particularly suspicious, and though it looks very small, the Tritanium bump is troubling. Otherwise, the other flags just look like normal market noise. I have heard some more substantial murmurs that the rumors might have merit, but I was unable to find the smoking gun in my data.

Monday, September 21, 2015

Q4-2015 PLEX Prediction

Preface

With the price of PLEX reaching new records, the conversation always centers around what is the appropriate price of PLEX.  As Dr. Ejyo was fond of saying "The right price of PLEX is the price players are willing to pay".  

Though there will be an outcry from players about the play-to-pay equation becoming unbalanced, the price of PLEX will keep rising to meet the demand for the item.  But as the price rises, I expect to see a whole host of related behaviors feed back upon themselves to drive the frenzy and will make the peaks and troughs hard to nail down.
  1. Deflation/Liquidity squeeze: players will avoid spending their ISK on consumption, instead either keeping it in reserve or buying more PLEX than they usually would.
  2. Net worth chasing: players concerned with total value will move more liquid ISK into PLEX to preserve purchasing value against PLEX
  3. Investment chasing: as the rise becomes more pronounced, players will use PLEX as an investment rather than as a consumable.
In short, I think the current peak is unsustainable right now.  However, a 1.3B-1.5B PLEX by the end of the year is absolutely possible.  To dream of the good ol' days of sub-800M PLEX is as foolish as predicting 2B+ PLEX.  I think to expect a band from 1.1B-1.3B for the quarter is a reasonable expectation.

A Prediction In Parts

I expect Q4 to be split into two halves.  Now to Thanksgiving (US), and then the rest of the remaining year.  This is similar to last year's predictions where I expect positive trends through November, as it is traditionally a busy time in gaming.  Then when December hits, I expect negative trends as play tapers off paired with expected sales.  The trouble is picking a starting point for the predictions, but I based off the 60-day moving average to avoid starting in unrealistic territory.


Raw Predictions
Code Source

To briefly sum up, I believe we will continue in a positive realm to a steady price of 1.3B (+10%), then see a back off to 1.2B (-10%) to end the year.  Again, it's really hard to predict prices with the recent wild swings, but I based the behavior off the similar period last year.

Also, I'd like to note that 2 of the last 4 weeks triggered price flags in the Prosper toolset, which is strong indication of instability.  The only times I've seen PLEX trigger these models were before big action on CCP's part (ISboxer bans).  I can't know what CCP is doing behind the scenes, but I'd bet on something popping the bubble sooner rather than later.

Conclusions

We are in unstable territory to be generating predictions in, but the net direction of PLEX over history is up.  Also, say what you will about the health of the game vs PLEX, the honest truth is as long as people are willing to buy and [over]valuate PLEX, the price will climb.  We were on a positive trajectory before the ISboxer changes last year, and CCP's rule change eset the general demand to consume PLEX.  Though we can't know actual PLEX consumption rates, a traditionally busy Q4 paired with AUR consumption may drive us closer to the high-line than the low one.

Also, for as much work as this was to generate, I'm going to keep the making of to another blog.  Stay tuned here and on the EVE-Prosper Market Show for more information as it develops!

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Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Aspiring Hari Seldon - Developing Price Predictions (Part 1)

With the Prosper Market Show on semi-hiatus for the summer, I'm trying to put the time toward developing some new utilities for analysis.  Though I have plenty on the to-do list to work through, I wanted to toy around with some future-looking tools to help illustrate some of the intuition I see moving forward.

Specifically, after looking at some examples, I wanted to try out Monte Carlo analysis.  The idea being if you take a decent prediction methodology, then generate thousands of predictions, you can average out the noise to get at the true signal.

Stage 1: Generating Predictions

Knowing nothing at the start, I picked up Geometric Brownian Motion as the predictor function.  It's relatively popular and well supported, and is handily ready in an R Library.  I won't even begin to claim I am an expert as to what's going on under the hood, but the general concept is pretty straight forward:

Next Price = Current Price + (expected variance)*(normal-random number)

The variance can be tuned as a percentage to express how far any individual roll will move, and how widely the random-number-generator will vary.  To find the numbers, I had to do a bit of hackery, but if you want to see the full methodology, check out the raw code here.  Also, it's worth noting that GBM does take into account interest, but I've zeroed out those numbers for the time being.

Using CREST data as a basis, we can pick a point in time and generate some predictions looking forward.  But due to the random-variance methodology, some predictions are good, and others are not:


These are 3 independent predictions using a low/med/hi variance seed into the GBM function.  The "high" line trending down and "low" trending up are a matter of which rolls are winning.  If you look more closely, the bounds on low are much tighter where the high is much more wild.  Given another set of rolls, the best predictions will change.

The weakness we should be aware of is rolling errors.  Because the GBM function is a recursive and random guessing function, if predictions start to stray off into the bushes, it's hard to expect they will come back.  This model uses a single price to start walking, and the further it walks, the wider the end results will land.

Step 2: Generate a lot of predictions

Happy with the general behavior of the model, the next step is to be able to generate a lot of guesses.  Randomness should wash out given enough trials.

Though I was able to wash out the randomness, the end result is not nearly as useful as I was expecting:


Summarizing the predictions by-day gives us a much different picture.  The randomness is gone, but we're left with a less useful "cone of possibility".  Though the end result we're looking for is definitely a "zone of possibility", this picture is not a useful automation of that concept.  Specifically that the median prediction is roughly "the price will stay the same", this is not a useful prediction for most items.

What is going on?  Well, here we can actually see the GBM function for what it is and why it is breaking down for our predictions:
  1. Assumes +/- variation is equally probable.  Here it looks like the distributions are strictly normal, which means they are centered around 0 +/- variance over time.
  2. Takes no history into account by default.  Function takes a single price and a single variance variable.  Understands nothing about max/min variance
This is particularly absurd for PLEX where variance/volatility is largely positive.


Just looking at the variations for the last year, almost 60% of the movements were positive.  We could further enhance our predictor by looking at a more recent window.

Step 3: Back to the Drawing Board

After chewing on this problem for a few days, I do have some things to follow up.  Though there are some other models to try in the sde package, I do think we have some options on how to get more useful predictions out.

Convolve Predictions?

This is one I've gone back and forth about.  I'd like to be able to "sum" together the predictions to get the general "tone" of what is going on.  Except that it's been 5 years since I took a digital signals class, and my attempts so far have just been guesses.  Though R is ready out-of-the-box to do FFT/convolutions, I need to better understand what I'm asking the program to do.  Currently, all attempts run off to infinity.

Exponential Predictions Using Volatility

After seeing the outcomes of the GBM experiments, I'm instead seeing a different trend pop out.  If I just pick a low/med/high variance out of the distribution, I could better generate a window in the short term.  Simply project forward the same %variance forward.


Another option is to get witty with the actual high/low bounds to narrow the prediction off our existing price-flagging system.  I just picked 25/75th percentiles, but we could narrow those bands with a smarter lookback to characterize how "wild" the last period has been.

Get Smart: Filter/Augment GBM Outputs

The last option is to roll some of my own ideas into the random-guessing function.  Using the historical variance as a seed for guessing-function, and/or dropping predictions that don't at least make a good prediction for the last 10 days before moving forward to the next 10.  I'm not yet convinced either is better than the far simpler exponential predictor above, because I would expect the exponential pattern to still wash out in the end, especially if we stick with a Monte Carlo style approach.

The hope would be to start a random function on a linear path (perhaps take 2wks into account) then have exponential variance as the high/low bounds to build a channel.

EDIT: using RSI as a prediction filter yielded some interesting results.  There is still some tweaking to do, especially for items that have had a recent spike into very unstable territory but initial forays seem promising



Conclusions

I'm really disappointed with the outcomes from this project; a lot of articles online made this sound like a magic-pill.  Instead we see the underlying nature of the model once randomness is removed.  Though it's not a complete loss, I was hoping for something a little wittier than a linear fit, but CCP Quant has pointed out Forecast inside R for more tinkering.

The nice thing out of this exercise has been being able to quickly experiment in R.  Though there are still some pretty considerable hurdles between these experiments and actual inclusion in the show, I was able to work with some pretty powerful packages extremely quickly to really dig into the problem and iterate quickly.  I continue to be impressed with R as an exploration platform, but still have some hesitance on integrating it in more powerful ways.  

Friday, May 15, 2015

EVE Prosper Market Show - EP027



Direct link: http://dl.eveprosper.com/podcast/Prosper_2015-06-04_EP029.mp3



Show Notes
Show Slides
Raw Charts

Support the show at our Patreon! https://patreon.com/eveprosper

News:

  • Capstable Launches New Shows
  • Burn Amarr Soon (tm)
  • Plex For Good Extended to 5/24
    • Charity Auction Announced
  • Citadel Structures Announced

Subscribe To EVE Prosper!

Podcast:

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Friday, April 3, 2015

EVE Prosper Market Show - EP022 - CCP Fozzie's favorite market show



Direct link: http://dl.eveprosper.com/podcast/Prosper_2015-04-02_EP022.mp3



Show Notes
Slides
Raw Charts

Just launched a Patreon, support the show! https://patreon.com/eveprosper
Check out our interview with Dr Eyjo: http://eve-prosper.blogspot.com/2015/04/special-report-dr-eyjo-interview.html

News

  • o7 Show: [[LINK TO BE POSTED]]
    • Huge thanks for the shout out from CCP Fozzie
    • Mineral changes
      • Megacyte/Zydrine yields will be reduced
      • Megacyte/Zydrine BPO requirements will be doubled
    • T3 Destroyers (D3)
      • PG reduction
      • 50% material increase (~50M target)
    • No more "garage door cynos"
  • New graphics on singularity: http://imgur.com/a/SQWkp 



Subscribe To EVE Prosper!

Podcast:

Twitch - Live Fridays 0200

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Prosper Special Coverage - Fanfest Day 3



Direct link: http://dl.eveprosper.com/podcast/Prosper_2015-03-21_special-report_Fanfest-Day3.mp3



Day 1 Stream Here

This is a little confusing, but there is no Day 2.  Could not wrangle a panel on a Friday night, and the news was a little light to justify a 2hr stream.  The important news from Day 2 is covered here in the Day 3 stream.  Also, I have added time jumping to both fanfest streams, so feedback is appreciated.

A couple quick notes:

  1. EVE Prosper is available as a podcast (still working on stitcher/iTunes integrations)
  2. There are two more special episodes from fanfest in the pipeline!  These will release on the podcast feed here first!
    • Will try to forward them to YouTube.  No promises 
  3. Don't want podcast spam?  Update your subscription to: http://eve-prosper.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/nopodcast (working on tagging past blogs)
Working on rolling out past episodes into streams.  They should start appearing next week, once our remaining audio podcasts are released.  Stay tuned here and get subscribed!

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Test Post - Please Ignore



Direct link: http://dl.eveprosper.com/podcast/Prosper_2015-03-19_special-report_Fanfest-Day1.mp3

Testing a feedburner setup for podcast publishing

Raw audio of this episode

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Hari Seldon for CSM

CSM voting has been open for a week, and the murmurs I hear are the voting is going well.  Endorsements and last-minute politicking are flying.  But let's get to the brass tacks; who will be on CSMX?  Danikov from TheMittani.com has a great infographic tracing the endorsements out there so far.

Endorsement map - Courtesy Danikov at TheMittani.com
I asked for some help from Danikov to help highlight the groups I expect the election to fall into:

  • "Golden Triangle": Corbexx/Steve/Sugar
  • Bloc candidates
  • Strong Candidates
  • Everyone else
Of the 76 candidates that passed CCP Leeloo's review, only ~25 really have any contention for a seat.  I am removing from contention people who don't have Jita Park threads, or didn't apply for an interview at Capstable.  Also, I am filtering out some very-long odds candidates who don't have the platform or support required to really meet Rippard's famous "1000 vote" threshold.

First Pass CSM Prediction


Let's fill from our most-likely groups.  That's the "Golden Triangle" and an expected bloc effect.  I won't actually rule on final ranks.

  1. Sugar Kyle
  2. Corbexx
  3. Steve Ronuken
  4. CFC - Sion Kumitomo
  5. CFC - Endie
  6. PL - Manfred Sideous
  7. BRAVE - Cagali Cagali or June Ting
  8. PROVI - coreblodbrothers
  9. N3 - Gorga
  10. RUS - UAxDEATH
There are 14 total seats, and 10 seats already have strong probability of landing a seat.  This is terrible news for incumbents like Mike Azariah, Xander Phoena, and Gorski Car.  For the last 4 seats, here are who I consider in contention for those wild card seats.
  • Ashterothi
  • Gorski Car
  • Jayne Fillon
  • N3 - Gorga
  • BRAVE alternate (June or Cagali... whoever doesn't make the first BRAVE seat)
  • Bobmon
  • Chance Ravinne
  • Bam Stroker
  • Alyxportur
  • BL - DomanarK
  • Mike Azariah
  • CODE/Marmite candidate 
That's an extremely crowded field for a small number of seats.  There are definitely combinations I'd prefer over others.

Expected Result:

  1. Sugar Kyle - Permanent Attendee
  2. Corbexx
  3. Steve Ronuken
  4. CFC - Sion Kumitomo - Permanent Attendee
  5. CFC - Endie
  6. CFC - Thoric Frosthammer
  7. PL - Manfred Sideous
  8. BRAVE - Cagali Cagali or June Ting
  9. PROVI - coreblodbrothers
  10. RUS - UAxDEATH
  11. N3 - Gorga
  12. Bam Stroker or Chance Ravinne
  13. Jayne Fillon
  14. BL - DomanarK
Alternate Contention:
  1. Chance Ravinne or Bam Stroker 
  2. BRAVE - June Ting or Cagali Cagali
  3. Gorski Car
  4. Mike Azariah
  5. Ashterothi
Unsure Predictions:
  1. CFC - Thoric Frosthammer
  2. RUS - UAxDEATH
  3. Bobmon
With only 4 seats to really play with, it's a real coin toss on who will really make it past the post.  There are also some weak spots in the field that might move the ranks around, but things get tight when trying to predict positions 10-20.  For instance, I'm having a hard time standing by a 3rd CFC chair, and the PL endorsements are pretty mercurial.

Definitely looking forward to the announcements at fanfest to see how close to true I was.  As soon as voting closes, I will be publishing a few articles about actual campaigning.  I'm especially excited to get those out to the candidates who may miss the post this year and retool for a CSM 11 run.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

CSMX - Endorsement List


With the last Cap Stable Analysis Show released and voting slated to open in a few hours, I wanted to finalize my endorsements for CSM.  And some time in the next week or so, also expect to see a sooth-saying meta-review of my personal CSMX predictions.  I have not yet finalized how I want to talk about my "hoped" CSM vs "expected" CSM.  Lastly, I'd like to do a talk about CSM campaigning, but I don't know if that will see the light of day.

Also, as a great resource, CCP Leeloo has released an official CSM listing. Also, my list is by no means a full list (5 of 14 slots), and an STV refresher is posted below.



Endorsement Breakdown

Steve Ronuken (@FuzzySteve)

Steve has to be my #1 choice.  A common theme among the Candidate Interviews was a call for more tools, but very few of those requests were coming from developers.  Steve Ronuken is an amazing resource in the #devfleet, and is unparalleled in knowledge about API/CREST/SDE/tools support and development.  My work would not be possible without the tireless work of people like Steve.

The only time I've heard anyone say to not vote for Steve Ronuken was Marc Scaurus joking "CCP should just hire him as a full time dev".  But I like having such a reachable, active, knowledgeable 3rd party developer representative on the CSM, and Steve is completely unmatched.  If you at all support the call for "more tools", those calls are impossible to answer without Steve Ronuken.

Sugar Kyle (@Sugar_Kyle)

I cannot say enough good things about Sugar Kyle.  She has received nearly unanimous endorsement from her peers and fellow candidates.  She has also earned the reputation as the hardest working CSM member in CSM9.  No one pounds pavement like Sugar Kyle, and no one engages with the entire playerbase like Sugar Kyle.  I will be astounded if she does not lock in one of the two "permanent attendee" seats on CSMX.

I'm especially evangelical for Sugar Kyle because she's such an avid supporter of all things lowsec.  Having lived in Gallente FW for nearly the last year, she not only represents my playstyle in game, but also deeply understands so many of the connected game systems.  If your fear is that SOV will steamroll other facets of the game, Sugar Kyle deserves a place on your ballot to defend nearly every playstyle outside of SOV.  Otherwise, she has an amazing track record for engaging with all sides to really grow her understanding and lock in a smart position.  

Ashterothi (@Ashterothi)

Cohost on Hydrostatic, Ashterothi jumped on the CSM race a bit later than I would have liked, but I have been helping run his campaign along with fellow co-host Phyridean.  Ashterothi is running on a very unique platform of servicing things like NPE and minigames like hacking, while also being the only full-blooded lore candidate I've seen running.  He also makes it onto my endorsement list because he has IRL experience with tool development, and I hope that he can help share the load with Steve Ronuken as a team effort on 3rd party dev topics.

With an expected docket beyond just corp/SOV/POS changes, I think Ashterothi will be a strong teammate to have at the table along with the other strong candidates and incumbents.  The thing standing between Ashterothi and a seat on CSMX is his late start making it an uphill battle to get the votes needed to run in this extremely competitive field.  If you support any of Ashterothi's platforms, I strongly encourage you to put him high on your ticket. 

Bam Stroker (@BamStroker)

Bam is another late addition to my endorsement list.  EVE meet organizer extraordinaire, there is no one higher on my list for player-to-dev connection and interaction.  I invite you to listen to our interview from Hydrostatic, this guy is a meet making machine.   Also he helped bring up the site EVEmeet.net and organized EVE Down Under, Bam's focus is on growing and engaging the community.

Though there are a decent group of other community-centered candidates, Bam rises to the top of my list for his selfless dedication to making those connections happen.  Also, I would like to see more representation from the wider spread communities out of US/UK/Scandinavia, and Bam being such a pivotal part of the AU community really seals the deal for me.

Jayne Fillon (@BomberJayne)

Jayne takes my last endorsement for his service to the NPSI community.  The CSM9 winter summit broke open the doors for talking about non-corp/non-alliance in-game support structures.  Living in FW, I see first-hand the pain of trying to keep together a loose collection of individuals, I can only imagine the heartburn from coordinating a coalition or NPSI community like Bomber's Bar or Spetre Fleet.

Though a lot of candidates pooled under the NPSI banner, Jayne rose to the top of crowd in my opinion.  Again, beyond the expected SOV/POS/corp changes in the next ~6months, there will be opportunities to focus on wider engagement problems that will help connect more people.  Where I endorsed Bam for his ability to reach people out of game, I'm endorsing Jayne for his ability to reach them in-game.  I especially like the impromptu and network building that the NPSI communities have fostered so much in the last couple years.