Seleene’s Sandbox – EVE Legends: Darius JOHNSON

Good evening, EVE!  After the first two episodes I had a think on where I wanted to go with this podcast and realized that I could do a lot more with it than I’d originally planned. A bit of real life, coordinating tonight’s guest and some serious editing sessions delayed this episode, but I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait!

Tonight I’m starting a new series called ‘EVE Legends’ where I bring on famous – or maybe infamous – people and talk some history. I’ll be doing this every few episodes, or just whenever I can grab someone and get them to sit down for an hour (or two, as in this case). I figured the best way to get people interested in this would be to get someone on here who I’m pretty sure would keep people’s interest and also make things entertaining, so my first ‘Legendary’ guest is none other than Darius JOHNSON!

Darius JOHNSON: GoonSwarm CEO, former CCP Dev / Security Guru, Professional Opinion Haver.

This is an ‘old man’ conversation; there is a LOT of information in this one, from old names and old EVE mechanics, to talking about the formation of the CSM, all the way up to current day events, so I apologize ahead of time if some of the references are a bit unfamiliar. This is a history lesson on crack. It was fascinating to hear, in detail, things that I thought I had a firm grasp of explained from a new perspective.

Even with all the time we had, there are still a few things I didn’t get a chance to cover. DJ does not grant interviews lightly so I was very thankful to get him on for a solid two hours of conversation that covered his EVE career, his time on the CSM and CCP, and many other issues. This man does not pull punches so strap in and get ready for some real talk on a number of topics!

Seleene’s Sandbox – Episode 3 – EVE Online Legends: Darius JOHNSON

Subjects that came up:

• How did you first hear about / get involved with EVE?
• What is a Goon?
• Where did the animosity between Goons and BoB start?
• What started the First Great War?
• Goons and the Russians get engaged; France is also there
• JV1V Remembered
• Why weren’t you more involved with Andrew Groen’s book? (A History of the Empires of EVE)
• What happened with Goons, MC and BoB?
• The events of the First Great War
• The fall of Band of Brothers (what REALLY happened!)
• The final Battles of the First Great War
• How did you end up working at CCP?
• What does the ‘Security Guy’ at a videogame company actually do?
• What happened at CCP to cause the ‘Dev Exodus’?
• What do you REALLY think about the CSM?
• How has the CSM evolved from the beginning to today?
• Is the CSM still a useful tool?
• What brought you back to EVE?
• The story behind the “Goonswarm” name controversy. “Policy is not a shield.”
• The player monument drama.
• Doxxing and the EVE Meta Game | What is CCP’s responsibility?

My apologies for the length of this episode, but there was just no way I could cut it down more and keep in all of the topics we covered. I hope you all enjoy this interview and you can count on me finding other interesting people in EVE to walk down memory lane with in the future!

Podcast Mentions:

Goonswarm’s Darius Johnson at the EVE FanFest 2009 Alliance Panel – The longest and most entertaining Alliance Panel presentation in FanFest history. Don’t watch unless you hate laughing.

Trouble in Queerious: The Return of Goonswarm – A just released vid showing what’s going on in Goonswarm today.

Opening Music: Queen – Princes of the Universe
Closing Music: Queen – We Are The Champions

Old School EVE Video of the Week: Goonswarm 2006

Although I can no longer find the original author if this video, it’s now ten years old and one of the few early propaganda vids the old Goonswarm alliance put out. I had to upload this from an old hard drive as I couldn’t find it anywhere else. The music and editing is very good and the content of the vid shows off EVE from a decade ago.