Biomassed: Who are you? Who do you play DUST 514 with, and what style of play do you enjoy?
Sgt Kirk: I am Sgt Kirk, one of the founders of Lucent Echelon and Gallente roleplayer. I primarily play with Lucent Echelon for Faction Warfare, with Foehammer and I as the usual squad leads. For PC and the less frequent pub match, I play with the fellows from Negative-Feedback from the beginning of my career to where I am now. Started with Planetary Response Organisation to Zion TCD, my rookie roots stopped there, which led me to SyNergy Gaming and finally to Fatal Absolution where I am now.
As far as playstyle goes I prefer to go the DPS route, really love getting in close and doing damage. Assault is normally what I play, but when I’m not in the mood I’ll switch to a commando or a tank.
Biomassed: Tell us a bit about the “real you”. Who is the man (or woman) behind the merc?
Sgt Kirk: IRL, I’m Jarrad Glynn Kirk, a 20-year-old team lead at that big blue and yellow electronic store. I’m the second oldest of seven children and also caregiver of my derpy two-year-old Lab named Diesel. I was never the kind of guy who liked being around a lot of people, preferring to socialize in groups of four or less so. In my younger days, I much preferred just sitting in building models, functional rubber band guns made out of K’Nex, and playing a lot of video games.
I’d say my favorite games as a kid would definitely have to go towards the Command & Conquer series, the Metal Gear series, the Fallout series, the Ace Combat series, and especially the Armored Core series. It may sound lame but those games were a big part of my childhood. When I’m not playing video games or looking at my docked EVE toon that barely gets fresh air, I’m either building one of my stupid inventions or hanging out with Diesel and my friend along with her dog.
Biomassed: Why did you decide to run for the CPM this year?
Sgt Kirk: I decided to run for CPM this year because I might just finally reach the age requirement if CCP DUST-side reduces the age limitations like they did for EVE. Last year, I wanted to but I was held back because of said age limitations, but that may be for the best because looking back I was not CPM material at that time.
I think I would be able to provide a great contribution to the game due to my hands on experience and progression as a player, and the game itself evolved and changed, with all the ups and downs that come with it. Having a general idea of what might work and what wouldn’t work to avoid past stepbacks.
Biomassed: What are the strengths you think you can bring to the CPM? What is your biggest weakness you’ll need to contend with?
Sgt Kirk: As I mentioned before, I have hands on experience of this game, three years of it. Playing the game for that long alone is not something in itself that would make a good CPM, but in that time I’ve experienced many of the “player types” in DUST, if you will.
By player types, I mean like starting out as a new guy, knowing the frustration, challenges, and drive that comes along with it. Becoming a guy that knows one or two things about the game, and aspiring to take down the guys in “power” and then eventually becoming that new “power” that you always dreamed about taking them down and “teaching them a lesson”, as my old squad mate in SyNergy used to say. Relatability to the player base is probably, and just knowing the game intimately is probably the best way of summing up one of what I think one of my greatest strengths would be to CPM.
As far as weaknesses goes, the biggest one I’ve had is one that I can gladly say is no longer really much of a problem anymore. There are times I got pretty ornery on the forums, especially after coming back from one of those “what can go wrong will go wrong” pub matches. I’ve been working on that around the time of the New Year and I can say it’s pretty much in check, and now my biggest issue I have is with the tunnel vision I can sometimes get with my ideas. Thankfully, whenever I come to the guys on Skype with an idea of mine I want to post on the forums, they are quick to point out where my tunnel vision starts kicking in. With the CPM, I feel that they should keep my tunnel vision in check along with the DUST 514 developers.
Biomassed: What do you feel is the role of the CPM?
Sgt Kirk: One of the roles of the CPM is to communicate the valid concerns and issues of the playerbase to the developers. Contrary to popular belief, but the CPM are not here to change the game singlehandedly. They are here to gather and filter feedback to and from the developers and the community. While the CPM can have a role in what is or is not a bad idea, they are in no way developers themselves. It’s really important that people know that, and with the NDA there are somethings that they just can’t talk about and I feel that they get falsely demonized when in reality they could be doing a lot for us.
Biomassed: How do you feel about the previous CPM? What was done well, and what could have been done better?
Sgt Kirk: This past CPM, CPM1, I feel did a better job with communication and we are now getting the hang of it. There was a lot more involvement between Devs – CPM – Community than ever before, and it can only get better from here. As far as improvement goes, I think one of our biggest opportunities is more communication.
Biomassed: What are your thoughts on communication between the players and CCP? The CPM and CCP? The CPM and the players?
Sgt Kirk: Compared to where we came from? Praise Talos, it’s like night and day! I remember back when CCP would go a month(s) without saying jack and then out of the blue they’d give you a false promise with the subtitle “SOON TM” with a half-eaten vanilla cupcake when you asked for chocolate. So, all that rabble just to say, I feel the communication from the devs has become a helluva lot more honest from the old days and that’s nice. The transparency as well has become a lot better, with a Trello board and the first roadmap we’ve ever had that wasn’t filled with vanilla cupcake? Oh my goodness, that makes me super optimistic for DUST.
Biomassed: Where do you hope to see the game by the end of your term?
Sgt Kirk: By the end of my term, I heavily want this game ported over to a new system. This game cannot survive on a closed system and needs to evolve to the next stage. I don’t think anyone here disagrees with that. I want this before my term is up really; I want this game in a better state of balance and more enjoyable than it is now.
Biomassed: If DUST is able to be ported to another platform, which platform would you prefer, and why?
Sgt Kirk: Hmmm, if I had it my way, I’d have cross platform with PS4 and PC, but for the sake of this question I’d say PS4; this is where DUST started and this is the game we helped develop. This was the original goal of DUST, to introduce a new community of gamers to the New Eden universe. Obviously, I’d like to see a proper optimization of both PC and PS4 to have a little bit of each world.
Biomassed: How can players reach out to you if they have further questions for you?
Sgt Kirk: You can find me on the Skype under the account “jadkirk” as well as my Gmail: jadkirk@
