Observations

My first day back.

Once more I find myself wandering the pipes of Black Rise in a dusty Ares and surprisingly without any need for a map. Even after all this time I still know these systems like the lines on my hands.

Much is still the same as it ever was. New FW pilots swap intel with the spies in general militia chat, smack and blob moans pop up through the local channels, idiots in shiny ships still die without understanding why, plexers still fail to use their directional scans, Damar still thinks we all have voodoo dolls of him irl and Julius Foederatus is still the only attractive male avatar in the whole of Black Rise. Yep many things are just as they were, though much has also moved on.

I come back to find my corp swollen with a rich mix of pvpers, not least of all the former CEO of WOLFY. At the same time other memorable though less pvp focussed pilots (or perhaps I mean that they enjoyed a different sort of pvp?) are now notably absent. Our relationship with Wolfsbrigade (former enemies-cum-allies-cum-alliance buddies-cum-ex brosefs) has gone full circle to where we are once again working with them for certain ops. I was surprised to see Dark Rising back in the Gallente militia too, though they seem a little out of favour with many people for reasons I am not aware of. It would be rather nostalgic to fly under Mitch Taylor again, something I have not done since I guess 2008 or 09. Maybe an opportunity will come up for that at some point.

There have been many Factional Warfare changes and many more to come it seems though I confess I am now completely out of touch with the mechanics of it all. It is clear however that Faction War is now a much bigger talking point than when I was last here. We have a voice in the CSM, an abundance of bloggers (there were only 1 or 2 other people writing about FW at all and possibly no dedicated FW blogs when I got started) and I found this spinky new news site the other day which looks pretty swish. It is a big change even from 2 years ago.

FW is finally of interest to a wider player base and to CCP, though this seems partially down to the fact that everyone and their Grandma are down here making isk from the revamped plex system at the moment. Still, I find it all rather refreshing.

Alliances in militia is something else that stands out for me. After the bold yet arduous MDP/Villore Accords* formation during summer 2009, in which a number of dominant Gallente Militia corps attempted to form a pseudo alliance to combat ridiculous spy problems and a superior force, we shouted long and hard for Alliance mechanics to make our attempt at adaptation easier. It was too late for the MDP but finally, years later, it has happened and, for SoTF at least, it seems to have worked out well.

Shadows now has fleet doctrines, a bigger pool of FC's, decent capital support, and a new bunch of directors (almost entirely different to the set that was in place when I quit Eve). Even our chaotic corp forum has gone, replaced with a sterile but practical Alliance forum. I still find humour and banter in the corp but it is undeniably mixed with a heavy dose of “serious business”.

In a way I have stepped forward in time by 18 months. If I think back to May 2011...
...following another return to Black Rise and Faction War SoTF is now planning another base of ops move, but everything feels somewhat frayed at the edges. There is a feeling of discontentment and uncertainly. I’ve stepped down as a Director by this point but it’s clear the leadership is not really in sync. We've just come out of a stressful, and in the end unsuccessful, alliance relationship and tried much in the previous year to give our pilots targets to shoot at, including a brief time owning our own bit of null. But once again our future is uncertain and still there is that ever present debate between those who want to step it up against those that want to keep things casual. The icing on the cake is that CCP is still completely uninterested in FW and is now polishing off its newest baby; How To Use Legs and Monocle-ise People.

It was at this point that I quit.

But I return now to everything we wanted. We have Faction War, an alliance, impressive fleets and ships, friends in high places and I come back to a corp that has stepped it up rather a lot.

For my part,  I never was an impressive pvp’er. I’m a team player, a fleet mate and a personality. And that is where it ends. I’ve always been very aware of my limitations in the pvp department but I’ve always felt that I still pulled my weight for the good of the corp.

In order to do that now I certainly need to pick up the pace a bit. But this feels like something I want to be a part of. And I have to say, I am looking forward to stepping up.



And incidentally no, I still don’t know where all my frackin ships are.



* Not to be confused with the current Villore Accords alliance.

Ohai o/

After 14 months of Eve free living I recently came back. A few weeks ago I wrote a guest post on why I returned on my space-buddy Drackarn's blog which is >>here<<.

I said to my other half that I would never return, and that I wouldn’t blog again either. And now I am back in space and finding I have the urge to document my musings once again. What can I say, I’m a fickle pain in the ass.

At the moment I don’t know if I will blog regularly, or if I will keep it up long term. Returning to Eve is hard enough and I make no apologies if this turns out to be a failed return to writing. But here we go.

If you are a twit like me then you can also find me here https://twitter.com/SpaceKazz.

Got Corp?

SoTF has opened its doors to new recruits so I thought I'd give them a little shout out here. If you like being drunk and shooting stuff in the face all night then they might just be what you are looking for :) >Eve-O thread here with more details<



In addition; to help with the recruitment drive I have put together a little promo vid... enjoy!




o/

Sand Cider and Spaceships – a new blog

Hello all. I hope Internet spaceships is going well for you.

I wanted to take a moment to introduce a new blog, written by my good pal and SoTF comrade Drackarn.

Drack is a carebear turned PvP addict and in real-life recently emigrated from the sleepy Westcountry, UK, to the Middle East. He has been entertaining us on the corp forums for some time with both his Eve musings and his tales of jumping headfirst in a completely alien culture.

I think starting a blog has been long over-due and his ponderments and battle reports may appeal to the people who were reading my blog.

There are already plenty of posts to read and his most recent one debates the question of sexism in Eve. Enjoy!

sandciderandspaceships

VandV Podcast Interview: Eelis Kiy

Hello all

There is a new Voices from the Void podcast up featuring yours truly. I talk a bit (a lot!) on Faction War and also why I left Eve.

www.voicesfromthevoid.net/2011/07/04/vandv-podcast-interview-eelis-kiy

This interview had been planned some time ago but it has taken a while to sit down and do it. So there was plenty of time to practice all the sensible coherent things I would say when it happened.

Then it happened... and I was quite nervous and it was way past my bed time, so I missed a lot of sensible stuff out and blabbered on a bit!

Nevertheless it was great fun and Arydanika is lovely to chat to.

Enjoy o/



ps - my twitter account is now twitter.com/KazzLenton

The wonderful offline community of Eve Online

I'll cut to the chase. I have decided to take a looong break from Eve. My sub ran out last week and I have no desire to renew it. I might be back in a few months, a year or maybe never.

I had a post all drawn out on my reasons for leaving but it was all mopey and depressing. In a nutshell, after 5 fun filled years of playing Eve Online it is time to move on.

Of course not playing Eve will make blogging about Eve pretty hard to do and so this is probably my last blog post on wtfims.

To that end, I thought I would share a few of WTFIMS's vital statistics from Google Analytics...

Total visits: 17,220
Page views: 29,006
Absolute Unique Visitors: 9,608


After the homepage, the most viewed individual blog post was: Confessions of a carebear with 1450 views (incidentally my own favourite post).


Most random search engine keywords that some how lead people to my site:

Qcats Eve Blog: 36 hits
eve online gay corp: 25 hits
carebear corps: 6 hits
grow some balls: 4 hits
eve online lexx: 2 hits (haha you have a stalker lexx!)
balls that grow in hands: - 1 hit (wtf...)

Most disappointed visitors have got to be these peeps:

eve online where is my ship: 6 hits
i can't see my ship eve: 3 hits
eve how to find my ship: 2 hits

Most disturbing statistic: 14% of visitors are still using Internet Explorer. C’mon now people, it’s time to let go..


People from over 60 different territories have found their way to my little site. I love that, mmos unite the world!

The top 5 countries for visitors were:
1. America
2. Great Britian
3. Australia
4. Canada
5. Germany

My fav location stat though is the "2 visitors" I get from United Arab Emeirates... my eve friend emigrated there a couple of years ago, so I'm guessing he's read my site at at work as well as at home haha!


Now then, onto the sort of point I am slowly trying to make here. Yes there is an actual point I promise.

65% of all my visitors have come via referring sites. After Eve-O, Google and my corp's forum the biggest referral sites were Life in lowsec, Crazy Kinuxs Musings, evebloggers.com and Antiquityinspace.

When I saw this I decided to count up the total number of referring sites that were fellow eve bloggers or player made websites – I gave up when I got to 100!

Eve Online has an absolutely fantastic offline community. When I first made this blog I did not anticipate how many people I would get to know or become friends with, just through blogging, and how this would greatly enhance my last 12 months in New Eden. I would encourage everyone to give it a go.

One thing I learned quickly was that the more you interact with others on the blog-o-sphere and the more generous you are with your own promotion of other people the more others will interact with you. And when this happens up go the number of people coming to see your site.


And so I'd like to say a HUMONGOUS THANK YOU to everyone who has enjoyed reading this site and to everyone who has pimped the blog or a particular post. Especially mucho thanks those who talked CK into adding me to the blog-pack. This was a huge honour for me, I hope I was worthy.

I would also like to send out some internet hugz to Laedy, Lexx, Drackarn, Mynxee, Crazy Kinux, Arrhidaeus, Kuan, Jarred, and CCP TonyG. Whether for pimping my posts, encouraging me to carry on, being generous with your comments/cross-linking or simply because you are a total Factional Warfare fanboi noob, like me - I thank you!


And last but not least - because she won't have access to my corp forum and I cannot drop an Eve mail now - Dian, I really enjoyed your company (thanks to the WGOE channel). I regret that we never got to fly together or have a 1v1. I think we could have had a right giggle noobing it up together. I enjoyed our little chats and I hope you continue to have fun in Eve, even if you are a dirty squid :P



If anyone would like to keep in touch I will still be hanging around on twitter.com/EelisKiy and you can always reach me at eeliskiy@googlemail.com


Fly wasted o/

Doing lots of Eve stuff, whilst not doing any Eve stuff o_0

Well that is the only title I could come up with. It's been a long day...

New blog project
I have been rather tied up of late with my new project; The Alliance website/blog for Shadow Wolves [.NET]

Just because we have a shit name doesn’t mean we have to have a shit website right? :D So here is the current look, the header is temporary (yes I know its w@nk) www.shadowwolves.net

It's been a while since I attempted anything with Wordpress but it is starting to take shape at last. Hopefully the site will become an interesting blog site as well as an Alliance info-site.


Clear Skies 3
If for some reason you didn't know this already, it's here, NOW!

Go get --> clearskiesthemovie.com


The Laedy speaks
The latest VandV podcast includes an interview with Laedy (interview starts around 31:00) which includes some info on the WGoE channel.





That’s it for now. Never know I might actually get some pewpew in to write about soon :P