Moaning Murtles.

Wow what a weekend. Largely it consisted of:

- Being moaned at about leaving Faction War.

- Being moaned at about where we are going next.

- Moaning at my CEO for various things regarding our move.

- Being moaned at by corp members about moving their stuff.

- Moaning at people in corp for their inability to read corp mails and forums posts.

- Moaning at other-half for his indecision on whether or not he is actually coming with us.

- Moaning about having nothing to shoot.

- Moaning about being moaned at for being told to stop shooting neutrals.

- Being moaned at by neutrals.

- Being moaned at for drunken local smack.

- Being moaned at on my blog lol

Add to all of this a big bunch of tetchy, tired, bored and stressed out corpies who've been frantically packing up and cynoing their crap from all over the place into position for our big move.

OH MY GOD I had no idea moving home would be so much fun!

Gallactica summed it all up perfectly last night, when (whilst sounding quite fed up at the end of what's been a very long weekend during his onehundredmillionth cyno jump) he said "We're really not cut out for this kind of thing are we". He's right, the monotony of moving systems was certainly bringing out the worst in us all, although I have to say I was impressed at how everyone did pull together and get on with it (whilst moaning of course).

I think even if we hate our new home, we're going to stay there out of spite, because no one wants to move all their crap back again in a hurry!

Evolution

In the beginning 3 pvp noobs made a corp and joined the Gallente militia.

They had a lot of fun, flew with many different people, and even started recruiting new members. The corp was relaxed, laid back and full of drunk people. But they learned how to fly well and started making a name for themselves.

They set up their own forums, vent server and started FC'ing their own fleets. Over time they developed procedures and an official ROE to better establish themselves and direct their growing corp. They continued to take in new recruits, even merging a few smaller corps with their own.

As time went by they faced many adversaries and these came in various different guises. Some were within their own militia, some were Caldari targets, others were pirates or war-dec targets. As well as the daily battles there were also difficult decisions to make, "sides" to choose and constant consequences to consider. Friendlies came and went, allegiances and standings changed. This "politically free" environment was often much the opposite. But with each new challenge the corp continued to grow, evolve and learn.

The corp I am referring to is of course Shadows of The Federation.



As we approach our third birthday we've reached a point in Faction War where, quite frankly, we've totally out-grown it.

For every challenge presented we've changed our tactics and risen to face it and, without wishing to sound like an almightily cock waver, now we're now too good for our own good. The bulk of the Caldari militia cannot or will not fight our full strength fleets and there simply isn't enough pirate or war-dec activity to keep us busy.

This problem is not a new one, it's been coming up for many many months (years even) and we've had various discussion and ideas on how we should proceed, such as stopping new people joining, dumbing down our ships types or fleet sizes, changing our ROE to allow some GCC activity, staging out of different areas. But nothing really solved the problem. The problem is that we don't belong here anymore.

So where to next?

An opportunity has arisen. It is the right offer and it is the right time to try something new. So we are going for it.

SoTF has now left the Gallente Militia.

I still cannot quite believe that we're actually leaving, nor what we are about to do next. But I am happy in the knowledge that I'm doing it with a great bunch of people.

As for my blog, I have a few FW posts still to write, which I will carry on with and I am more than happy to plug any new FW bloggers getting started - just shout. But of course I hope to be sharing something of my new adventures soon also.



To the handful of corpies who are not coming with us, I wish you much pewpew and good times. There will always be a spot in SoTF for you if you change your minds.

To the Squids and pirates of Black Rise past and present, thank you for the pewpew o7

To our allies in the Gallente Militia, best wishes, and good luck. Who knows, we might be back with you in a month lol



As for what exactly we are up to next? Well it’s becoming the worlds worst kept secret but I will post more about this soon :)

Announcement posts:

ooc
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1474165

ic
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1473984

Wannabe Alliance v FW noobs

So they said to us, Do you really want a 1000 man alliance camping you in station?

And we replied with...

Shadows Of The Federation Declares War Against Petition This
From: CONCORD
Sent: 2011.02.16 14:09


Which was followed by...

http://sotf.eve-kill.net/?a=cc_detail&ctr_id=9629


And then...

League of Gentlemen surrenders to Shadows Of The Federation
From: CONCORD
Sent: 2011.02.24 02:14

B4D W0LF surrenders to Shadows Of The Federation
From: CONCORD
Sent: 2011.02.20 06:42


*yawn*




That is the third so called "Alliance" to fail cascade against our little Faction War corp. Not that I enjoy bragging rights (there are plenty of tears and empty threats I could post if I really wanted to) but we arrive ready for pvp whilst they give us the "big boy talk" and then bugger off.

It is depressing.


I always believe that lesson 1 for any new corp in Eve is – no matter what direction you plan to take, you should prepare in some way for the inevitable pvp combat that will come and find you at some point. Either get good at it, or find folks good at it to pall up with.

How the hell do people make it to "Alliance creation" without learning this?



When people joked about 0.0 being full of carebears I didn't realise they were actually being serious :s

Interesting article on racism in Eve-Online

I came across this article on eve tribune (which I originally found through the repost on kuan yidas blog) about racism in Eve. Thought it was very well written and worth highlighting.

The article and some of the following comments got me thinking about my own behaviour online. Whilst I'm the most unprejudiced person you could expect to meet in the real world I do find myself using words in Eve that I would never dream of uttering in the real word. Somehow certain terms seem to become part of the fabric of the game and start to feel acceptable to use. Perhaps I should think more before I type?

I also realised that whilst I pretty much always petition racist chatter in public channels I have probably never petitioned anyone for a sexist, anti-religious or homophobic remark. In fact “gay” or “ghey” is a word I use quite often, even though I am aware this is sometimes being said in front of gay players. Crikey am I an evil closet homophobe?

But on the other foot, I myself am often the butt-end of sexist jokes or references. Usually it is from my corp mates and none of it ever bothers me in the slightest because it is said in jest and if anything I encourage it. That said I guess there would be a difference between a friend calling me a whore and some random in local spouting off abuse in a personal attack. But if that did ever happen I would probably print screen and repost it in various forums for the world to see what a twit that person was.

Part of me does find it hard to see how anyone could feel truly offended by a bit of typing by some ignorant unknown entity on a computer game. Perhaps some people just need to grow thicker skins?

Certainly a thought provoking subject!

Recent scraps and a couple of sigs

Most of SoTF are currently enjoying a little 0.0 campaign at the moment but for various reasons I haven't yet made it out to join them. On Sunday I found myself station spinning in Nisuwa and ended up fleeting with a small group of friendlies for a bit of camping in Tama.

The Gila was quite fun, we'd chased him around on and off for about 30mins before finally snagging him when he made the mistake of returning to a previously used off-gate safe. But he took it with good humour.

We also had an interesting 5 mins in Norvukaiken (Caldari High-sec) when we hopped in to try and pop a Tengu. Just as we jumped his mates all landed on the gate. Not good! There was a bit of panic but in the end we all made it back into Tama with no losses. To put the cherry on the cake the Caldari fleet then followed us into low-sec and we managed to pop a few of their ships before they turned back to Norv.

A little later, as our fleet was drifting home to Nis, one of our guys got caught by some targets in Kedama. Most of our fleet had logged by now or seemed to be AFK and as such we were a little messy in getting ourselves together - but we did, and ended up having a fun little scrap in Nisuwa.

It's a shame battle reports don't really convay the whole story of a fight because that does look one sided however I think it nearly went horribly wrong for us. I was very impressed with how the targets had flown and also that they had quite willingly engaged us in Nisuwa. Then I realised they were Amarr not Caldari. Well that would explain it!

--------------------------------

Earlier in the week I had a little "marital roam" with the other half (we SOOOOO nearly had that flippin Cerb) but that's about as much pvp as i've managed recently. That said it's been a busy few days just not in the pewpew sense. For example I spent 2 whole nights just sorting out overdue corp medals. That will teach me for not keeping more up-to-date with them :s

I've also spent a bit of time making sigs for corpies:








Other than this it's been a week of forum posting. On what? Well perhaps I can share with you soon...

The bitter sweet road to Incarna

The recent dev blog, Captains quarters and the road to Incarna, has certainly got everyone pondering the Incarna topic. Some are excited, many seem wary. I confess I am one of the latter.

When the talk of walking in stations first started I was very excited at the prospect and possibilities. But now I find these feelings are waning and instead I worry about where this is all going to go.

I was one of the people who longed for greater attachment to my avatar and it was certainly something I missed when I first came to Eve. But now that I have been here for a few years I realise that it is not necessary and I would much rather see current content given the love it deserves. I find myself wondering, will Incarna actually add to the game or take something away?

As a corpy of mine recently said on our forums, we want people flying in space for pewpew, not running around a station. Which I certainly agree with. Yes, I would love to embrace "Eve like" spaces with my avatar and discover a whole new level of the game. But not at the expense of the rest of it.

Another friend recently described her disappointment with CCP. She talked of how the dream of what Eve was going to be had changed over the years, how the company had grown and in doing so had diluted its original creativity and how nothing is ever finished properly before the next item of broken content is added. This was a private conversation so I hope she doesn't mind me quoting this sentance, which really struck a cord with me:

CCP used to be creative artists and EVE was their (love) child. Now they are businessmen and EVE is simply their product.

CCP want to create the first complete sci-fi mmo experience. But will this be to the detriment of the Eve that we currently know and love? Yup we’ve just heard of Team BFF’s efforts to tidy up lots of niggles and annoyances. This is great of course and no doubt to the credit of CSM5’s efforts. But why are the players having to nag CCP to death before they fix and tidy up their game? Surely this is wrong?

The recent character creator revamp really drummed home to me CCP’s sloppy attitude to its new content. Why did it take 2/3 fixes for us to get such simple user interface options as a back button and an “are you sure” box?

Eve to me was always "above" other online games. It stood out because it didn’t comply with the normal rules or pander to the masses. It was dark, evil, complex and endless. It was a niche game, not a mass market cash cow. Eve WILL be a success in the future, it would be naive to think otherwise. But unless CCP can find a way back to it’s original values I fear the player base is going to undergo some serious displacement in the years to come.

Of course, I sincerely hope that CCP pull off Incarna and I hope it is bloody amazing when it gets here. But I hope they listen to their current players and don't forget about the rest of their game.

Be all that you can be Aura once said to me. Well I am trying Aura, if only CCP would let me.


Some other reactions to this dev blog that I enjoyed reading:
http://scramweb.blogspot.com
http://teadaze.net/GalNet/?p=349
http://seleene4csm.blogspot.com/2011/02/incarna-will-history-repeat-itself.html
http://www.sobaseki.com/wordpress/2011/02/19/sims-in-space/


o/

The Love Roll

Happy Valentines Day!

There are several theories on who the original "Valentine" was but which ever story you subscribe to they all tend to end in death/execution/martyrdom, which all sounds very Eve-like to me. So how about a little Eve themed love "meme" to celebrate the day?



The Love-Roll is your personal list of individuals, corps, alliances or other groups of capsuleers who have had the greatest effect or influence on your time in Eve online. They are the people who challenged you the most, caused you to change your direction or simply made it all worth while.

Here be mine:


The Staunch
Actually I hate these guys. They war-deced my pve corp and blew the hell out of us in an epic tale of carebear tears and failfit explosions. It was messy but also the most important thing that happened to me during my pve days. Although I didn't know it at the time their war dec signalled the start of my journey towards full time pvp.


Mynxee & Laedy
I've not flown with either of these two nor spent any time with them in-game but discovering their blogs has been quite inspiring. I don’t want to get too hung up on the "girl gamer" thing but prior to my interest in Eve blogs I didn't really know much about the other females who pvp'd in Eve. Through the blogosphere I got to read about Mynxee the Hellcat CEO and then of her time in the CSM. Later I discovered Laedy, the roaming pirate nomad. I don't believe ones gender matters at all in Eve but I confess I have found it inspiring to read the adventures of these two women in what is largely a male dominated environment.


Mentally Unstable Enterprises, Wrath of Fenris, Euphoria Released
Whether through my association with SoTF or from the early days of Gallente Militia I've had the opportunity to fly alongside countless different corporations. Too many names and individuals to list but Mentl, E-R and Wolfy stand out for me as being the corporations I've learned the most from.


Annie Anomie
When I first made the decision to train for interceptors I started a conversation with Annie, a pilot I had come across through the Gallente militia, and picked his brains on how I should go about getting started as a fleet tackler. I don't know if he remembers the brief chat we had but Annie's blunt, no-nonsense advice put me on the right track. It was quite some time before I lost my first Ares, despite flying it almost exclusively for many months and still being quite a new pvper.. I feel quite privileged to now share the same corp ticker as Annie and he continues to be a font of, brutally honest, opinion and advice.


Gallactica
Gall is largely responsible for the merger of my old corp into SoTF. This in itself was a game changing experience for me however Galls place on this list is cemented for more personable reasons. He is a first class CEO, stands by his corp members and is certainly the glue that keeps us all together. He has great talent for diffusing difficult situations and whenever any sh!t hits the fan he is the person who does the cleaning up. This is something I had personal experience of when I accidently pointed a pirate who had positive standings with us (and who then lost their ship) due to an overview cock-up - which happened not long after I had joined SoTF. But aside from all of that Gall is one my favourite people to spend time with online and I am chuffed to have found someone in the world who drinks more red wine than I do, comes out with more filth that I do and sings worse than me also.


SoTF
My current corp and the place where I finally shook off my carebear roots (well most of them). I have learned a huge amount, met some interesting people and had bucket load of good times with this corp. Watching the corporation evolve and grow and being a part of this process as a Director has also been quite an educational experience.


Rashmika Clavain
Finally, my other half Rash. I am certain that my time in Eve has helped him to master the exasperated frown that he performs so well. In return I've had a real-life comrade whose in-depth understanding of the game has been invaluable to me from the start. I would have you know that I've never had a charity isk nor a free ship off him, but his advice and assistance as a fleet-mate has been an integral part of my journey through New Eden. We have our ups and downs and don't always see eye to eye but together have shared many years of adventure in New Eden. Missions, war, exploration, faction war, corp dramas and so much more. From Mirelene to Nisuwa, Rashmika has been my constant companion and no doubt will remain so for many adventures still to come.




So thank you Love-rollers. Here's a big virtual smoocheh from me o7


So, who's in your Love-Roll?

Why I hate my corp

First time in months the powers of babysitter, cash flow and company align in perfect harmony and I actually get to go out for a night down the pub.


>>And my mean corpies go and spend the night doing this<<


GJ guys. Sucks to be me!

Calling all Faction War noobies

Quick request.

I am doing some research related to Faction War and would like to get in touch with anyone who has tried it for first time during the last 12 months. Whether you stayed or not is not so important. It basically involves taking part in a short survey.

If you are interested in helping just drop me an Eve-mail or leave a comment here with your IG name.


o/

Operation: Grow Some Balls

I hate soloing. Partially because I very much enjoy the team work and banter of flying in gangs but mostly because I don't have the balls to go out on my own. Previous attempts have led to shaky hands, heart palpitations and physical paralysis. In short, I am a bit of a sissy.

But I'd like to be comfortable in doing it and after 2+ years flying around low-sec it’s probably time I got started. So I've decided to start "Operation: Grow Some Balls", a new project for my blog in which I will keep a record of my attempts at this solo stuff.

I should warn you now that as I bare my soul there will be plenty of fails, tears and words of self-loathing (and words of wisdom are ofc welcome). But by the end of it I shall emerge as a deadly, confident solo pilot terrorising all of Black Rise.

Failing that I will at least get my kill stats looking a bit more ballsy and less blobby.



Fight 1: Vexor v Sabre

On Thursday I got the rare chance to do some Eve playing during the afternoon. I'd been jumping around Black Rise for about 15 minutes in a heavily armour tanked Vexor when I reached Heydieles. There were the usual resident friendlies in local along with a couple of war-targets and flying around my in-gate was a Caldari militia Sabre flown by Madbuster73.

I sat there for a few seconds, under my jump cloak, thinking OK IDK wtf that is tbh and wondering whether or not I should give this a go. We don't see that many Interdictors in my neck of the woods and I didn't really have a clue on what it was likely to do but from what I could see it was smaller than me and I guessed I might have a job hitting it.

I broke my cloak and ambled slowly back to the gate whilst wondering a) if I should go for it and b) whether or not Madbuster would be up for it. As it turns out he starts orbiting me... then comes the yellow box... red box! PHEW I could safely jump and go home now!

But…must…grow…balls… ah frack it, why not.

The Sabre was, not surprisingly, faster than my Vexor and easily able to dictate the range of the fight. Luckily I wasn’t having too many issues with the distance as I had artillery fit instead of blasters (and God I'm so glad I didn’t go out with blasters, ty Rashmika for suggesting the swap) but Madbuster was still proving hard to hit and I was not able to close enough distance to use my webber.

I pulled out a flight of Warrior IIs and sent them to attack... a few seconds later I realise they are all gone. Pants. We are a short way off the gate by now and I wonder if he’s got a small smartbomb on the go.

Even so I have managed to make a nice dent in the Sabre's shield and it continues to slowly drop. I am now out of Warriors (doh) so I sent off a flight of Hammerheads instead but end up having to fluff about recalling and resending as they also start to take damage.

Once the Sabre reached 95% shields I decided I'd better point him up, you know, just in case he now tries to escape as I might actually break his tank soon! But no big hit on his armour ever materialises. Bleh. It crosses my mind that perhaps I am just not doing very well and he is actually armour tanked after all.

By now my own armour is over half way down and I have 4 injured Hammerhead II's left on the field which would probably contribute more if they sat on the side-lines waving supportive banners. My guns are also about to reload, so I decide this would be a good point to write this one off and GTFO.




I was pointed so de-agressed and burned to the gate before setting a 1000m orbit. I crossed my fingers and hoped that I’d left enough buffer in place to keep me alive before the aggression timer ran down and I could jump. It was getting veeery close. I could almost hear Madbuster willing me to explode... but I made it out, firing off a quick "gf" as I jumped.




I limped home, luckily not running into anyone else, and contemplated my first lesson in growing balls.


Result: DRAW

Notes to self for next time:

- Sabres are indeed hard to hit when you are flying a fat lump of rolled tungsten. Ugh.

- Examining the combat log afterwards I noticed that one of the Warriors in my drone bay was actually t1. I'm so ashamed. I hope no one noticed...

- ffs I forgot to overheat >_<



On a plus I appear to have conquered my shaky hand syndrome. Get in!

The past, the present and a challenge for the future.

The Past

Before I even started playing Eve I’d begun to garner some respect for the weird spaceship game that my other half kept raving about. Then I tried it, and dam I tried hard, but ended up quitting several times.

And yet, as I returned to the pretty lights of WoW and LOTRO, I still knew in my heart that Eve was probably the best MMO I had ever come across.

When I finally discovered pvp in New Eden I fell in love with Eve Online completely. This was the most grown up, interesting and intricate game I had ever played. I got to know Eve on a whole new level. I was even inspired to try my hand at writing a blog.


The Present

Then I grew up a bit.

The shiny wrapper started to wear off and I noticed new things about Eve and CCP. Not good things. Cracks, flaws, annoyances, empty promises, even lies. Things that never bugged me in the past were now pushed to the forefront of my attention. I started to get fed up with CCP.

I still loved playing Eve you understand, but the environment in a wider sense stopped enchanting me in the way it once did, in fact it started getting on my nerves somewhat. The result of this was that every time I sat down to write a blog post a whole bunch of angry diatribe would come out.

I hate reading rants, unless they are funny rants. But my rants were not funny and I did not want to litter the blogosphere with this banal crap. This, combined with an ever more demanding real-life, left me wondering, was it time to put down the proverbial pen and paper?

I've been soul searching on this subject for a while.


A Challenge

So today I am minding my own business checking some emails when I notice a new blog comment...

Welcome to the EVE Blog Pack. If you could write a little something about it, I'd appreciate! Cheers!

HOLY PANTS BATMAN I'M IN THE BLOG PACK! *cue heavenly music*

The blog pack, as you probably know, represents some of the finest and most active Eve bloggers out there. The hand-picked "short list" of 40-ish blogs is managed by blogging extraordinaire CrazyKinux and is filled with capsuleers writing entertaining and informative posts on all aspects of Eve. Pirates, ninjas, wormholers, scary hardcore 0.0 folks, industrialists... guides, stories, in-character tales, politics and opinions. It’s all in the blogpack.

...and now there is a little ole Faction War nublet on the list too.


The Future

Crikey CK you sure know how to pick your moments. What do I do now?

I returned my thoughts to the past, and why I decided to start blogging in the first place. I read through my early posts from last year and these two sentences stuck out and hit me in the face, like a big hitty sticky thing:

…here I am practicing some self-discipline…

and

…I finally began to feel I had something to give back to the community…

I wanted to be accountable to something. I wanted a personal exercise in sticking with something that I had started because I am terrible for giving up on things real life. If I stop now I’ll have failed again. My blog is not even 1 year old yet.

But I also wanted to help and entertain others along the way. And I still want to do this now.

So. I’ve made my mind up. And here is my promise to anyone reading this. I promise to HTFU, get on with it and stop being an emo. I shall continue to do what I’ve been doing here, and any whiney posts that need to come out I shall try and construct in a helpful and entertaining manner... or failing that I’ll put some rude pictures in the middle of it all.




Thanks very much to CK for putting me on the list. I hope I can entertain some new readers and fly the flag for FW noobs everywhere.

And many thank you's to whomever it was that requested my addition. I think Lexx and Laedy might have put a word in for me, so thanks a bunch you two now I can’t bloody quit! xx


o/

Faction War Interview: chatgris

chatgris is CEO of QCATS, the current all-time top killers in Gallente militia. As if that wasn't enough he is also ranked higher than me on "babes of new eden". Pish!

I am pleased to present my first interview of 2011, and thanks very much to chatgris for agreeing to take part.

Read more >>