Paradise Lost

  

Losing your faith is a tough thing regardless of to whom or in what that faith is placed in.  In a shocking blow to my own continued journey through all the turbulent ups and downs of EVE Online, I have found myself suddenly bereft of any and all faith in the developers at this time.

It is not something I expected, nor do I on the other hand feel like it is misplaced or emboldened by my own somewhat muddled personal experiences in the game itself as of late, per diplomacy and tactical combat, or lack thereof, insofar as tainting my outlook in general is concerned.  This is a legitimate plea of concern and bewilderment at some of the design and development decisions made by CCP in the past year or so, maybe longer now that I have the advantage of hindsight.

One thing is certain, in today's world economy, a decent product or service will fail whereas a superb or well orchestrated one will barely skirt by.  I believe that CCP may have fallen a victim of the times in that they are now forced to keep finding newer and newer carrots to propel the deus ex machina ever forward, for fear that any sudden stops along the way, or any scenic routes taken, will forever stall the product out, and lead to the branding going to the wayside as we have seen with other MMOs in recent years that suddenly found themselves lacking further funding or impetus from their shareholders, going from releasing new patches and content frequently, that added much polish and new veneer to the content of the game, to squeaking by with flowery updates few and far between that maintain a thinly veiled skein of new development or redress of old content that needs polish less but makes it appear that a great deal of effort is being put into the game client, i.e. Warhammer Online for literally the last two years since release.

Beyond going into detail ad nauseum I will just summarize what I can see from factual, anecdotal, and personal views and notes.

CCP claimed, and I remember this well, as little as I trudge through every scrap of new developments and rumor mills, CCP clearly claimed about a year or so ago, that they would in no way, shape, or form, take away from the support, development, progression, and funding of the EVE client itself while pursuing such side projects as Incarna and DUST512.

What do we find a year or so later, in the digital age, where multinational companies like BP still think they can buy their way to the top of the Yahoo! search list in order to obfuscate the obvious and wage a PR campaign without anyone noticing, is that CCP have suddenly found themselves in a financial black hole.  Having somehow entrenched a seemingly vast majority of their development resources into side projects, they are now telling us that not only are they not even as of yet fully appraised of the entire scope of the lag issues introduced with Dominion, and shockingly worsened with Tyrannis, even seven months after Dominion was released, but that they are literally incapable at this time of devoting any additional resources to resolving any major ongoing contrivances, conflicts, and issues in the main client itself until after said side projects are fully fleshed out and released.

Wait a second, please.  You should read that again.  Let me quote it so it stands out, I want to make sure you are reading this correctly, as it is paraphrased directly from the CSM summit meeting in Iceland that occurred two weeks ago or so.

Having somehow entrenched a seemingly vast majority of their development resources into side projects, they are now telling us that not only are they not even as of yet fully appraised of the entire scope of the lag issues introduced with Dominion, and shockingly worsened with Tyrannis, even seven months after Dominion was released, but they are incapable at this time of devoting any additional resources to resolving any major ongoing contrivances, conflicts, and issues in the main client itself until after said side projects are fully fleshed out and released.

Did you catch it all this time?  Good.

Now, for an old salt, ingame, like me, this matters more because I have already lost that shiny new rookie feeling where everything is still so mysterious with this sheen of discovery and entertainment to it, I am well versed enough in the game to know pretty much anything that is available to me via the content of the game itself to the point that, not only have I experienced or dabbled in a vast majority of it, but I have found myself bored or generally disinterested in that same majority, save the things I have not experienced to their fullest extent, i.e. 0.0 sovereignty and capital warfare and the extenuating circumstances of political conflict and resolution that reside therein.

In English, 0.0 is the only place for me in the long run, and now it looks like CCP has not only fubar'd 0.0 once but twice in consecutive expansions with reports leaking out on the EVE-O forums that various entire regions are suffering from untold lag issues when there are so very few people in the region as a whole, and engagements in double digit numbers are nearly impossible in certain circumstances.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as well, as each new content patch fixes one thing and breaks another.  Now, I know what most veterans who have stuck with the game for longer than I, a two and a half year span, would say, and that is, welcome to EVE Online, adapt to it and move along like the rest of us.

The only difference now is these issues are accelerating at a shocking pace, and the development company is now so blatantly desperate to create new revenue rather than support existing revenue that they have for all intents and purposes done a full 180 degree spin on their previous stance regarding allotment of time, energy, manpower, and resources, and given their claim that most issues with 0.0 including the sovereignty mechanic itself, which has failed to achieve the so called Emergent Theory they so lauded during its development, will not see a legitimately genuine look-through and appraisal until after Incarna which even now is rumored and slated to be looking at a Summer of '11 release date.  That's just under twelve months from now folks.  Twelve months.

Being a programmer, and being not only THE programmer at my place of business, but nearing on being in some terms a senior programmer after having almost five years under my belt, I have myself seen, bore witness to, and caused whether directly or indirectly the exact same issues that CCP has.  As you start off with a foundation and continue to put frame after frame, room after room, kitchen sink after sink upon that frame, it becomes laden and unwieldy, and it is almost as much work to fix or expand the foundation than it is to just start over entirely.  I have gone through not one, not two, but three entire rewrites of the client application at my place of business for this very reason.  The client became so laden and overburdened with thread and lag issues over time that it was like spaghetti, and the only way for me to address the issues I had built into the application slowly over time with new additions in every nook and cranny of the code, was to start from scratch.  Eventually I settled on an independently operating and modular design, concurrent threaded model that feeds into a single thread at runtime to ensure continuity and flow.  Each module can operate independent of the other, as long as it is provided with some cursory data flow to begin or continue operations, i.e. there is a very clear and unwavering contract between each module as to exactly how they communicate with one another.  I am adamant personally that this new modular design will stand the test of time as each module itself can be rewritten independent of all other modules so long as the contract is upheld.  Obviously this is likely not an option for CCP as the client code for EVE is undoubtedly millions of lines of code whereas I deal with under fifty thousand lines, easily.  The programmer in me is very disturbed by what I know is likely the problem with the EVE client, at least in theory, and maybe this is bad in the sense that, ignorance would be bliss for me, I could logon, play the game, adapt to the lag issues, and be happy as a clam like a lot of people would be, but I cannot.  I like knowing the truth, whether it hurts or not, it is the cost and suffering of enlightenment and I never shy away from that.

Now, for me, like I said, as a veteran, and as a young adult reaching a somewhat poignant age milestone in the next sixteen months, I have the unfortunate circumstance of having to make decisions that an adult would make rather than a youth would make, i.e. I have to think about the short term as it relates to my personal life and goals compared to simply doing whatever I want and entertaining myself in any way I feel.

That is to say, I do not really feel like I have the luxury to wait around another year just for CCP to start addressing all these issues with what to me is the most prominent and entertaining (i.e. retentive) content in the game, especially when it has already been seven months since they turned it upside down and shook the framework loose.

For me this means a few things, that are not as grim as I am undoubtedly making them sound to my friends and companions, but are still a little depressing.  First off, I am going to be scaling back my number of accounts from four to two, as I simply cannot bring myself to drop the subscription on my capital pilot in the rare event these issues see the light of day from CCP in the next six to twelve months well ahead of how they claim this is all going to pan out.  Second off, I am going to be going casual to the point that as of now I am putting the Aurelius Federation in hibernation and/or social mode, with people free to come and go as they please, or to find a suitable alliance in the Northern Coalition for us to all go over to, while I maintain the Aurelius Federation with an alternate character in the interim.  Cmdr GAT is already on the case with this, looking into various alliances here and there, and joining them to discern whether they have the right feel for us as players.  Thirdly, this means that as of now, EVE is no longer my nightly passion more so than it is the longest running MMO that I have until now never taken a real break from whether at the leadership level or at a personal level.  Until now.

It is not something I thought I would find myself doing, though I feared it may come to fruition, but it was really the CSM summit, I do not know if it was just one too many sour grapes from the developers after years of watching them fiddle and tinker with every little thing while leaving broken content broken and introducing new content that is broken, then leaving it in the dust to develop even more new content or if it was just that I have been at it so long in EVE that I am now a little turned off more than a rookie or relatively fresh player would be.  I do know one thing, I am not really so much mad at CCP as I am sorry for them.  I know given the time, energy, resources, and money there would be no limit to what they could do, but to be honest, at this point I think they are in very short supply of any of it.  This is not due to any one thing other than the fact that EVE is a niche game, and that means funding is always a thin line because there is not a surplus of subscription money or cash shop novelties like name, race, gender, server, etc. like there are in other MMOs.

What does this all actually mean, well it means as usual there are a million things racing through my mind, but I am able to put so very few of them to words, though I am sure some would disagree and argue that point, as much as I see the wall of text above me continues to grow.

The basic gist is, I may not be logging on much for weeks and months, and where my own members go, I may simply follow, as I said to a good friend the other day, you can only learn to lead if you learn to first follow, that tired old cliche, that so many in the previous alliance we were in could learn from, but I digress.

The options include:

1. AU-F somehow slips through the door into a very large and stable NC alliance, upon which I can simply be content to participate within an existing framework regardless of the game client's absurd and lingering problems.

2. Cmdr GAT finds a very nice corporation in a very nice alliance within the Northern Coalition and pilots in the AU-F join said corporation, including myself, at which time I just become another member, which is fine.

3. A suitable corporation for the lot of us cannot be found and we unfortunately have to go our separate ways at least ingame, and maintain our friendship without having the corporate flag to share, or maintain a friendship outside the game itself.

4. The people in the AU-F, about half of them if not more, who are already at the same point I am, all hang up their turrets for weeks and months, or for good, out of disillusionment with the direction the game client and developer are going.

I am chagrin to say that the last option is likely to be the course of action for a majority of the amazing friends I have found in EVE and will still continue to maintain said friendship with regardless of whether we are logging into EVE nightly, weekly, monthly, or never again.  I know Devin only really plays because he has friends like us to enjoy the game with, and Cmdr GAT is finding it increasingly hard to believe in the game, Kubert has disappeared now for more than week (although I have no idea why, and it worries me), Kuroda Tsu does not play much at all anymore, though he can thank me for that indirectly as our friendship took a nose dive, Varian Knight and his cadre of RL friends have long since quit entirely and moved onto LOL, Huff has taken a big hit in his personal life and is finding it difficult to entertain himself with the game, Meatay is off having the time of his life during the summer months, Nylint is of course only able to play in spurts as his job is very taxing, Amos is lucky he gets to play as his wife absolutely hates the game, Rayth I think only plays because of the group we have fostered here, much like Devin, and Rasnow, being a new father, does not have 5-6 hours a night to roll around in space and devote to a single enterprise, though he would adore doing so, he has rightly chosen to go more casual to better support his family, which does not mean he will or will not leave EVE, it just means he is or will not be on much.  Sorry to anyone I have not listed, but are in a similar position.

To me, playing this game, was always about seeing if I could amass a veritable army of people like those I have surrounded myself with for the past two and a half years, but the unfortunate part is that there are so few amazingly unique, strong willed, determined, genuine, independent, and intelligent people out there in the EVE subscriber base that these are the few good men (and women on occasion) I have been able to find in the entirety of my time in the game thus far.  And to me, the fact that I found as many as I did over that time span, is a success.

So, without any further pomp and circumstance, I am signing off on what is likely to be the last blog entry here for an indeterminate amount of time, as I scale back my support of the development company CCP and pursue other interests in both RL and in the gaming entertainment industry.

I hope to see you in the plumbs of space on occasion but unless one of the first two options listed above becomes a reality, when I log onto the game may end up being based around training regimens alone, which means weekly or monthly, depending on the circumstances.

Adieu, my friends!

Pandora's Box

Dominion released a veritable bounty of unsavory issues into the game as I am slowly beginning to come to terms with over time.  Prior to the expansion, you had a system that had grown stale and redundant, its participants forced into destroying dozens of towers over the course of what could be weeks just to drive out the current residents from space they wanted to claim.  You had the equally redundant task of spamming your own towers into the constellation in order to contest the space, which again, took time, what was it, a whole week for it to fully update the contested territories after each DT?

Now what we have is the following...

• Bring large conventional fleet
• Knock out Cynosural Field Jammer
• Jump in capital fleet
• Anchor SBUs
• Kill iHub, TCU
• Anchor TCU
• Profit

It takes what... 8 hours?  I may be slightly sketchy on the ins and outs, but the basic point is, sovereignty is now measured in 24-72hr blocks, rather than week(s).

Here today, gone tomorrow, now the little guy has a chance, this so-called Emergent Theory, sovereignty now costs so much to maintain and defend, the large power blocs could not possibly hold it all themselves, thus giving rise to EVE Online: The New Guys, right?


Well, we would all like to think so, and our previous alliance would as well, along with a number of its new affiliates up in Pure Blind.  But what is really happening?

The rewards are becoming less and less appealing, and now that the only region in the game to welcome any influx of newer players is long gone and never to return, we have a perceived net loss of initiative out in the plumbs of space.  What does the little guy, i.e. a smaller alliance with few assets and even less leverage or influence, gain from going to null space?

Let's face it, not much.  Sovereignty can be stripped away by a fleet of as little as fifty battleships in a matter of a day or two against smaller groups incapable of fielding half that many pilots on a good day, let alone in all T2 fit battleships of the close or long range variety respectively.  I have watched it happen in Wicked Creek, and I am sure I will watch it happen in Pure Blind too.

What it boils down to me for me is the same conundrum I found myself staring at in Warcraft when I came back after a six month break to find the guild of hundreds I had fostered as a mix of all types, be they casual or hardcore, slowly degrading, or so I thought at the time, into an atmosphere of fanaticism and hardcore mentality.  This was about half way into the Burning Crusade release, and I could not have been more aghast and shocked.  How could they do this to what was formerly my precious guild of people from all walks of life, I would say to myself as I watched on from a spectator's viewpoint for the first time, unable to change a single thread in the puzzle to my liking.

Looking back, I should have known, it was not the people themselves, but the game, always the game, catering to the bottom line, those who play the most.  It makes sense right?  The people who have all the time in the world to devote to the game should get the most enjoyment out of it correct?  Well, not true, my friends, not true, and it seems Blizzard, and now subsequently CCP, are either already aware of this or slowly being charged with it over time.

Casuals.  MMOs are such a dime a dozen in some sense these days that a development company has to follow one carrot with another as the subscription base devours them like so many skittles on a hot summer's day.  As we see CCP continue to release content, alterations, and changes to the game that seem geared entirely towards making things faster, quicker, more fluid and dynamic, changing course at the slightest breeze, we see two things.

1.  EVE null security was never meant for casuals anyways.
2.  EVE null security cannot support a casual mentality so long as everything in the game, theoretically if not literally, is consumable including the skillpoints in your head.

What the developers at Blizzard have figured out, much to my chagrin after years of believing it myself, is that the hardcore player base is like a gnawing hunger, never satiated no matter what you give them, it is never enough.  They are now effectively doubling back on the trend I saw when the Burning Crusade was halfway through its life cycle, they saw what catering to only a hardcore mindset does to an MMO, it creates an insatiable hunger that never ends and only exponentially escalates into absurdity, the more you say to people, "You can have it all if you just spend one more hour in the game," the more they spend two hours, or three, but not all of them, only some, those inclined to have the time, energy, and wherewithal to be hardcore players in any MMO they subscribe to.

Blizzard has been backpedaling on this, to my knowledge, quite literally for years now, inventing new and easier ways to gear out or experience all the game has to offer right out of the box after every new content release.  This is the best of both worlds for Blizzard, their hardcore players can devour new content as always, being the best of the best, flaunting the fact that they have little to no real purpose or lives outside of the monitor, while the casuals, slower but determined, will eventually catch up, at least until new content is released.  Blizzard has done it, they have finally found how to hook all players, not just some.

Okay, so I've been talking about that other game for awhile now, do I have a point?

Yes.  My point is, in EVE, everything is consumable down to the training you do, in theory.  What this means is that the only way to compete is to have as many or more assets than your competitor, and to lose yours slower than they lose theirs until one of you keeps going and the other is forced to retreat.

Think about it.

Do you see a way for casuals to succeed in the player controlled regions of the game, i.e. null space?

I sure as hell do not myself.

Now the ironic part is, I can be, often are, and am a hardcore player at heart.  I am obsessive in the sense that, I pick one particular pursuit or passion at a time, and I mindlessly, in some sense, pursue it until I accomplish the goals I set out for myself.  But I am the exception I have found, and not the rule.

In order for smaller groups to succeed in EVE, every contributor has to be like me, in principle, and insofar as it concerns their commitment level.  You want a few systems to claim sovereignty in 0.0 and to prosper and hold said systems?  You better gather up at least as many people as required to field a conventional fleet of heavy hitters up to and beyond fifty people at once, if not more.  Consistently, night after night, not a one time deal, I am talking, whenever it becomes necessary, and it will, you field fifty or more ships, every, single, time.  This is not a casual mindset, and if you have ten casual players, and only one is online at any given time, you multiply that factor to 3000 players, and suddenly the most you could ever hope to muster at any given time is 300 people, and that's if you're lucky.  300 people is barely enough to fight a moderately sized alliance with high participation levels.  And our previous alliance had at its peak about a thousand people, and we saw just that, maybe a hundred people online on a good night, and if we were lucky, twenty people ready and willing to participate even if Rome was burning.

Look at Systematic-Chaos, a short while ago they had almost three thousand people, but they could not route their opposition, alliances with numbers in the ballpark of 700 or 300 total members.  Why?  Because Systematic-Chaos was full of casuals.  Their own members have reiterated that again and again on the CAOD, trying to vindicate themselves in light of their alliance's complete and absolute meltdown in a matter of weeks.

How, could the combined forces of one alliance with +2500 members, and another with +2000 members (Primary.) not overcome the meager forces of one alliance with 700 members, and another with 300?

Consistency and participation.  C0VEN and Stain Empire, so I am told, had +90% participation levels, and everyone who showed up, showed up in the ship they were asked to, and nothing else.  Vastly different from the account that members of Systematic-Chaos gave of their own alliance, lack of numbers, people unwilling to fight for their own space, poor fleet composition, poor leadership and initiative, more carebears than not, etc.

Without trying to sound too much like a jackass... hearing people in Systematic-Chaos talk about why their alliance had an epic failcascade reminds me all too much of the reasons I pulled my own corporation from our previous alliance.  The writing is on the walls folks.  It is an unfortunate reality that casuals do not a null security sovereign holder make, and even more unfortunate that the only way to ensure long term survival and prosperity is to do one simple thing: get rid of them.

Now, those who know me well, know that I am a champion of people's rights, I work hard to make sure all my own corporate members know that they are more than welcome to be who they are, feel comfortable with who they are, and enjoy the content of the game in their own way while within my corporation, so long as they do not interfere in any other person's ability to do so themselves.  This little caveat has served me well and I stick to it tooth and nail without exception.  However, my corporation made the choice to remain a mix of casual and hardcore elements, as it allows me the luxury of upholding said caveat.  But as I see the numbers dwindle away in the corporation, I wonder to myself, has it been naive of me to dream the dream that I could maintain a mix of casual and hardcore players all the while attempting to help alliances establish themselves in null security?

Probably so, but I never shy away from allowing myself to be labeled as a dreamer, as half the joy of life in my opinion, is being able to imagine all the possibilities out there for oneself and those who one surrounds oneself with.

But, remember the lesson, null security is for hardcore elements, the casual life died with Providence, and so little else remains but to succeed by shucking off and sacrificing the ability to champion people's rights in lieu of a more restricted right to be, or continue living the impossible dream, as you watch friend after friend slowly fade away over time, unable to compete in an environment where the hardcore elements, struggling to accomplish the goals they desire, continually prey upon the casuals, who will never be able to supply those goals, as it is their nature, being a casual player, you cannot very well expect someone with three kids, two jobs, and a bad back to sit at a computer six hours a night pelting TCUs so you can claim sovereignty over pixels on the internet.  And to be honest, in my opinion, it is morally reprehensible to try and prey upon them by peer pressure, coercion, guilt, or malice, to do so otherwise.  These people rightly put their families first above all else, and members of the alliance who thought to change this, should be expelled faster than I can finish typing this sentence.  If it were up to me, either the decision would be made to go hardcore and expel the casuals, or to go mixed casual and hardcore, and resign oneself to the reality that sovereignty is unattainable with such a platform.

Does this make me a hypocrite, on the one hand lauding the rights of people to be themselves in an online environment, to feel safe, secure, and nurtured by caring and genuine leaders who put the people's interests above all else, and on the other shake my fist at those same people because they are the very reason why a group based on said environment can never succeed at sovereignty and they need to either commit to being hardcore or leave?

Of course.  But I never claimed to be a simple man...

What does any of this mean for my own corporation, the Aurelius Federation?  It means I have some tough decisions to make in the next six months, I grow older every day, and while nearing on thirty may seem like a fairly trivial milestone as it concerns age itself, as certainly thirty is undoubtedly young and brash to others, I find myself wondering, I am almost thirty years old, do I have the luxury of dreaming anymore, or do I consign myself to reality, and make the kinds of choices an adult would make.

As I told the executor of our previous alliance, and/or his close associate, if I had merely been given the power to eradicate insubordination, by force, and to expunge all the... unfortunate dead weight that were and are the casual players, as much as I abhor myself for contemplating such a thing, I would have fought to my last breath in game to do so.  But having had my hands tied by neither being bequeathed nor denied said power, I could do nothing but sit idly by, shaking my fist and roaring at others around me, who were destroying the very thing I was trying to protect.  To protect the right to decide, do we choose people over content, or content over people.  The choice is at present, yet to be made, and I no longer desired waiting around for it to happen, as again, I grow older every day, and my patience to sit around as people wring their hands trying to figure these ^ things out wears thin with me quicker than ever before.

I am and always will be a lion at heart, and those who know me best, those few friends I have had with me along the journey of the past few years, know well that my fervor knows no bounds, and if unleashed, I am a frightening person to list as one's enemy or antagonist.  If only I had been given the chance to use that fervor, passion, and spirit to compel the kinds of change that although unsavory would have produced results given the goals and intentions of the alliance as a whole, maybe I would not be sitting here pining at the abysmal losses I see day after day, and the continued fail fits, of the very kind I and many others continued to decry, day after day, night after night, but would instead be leading fleets of dozens and dozens of battleships, all properly fit to the teeth, roaring through space, letting our enemies hear that we are not few, but many, each hell bent on their annihilation.

Sharks swim alone, they die alone, whether in a feeding frenzy in which they devour one another, or from starvation when there remains no prey, but lions, a pride fights, lives, and dies together, and if any one lion questions the authority of the leader, he is eliminated or driven out, without question.

I find myself feeling less and less inclined to be the nice guy in MMOs anymore, and more inclined to be who I really am, but that is something for another time.

EVE has been under quite a load bearing stress for six months, and with the most recent loss of some net $30,000 USD worth of assets in a single day due to a poor and broken game mechanic, it seems like things are going to get worse before they get better, much worse.  There is no room for casuals out there in null security anymore than CCP would have liked there to be, as they have somehow managed to make it almost impossible for casual life in null security, when their every intention seemed to be the exact opposite of that.

Oh the best laid plans of mice and men...

Lions And Sharks

There are a couple things you do not do in a player group.  One of them is lie to people when things are not going so well.  It cheapens their sense of value and integration and costs more in loyalty later once things hopefully get better and you suddenly lift the curtain and reveal that it was all smoke and mirrors.  People deserve the truth, be it obfuscated to protect them or not, they deserve to know when things are not working as intended, because they are the only ones who can change it.  Leaders only provide the path, it is the people who follow it.  The second, is you do not take one format, and replace it with another.

There are as many types of corporations and alliances in this game as there are fish in the sea, but one thing remains true, if you recruit casuals, the chances of them becoming hardcore through their own volition or your persistence, is about as good as the chance I'll land a hot date with Katy Perry and find myself messing the sheets up with her an hour after posting this blog, wish as I may.

For every ten people the AU-F itself has ever recruited, maybe, maybe one of them has persevered and become a regular fixture and consistent presence in the game, let alone grown into a veteran player, capable of holding their own entirely, independent, self-supporting, and experienced, as is always my goal, I do not need followers, I need brothers.  The rest, well... if they do not quit the game, they simply fade away over time, leaving the corporation, and flitting from place to place, and as far as I can tell, never really doing much in this wild game of ours.

So, what happens when an alliance made of mostly casuals with limited experience, solid experience, in combat tries to change the formula?  A whole lot of nothing.  You can make casuals into fighters, but you cannot force them to it, that's why they are casual, they did not sign up for an account to this game so you could be their overlord and they your serfs.  But members of the alliance we were previously in, save the executor himself, who all my members, myself included, are convinced is the best alliance leader any of us have ever seen, these members were convinced they could force casuals to be hardcore, with little to no leverage, to boot.


Leverage, it is an innately hideous thing, that lets you pretty much dictate terms, to just about anyone who has any stake in it, that's why it is called leverage.  Well, how exactly do you force casual players, who are just here to yuck it up and have a good time, to pit themselves headlong into battle night after night, week after week, making little to no income of their own, having little to no real entertainment because they and the FCs are so inexperienced that it usually means a quick and expensive death?


The answer is, drum roll please, you don't.  But oh will people try, and try they may.  When a vacuum in power opens up, the hounds move in, and what you find is, the people who left, were the ones who deserved the power, because they were also willing to give it up when it became clear their positions were compromised for any reason, and the ones who snatch it up in their absence are the last people you'd ever want to have power over others.  I call it, personally, though I have no idea if it has been coined already, The Caesar Complex. Successors, in general, are a bad lot, all the work to get the great machine churning has been done, and they come along, and lack the awareness and hindsight to know and actually understand what came before them, they have a point of view disparity, and eventually over time you find out that the Prodigal Son is in fact the Infernal Son, lusting for power and influence, convinced with a grandiose sense of entitlement that they are the only ones who deserve the power, having done so little of the actual work to get there in the first place, etc.


Well, before I ramble on about stuff that probably only interests me anyways, that is, the way the old phrase, absolute power corrupts absolutely is such a morbidly true cliche, let me say this, when you give people an environment like the internet, where there are no rules, and you give them power, they could be a living saint in real life, but on the internet the moment the world's laws and consequences disappear, you find out what is lying dormant in that saint's heart, their true nature.  The old excuse that nothing matters here, is true, it does not matter here, but it matters out there because if these same people were to make their way into CEO positions of multinational corporations in real life, and the like, what you find is what you would expect, the limitless power and sway they find themselves with, and the feeling of invulnerability and being above the laws of society, turn these otherwise caring and genuine people into monsters.  I think all of us with any interest at all in the world at large have seen plenty evidence of that in the clear light of day in the past few years alone.

As a philosopher, I find it exceedingly interesting and poignant to watch these things play out.  Sometimes I interfere with the natural course of things to see just how much it would take, if anything were enough, to change the inevitable outcome of giving someone who is not prepared for it, absolute power over others, or even the illusion of it within an illusion, having not been given any actual power, but not having the semblance or notion of it taken away either.


This probably makes little sense to anyone but myself as it is really my own grand experiment, but suffice it to say, I am always, always curious to see whether the will of one person can hold at bay the will of the hounds that constantly lurk in the corners, waiting for their opportunity to fulfill their own sense of entitlement and grandeur at any to cost to those around them.


Hundreds, hundreds of people in our previous alliance, deserved a lot better than they got from a select few members of the alliance, who decided that it was their job to speak for people, when they understand people the least of anyone else.  If the alliance had started with a hardcore platform then the sharks would have been right at home, and no one would have any reason to say they weren't justified with trying to use people up like Kleenex, but the alliance was more of a large extended family, the same as the AU-F itself, which is what made it such a breath of fresh air when we first joined,  and a family needs lions, not sharks.  I am afraid to say, our previous alliance has only a handful of lions left in the fight, and the sharks are winning.


What happens to a pride of lioness and their cubs when the lions that protect them are killed by hyenas, I wonder?


I will be waiting, and watching, to find out, as always.


One of my favorite passages in all the literature I have read, sums all this drama up entirely, in what I hope will be a final chapter on our corporation's eternal struggle to help build something from the ground up, as I think we have all given up on that notion and are instead going to seek an established alliance the next time around where there is not, hopefully, an eternal power struggle over scraps and bits.  Even if there is a struggle over actual vast wealth and assets, that I can live with, but this never-ending struggle over what to me is a parched man slowly dying in the desert, is folly and I will not be a party to it any longer, whether I was trying to prevent it or not, it is like watching strays fight to the death over a discarded apple core.  There are so many more entertaining and amazing experiences the alliance could have had but instead an unfortunate number of its members decided they would rather fight amongst themselves over scraps.  So this passage, for me at least, coming here to play this game not only for entertainment but also camaraderie and brotherhood, and if only more could really understand it, especially those who would benefit from it most, means the world to me in a situation like this:

The old man said, 'I see around me here
Things which you cannot see. We die, my friend,
Nor we alone, but that which each man loved
And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
Dies with him, or is changed, and very soon
Even of the good is no memorial left.
The poets, in their elegies and songs
Lamenting the departed, call the groves,
They call upon the hills and streams to mourn,
And senseless rocks - nor idly, for they speak
In these their invocations with a voice
Obedient to the strong creative power
Of human passion. Sympathies there are
More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,
That steal upon the meditative mind
And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood,
And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel
One sadness, they and I.

The Ruined Cottage
William Wordsworth

You cannot take the game with you, folks, so be sure those arduous endeavors you take upon yourself will result in fond memories, rather than self gratification or validation, as no one ten years from now but you will honestly care whether or not you conquered an internet game and lorded over hundreds of people like a despot as the right arm of an entire alliance or more.  If I told you that I led a guild of almost fifty people when the original Diablo came out and that at the time it was a wildly new phenomenon for me at the tender age of 16  and for the time itself in '97 to do so would it really mean anything to you?  I didn't think so.  So remember, you will be alone with your memories, so make sure they count.  Personal thrills are a dime a dozen and you can just as easily get them by popping in a Halo disc and shooting some grunts or laying the pimp hand down on some tool with an online moniker like xXKillYouDeadXx, but having fond memories of experiences, meeting good friends, and achieving amazing things together is by far the most precious of commodities.

Penultimate

Why do I want to fly a Nyx?  Of course the easy answer is that I am guilty of wanting to indulge in the game's high end content.  The more difficult answer is that I honestly do not trust others to fly it first.  Without going into too much detail, I can tell you I have seen some pretty ridiculous stuff done with capitals before, and I do not mean that in a good way.  My idea of doing something ridiculous is not having enough money on my main account to insure my capital before joining the second engagement in the D-GTMI battle, and coming out four hundred million short after reimbursement from Aralis of my own fault.  That's unconscionable to me.  How could I forget when I knew my dual box setup was down for the count at the time and I could not relog another character cuz the fleet break was a mere five minutes?  Unthinkable!  Oh, but after a few months since my own capital loss, the things I have seen... *shakes head* I had to help a pilot out who had his carrier stuck in an NPC 0.0 outpost where the hostiles were hostile and the neutrals were hostile on top of hostile... the best part was he had no calibration, so how he got the thing there to begin with is beyond me, so I kindly helped him out by using my calibration skills to get it out of harm's way in a single hop.  That required a beer before and a beer after, given that a fleet of a dozen or so hostiles was zipping back and forth up that pipe all night long, it was four in the morning, and my eyes were glued to the screen like there was a swimsuit competition on.  From the time I got my eyes on the station to when I jumped out to the cyno it took about thirty five minutes of careful observation and noting who's who.  Something like:

Dual box cloaked eyes on station, wait, wait, wait, locals ratting or docked, wait, new red, wait, red left, two new neutrals, one left, one docked, another undocked, docked, undock capital pilot in a shuttle, ha, someone pop me so I know if you're watching, c'mon fools, I warp off, safe spot towards planet, maybe think a POS if someone is watching, warp back, docked, gang of six jumps in, jumps out, did not come to station, reds gone, just neutrals and blues left, ratting or docked, okay, undock capital pilot again, is someone wise to me, we will see, c'mon pop my shuttle, noobs can never resist giving away their positions, they pounce at the slightest stir in space, 20k loss compared to carrier with command ships and heavy assault cruisers in its ship bay is easy math, c'mon c'mon... aaaaaaaaaaand absolutely nothing, jack squat, no one is watching, or they are as sly as I am or better in which case they have the right to teach me a lesson, ok *dock capital pilot and board carrier*, *takes ample swig of Guinness* let's do this thing, *undocks*, slingshot, going going, gone!  *cloak* ok, time to align to safe, aligning, aligning, *uncloak*, warp warp warp, in warp!  *cloak* ok cyno buddy, *takes another dripping sloshy gulp of Guiness* let's go!  *uncloa...FOOF* and I'm gone in a flash!  Just call me Flash Gordon, brosef.  That's how you get outta hostile space.

I am convinced that people just simply do not care or cannot put two and two together.  Here is what I imagine them thinking when they put a capital in a situation like I had to get them out of:  "After all, it's just pixels in space, forget the twenty four hours straight of ratting or pounding out missions it took to purchase that carrier and fit it, or the fact that I have a complete lack of navigation skills, I wanna jump it through hostile space and run rip shod on the seat of my pants!  Oh noz, *POOF* I guess it is back to T1 frigates...boy am I the best capital pilot ever or what?"

As is the case with anything that has an intrinsic value beyond the time and energy committed to its production, I firmly believe that in the right hands a supercap is basically priceless in today's game environment.  When carriers, dreads, and etc. are treated like so many pieces of candy by rookie and experienced pilots alike it becomes obvious to me that a perfectly executed drop of a handful of supercaps can annihilate billions worth of ships in mere minutes, with little to no risk to themselves.  Hell, I have seen it done three or four times already, though I have not witnessed it directly.

So, yes, it is a guilty pleasure to want to fly a fairly formidable but expensive ship, but more than that, I would rather see it flown the right way, because the alternative is unsavory at best.

I think I might just actually and seriously go emo for a whole day if I have to hear a story about some rube who was given the first alliance supercap and decided it'd be fun to aggress at a gate in low sec to pop a couple hostiles, only to find himself  swarmed over by every Tom, Dick, and Hairy in the tri-region area, and lose his supercap in a most painfully slow and excruciating manner.  In fact, in going emo, rather than cut myself, which would be folly, I think I'd like to cut him instead.  Yes, yes I think that would be nice.  Quite nice.

...

Although, there is a rumor, most foul, that my industry alt is beginning a twelve month training regimen to Sniper Apocalypse, Paladin, and... Avatar! *gasp* Say it ain't so bud, say it ain't so, only the sexiest ship in the entire game, as if I will ever fly one.  But one can dream, can he not?  At least along the way I will be max training some of the most useful fleet battleships I can think of.

:)

The Lost Art

The lost art of artful deception.  Most of what one ever needs to know from others is what others themselves do not know one needs.  Confused yet?  Okay, what happens when you say something wrong among a group of your peers?  They correct you, right?  What happens if you say something wrong on purpose, knowing they will correct you?  You learn something without asking them to give you the answer.  They are none the wiser, and you walk away with something you did not have before, knowledge with no primary source.

Oftentimes, one may find me making bold predictions, speaking in platitudes, or grandiose terms, waxing philosophical about this or that state of the game, the people that play it, and in general the human condition.  Am I right in my predictions a fair majority of the time?  I would like to think so.  I did predict a number of months ago that Scalding Pass would become the new proxy war for SC and NC once the SC campaign inevitably failed in a most miserable fashion.  I was also told at the time I made the prediction that I was the only CEO in the entirety of the alliance who even remotely touched on a topic or concern of that nature.  I once predicted what would happen to a rather unsavory member who led a coup and took a couple dozen of my more hardcore members with him, enticing them with promises of riches and glory, as he was my better, he told them, and they need only follow him to partake.  Twelve months in advance I said, he will have not a friend in the world, just you wait, I said.  Twelve months later he was begging anyone to take him in, because he lost it all.  Fancy that.  Do some of my predictions seem outlandish and absurd at the time, and on occasion even more so after the fact?  Perhaps.

People underestimate carefully constructed falsehoods and more often than not, will fail to even realize that the speaker is not wrong by ignorance, but by volition, or even not so much that they are wrong, but they are antagonizing or emphatic in such a way as to glean what they want from those around them.

The more mundane and two dimensional character could be best surmised as what we commonly refer to as a troll.  But one who strives to master the written and spoken word and make predictions based upon it, is known as a soothsayer or oracle.  Now, I am not so bold as to believe I have some preternatural ability to foresee future events more so than I am so keenly aware of my surroundings that often the air feels thick to me before something stirs in the shadows. Having bred myself early on in the game as a scout, and having scouted countless roams, I have had the unique opportunity of consistently being in a position where I may simply watch and observe.  Thus I may not have as much a preponderance of experience as some, yet I understand things just the same.  Without sounding too sure of myself, I believe this is why I often find myself as one of the top fleet commanders wherever I go.

More so than that, however, in keeping this novella on topic, I find myself gleaning information constantly wherever I may find it.  In alliance chat, watching local, reading the EVE forums, Scrapheap, talking to my own members, alliance members, leaders, intelligence channels, you name it, I am usually lurking in the shadows somewhere.

I find it more amusing when people seem to revel in pointing out my obvious mistakes or misinformed opinions and ideas, because quite often, I will have simply said whatever popped into my mind concerning the subject, knowing full well someone will leap at the opportunity to tell me the truth and correct me, thus giving them a false sense of superiority.  Gotcha.  None the wiser they are, none the wiser.

Perhaps, this is why I am also the Intelligence Officer for the alliance, no?

A month or two ago, I made a bold prediction, that by the time of the summer expansion, people would likely be leaving 0.0 in droves, out of a lack of faith in the game mechanic or any eventual resolution to said mechanic.  The rhetoric served its purpose and meted out its eventual end and I am happy with that, and I would be amused to find anyone who looks back on that period of the game, and wonders if I am a loon or not for predicting a part or parcel of the ubiquitous EVE is dying argument.  I hope they find it amusing, to be played like a violin.

Now, this has obviously not been the case, in the sense that 0.0 is alive and well, and anyone who knows the history of the game, knows 0.0 was a better place when fewer people were in it anyways.  However, what has changed has been exactly what I feared, but could not bring myself to say.  People are losing faith, but they find themselves unable to do the unthinkable, and like a deer in headlights, they are simply staring at a train wreck waiting to happen, unable to move out of the way.  The air, ambiance, environment, feel, undercurrent if you will of 0.0 life has dramatically changed.  No longer is CAOD filled with fun content and immense and yes sometimes trivially overblown rivalries, keen interest, and excitement, but is instead filled with this subtle sense of frustration.  Posts made, threads started, sit idle for an hour, two hours, maybe more, before people even bother to tire themselves with caring anymore.   You hear words like stale, pointless, what does it matter when it comes to who wins what, and who loses.

There are the Goons, simply wanting to return to their roots in Scalding Pass, and remember a time when, as implied, the game and 0.0 life itself, had a flare for the fantastic.  There is Atlas, reeling from having the very game mechanic they took advantage of, along with -A- to render all of Providence impotent, turn around and annihilate them time after time.  Now, mismanagement aside, or preemptive strikes that slowed the momentum of war, and etc. the general idea is that it seems quiet, too quiet.

It seems that the initial shock, anger, disbelief, and denial over the fallout from Dominion has now turned into apathy.  What does it matter anymore, they say, why fight over the same space over and over, they ask, why bother, some of my own members will say from time to time.  Why has expansion after expansion been released for two years, and nothing has really changed, they pine.

Why, indeed.

...but out of the murky water rises a figure of doubt, in the back of our minds, that asks, "Whose fault is it really, the game developers who raised the bar and failed, or the players who reached too high to begin with?"

Interestingly enough, who knows what I myself do in fact, believe or not, as I said, maybe I am right, maybe I am wrong, I care not whether anyone thinks I am wrong one moment from the next, I only care about the truth, however I can find it.

So the next time someone starts poking at my opinions, claims, or predictions, you can imagine me sitting behind my monitor laughing as I revel in them providing me the information I actually wanted to begin with, and knowing they will forget ever having given it to me, like a thief in the night.  This is not to say I am never wrong, that would be a pretty ludicrous claim, but that I do my very best to never say something unless I know I am either right, or I am wrong on purpose because I am simply blathering out whatever comes to mind at the moment.

Life is only worth living if you can accept that it is truly, in the end, a Divine Comedy...

...and this game is no different in that regard.

Time Flies

This past week marked two years since I created the Aurelius Federation.  Does it seem so long ago?  For me it feels like only yesterday that I was sputtering about in a shield boosted, armor repped, passive targeting fit Incursus being obliterated by frigates in an L1 mission and cursing CCP for its obviously evil game design that must certainly be hellbent on obliterating rookie pilots and their expensive ships.  But in reality, what amounts to ages in a game world have passed since then, and I find myself thinking lightly of stashing 100,000,000.00 ISK worth of bombs in a corporate hangar somewhere, that I know will see little use, or tossing a 350,000,000.00 ISK booster on a ship because I want to really have fun the once or twice a month I even do L4 missions for income,  or traveling through 0.0 and being more comfortable there than in a station in Empire, floating about in a POS, being amused at rookie or inexperienced pilots who are as of yet still learning how to avoid cloaky Dictors or general harassment down pipes and ways.

It is the best of both worlds for me, in all honesty, still holding onto the idea that I too was once just another rookie pilot in a 50k frigate, zipping about in the great expanse of space, staring in wonder at the starry backdrop of the game, with my imagination running wild at the sheer potential of the future laid out before me to now knowing that I am well versed and experienced in the game to the point that it becomes harder for me each and every day to relate to those who are not.

I still get that way from time time, even as I can fly all but four or five ship classes in the game, even if not all the racials.  Starting the last 85 day leg of my journey to having a Nyx pilot is the real culmination for me as the Nyx is one of the reasons I became enthralled with the content of the game.  Such a wonderfully pleasant and foreboding ship, even more so now that it is a capital killer.

But of the corporation itself, through countless ups and downs, winners and losers, friends and enemies, successes and failures, one thing remains that I keep in mind, and promises me that I have made a difference for those around me, as intended.

The size of our corp has drastically changed since the Provi days. Even thought the number is big, if you remove alts we probably end with 20 or so players. TBH I like it. Living from a POS is hard. Even harder when you have a big group and thinking that any day all shit can be stolen. It can definitely happen, but with this group very unlikely. I know that we will eventually grow again, but I'm not in a hurry. I think this is a great time for us to grow as a team to be ready for the future size growth.

 - Dante Styx

I have managed to find and surround myself with sensible adults who are here to enjoy a game and nothing more.  What could be better?  I do not have snot-nosed driveling children nipping at my heels within the corporation, nor do I have deceitful avarice filled mongrels chomping at the bit for every tiny little step up the ladder they can make by any means and at any cost.  Life ingame is good.

So, although I could wax philosophical or reminisce for hours until this post feels like a novella I will instead close with how I feel after two years and how I hope to feel after another two.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.


i.e. I wouldn't change a thing, to be perfectly honest.

Runs Like A Charm, Feels Like A Job

I like to believe that I am surrounding myself with, and constantly seeking, friends first in this game, and corporate members second.  I know it is naive of me, and given the fact that I am looking for friends in of all places, EVE Online, it means that I am already at a distinct disadvantage.  EVE is not a nice, warm, fuzzy place where you sit down and drink a glass of cognac with your favorite companions on a quiet winter's night.

However, for that very reason, I run the AU-F like I would a social club or as the head of a family.  You get in on looks and personality alone, whether you're the most skilled pilot in the game, or you can't find your undock button on a good night.  And based on that personality, you are accepted with open arms, and expected to uphold the family environment I maintain internally within the corporation.  On the outside, it is all business.  On the inside, I would rather talk about booze and women, than be ultra serious and hardcore about the game as a whole.  These things lead to a fairly pleasant dichotomy where on the one hand, the corporation maintains or attempts to maintain the strictest sense of professionalism, business, and diplomacy, and on the other, when it is a quiet night, we are in our corporate channel talking about booze, women, body parts, and the kitchen sink.

But, sometimes this backfires, as we have found in the past week, when tensions ran high, and words were spoken that a few people seem to not want to take back.  Having quit the Senate, raised a fair amount of ruckus at both the corporate and alliance levels, and then retreated from participation in general as if to add insult to injury, members of this corporation have done everyone around them a great disservice. 

Now, the elephant in the room is that everyone involved both at the corporate and alliance levels made some sort of mistake, whether it be pride, assumptions, apathy, disrespect, overzealous nature, or etc.  The problem I see is that everyone but the people in question, continues to be willing to work these differences out, like mature, independent, and responsible adults.  So what's the problem?  I ask for everyone to act like an adult, that is not really much to ask to be honest.  In fact, it is relatively little.  Certainly mistakes were made by all parties, but only a few were absolutely unwilling to resolve these conflicts at all, and instead chose to retreat into the shadows.

Before I myself say things I will regret, I want to clear the air, from my perspective.

I work to the betterment of ALL parties equally, and so long as I feel those parties understand that this is my role here, I will work for them, even if they are in part or in whole responsible for the circumstances that cause me to need be involved to begin with.  I make no judgments, I make no grievances, I make no agendas, I simply try to resolve.  But I have limits that I set, and those limits have been crossed, and once they are crossed, that is the end of it.  Just like the Kematian's, the Zee's, and the Mark's of the corporation, these people who cross that invisible line with me, are never given my faith or confidence again, whether they choose to stay or not and regain it themselves in the eyes of their peers, it will still never again be from me.  In fact, I implore them to do just that, to stay, regardless of whether I myself lost faith in them, as this is my way, not the only way, and I am certainly not whom the only opinion matters.  But they never choose to remain, never.  So, with my usual foresight, that I typically keep to myself, I would like to say now, that they were given every consideration by myself, every possible consideration, and they refused to yield to my role as mediator, and instead I find myself feeling insulted, by being thrown in with the lot as if by association I am no better than the slander thrown wildly against all others.  I am sorry, but I am the last person that one wants to take for granted.  Do not mistake me for someone who bends, I am unbreakable.  This is a family affair, and if you do not want to be part of a family and work your problems out like one, this probably isn't the place for you.

The Dark Ages

Well, this time I can honestly say that my long hiatus from posting here has been deliberate. 


Fatal Ascension has successfully relocated to the Scalding Pass region and my intentional public blackout is now at an end, as we have established ourselves wholly in our new area.

Couple easy things to note, that have been going on in the most recent weeks, be they gloriously successfully or arduously difficult, are the following:

• Logistics hauling with capital ships, SUCCESS
• Medium to Large organized combat fleets, POSSIBLE
• Getting carebear and newbie pilots to come out to Scalding Pass on their own, NEAR IMPOSSIBLE
• Getting people to NOT warp into engagements in ones and twos, NEAR IMPOSSIBLE
• Getting people to realize Scalding Pass neither resembles nor even remotely likens to Providence, NEAR IMPOSSIBLE
• Gaining focus from a core group of a few hundred in the alliance, SUCCESS
• Securing most infrastructure in our new sovereign systems, SUCCESS
• Making ISK for myself at a personal level, NEAR IMPOSSIBLE

 Now, I could go into all kinds of details about this or that, but considering this is an ongoing process, and that emotions are so high right now, I may spare the whip, and loosen the chain instead.

The alliance is going through the growing pains any alliance in our position would be.  Having been shucked from the proverbial cornucopia that was Providence, we have found ourselves in what appears to be a relatively inhospitable area of 0.0 space but what is in reality the best opportunity we have been given since my corporation was created, personally. 

With various fleet commanders leading sparse fleets here and there, too busy, like myself, to devote a majority of their time to one thing or another, the alliance is suffering from too much too soon, but in light of this, we cannot help but ride fast and furious, as it is the only way this stuff is going to get done.

Because of this, coming to a fleet near you, will be I, Mendolus, Empire Fleet Commander of the alliance, striking out into the depths 0.0 once more, to lead weekly fleets, and bolster cohesion, coordination, and participation.

I may not be the most experienced, in some respects, but... at the risk of sounding like I am tooting my own horn, I would like to think I extremely capable, give my years of experience at leading group activities in multiple MMOs.  After all, a fleet battle is nothing more than a carefully orchestrated chain of audible, visual, and other sensory reception and command.  And the only fleet commanders I have ever seen in this game, that do well, are the ones that master themselves first, and others second.  So, to battle, we ride at dawn.

The Hardware

In the interest of sharing, I suppose I ought to post a few pictures of what my gaming room setup is like as well.  Bear in mind one of my dreams that I want to fulfill someday is to have a setup like the guy in the Matrix movies, with a big rack of monitors in front of me like some sick mad scientist's dream!  HUZZAH!  So you may see a little bit of that shaping up already... >.<

Enjoy!  I know I sure do :)

Blogging

I have always faced a rather dubious conundrum with updating this blog.  It mostly centers around the fact that I am always so busy ingame.  Certainly too busy to update a blog more than once every week or less, as has been the case for about six months now, much to my chagrin.  However, that should be no excuse in some sense, because this blog is my outlet and podium to express the opinions, interests, developments, events, and stories that define my entertainment experiences in this game on a nightly basis.

I wish I could say that the energy required to post nightly is there, however.  To be honest, most nights in the past two months straight since we started our Northern Campaign and then returned once more to Providence, only to be expelled forcibly weeks later, I have spent sitting around, planning, thinking, contemplating, brooding.  It does not sound like much, but in reality, it is a constant nightmarish landscape of mental landmines, quagmires, paradoxes, loopholes, juxtapositions, and any other morbidly fascinating but overused social cliches one can think of.  It would not be that far from the truth though.

So, for my faithful audience, who still checks in every few weeks, to see if this mentally exhausted CEO has bothered to post a trick or two, I wanted to thank you.  I may not speak volumes, but there are always volumes waiting to be spoken.  Everyone has seemed to grow accustomed to my lengthy wall texts in our private corporate forums, in channels while logged into the game, and in their game mailers, so I guess, maybe in some sense, it is good that I do not also bombard a blog with the random ramblings of an overworked administrator who is trying to dig his way through the mile high stacks of paperwork, to make sure his corporation and alliance have every possible chance available to them, to succeed, flourish, and be entertained in a game rich with potential for growth and experience.

Thanks, to you, my relatively silent audience, for keeping up the faith.  I think I will change my New Year's Resolution to updating this blog at least every other day, from now on.  Ready for the wall text symphony?  I shall name it, Symphony R3 Opus no. 10 in E Minor, hidden pun intended.

Toy Soldier

No, not the 50 Cent song, just a Strategic Cruiser, of all things.  I bought one.  I swore I would never do so when they came out because of the skill point loss and exorbitant cost at the time.  However, the price has dropped down to where Command Ships were when T3 came out, so I did not feel so, ...robbed, after purchasing one.  Of course, coming from a veteran, saying a ship that cost 400,000,000.00 ISK to purchase, modularize, rig, and fit is relatively cheap, probably sounds like insanity to any player under a year old.  However, given that I bought the ship knowing I could afford to lose it, not planning to lose it, but knowing I could at any time, I have fully prepared for its use.

What do I think so far?  I am not entirely sure, I love the idea of the ship, and being a scout, and fitting it for scouting, it's like the pinnacle of slippery mechanics.  However, I cannot get over the alien look of the hull, with the protruding cockpit coming out of the bowels of the ship, almost like it is right out of one of the Alien movies.  On the other hand, it handles extremely well, which is certainly more pertinent than its aesthetic appeal, and I am absolutely pleased with its agility above all else.

That being said, I am pleased to hear that you no longer have to destroy the rigs to reassemble the subsystems, and that means, I only need one of these puppies!  It is a beast, for sure, sporting 110k EHP, 3.4 second align time, Covert Ops cloak, decent strength combat probes, and immunity to interdiction mechanics.  I plan to take it out to our new region in the coming weeks, and go officer hunting.  Aptly named, Templar, I have discovered a fondness for this ship that I may nurture in the coming months, in light of the introduction of T3 frigates at some point in the near future, of which I will undoubtedly and wholly invest myself in, when they are released.  I am after all, most comfortable in a trusty Covert Ops ship, zipping about space, unseen but omnipresent, like a thief in the night, I am a scout at heart.

The Divine Comedy

We are about to embark on what I believe will be the grand journey that most of us have been preparing for in this game for years.  Though I wish it were under vastly different circumstances, we have been compelled beyond all other reason to initiate a mass exodus from what was the most unique and wonderful place in the game.  Providence was rife with good, bad, and everything in between, and although our time there seemed to be at a close this past fall, as the Apotheosis of Virtue alliance struggled to find it's place in the game, we inevitably found our way into the Fatal Ascension.  Fatal Ascension was quite literally on the verge of greatness, and we were extremely fortunate to have been granted permission to participate in their journey.  However, the best laid plans, are often the first to be dispelled.  Fatal Ascension, is leaving Providence.

Why, you ask?  Not for lack of wanting to defend, uphold, and support our CVA brethren with every dying breath, but because of circumstances beyond our control.  You will note that I have been using a unique signature now for a week or two.  When I am feeling particularly inspired, I turn to poetry, art, literature, and music.  These are the trades I ply in, my ultimate passion, and something I am hoping to aspire to at some point in my life when the time is right, if you had not noticed my penchant for the English language already, that is. 

Let me explain the imagery you see, and maybe that will help explain, why I have so many abject fears for player driven 0.0 content in this game, and who I think is only making it worse, and not better.  The image is a popular piece that depicts a scene in The Inferno by Dante Alighieri.  This particular scene occurs in the fabled eighth circle of hell, the one directly before the pit containing Lucifer himself.  The eighth circle is reserved for those who commit various forms of fraud, and in this particular scene you are witnessing the fraud of the corrupt politicians, assailing Virgil and Dante by leading them in false hope, to a bridge that goes nowhere. 

To me, this is powerful metaphor, for how I feel about the state of the game at this time.  The winged demons in the foreground, with the true red icons, are the Titans of -A-, assaulting the righteous forces of the CVA and its affiliates.  In the background, the vast swarm of nameless demons, circle and approach, coating the skies with their numbers.  In the relief, to the lower right of the imagery, are the malicious, but meager forces of the UK, biding their time, waiting for -A- to finish their work, so they can move in and assault CVA from behind.

Now, you may ask yourself, okay, so Mendolus obviously has some deeply entrenched hatred for -A- and UK, what's the big deal there?

It is not that I dislike them, per say, it is that I am ultimately disappointed in the depths of their hubris and lack of foresight, to see that the game is going to suffer by their actions.  CCP introduced this lag issue with the new more fluid sovereignty mechanic last December.  Not only did sovereignty get a dramatic makeover but it became terribly more fluid than ever before.  Couple that with a new lag issue that favors the aggressor and you have a serious problem on your hands, especially where it concerns the most populous power structures in the game, and their own self control, or lack thereof.  What this boils down to me, is a game.  And like any game, where more than one person plays, there is some underlying competitive nature to it, regardless of the content of the game itself.  Now, pit that with a game like EVE that is almost solely based on competition between players at every turn, from the market system, to the capital engagement and sovereignty mechanic, and you have a game that relies on the entertainment value of its opportunities for conflict and resolution.

What happens when that conflict no longer amounts to a fair challenge, and instead amounts to whomever has the best timing, adequate numbers, and will?  You need all of five hundred pilots, most in capitals, some in conventional ships, to completely lock down an entire solar system.  There is no way for the defender to provide adequate defense if you maintain that presence.  Sure they may jump a fleet in, but the grid will not load, and you will simply shoot them, defenseless ships in space, with no pilot actually controlling them.  This is not a game.  This is a space simulator.

What does this say for the reputation of player driven 0.0 space as the richest most diverse and affluent content in the game, in the long run?  Not a whole lot.

EVE is based on the rewards of taking calculated risks whose potential reward outweighs said risks.  If that changes for player driven 0.0 content, because the most populous power blocks in the game cannot exercise a little self control long enough for CCP to fix the lag issue, then player driven content is going to take a serious hit.  All the veterans from at least Trinity forward, saw this happen to low security space, slowly but surely, over the course of twelve months, once the reward of going there no longer outweighed the risk.

So yes, I think -A-, UK, and others, who abuse a mechanic just to win the game as it were, and drive all the competition out, are the fraudulent politicians, forever manipulating the public, with espionage, subterfuge, word play, coercion, and yes, brute force.  There are few enough players in 0.0 as it is, for them to be playing a cheap parlor trick, and driving an entire region of thousands of people back to Empire.  It will give 0.0 space a reputation for futility and once it acquires that reputation, it will only degrade from there, regardless of how coy the power blocks try to be in encouraging people to come rent their space;  space that is still smoldering with the fires of war that drove the previous residents out against all possible odds, with floating, lifeless, macabre corpses silently drifting through the frozen reaches of space, heralding the futility of player drive content in 0.0 space, if the players themselves, ruin it for everyone.

I have more words to say on this issue than I could ever put to a keyboard, and suffice it to say, this is only the tip of the iceberg with me, as usual.  However, I will say now, that if CCP does not come up with a hotfix, patch, fix, or resolution to this lag issue within 4-6 weeks from now, I predict that player driven content in 0.0 will be in serious decline by the time the summer expansion comes.  I would almost go as far as to say that the game itself may peak in subscriptions at this time, after being on the rise for so many years, slowly but surely, and that we may actually see a deficit for the first time, because people who had a fond and unrequited love for player driven 0.0 space, will no longer have any reason to believe it has entertainment value for them anymore, and will simply wander off to other games and other adventures.

Let us hope, that the more populous power blocks in 0.0 space, come to realize, before it is too late, that winning the game, is not nearly as important, as having fun, and you can only have fun in a game, if the competition is fair at the most fundamental level.  Otherwise the losing team will simply quit instead of continue to play another round, and then you are left with a game board that has only your pieces, and no competition, and that, is no longer a game.

Where this leads us, the Fatal Ascension, is something only time will tell, but it looks like it is going to lead to even more opportunities, for us to stake a claim on a little corner of space, just for ourselves, and call it home.  That in and of itself, is the best good that could have ever come from this tragic turn of events, that almost resembles a real Divine Comedy, with all the irony, and metaphor, and lessons.

Stories

I miss the people we have lost along the way.  From the ever studious Tishlin who went off to sea on the west coast to become an ocean surveyor for the US navy, to the Vox who was such a unique and flavorful individual with an incredibly rich personality who just one day, was no longer with us, to the Surianna with her sweet and compassionate personality who was dragged away from us by her fiance, Rishal, with the penchant for glory who thought everything comes easy, to the Kematian and Zinger who were such a wonderful, lively, and interesting couple, until he made it clear the game was nothing more than a plaything to him and whether he hurt people or not was less his concern than whether he got be wild and carefree, to the GNO1 with the hilarious name, who was such a witty personality, and never ceased to amaze us with his vast knowledge of modern technology but in the end did not seem satisfied to be playing a game with what must have seemed like a bunch of immature kids to him in some respect, to Darko who was as suave as he was industrious, ever striving for more and more fiscal glory ingame, but never quite having the time in real life to devote to it as his acting career took him away more and more from the game, to ZeeOhSix who was at one moment the most jovial aerial stunt and race pilot, having led such a rich and wonderful life in his nearly 50 years, and then at the other the most angry and volatile person you could imagine, lashing out at everyone and everything around him, to Cyto Brixe who was the pirate you loved to hate, a fierce woman who on the one hand pushed and compelled our pilots to greatness, and on the other recruited more pirates into the corporation on a whim, claiming they were reformed, to Jaxon who was easily the most charming, considerate, and wise man I ever met in this game, full of the most wonderful ideas, hopes, and eternal optimism, who just wanted to experience this grand space opera for himself, and was grateful to find friends to enjoy it with, as an older man in his fifties, and not apt to typically be understood or considered a valuable personality, by younger more foolhardy generations, but someone whom I wish I could be friends with for life even to this day, though real life has taken him away from the game and email correspondence is just a tiresome burden in the end, to GRI3V, Achilles, Ajax, Shaun Tsue, Northwind, Kurobane, Sexah McGoo, Ravenor, Johnny, Troyd, Blurtie, Nlor, Koner, Riikar, and to the others, not named but certainly not forgotten, I wish you could all come and see and experience and journey with us once more.

MMOs are just games, but it is the people that make them mean something to me, and you are all fondly remembered, either good or bad, whether you know it or not.  Memories are the best kinds of treasures, and only the fortunate figure this out at such an early age as I have.  I feel grateful to know that I will remember the lessons I learned from each person, and the stories I can tell about each and every one of them.  Grateful to know that pixels mean nothing to me compared to the people I share them with, a hard fought lesson to learn, but one that sets me apart from other gamers, ceaselessly trying to conquer a world full of intangibles at any cost to themselves or those around them, intangibles that one cannot even touch in real life.

Capital Fleets

Capital Fleets
Scout's Perspective





The Client
Can't See Can't Fight

It is absolutely imperative you setup your client properly before a capital battle. You may be using a NASA supercomputer in some basement in a government complex in Florida, but that still does not mean you are going to have the bandwidth to function in a capital engagement with hundreds and hundreds of ships on the grid at one time.

• Turn off ALL effects.
• Turn down ALL graphics.
• Zoom out!
• Close unnecessary channels.
• Do NOT play in windowed mode.

The Overview
Holy Brackets Batman

You can easily find yourself lagged out for thirty seconds if you so much as flip over to a new tab in your overview that has all brackets showing in space. In addition to that, without a proper overview setup, you'll play hell even finding the primary target regardless of whether it has been broadcast or not.

• Turn off ALL brackets on ALL tabs.
• ONLY reds and neutrals on your primary tab.
• Create the following overview settings*:
  
  
  
  • Planets, Stations, Sun, Control Towers, No Ships
  • Only carriers
  • Only dreadnoughts
  • Only battleships
  • Only interdictors and heavy interdictors
  • Only super capitals

*Note: It is assumed that you will have stargates, cynosural beacons, mobile disruptors, etc. on all overview settings listed above.

The Mechanics
Here's Your Memo

CVA and holders use a spider chain setup for their carrier fleets that is and should be required of all capital pilots in the future. I will post that setup here later tonight.

That being said, one of the most important things to know as a new capital pilot are the following:

• Flying a capital in a large fleet engagement is a lot like being a forward scout, you are going to be alive one minute and dead the next, so get used to it, and do NOT panic.
• As per the note above, pay attention to who the FCs are, and do exactly what they say, and nothing else. If they tell you to eject from your ship, you do it, no matter how crazy it sounds. Anything short of this can wipe an entire fleet. Never panic.
• Know your POS mechanics:
  
  
  
  • You must change your shield harmonic BEFORE initiating a warp sequence to a foreign POS bubble. Not during warp, not while aligning for warp, but BEFORE you click Warp To...
  • You must set your capital ship to KEEP AT RANGE of the control tower to stay within the bubble and avoid drifting or being bumped out.
  
  
• Do NOT activate needless modules before a cynosural jump as it takes a majority of your capacitor to initiate your jump drives.
• People are going to die, you may be next in line, so shake the nerves, and make sure you align, warp, fire, disengage, retarget, cycle your modules, move, stop, or whatever else the FC says the moment they say it lest you get trapped in a sling bubble and are relieved of your ship. Do not think, do. The FC does the thinking.
• Know your fleet window and how it works:
  
  
  
  • To change squads in a free move fleet right click your character portrait and navigate to the fleet drop down menu.
  • To jump to a cynosural field easily, watch the broadcast history for a new cynosural beacon, right click it in the broadcast window, and jump. You may also find all active cynosural beacons available to you through right clicking your character in any channel and using the menu.
  • Carry extra topes in your corporate hangar, you will not be able to jump to a cynosural field farther than your range, and may be forced to take more than one jump to reconnoiter with the fleet. This may or may not cost you extra fuel.
  
  
• Know your game mechanics. There are too many things to emphasize here, understanding that your ship will warp even at 0 cap, or that you cannot jump to a cynosural beacon while scrambled are some but certainly not all of the most important things to know. Without this basic knowledge, you are more liable to go down in a fiery ball of flames undocking from station or getting separated from the fleet, than going down in pitched battle in some epic engagement. We all wanna have fun together, not die alone and miserably.

The Lag
Syrup With Your Pancakes

Lag is the most important part of a capital engagement. Knowing how to operate your ship under these adverse conditions is the difference between idly sitting by as the rest of the fleet pelts hostiles, and watching your own guns light them up at the same time. The fleet commander of the engagement in D-GTMI could not stress this enough. If you know anything, know how to cycle your modules properly.

• Turn off Auto Repeat on ALL modules.
• Remove all weapon groups.
• Engage targeted weaponry and logistics in the following fashion:
  
  
  
  • Target ship; once a lock is acquired, a target box appears on your display.
  • Activate weapons or support modules
  • Double click all module icons next to the target box to deactivate the cycle.
  • Verify you did not double click space and have begun to drift.
  • Rinse and repeat.
  
  
• Engage self modules at will, bearing in mind that they will deactivate after one cycle and you will have to continually repeat each cycle manually.
• Be patient. Just because you cannot see anything happening, does not mean it is, or that it will not start shortly.
• Add your squadmates to your watch list.
• Watch your broadcast window for who needs what. It will be too confusing to watch some channel for squadmate X to announce he needs shields, a message which he may or may not be able to even send with lag.

Wrapping Up
Yes, You Have A Dirty Mind

I had never flown a capital into an engagement prior to D-GTMI nor would I say I jumped into the system knowing what the french toast I was supposed to even be doing half the time. However, knowing basic game mechanics, listening attentively, not talking out of line or spamming fleet chat with frivolous questions, and being patient, calm, and collected, pretty much allowed me to catch up with the veterans the entire time and run with the best of them. Do not be nervous or apprehensive, your fleet commanders are seasoned veterans who will and can explain all the subtle nuances of the engagement to you before you actually cyno into the fight.

It is not the most complicated thing in the world, nor is it really much different in some sense than any other encounter. Just remain calm, listen carefully, and do not over analyze things during battle, just do what you're told and do it right. Most of what you will be asked to do is no different than piloting a rookie ship. It is just on a grand scale. If you ignore the price tag on your ship, and resign yourself to losing it, as it is just pixels on a screen after all, you will be a boon to the fleet, not a burden. I cannot say the same for the few dozen pilots who cyno'd out on our fleet without orders when things got sketchy at the POS in D-GTMI. If I were their FC I would woop some serious ... for how selfish they were. The capitals were being reimbursed by CVA, and those pilots needed to grow some.