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.