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.