Sure, I’ve been caught by customs on occasion for smuggling the Blue Pills I use to boost shield management while in combat. They’re not legal, they’re rather dangerous but still…it’s our life right? Nerve sticks on the other hand…Oh well, this guy will probably never try again, that’s for sure…

I am quite frankly at a loss of words here. How stupid can one get and still be able to breathe? This was the single most epic stupid thing I have ever seen in the history of EVE. What. An. Idiot.

I’m simply not having fun in EVE at the moment, so instead of wasting time logging in, getting frustrated and log out, I’m simply going to let my sub expire. I might be back, I might not. We’ll see.

For those of you following my YouTube page, I’m happy to announce that both of the current Let’s Play series will continue. Hopefully a bit more regurlarly too.

See you out there and fly safe!

/Ancy

I’m not complaining about the fact that they do, it’s well within game mechanics and if they have the gangs, why not? But, something that has been nagging me more and more lately is this: Where in EVE have the solo PvP gone? I’ve tried for the last six months to get decent solo fights but I inevitably end up getting massively blobbed. I’m quite close to just throwing my hands in the air and saying “fuck this, I’m outta here”, because I’m quite frankly not having fun in EVE anymore. Giev back my solo PvP plox?

Crazy, isn’t it?  I’m 21 just recently, but I’ve been in “power” before I was even a full legal adult.  Commanding powerful starships and fleets into the cosmos and craziness that is Eve.  I’ve been FC more times than that.  And how do I view the experience?  I did a crappy job.  I’m not even going to lie to myself, I did a horrible job as CEO and as a FC.  I tried to be the leader over what I didn’t have, what I didn’t even deserve.  So first, I thought I’d talk about my CEOship history lightly.

A long time ago in a galaxy/universe far away, or not.  I was in Amarr Sisterhood of Galactic Sirens.  You may laugh, but ASGS is one of the few high points in Eve for me.  I was in a corp, ran by a good CEO with friends in college not only in ours, but our blue-neighbors, Solaris Operations.  It was a great time, Eve was running well after the Empyrean Expansion, our corp was getting settled into Hoshoun of the Domain region and we were blue to CVA.  It was indeed a learning experience on many levels though.  Pirates, gate camps and tough rats, we were all thrown into the deep end.  I was given Directorship of Combat affairs.  Probably because I had such an interest in ratting and PVP compared to many of the industrialists in the corp.  It was indeed a high time for our profitable venture.  But it was not too soon before a corp coup, drama fest led to it’s eventual destruction.

After a time, I eventually found myself in charge of Solaris Operations while we were in Minmatar space.  I had a lot going on at the time in RL and the lackluster interest of corp-mates led to it’s downfall and the corp was reformed into another.  Which I eventually found myself in charge of yet again.  The corp reformed yet again later on and was moved into the Northern Coalition’s space by none other than Ancy.  However, Alliance drama and terrible space led to it’s eventual downfall.  Not before I had once again taken up command and failed utterly at the job due to lack of interest from everyone.

Looking back now, the only thing I can think of my failure to lead was due to three things:

1: Real Life.  Real Life during Eve was disastrously difficult to deal with and having to deal with in-corp drama on a lot of levels merely stressed me to the breaking point.

2: Not my Corporations.  Several times I had been forced into leadership because the person who was in charge, was too busy with their own real life.  I didn’t have the same ideas behind the corp that they did.  It wasn’t my “baby”.  So I had no interest  to move us forward.  This compounded with the fact that those who were in the corp, were not interested in doing anything group related.

3: People.  While I did have some success as a leader, there was plenty of times that no one would show up for OPs, show up to hang out or just show up.  Most of the time I was greeted by an empty corporate channel, wondering why I even bothered playing this game.  So this leads me to my point about this blog post.

Why?

Why do people even join a corporation if they have no interest in playing as a group?  Real life notwithstanding, it seemed a lot of times ppl just wouldn’t show up because to them, it was work.  When did this game become a second job?  More than often it felt like I was forcing people to attend.  It seemed to me that it was the worst thing in the world that I ask people to at least participate in what the corp did.  Whether that was mining, PVPing or w/e.  Isn’t this a game?  I am not sure what went wrong.  But it does seem like we get 30 odd people and out of those maybe 3-5 are active in the game.  So it just begs the question, why join a corp if your not even going to try and be a part of the group?  If your Real Life is that intense, you shouldn’t join a corp.

This can easily be said for WoW.  Just trying to do a dungeon or anything more fun than that was like pulling teeth.  Why join a guild/corporation if all your going to do is your own thing?  It’s not like your any worse off being out of a guild/corp soloing.  The only thing you lack is that little tag <____>.  Which you can easily buy a corporation/guild tag in both games.  So why join at all?  What is the point of joining a group-oriented channel if all your going to do is raise hell, solo all the time or never login?  It makes no sense to me.  At all.

And I do mean all of this in the nicest way possible.  I’m not saying you should be hardcore to join a corporation.  It just begs the question why people join if they never do anything with the group.

And while in the back of my mind I might be coming up with a new corporate idea for whenever I return to Eve, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  No matter how good it might be, I would still deal with the insufferable drama, the lackluster performance of the people I bring on board and seeming inability to get anything done.  How anyone gets a corp off the ground is way beyond me.  Maybe I’ll find out one day, but it won’t be anytime soon I’m sure.

With that, have a great day everyone and fly safe.

Isaac Starstriker

Maybe I’m getting old. Or just a carebear. Or maybe it’s just lack of practice. It’s clearly something wrong, because I haven’t made this many mistakes in a row in a long time. First off, I was roaming around 50 jumps in the so called “Faction Warfare” areas of Black Rise and Essence. In an effort to “hang with the tough guys”, I’d chosen the Javelin, a Hurricane class battlecruiser. I saw several smaller gangs and a few “blobs”, but nothing really up for a battlecruiser to chew on. Especially not since I obviously had no idea on how this thing maneuvered.

I was clearly not feeling at all at home in this Minmatar vessel, and much less had any idea on what tactic to use in the inevitable battle to come. It came sooner than expected, as a Cyclone decloaked on a gate right beside me. I locked him up, sent my drones and opened up. And was swiftly reminded about why you don’t engage on gates in low sec.I had completely forgotten about sentry guns, and let go a yelp of surprise as a volley slammed my reinforced shields. But I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. It was just a Cyclone, what could go wrong?

Well, it turned out pretty well. He was half into armor when my shields dissipated. Unfortunately, I had nothing left but a rudimentary armor plating, and he was actively boosting his shields but I could tell from the  rate of decay that he was going to go down first. I kept firing and overcharging my guns to their utmost capacity. This is where I learned that those guns weren’t very sturdy. I burned out the entire rack. The guns fused in place, the barrels drooping from overheat and a trail of smoke hinting at the intense warmth inside the barrel. With nothing left to fire with, I swiftly stuck my tail between my legs and ran. Thank goodness he didn’t pack a scram.

Rather humiliated, I repped up in station, waited out the timer and head out roaming again. I came across a Stabber Fleet Issue, and the way he was trying to provoke a fight should’ve hinted me to what was to come. I warped to a planet at 50, and he landed some 40 Km off. I sped towards him, locked him up and let go. His shields melted, but once I hit armor, I hit a brick wall. A trimarked cruiser? Well, I guess that works. That’s when his buddy showed up in a Zealot. Bollocks! Scratch one Hurricane.

Not willing to give up just yet, I went back to my staging point and picked up my Cyclone. Out I went roaming and the first belt I land in has a Dramiel. Sitting there. Stationary. Did I smell the trap? Nope. Again humiliated, I headed back and picked up the Maelstrom. I figured it was time to test what it could do. In fact, I was quite satisfied with the ships performance overall. It was just down to a dumb pilot that I lost them.

As I jumped into Tama, a giant blob of Caldari Militia sat on the gate, waiting for something. They were all primarily in small ships so I didn’t fear they’d attack me as I sat there. However, a pirate Pilgrim came a little too close, and I ripped him open with 800 mm cannon fire. This is where I made my third mistake. A friend of his, marked red by my own standings, landed on the gate in a stealth bomber. Mistaking him for a red blinky, I opened fire and was swiftly met with fire from the gate guns…AND the giant militia blob I was sitting inside. With CONCORD on the other side of the gate, and 3000 warp scramblers on me, I figured I was pretty much done for. It turned out I was.

I have a new personal goal. Stop sucking.

A quote I told Ancy when I read the Forums after the absolute trashing many people gave CCP.  While I know what your thinking. “It’s just the trolls and their outrage as usual”.  Not this time I’m afraid.  I’m not totally clued in on all the more famous people of Eve, the names I read while…”reading” that cesspit were varied and some recognizable.  At the very least, they are not unknown trolls trying to troll CCP.  They seem to be….well…”legit” players of Eve.  So what particular part of the forum am I talking about?  Why, the responses given to CCP after they announced their future plans in 2011 and in particular their plans for Icarna. I read the Dev Blog.  I am slightly disappointed how they are devoting resources and what their plans are.  More on that later.

First off, I want to say that I give a huge amount of kudos to CCP, their Devs, everyone that works on this game. Even in my retired state of game, I appreciate the amount of work and thought that has gone into the game.

Secondly: You do NOT get these types of Dev blogs at ANY OTHER COMPANY in the WORLD. No other company is going to upfront say what resources they are putting to what features.  For this I give CCP a huge thank you for being open and honest with us.  Even if we can’t seem to appreciate it.  The mere fact that the CSM is a stakeholder in the company just sets you apart from anyone else in this competitive field.

Now I know what your thinking.  “Gawds, another fanboy”.  Not necessarily.  I do not like how long it has taken CCP to fix features.  Fixing rockets, fixing bugs and incomplete features, yeah I’d like to see all that.  But CCP is trying their hardest and Icarna is a good thing for Eve.  Especially if they get it right.  I might even resub when that feature becomes available.  Who knows.  And it’s not like CCP just gave up on Eve and put all their Developer power on Icarna/Dust.  Looking at the blog, they put 1 team on Dust 514 and 9 teams on Icarna.  Yet 8 teams still work on Eve Online.  Ok, maybe a couple aren’t working on the actual code of Eve, but that’s still quite a bit of dev power.  Besides, isn’t there the old saying about too many heads on a single problem?  Just because you have lots of people working on a problem doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily solve it faster.  So then…

What I want to address is the old bitter women.  These are people who have obviously not gotten out more.  Who’s lives are totally wrapped up in Eve and that not getting what they want done immediately spells the doom of Eve.  0.0 players seem to be especially susceptible to the “old women disease”.  Are you guys kidding me?  What are you going to do if/when you quit Eve?  There are no other MMOs that are even half as complex as Eve.  There are no other MMOs that have as much risk as Eve.  Stop with the stupid “I’LL QUIT!” policy every time you post because guess what??  YOUR NOT GOING TO!  You know it!  We know it!  It just makes you sound extremely childish!!!  You complain that CCP doesn’t communicate well enough, well guess what?!  You communicate with them like a 10 year old does with his parents!  Incredibly whiny and loud!  How Zulupark actually managed to at least attempt communication with the loud screaming kids (meaning YOU)  at 12 in the morning is really beyond me!  I would have just shut off the browser and come back to it in a week. Cmon!  Show that your the bigger person and be mature and polite instead of screaming all the time something doesn’t go YOUR WAY.  If I remember right, 0.0 got some nice buffs and changes here lately to make your gameplay that much better.  For the rest of you, well, idk what to say.  Get over it.

Enough is enough.  Your not the only ones playing Eve so quit thinking what your doing is the only thing worthwhile.  That’s why it’s called a Sandbox.  Live with it.

/me end rant.

Thanks for reading this rant.  I hope it was…amusing at least. Have a good day.

Isaac Starstriker

Nightwish – Bye Bye Beautiful

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAwX6NacNR0

As Sansha’s Nation continues its renewed offensive against the citizens of New Eden, many have called for the four empires to band together, as in centuries past, and destroy the threat as one. These calls, however, appear to have so far fallen on deaf ears.

“Sansha’s Nation was a threat over a century ago,” said Professor Fontine Mereux of the University of Caille, a leading expert on the history of CONCORD. “But in the cluster’s darkest hour, all of the empires banded together to smash them. Sansha’s Nation is now resurgent. For too long they’ve been allowed to fester in Stain. It’s time that the four empires band together once more to wipe it out.”

Thousands of others have raised similar calls to arms, believing that the only way to counter the Nation’s threat is through cooperation between the four empires, but years of mistrust and fighting between the empires has made that path appear unlikely.

“If it wasn’t Sansha’s Nation doing it, it’d be the Amarr,” stated Jorel Yat, a high-ranking Vherokior tribesman. “I say the Republic should focus on stopping the Nation from attacking us and let the others worry about their own citizens. Make us a less appealing target and we’ll be left alone.”

Gugiere Ladux, a Gallente politician, said, “I heard the Caldari Navy managed to hack an invading force and turn the Nation’s agents against each other. If they really wanted to help, why haven’t they turned this technique over to the rest of the cluster? If we sent our Navy into Stain, what’s to stop the Caldari from hacking the Sansha to kill us first?”

The effort has not been aided by CONCORD, who continue to insist publicly that the Nation is not a threat. “At the present time, CONCORD does not require additional empire-provided manpower to deal with pirate incursions,” a short statement from the CONCORD Assembly read.

- The Scope

While the Caldari strive to combat this new threat, politicians are squabbling and tossing blame here and there. This is a common view apparently, shared by the love-couple of Minmatar-Gallente. In their strive for “freedom” and “community” they end up being paranoid and scared shitless.

The empires banded together and defeated the Sansha’s Nation (wether that was right or wrong, I’ll leave for another time) not long ago, and now that the Nation rears its ugly head again, what happens? Caldari develops new technology to combat the threat, as always. The Amarr…I dunno, they probably pray or something. The Minmatar? They blame the Amarr, or simply state “Fuck them, we care only for ourselves”. Gallenteans get paranoid. It wouldn’t surprise me if that bloody “freedom” speech gets spouted soon as some poor excuse to close their borders. Why in all that is holy would the Caldari hack a Sansha fleet to kill gallenteans? That’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

We never had the intention of destroying their corp.  Merely, we were looking for targets of opportunity and to see if corporations in high sec were worthy of playing in the giant sandbox that is Eve.

In this respect, BEMS did not succeed, but they did not fail either.  While they had a good amount of resistance and tried to take us on about four or five times as far as I can remember.  This is better than the previous two corps who did nothing more than run right around to their stations.  Most of the time not even being online.  I have known of this tactic and to many, it is considered a worthwhile tactic to get wardeckers off your porch as many, just like us, will just drop the wardeck.  Maybe if we had more time and patience, we could have persisted.  What then, you high-sec people content to sitting in station all the time?  It is your game after all.  But this has to be the least interesting way of playing the game.

Also, I can understand not liking getting blobbed.  But it is kinda funny how two people can make entire corps of 30 or so dock up for weeks at a time out of fear.  When all it would take is a mere 5 of them to take us on and blow us up.

It has always been amusing to me that people complain of being out blobbed, but when we show up, 2 VS 30+, we are suddenly very very dangerous.  I guess this is a high-sec deal though.  Beware those that wardeck you.  We are evil bunny-killing-piwates looking for an easy kill.  This is Eve after all, it’s dangerous and if you want your turf, defend it and fight for it.

It was great to get a kill with my Sacrilege against a Drake.  Good job to you, good Sir for fighting it out. 

So those are my thoughts.  Short and to the point.  Have an excellent day everyone.

Isaac Starstriker