Victoria Aut Mors

Welcome to the twentieth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
With the recent completion of the 3rd installment of the Hulkageddon last month, @CyberinEVE, author of Hands Off, My Loots!, asks: “Griefing is a very big part of EVE.  Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming are all a very large part of the game.  What do you think about all these things?  You can talk about one, or all…but just let us know your overall opinion on Griefing, and any recommendations you may have to change it if you think it’s needed.”

     Ahhh griefing. Did you get your freighter suicide ganked? Did your can get flipped? Maybe some mean ‘ol Ninja stolded yur salvages and sploded you WITH AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SHIP THAN YOU SHOT AT? All are the

Gankmaster 2000 Reporting for Duty!

impetus for what my friend Aiden calls “Tears”. Eve is an amazing game, your actions have meaning, there are consequences to what you do. There are no Heroes in Eve, there are no Villains in Eve. It is a great big sand box with all sorts of interesting trucks to play with, castles to build, castles to break, and sand to control. Eve is a game about choice, how one person chooses to play the game can absolutely affect you. This simple little fact is something that separates Eve from other MMO’s. As I may have mentioned in the past I have played other MMO’s well ONE other MMO to be specific and it was completely on the other end of the spectrum. In WoW nothing a player does really MEANS anything. If you and your group finally battle all the way through Ice Crown Citadel and destroyed the evil Litch King (which is “beating the game” right now), you are free to do so again tomorrow evening, and the evening after that ect. Don’t get me wrong WoW IS a fun game it just isn’t THIS game.

     Greifing in Eve is a fact of life, the game is, after all, in the opinion of many, at its heart a dark SciFi game about blowing up other guys spaceships. That’s right, most of us feel that the game was DESIGNED with player versus player combat in mind. However, a lot of what is considered greifing can be avoided. Even in this PVP focused game, by and large you don’t need to participate in PVP if you don’ want to. Even “Suddenly Ninja’s” can’t FORCE you into combat in high security space. If you don’t want to lose that faction/deadspace blinged out uber Battle Ship all you need to do is to NOT shoot. That’s it, don’t shoot and you don’t need to worry. Now, they may steal your stuff but, such is life either find the item you need on the market or give up on the mission, not a lot of negatives if you do either of those things and you still get to keep your ship.

  Alternatively, if you CHOOSE to PVP and lose. No crying. In other MMO’s the game is built around having a fun group PVE experience and you have to do some damn hard work to get in a fight. In Eve the opposite is true. Yes, you can ABSOLUTELY play the PVE game. I did so myself for a long time. All I did was run missions, salvage them, and build rigs. It was a lot of fun for a while. Eventually though I really wanted to go out there and shoot something that bleeds. So, I found a Nullsec group that would take me and off I went.

Now THIS is What I am Talking About!

     For the most part, in Eve if you think and pay attention while doing what you do and avoid areas of “Lawless” or “Limited Intervention” then you can avoid ALL of the greifing behavior. PVP is VERY easy to avoid. Simply, stay in high sec, maybe in an NPC Corp and don’t shoot folks who steal your loot or salvage. If you don’t want to fall victim to a scam PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU ARE DOING most of the scams I have read about are really quite transparent and the only reason someone fell for them is because they were either greedy or foolish. Most Corps that experience a

Ya dude, that IS a skirt.

large scale theft really weren’t paying attention either. Again, don’t get me wrong there have been some AMAZING infiltrations in this game that took months or years to pull off but, most of the time too much access was giving too soon and someone got smacked.

     That said there are some game mechanics out there that I am simply not a fan of. Having the ability to get remote reps from a neutral party to the conflict is pretty lame in my opinion. If a third party is engaging in an activity that effects a conflict between two other parties they are involved and should be treated as such. Also, I am not a fan of the fact that there is REALLY no good way to find and kill a cloaker. As such they can cheaply kill almost indiscriminately. Additionally, I think the Aggro extention thing is a bit lame. Really though that’s about it.

     I have also played Eve for over three years and have never been ganked, scammed, trolled, or Ninjaed to death. Maybe I am just lucky, maybe I am really THAT much better or smarter than you but, I really doubt it. Honestly I am just a fat white guy who likes to shoot things while flying an internet spaceship. There are REAL problems with the game that we should be focusing on. Frankly if you get butthurt because you acted dumb then leave, we don’t want you anyway.

     The problem with flying a BS IRL is that invariably the reds have their own as well as an interceptor and EWAR and the bustards all have a cloak fit. This means that a pilot can be going along just fine. Killing rats, running missions, ect. when all of a sudden they decloak, tackle and jam you. Next thing you know despite having a couple of really fun ideas

Tricky IRL VERY Tricky

you don’t end up blogging or even playing Eve for two weeks. Well, that’s what happened. I started a new job and school got ramped up significantly recently which has left little time for anything involving New Eden. It has also been very nice outside in the ht MN summer so the little free time I have had has been spent there. Hopefully things have settled down a bit and I will be doing two post a week and playing 4-5 days a week but, we will see how it goes.

     A couple weeks ago when I was playing a lot I had mentioned that I wanted to try to FC. Well I did….sort of.  My theory was that running gate camps would train me how to FC a bit. I ran gate camps on both a Friday and Saturday night (North America). The first camp was incredibly successful. We got 14 ships, 11 pods, and only lost 2 ships. Most of what we were getting were fools trying to travel through but, we did get a few kills on folks who were very definitely out hunting. No well organized gags though. That happened on Saturday.

     Flush with confidence after my resounding stomping the night before I was feeling pretty good. The gang formed up and we proceeded to camp. Mostly chatting and having a good time. We got a couple of okay kills and got word we had a gang inbound that should be a pretty good fight. They were a mix of BC’s and a Logistics ship. I figured we would have to kill the logi first in order to take them but, as we were mostly BC with some smaller support once their logi went down we should have no problem with them. Unfortunately they did not feel inclined to agree. As soon as they jumped in I primaried the logi. It was a scimitar and IO really thought we would melt him. Not the case. We did have plenty of DPS so we probably could have blasted through the BC’s and left the logi for last but, as a rookie FC I didn’t have the team switch targets fast enough and we were sploded. A couple of guys got out and I don’t think we lost any pods but, we did lose almost all of our ships. The lesson here is that if your primary doesn’t break move on.

     I also began speaking with some of the more experienced FC’s in our alliance and they all told me that learning to FC by leading gate camps was much like learning to have sex through masturbation. Which is not only funny but, also seems to be true. Basically, you sure can learn that way but, when you get into the real deal you will be horrible. As

Damn you IRL first you tackle me now THIS

such I was planning on leading some roams but, that’s when the aforementioned IRL gang ganked me for two weeks. Now I have a different set of issues. Thankfully, in game which I may mention later but, suffice it to say I am going to have to wait about a week before I can really get into FCing but, I am okay with that. I want to finish up some training before moving ahead anyway.

     Thus ends my return after (another) two week break. Hopefully starting next week I will be up to 2 per week again. Fly it like you stole it!

     Eve News came out with an announcement today about EveCast.TV organizing an ongoing 1v1 and eventually 3v3 PVP tournament. Personally, I think this is a BRILLIANT idea. Most of us absolutely love the Alliance Tournament as witnessed by the fact that even during the QUALIFYING matches all previous server activity records were completely

LOVE the Rifter. Just LOVE IT!

smashed. It is certainly cool to watch the big Capsuleer Alliances duke it out for glory and profit but, alliance warfare is by all means not all there is to Eve. 1v1 frigate fights are absolutely going to be incredibly active to watch. Once the 3v3 bit comes in it will be even more active and entertaining to watch providing they keep it to small ships and HOPEFULLY disallow logistics. I can’t help but think how amazing it would be to have an actual Eve Sports culture develop where individual players and small groups compete for fortune and glory.

     This thought exploration brought me to find out what has been done as regards to Eve Online Sporting events in the past, what things are happening now, and any sporting type events that may be coming in the future. I find it completely unsurprising that there have been several of these events throughout the history of New Eden. Everyone is familiar, of course with the Eve Alliance Tournaments, now Evecast.TV is doing their thing, but there is also the Eve Death Race being put on by Rixx Javix of Evoganda fame, as well as the ISGC Racing League, and even Eve Celebrity Death Match. More is possible however.

     In New Eden, virtually whatever you are doing you are competing. The obvious example is PVP and the quest of major Capsuleer Alliances to control the Nullsec resources of New Eden. We also have Pirates trying to exploit everyone, scammers trying to outwit people, “Ninja’s” fighting with mission runners over salvage rights, Faction Warfare where the races of Eve are vying for control, and W-Space dwellers in combat over wormhole systems. It goes even deeper though. Even carebears are in constant competition. Manufacturers, Traders, even Miners, and Missioners are all trying to beat each other in one way or another. As such the possibilities for competitive “Sports” are virtually limitless. All we really need is CCP or some group of players to organize everything.

     Imagine, if you will, four sporting SEASONS per year. Part of the year devoted to Racing in its many forms including qualifiers, quarter and semi finals, as well finals (of course). Another season devoted to PVP, individual, small group, and Alliance. A season for something like the “Eve Ball” which I have heard mentioned (though I forget where) which involves some sort of movement of an item across a “field”. Even a season for “other” stuff including things like trading (competitors are given a set amount of ISK and several months to increase it, the one with the largest profit wins), and even Eve Online Hold’em (not to mention the possibilities when DUST514 goes live). Some of these “Seasons” and “events” will be more popular than others of source, and as time goes on more types of sport would be

This just LOOKS fast!

introduced while others go by the wayside but, over a relatively short period of time there would always be something to follow, track, and watch. Events like these increase interest in a game give people something to work towards and bring communities closer together.

     Of course I am just “Spitballing” here. My theory is that if someone decides to organize the “Sporting” community that already exists and it gets popular enough CCP will get involved possibly even hiring a “Sports Commissioner”. Who knows? They hired an economist so why not? The more you get people talking about what is going on in the game the more people will sign up and play the game. Look at the various game tournaments out there WoW Arena, Super Smash Brothers, Every FPS ever. Anything that generates “Buzz” helps. Especially if many of the sports can be played by relatively “New” players. The more people that play Eve Online the more people we have to play with and the more money CCP makes. In theory the more money CCP makes the better they will make the game. What are your thoughts, questions, comments, concerns, or flames?

Jerran Update:

                I was planning on doing the fiction post today but, got distracted by the sports path of thought. It should happen this weekend but, may have to wait for Monday. Sorry but, when inspiration hits the wise blogger capitalizes!

     Inspired by two of my fellow bloggers, Rixx Javix  of Evoganda and Mandril of I am Keith Neilson I have decided to do a piece about what I think would be the single most amazing thing CCP could do to make the player base happy and especially keep more of the “Experienced Players” in the game. At the same time the below idea could actually EARN

It's time we saw other people

THEM MORE MONEY. One of the things that has kept me in Eve is the limitless possibilities as to what I can do in New Eden. I can build, mine, trade, explore, shoot “bots”, shoot other players, fly HUGE spaceships, get REALLY good at flying smaller space ships, and even play around with celestial bodies like moons and now planets. Additionally, even when I am not actively “In Game” my character is improving. Not to mention the vibrant and active community that surrounds and defines the game itself.

     Now, I certainly have gripes about the game. Lag is annoying, as is the fact that there is no REAL way to get rid of some cloaker hanging out in your mining system, the game has a HUGE learning “Cliff”, and not having a very robust PVE system can be frustrating but, one of the game’s biggest strengths is also one of its biggest drawbacks. See there are all of these possibilities about how you want to play, many people know or think they know right away what they want to do and train accordingly. Many others however, need to try several different things in order to not only learn the game but, find what they really enjoy. For myself, with Jerran I joined the game for PVP. Not long after starting to play however I decided I hated PVP and as such didn’t do much training in that respect. I decided I liked mining and PVE, I also thought that in order to play my character correctly I should concentrate on his particular race’s ships and specific mods. Over time however that got boring, I then decided to focus on the PVE game. That kept me going for awhile, getting better at PVE exploring ships, missions, anomalies, belt ratting and some rig production. However, eventually that bored me as well. Now I am VERY into PVP. As such, with the exception of “supporting” skills I need to pretty much retrain everything. Different race’s ships and weapons alone are going to take me a SOLID six months, even with mostly maxed learning skills and implants, before I am really useful to Razor. Meanwhile I have over 50Million skill points that are, for the most part, useless to what I want to do (Honestly my PVP Character does not need to have social skills or be able to fly a Hulk). This is a pretty daunting proposition. Am I just QQing? Am I the only player in Eve in this situation? I think not. But, I do have a solution?

     Expand the Neural Remapping system. That’s right, expand it. Make it okay for me to once per year completely remap my skill set. If it is my desire to explore another part of the game and I am willing to pay CCP a reasonable sum of money, say $30. I can literally, change my skill point distribution however I want to. Now there would need to be some rules so chaos doesn’t ensue. First, the only characters eligible for a full remapp would be characters owned by the original account owner of that character basically, if you bought the character you can’t do it. The program would be to encourage people to stick witht he game and try new things not to take the easy path to a Titan pilot. Second, I can only remap skills I currently have I cannot add skills at this time. I can eliminate skills but, if I do I don’t get back any ISK I spent on the skill book. I also need to spend my skill points on any prerequisites for the skills I want to train. I.E I still need Frigate, Cruiser, and BC before training BS. Hell, even WoW allows this with their Faction, Race and Class changing systems. I guarantee that not only will it keep more “Veteran” players in the game but, it will probably bring back some people who have previously left. Maybe you spent 100% of your training for a year on industrial skills, got board with industry and left but, if you could do so quickly be willing to come back to Eve for PVP. I mean

Hey There Pretty. What's your name?

seriously, you can train for a given race’s BS with their weapon type in about a week, not the T2 but for sure the T1. As such you would reactivate train in the direction you want for a month, and then remap. What are your thoughts? Do you think this would be a good plan? If so talk about it. I want to hear what you think. If we all talk realistically about something that CAN be changed then change will likely occur.

     I wasn’t really planning this post today, and am still planning on a fiction post this week so have no fear. Also, I got some more kills last night and for the first time in my Eve career lost some security status. Stupid people tried to gank us in our 0.0 system and ran to low sec when we began killing them. Sissies .

PVP Stats

Evolution of a Capsuleer

Jerran on Twitter

Jerran on Facebook

     As I have begun to settle into Razor I have once again gotten the FC bug. At this point I have had some decent PVP experience. In the PVP I have been a part of I have seen some good, have seen some bad, and have seen some damn

What a beutiful View!

amazing FCing. I have also noticed that no matter what Alliance I am part of we run into the same problem. A noticeable lack of North American FCs. I don’t know if this is because of where I end up, the geographic distribution of Eve Online, or some other reason I am not seeing. This is a big part of the reason I want to be an FC myself. Unfortunately, the only way to learn how to FC is to actually do it. This means coming up with a low cost fleet that will be fun while at the same time being effective. We are doing this to get kills after all.

     That said my initial feeling was to start a gang of roaming T2 frigates. These are all relatively inexpensive ships and there are several that fill good roles, especially if you add T2 Destroyers (Interdictors) to the mix. Unfortunately though you can get good utility from Dictors, Intys, and EWAR Frigs the majority of your DPS in this type of gang is typically going to come from Assault Frigs. Now I personally love these little ships but, the common consensus among many serious PVPers I know seems to be that they suck. They are typically a bit slower than people want (especially when armor tanked) and don’t REALLY do enough DPS for a smallish gang to do any good. A frig gang can also be easily taken apart by someone fitting smart bombs because to get the most DPS possible you need to have a close range loadout. The size of the ship and the limited number of slots also works against you because you can’t usually fit much of a tank. That means that though good for killing the unlucky solo pilot, once you run into any sizable gang (your size or bigger)  you need to run or die. This has led me to do some thinking on what I like about the Frig gang and AFs in particular.

     Mostly I like the fact that T2 frigs are cheap, can move relatively fast (About 1-2K m/s) are pretty agile and can run from what they can’t kill. I then took what I know about these ships and began to think on other ships that may have similar strengths, more survivability, more damage, and the ability to fit more customized loadouts and still be inexpensive.

     Enter the Hurricane, the Cane when fit well can run an MWD as well as everything else for 6 minutes and be traveling at a good solid 1K m/s while doing so. Also, based on some other gangs I have recently seen I think in the right composition will be able to take on good sized gangs even if they contain logistics or HACs. Here is what I am talking

Nasty, Nasty, Ship!

about.

Fleet Composition: (10 Man Fleet)

-1 X Interdictor

-1 x Cloaky Probing Scout

-8 x Cane

     The Canes should be fit for shield tanking and speed as well as being fitted with cannons for close range combat. I know that in the two spare high slots missiles will work but, putting NOS or Neuts there may be a better option if it will work. I am going to play with my current fitting to see if the Neuts or NOS will work as well as what effect that would have on the Cap usage and will update the post with the fitting I find later on tonight. I really like traveling in a BC at 1K m/s for six minutes. The method would be pretty simple as well. Basically scout finds guys and gets a warp in. Dictor drops a bubble when the fleet warps in and the Canes point, web, and destroy. It will of course never be quite this simple I am sure but, I believe the fleet could work very well. Obviously the keystones of the fleet are the Dictor and the Scout but, I would bet even 4 Cane’s could do a hell of a job.

Here Are The Cane Fits I am Looking At:

T1 Guns - Cheap and Low Skill Req But, Not ideal Click to Enbiggen

T2 Guns - The Awesomesauce But, takes a bit longer to train - Click to Embiggen

     On another note Razor is really working out well for me. I am liking the PVP experience I am getting and am still racking up the kills. Went on another op last night and though I lost a Rifter due to an unfortunate client lock up followed by being warped INTO a bubble when I finally got back On I added some more kills to the tally. Check it out here. More to come about the FCing, the Cane fleet, and The Evolution of a Capsuleer.