Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, 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 here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

“Last month Ga’len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith “WebMandrill” Neilson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why?

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I was approached one day at a hole in the wall at CBD Corporation Storage in TEW by homely wench that offered to buy me a Gallente Brew of some sort.  Her interest in me was puzzling as I still wore my post-pod jumpsuit and really wasn’t in the mood for company.  I accepted the drink with a nod and mumbled a thanks.  I was still pissed at a near miss engagement I had with a Merlin a few systems away.

She was insistent on speaking with me.  She asked me my name.  We always had to watch for spies and being in an Amarr system made it even more important to do so.  I was gruff with her, but polite.  We may be freedom fighters to some, but in these systems we are terrorists to many and conversation is usually done in a dark corner away from prying ears.

I looked at her again.  She was Minmatar and attractive and I was in a station far from home.  Ahh, what the hell….

Following a few hours of conversation and more than a few drinks she got up the nerve to ask me what I was so pissed off about.

Aggression timer on gates!  I slammed my fist down on the table nearly spilling our drinks.

This has got to be the most insanely stupid thing in all of EVE (yes I know others will argue differently). There you are, in space by a gate, a War Target comes to the gate and yellow boxes you. You return the favour and as you’re alliance/corp has been decced by his or you decced them (distinction inconsequential) the need/want to keeeeel each other is mutual…. Or so you would think.

Reality is that your WT just baited you to agress so that that he (and/or his buddies) can jump through and not be followed by you for a short while giving them ample time to go run and hide in stations or jump to another gate. Sure he took some hits and you may have had him halfway through armor but he used you and you feel cheap. Yes, I’m stupid. I should have know he was going to do this, but I thought “this time” would be different … DOH!

We are at war with several entities at the moment and try as we might, they won’t engage in small numbers. They prefer safety in numbers despite the fact that some of them actually have skills to take us on. The Sir Robin affliction is so ingrained in to them by their alliance/corp that fleeing is just another tactic in war.  WTs should be treated differently when it comes to aggression in Empire space!

This Agression Timer just needs to go away and let us go about the business of war. We’ve paid CONCORD their bribe money and we should be allowed to go about the business of killing slavers without getting penalized by gate wardens that feel the need to protect the cowardly.

Turns out, she understood what I was talking about.   She was a transport pilot for a large corp moving equipment to and from the larger market hubs.  She’s used this little trick herself but can see where it would be detrimental to the war effort in my situation.

My outburst had attracted a little attention but as most people in the bar were scum I chose to ignore them.  She suggested we retire to some place more private where our conversations wouldn’t be listened to.

Life as a pod pilot’s not so bad at all.

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List of Participants:

1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, “Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!”
6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
8. EVE’s Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
9. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won’t You Die?
10. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
11. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
12. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
13. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
14. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
15. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
16. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
17. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
18. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
19. Facepalm’s Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
20. Memoires of New Eden, You’re Fired
21. Kyle Langdon’s Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What’s a Titan?
22. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
23. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
24. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
25. Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
26. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
27. Estel Arador Corp Services, You’ve got mail
28. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
29. Deaf Plasma’s EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 – Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
30. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 – Do we really need to go AFK?
31. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
32. Harbinger Zero, Blog Banter #9 – War Declarations & Sec Status
33. Warp Scrammed, Blog Banter 9 – Never Too Fast
34. Ecaf Ersa (EVE Mag), Can a Tractor Tractor a Can?
35. Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, EVE Blog Banter #9 – Aggression timers, WTs and Stargates
36. Mike Azariah, I don’t put much stock in it…
37. Rettic’s Log, Blog Banter: Overview Overload
38. A Sebiestor Scholar, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #9: Slaves
39. Diary of a pod pilot, [OOC] EVE blog banter #9: Because of Falcon
40. Roc’s Ramblings, Blog Banter #9 – Taking Things Slow