Bigotry

Well, I didn’t think I would ever write another blog post for this game, but some things are just impossible to pass up. In 2018, although having a good time in Amarr faction warfare, I had to leave the game. I moved to another country, and life there just wasn’t conducive to Eve, so I took a break that looked like it was going to be permanent. Well, I have actually been back at the game for a few months. Having moved from Israel to Mexico, and living a rather eremitic life as an author, I decided to log back in to mine quietly with my Rorqual. I, Jan, am actually an alt now, and my industrial alt is now my main. Not having been any kind of Eve famous for several years, I put blogging behind me to Rorqual mine. What could be interesting about that? Well, I of course ran into Eve fucked-upness, and the guilty shall not go unnamed.

Upon my return to Eve I decided, in error, to rejoin Pandemic Horde for their wonderful cap umbrella and Rorqual protection. However, an old friend convinced me to make my first mistake: not joining Pandemic Horde Inc., but rather a Horde renter corp called Dragon. Recruitment was a kind of a sham. “Yes, we have lots of caps and supers and Rorqual miners! Join!” Of course when I got there, the Rorqual miners ninja rorq’d, and if anyone came to attack them, they’d hear the words, “sorry you lost your Rorqual”. A couple of people brought Rorqs out but didn’t siege them. Others were spy paranoid and never joined fleet or got on comms. Spy paranoia, unchecked, actually prevents good organization and defense.

So I mined in my porpoise. Had to wait thirty days to join the capital group. Then I joined the capital group and found I had to get combat kills. So I waded through the tidi to get kills on my Rorqual pilot. Of course, just as I got my cap kills, the fuckery started. I asked in the group where the best place to mine in my Rorqual was for cap defense. The answer was that Horde is deployed. Nobody saved Rorquals. Deflated, I mentioned in corp Discord that not having a cap umbrella was gay.

That started my encounter with modern American gay fascism. See, I am forty eight years old. All my life, gay has had a few meanings. Obviously it refers to homosexuals. Originally the word meant happy. “We had a gay time” is something you’d hear in the 19th century. In the middle of the last, it took on more meanings. It meant over the top outrageous. If the Star Wars movies had been shown in the fifties, they would have said, “I just saw the new Star Wars movie! The effects were gay!” Later, as a polite euphemism, the term gay was applied to homosexuals, in that they were different, happy, often ostentatious. Never was the word an insult. This is why homosexuals call themselves gay. Later, the previous meanings of happy and outrageous took on a negative tone, meaning silly or stupid. “That’s so gay” meant that something was messed up or stupid in the 90s. To my knowledge, that negative usage has never been connected to homosexuality. And it is how we used the word in my youth, and how I use it today when not referring to homosexuality.

But, as fate may have it, Dragon. has two gay directors. One of them, Solath Rowan, is getting some kind of degree in intersectionality or something. Intersectionality is a weapon for discrimination. It is the scientific study of who is oppressed, so that people will have scientific data to oppress those who are not oppressed according to the determinations of intersectionality. That is, intersectionality is a bunch of statistical data about how women, minorities, and you guessed it, gays are oppressed, so that people can have information that sounds scientific to support programs to oppress white heterosexual males. I also should have known something was amiss when that same director referred to Elon Musk as a psychopath. These days the liberals have their own media, and the liberal politicians and media know that they can say absolutely anything they want, that no one will check anything, and nobody will really care if anything anyone is saying is actually true. That’s why Donald Trump is being impeached after leaving office for inciting crimes against the United States or whatever. It’s also the only conceivable reason that anyone would think Elon Musk is a psychopath.

Anyway, saying the lack of a cap umbrella was gay was a big problem with these folks. Using the word gay in any kind of a negative context is homophobia, apparently. I explained how I was using the word, but the delusions just kept getting more intense. Another director, Orkin McGorkin, kept ranting about how he was beaten up for being gay. I didn’t have anything to say about that, as it didn’t have anything to do with the lack of a cap umbrella being gay. This is also why I didn’t mention that I also have been beaten up for being gay. Because I didn’t respond to that, he said that he was upset at people making like his experience of being beaten up for being gay didn’t happen. Nobody ever said his experiences didn’t happen. He made that up all on his own. I mentioned that militant political correctness is a form of intellectual bolshevism. He complained that I called him a Bolshevik. I didn’t. I just mentioned a trend. I also said that things didn’t go well for the Germans after World War One, and they obtained a sense of victimhood, and this victim complex resulted in their becoming Nazis. This same asshole, Orkin, told me that I said that we should get rid of gay people so they don’t become the next Nazis. I never said anything about getting rid of gay people. Obviously I was dealing with people who have no connection to reality whatsoever. They started calling me a homophobe.

I didn’t feel comfortable being around such intolerance and bigotry, especially when words were being put in my mouth, lies were being told, and obviously there wasn’t going to be any future for me in that corp based on the vicious behavior of the two leftist gay directors. So I started moving my stuff out. Then I get a DM from the CEO, Erin Davis, who tells me I will be put on the Horde Ban list unless I apologize to the two directors. Now you know people who advocate coerced apologies think lies are a matter of course. Well, I didn’t want to be on the Horde ban list, so I did what any honest person would do. Now while still being in the corp, I was already kicked from the corp discord server. Real classy, right? So Erin unblocked me from Discord, and I said in Discord that the CEO told me that I would be banned from Horde if I didn’t apologize, so I apologize, and I will be leaving corp. They told me the apology wasn’t sincere, and that they didn’t accept it, and instantly banned me from their corp Discord again before I had any chance to say anything else.

I moved most of my stuff to R1O-GN, PH’s home system, and put in applications for some toons to Pandemic Horde Inc, and took a day off from Eve. When I came back, I jumped my JF to find out that I could not dock. My toons had been kicked from Horde and I was put on the ban list. So so much for Erin keeping his end of the bargain, right? Via logging off and back on and using deep safes, I managed to get my JF to lowsec. But my Rorqual is, at the time of this writing, still in R1O-GN, and, because of the wonderful forethought of CCP, I cannot jump to the jump clone there.

So I have to join someone who is blue to Horde to get my Rorq out, or have someone fly it out for me, or pay asset safety and wait 20 days for my stuff. Lovely. I never thought I would have to say this, but on my list of questions that I ask potential corporations when considering joining, I now have to ask if there are any gay leftist directors in the corp, as the characterological and cognitive bankruptcy of Solath Rowan, Orkin McGorkin, and Erin Davis, with their little financially non-viable renter corporation and insane taxes, have shown me evidence of the increasing intolerance and bigotry of that group of people. I don’t feel the need to discriminate against homosexuals because they like to suck dick, but because generations of moral relativism have basically turned a certain class of homosexual into satanic sock puppets who do any say anything that the demons who possess them want them to without any regard to actual truth. I mean just my leaving corp wasn’t enough for them. They had to lock my stuff into hostile stations just to be vindictive little punks. Never in my life have I ever thought I would have to discriminate against any sort of gay person. But Orkin McGorkin and Solath Rowan have shown me, at the ripe age of forty eight, that there are indeed cases where I need to in order to protect myself from leftist gay bigotry.

I’m pretty sick of Horde, and won’t be having anything to do with PanFam here on out except possibly to join some Goon ally to fight against them in Delve. Getting a Horde director to listen to any sort of ban list grievance is impossible, not even worth the attempt at this point. I’ll probably avoid nullsec as a whole, really, that is if I don’t spend my game time on the Playstation where I don’t have to deal with the intolerance and bigotry that the lying, delusional gay fascists in Eve like Orkin McGorkin and Solath Rowan dish out.

Eve just isn’t that fun, guys. Getting banned from Pandemic Horde after wading though all the bullshit. Not for being an AWOXER. Not for being a corp thief. Not for being a spy. But for word usage that had nothing to do with any hostility to any sort group of people. It used to be that anyone in Horde could FC a fleet. Not so any more. Since returning, I have had one experience after another of Horde being a bureaucratized low grade outfit where you get the privilege of being treated like nobody and doing only what they have on the table for you. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Playstation awaits.

Space Soliloquy

Okay then. My previous return to Eve was less involved than I had planned. Last fall I wanted to come back to Eve, but was still stuck on an ancient computer that would barely play the game, much less tolerate multiboxing. So I decided to head up north and mine in my Rorqual until such time as my computer could be updated. All was well on my Rorqual alt in Blades of Grass’ nullbear alliance, that is, until Goons attacked. Powerless to do anything, I gave up on the game yet again. Honestly, I could have stayed around for the metagame, and was even approached about blogging for the GotG cause. If I had done so, I might just have cemented a career as some sort of Eve personality. However, I went the other way and became nobody. Didn’t say bye, didn’t pass go or collect $200. Basil and Eingang probably think I am a flake at this point. I’ll have to beg their pardon when I bump into them out there.

So at this point, I doubt anyone will be reading my stuff. However, I started this blog in order to catalog my Eve history for those I would actually meet. I’ve been a New Eden vagabond, having been all over, never quite sticking with one group for very long, both by my own choice and sometime not by my choice. So that said, I am just writing today about my return to the game.

This time around I’ve returned again to use the game as a kind of therapy, wanting to give myself a regular routine that is low stress in preparation for some renewed interface with the real world. (I’m a PTSD veteran for those who don’t know.) That said, I decided to stay away from nullsec. I’m still getting my bearings about what is going on, but the drama of Nullsec seems to no longer compare to the grand events of the old days. The old school alliances with participation links, login statistics, full API checks and constant spymongering is not my cup of tea, at least at this point. I’m going from five accounts down to two. My goals this time around are to get good at solo and small gang PvP and look for opportunities to learn to FC. I’ll dig in to these goals at a relaxing pace. It seemed to me that a return to Faction Warfare would be in my best interest. My time with Dirt n’ Glitter and the Imperial Fedyakin was really one of the best times I had outside of the Newbro groups Brave and Horde. I didn’t want to go back to Horde, really, as while I think the group is good overall, my last brush with elitism in Horde wasn’t something I was really excited for. If my current situation ends up not being permanent, I may return there if they’ll have me. But actually, it seems as though I’ve stumbled on a fairly good gig.

I’ve joined an Amarr FW corp, Krysis Guard. The corp is large, though the majority of the membership is fairly casual and uninvolved. Still, there seems to be a rather large core of folks that are quite active, and the corp has a lot going on. Most importantly, the leadership understands its obligations to create content, and given the current state of FW in the Amarr Minmatar zone, they seem to be successful in that uphill battle. I’d say there are few in the corporation who have as much experience as I do, but I have already identified a number of individuals who are markedly more talented than I am in a number of areas. The environment is casual, but not lazy or stupid. I am liking what I see so far. If anyone does read this and wants to join a good FW corp, I can recommend mine.

So that’s what I am up to again. I’ve switched gears yet again. This time not because of some restlessness on my part, nor because of some wretched drama I’ve gotten mixed up in, but just because I’ve been leaving and coming back to Eve a number of times over the last couple of years. As for blogging, I don’t know how regular I will be. I doubt this will be my last post, but exactly what I’ll write about, I can’t say right now. I am just updating my website so anyone who meets me will know who I am, where I’ve been, and what I’m doing.

The Fog of Trade

Coming back to Eve I’ve looked at the Fanfest videos and been checking out the Reddit a bit as well as looking through this or that blog and the various news sites. I haven’t gotten back into checking out the podcasts yet, which seems to be more and more of a primary vehicle for knowing the lay of the land, so I wouldn’t really consider myself up on all that’s happening. Sometimes, however, the common sense impressions of just a moderately informed player can be valuable. It seems to me that the primary problem that Eve faces is still the N+1 problem. That, though, will have to be discussed elsewhere. I am just mentioning it because I am not all that concerned with what others seem to be concerned with as of late.

Right now there seems to be a current of sentiment that Eve lacks enough conflict drivers. However, Eve is a sandbox, and in my opinion, if there isn’t enough conflict, the players are to blame. A primary gripe seems to be that attacking structures is AIDS, and adjustments to the structure system are being called for. I have heard tell of a good idea or two to make some changes, and may talk about those in the future, but CCP’s agenda seems to be to spend the majority of the year doing cleanup and to end the year with the new moon mining. I personally had lamented the lack of module tiercide recently, and was delighted to see a commitment to finishing that off and implementing the meta module construction principle. It is going to be a lot of annoying work, but I think now really is the proper time and place to accomplish these things.

I also think that we really should hold on and see how moon mining affects conflict in Eve before we rush to start changing the structures. Again, I have heard and thought up some ideas on how structures could be changed, but part of the principle of making the new player-built destructible structures viable involves making destroying them enough of a task that the attacker has to really want the space to undertake the endeavor. Blowing up structures for lols, just to create fights, will suddenly make everyone quite vulnerable, and I don’t think that would be ultimately welcomed. We also need to see a nullsec without stations before we can get a real feel for how easily we want our destructible structures to pop. I’m certainly not ruling out modifying structures to increase conflict, but I really think we need to wait.

Now with the old player-made indestructible outposts going way, there will be some things to address. For instance, using one’s annual ability to set a medical clone to any corporate office currently only works for stations as far as I know. That little mechanic will have to be addressed. More significant, though, is the issue of APIs. If things are to stay the same, something will have to be done about APIs or DOTLAN will have to change considerably. It’s this issue that I want to ponder here.

For a long time in Eve’s history there have been those who think that Eve would be better off if there were just less intelligence available through APIs. Some have even kicked around a delayed local for nullsec. I am becoming one of those people. I’m not advocating for delayed local in nullsec, but I think less API information will change the game for the better, not only for combat, but for trade and industry. Now I may be out of sync with what is on everyone else’s minds with the lack of conflict thing. I am, however, thinking about fewer APIs and less market data available in order to promote local industry and create a career as a trader that is actually played by a player with one account who logs in and uses the UI, rather than one of many alts of a single veteran with everything provided to him on his smartphone.

Now certain API information will be going away this summer when the nullsec stations go away, but really with the refineries do we see the possibility of local industry being viable at the end of the year. With the new industrial complexes, pretty much anyone can make meta 0 items. When the meta 1 industry for subcapitals and modules comes out, we will have another huge area of industry that pretty much any player will be able to participate in using the industrial complexes. It is my hope that when the refineries come out, all the moon goo needed for all T2 industry will be available in any (somewhat extensive) area of space. If this happens, and it needs to, then only T3 industry will require materials from a specific location in Eve. Well, there are the drone regions materials and drugs, but that also, like T3, is a fairly small chunk of the overall pie. With meta 0, 1, and 5 available anywhere, allowing the overwhelming majority of Eve material to be constructed by anyone anywhere, relatively complete programs of local production will finally be available. No longer must one JF materials from Jita to build. That is a very significant milestone for the game.

I propose at that time that taxes and brokers fees at NPC stations in highsec and lowsec get a large bit higher, and we finally give Jita cancer. I further recommend that API information currently available in stations NOT be given to the new structure markets. Trade is currently far too much an alt’s game. People get all the info they need off their smartphones. I would prefer that actual players log in and get market information from the Eve UI. With three characters per account, a single player with a single account can get market information for a fairly good area. With less information, there will be more opportunity for greater price variation, making for more exciting trading. Since public markets will likely remain rare, operating a highsec-to-nullsec trading operation will require diplomatic ability as well.

I am aware that there was a riot when NPC station taxes and broker fees were increased. I am also aware that the player base is somewhat discontent because they think CCP should be required to force them to undock. Over my years I have complained that the player base is in many sectors too crusty to actually play this game. Change to suit the players is always demanded, but change that requires the players to change is always rejected. Too many times has CCP benefitted from some lucky marketing feature, whether alpha clones or WWB or BRB or whatever, only to have mass influxes of players leave. CCP has been killing itself over creating a better NPE in order to rectify this. With the new structure system, CCP is truly and finally opening the career field of manufacturer to all players of Eve, and I believe this sort of thing will affect player retention more than just a better tutorial. Currently, anyone can manufacture the basics, but they still have to watch the big boys with their jump freighters full of moon goo do the heavy work. That will soon be changing, if CCP handles the refineries correctly. Trading, however, is still in the hands of the old guard. Too much work is done by a certain type of player. This player has a combat main through whom he is known to Eve, and on whom he spends most of his time, but he also has a JF pilot, several cyno alts, several station traders, and a handful of smartphone apps into which he feeds API data in order to be able to generate huge quantities of ISK with minimal login time. Removing market data from CREST and APIs, and forcing a player to actually commit game time to trading in a way that can be accomplished with one account, will create an actual career path that will help player retention in the same way that the opening up the manufacturer’s career will. Yes, the old guard will riot, but I don’t think the riots will last long, and the players that Eve gains from this change will ultimately benefit the game more in the long run.

The Valley of Indecision

Just a quick personal update. I’m not leaving Eve. Upon my exodus from Pure Blind I was met with quite a bit of support for my predicament, and I was duly impressed by the Eve community’s commiseration with my plight and perspective. My lack of faith in the Eve community was thereby addressed, and I will not be leaving the game. Thanks for the support, fellas.

Also at that time I talked to some old friends about a way forward and was offered a fork in the road by some. I could go the route of old-style PvP alliance, with participation and fleet requirements, or I could go into a null bear kind of situation. Now I am waiting on my new computer before really getting back into PvP, but I didn’t want to do the null bear thing and join a corp knowing that I would be leaving it sometime in the near future. A bit paralyzed by my prospects, I toyed with the idea of doing some solo FW or just doing PvE a la Cosmos Missions, but mostly I just logged in occasionally on some alts moving stuff around and selling stuff and whatnot.

Frankly, that’s still where I am. However, I still have the mindset of someone just back at the game, newly intrigued by Eve and her current and future states of things. So, on that note, I will be reading all the things about Eve and blogging about them this summer. I’ll make a more permanent decision about what to actually do in the game in the fall like I originally intended. Right now I just wanted to announce that I’m not quitting or taking another long break, thank those who were quite cool to me, and state that I’ll be posting on my blog.

Fly safe o7.

Don’t Panic, and Always Carry a Towel

Well, more or less immediately after becoming comfortable with a goal and trajectory for a return to Eve as a long-term, if not permanent member of Pandemic Horde, I find that I am no longer a member of that alliance. Frankly, I am now in the mood to take another year off from the game. I think I am too old for it at this point. The story that follows will recount my exit from my alliance of 437 days. It will be a cautionary tale.

First, though, let me described be my time with the group in broad strokes. I joined the alliance at the outset of WW Bee. My primary contribution to the war was blogging, with a couple of posts at that time reaching 3,000 viewers as I participated in the propaganda war. I also ran some stealth bomber fleets and camps as a part of training many enthusiastic bomber newbeans, and went out a few times with ISBAD for my own personal enjoyment after the war drew down. In all that time I never said a single unkind word to anyone, argued with anyone, or had a problem with anyone. Since returning, I’ve been hanging out in the GME fleet providing about 4 hours a day of perfect perfect Rorqual boosts and helping the miners with their ISK-making. Again, not a conflict with anyone at all.

Now Horde has developed a bit from what it was over a year ago. One of the new developments is a new corporation, Horde Vanguard. I first heard of the corp by someone in some standing fleet saying that they get their own ratting areas. The corp’s description says, “Horde Vanguard. is a vouch only corporation within Pandemic Horde which asks its members to challenge themselves.” This signified a couple of things to me that I was not excited about. I understood the description to mean that the corp is for 4chan basement-dweller locker room culture in the alliance, in which narcissistic members hide all mistakes at all costs and haze everyone they see making a mistake, and who pretend that they are perfect by taking no risk and sucking off authority figures. That was my assumption anyway, given what I know about Eve culture and history. That particular culture was not in the noobie alliance model pioneered by Brave and improved on by Horde. I had no intention of joining, and was content to wait for time to tell me if my assumption was true or not.

Now one might guess that Horde’s toxic vets might wind up there, to include a large number of Horde’s higher skill point players, such as those who might be in the capital group. Now I was in the capital group a year ago. It was initially neglected, and then taken over by some PL guy who had no idea about the capital ship changes that had just come out and who would never drop caps. Remember, there is that community of players that just won’t take any risk, no matter how fun it might be. So I left the group. However, after my Rorqual got tackled and was saved by a carrier drop, I decided to put my capital pilot back in it.

Well, on June 7 a Rorqual got tackled in GME. The pilot said in fleet that he had a PANIC, he had not yet activated it, and his tank was holding. No one had pinged the capital group. So I loaded up discord, and by the time it was loaded I saw a ping about a Rorqual tackled in GME, which had a PANIC, and whose tank was holding. The ping did not specify any ship type. I only had a dread, and did not think that one would be welcome for a drop, but I thought I would make sure for good measure. No ship type was specified at all, actually. Armor carriers, shield carriers, FAX, nothing. So I asked in capital pings if a dread would be welcome to drop. The response was an idiotic play around with the emoji reactions at the bottom of the ping saying “12 hours”. Now this was my first ever interaction with the cap group since Horde moved to discord. Confused for a moment, I then noticed that there was ANOTHER channel for cap group members to talk in. I clicked it and there was a whole encyclopedia of stupid hostile snarky comments about not typing in the ping channel, the ping being old, etc. calling me a “mango” and other hostile names. Now just as I read all that nonsense, the Rorq pilot in GME mumble said his attackers left. I guess they have people in our cap group comms even though the elites demand freaking APIs for every single account a player has. (I’ve long told you guys API checks don’t catch spies – they are just means for your group to spy on you.)

Nevertheless, I comment that a ping should include a ship type (so I would not have had to ask anything, much less in the wrong discord channel). I then get more berating about talking in the wrong channel, old ping, etc., at which time someone else comments that there was a Rorq just now tackled in GME under identical circumstances as the ping. Completely frustrated with these retards, I comment that we shouldn’t be C-words. (Rule #1: don’t be a dick, right?) I then get more berating and get kicked off discord altogether.

But that’s not all. When I log on to my main about 1/2-hour later, I have an eve mail from Storm Delay saying I am being kicked from Horde in 24 hours. I think to myself that this has to be a joke. So I contact Storm Delay. No response. I contact Travis Uchonela, the only director showing up green at the time (I had reapplied for discord). No response, and his dot turns orange a few minutes later. Way to step up and handle things. So, in shock, I start moving my Rorq and caps and 50-billion in assets out of Horde space. Still in shock, I decide to contact the Man Himself. Gobbins does indeed respond. (Like a leader should – 5,000 players in the alliance, and every one of them matters.) He says though that it’s 4 AM and he’s dead tired, but he will put a note in for Storm to contact me.

Storm doesn’t contact me until the next day. I had spent all night moving crap the night before and would not have been happy to hear, “just a joke”. So he starts in on me about my attitude, claiming my c-word comment was the first insult he saw. I pointed out all the berating and snark and the mango comments and all. Later in the conversation he would tell me to join Blades of Grass, where the people are mature. But not yet. Since my attitude was just a reaction to the insults of others, he switched tactics to my not owning up to talking in capital pings. I pointed out that I did mention it. I did not feel the need to burst into tears and buy everyone in the cap group flowers because it was an utterly insignificant mistake made by someone newly joined on their first time on discord. I told him I left the cap group, and no such issue could possibly happen again. (I really don’t like being around those types of players.)

I think that got him mad, as he continued to find fault with me, and it was clear to me that there was no standard of reparations to meet. He just wanted groveling and some fellatio, as is normally the case in 4chan basement-dweller locker room culture. By this point I really didn’t want to be in Horde, and I told him as much. He gave me an extra day to get a dread out of build. As I publish this, I will be leaving Horde.

The cautionary tale is this: Pandemic Horde is a good group. Storm Delay is a piece of garbage and should be fired, but the group overall is good. However, Eve elitism is actually egotistical idiocy. Storm did not like how I handled my conversation with him. However, there never should have been a conversation. A player that has been in the group for a year and a half without ever once having any sort of spat with a single one of the alliance’s thousands of members, who has 50 billion ISK in alliance structures including scores of fitted ships, capitals, and an entire cap ship construction program, when he experiences his first ever negative encounter in the group, even if he is totally out of line and utterly wrong, should get a warning for goodness sake. Any idiot knows that. Kicking such a player as a first reaction is an unconscionable failure.

However, Horde is a big group. I had been a way for a while. Most of the people I knew are gone. So some retard like Storm can just utterly fail to think and kick me like I am some kind of alpha clone Goon spy alt and then go AFK for a day. This is the sort of thing that happens when the 4chan basement-dweller locker room culture that passes for Eve “elite” is allowed in via institutions like Vanguard, and directors turn into Walruses ramming everyone on the beach. My parting words are that Horde should not go the way of Waffles or PL, but keep it’s own identity based on the newbean culture. Now, as things are, the alliance is a good group, but the league of extraordinary morons has taken its first steps in. So if you’re a Hordling that is injector mad and/or been around a while, and are looking to join the cap group, you know what you have to look forward to. As for veteran players who may be interested in a noob group because of the low stress, low narcissism lack of 4chan basement-dwelling toxic vets, I would try Brave. In any event, I would not say that Horde is a good place to actually invest oneself unless one is prepared to circle-jerk with the elite. It’s a big place. Nobody is going to know you or give a damn about you. Stepping away from the game can be dangerous.

As for me, I might do some looking around for some other groups in Eve, but groups where people act like adults are few and far between. I may just be too old for this game. It could be time for another year away.

How About That Rorqual!

So, I’ve been back in Eve for about a month now, and I guess it’s time to write a blog post. This one might be short, as I’m writing it on my phone. My daughter has her permit, so I am in for an afternoon of being a passenger in my car. I’m sure Eve has forgotten about me over the last year plus, so I’ll just put out a little note about my current state, as this site was originally intended to be a means of introduction to those whom I run across.

I’ve actually logged in a few times since WWB, first for the Test eviction and then to move my Rorqual up north for the update to the ship. Sadly, I didn’t actually get to mining until after the second nerf, and the third is soon upon us. Nevertheless, the new Rorqual is, and will be, my favorite ship, and it looks like my goal is now to mine up a supercarrier. To that end, it looks like Pandemic Horde is going to be a long-term home for me. A long time ago they blue’d my alt corp, something I’ve never been able to get a unposed alliance to do for me since I’ve played Eve. Also, I’m quite happy, as basically the inventor of the PANIC module, that I have already had the pleasure of using the thing, and Horde’s response in saving my 9 billion ISK ship was fantastic, and I was successfully rescued. Now during WWB I was disappointed that we couldn’t get cloaky operations going in a really robust way, but I am thinking that the current political situation might be more conducive to having fun BLOPSING stuff in the future, once my mining bug is cured. Right now my computer is so old I am not really up for all kind of multiboxing PvP action anyway. I’m getting a new rig in a few months, so might as well just mine and build until then anyway.

As for blogging, I’m not sure how often I will blog, but I do have a few posts in mind, so I imagine I am returning to Eve writing, although I don’t plan on any real consistency with it until the next big thing pops up and there is a need for some propaganda and trash talk.

But yeah, in a nutshell, I’ve returned to Eve. Fly safe!

The End is the Beginning is the End

This post will conclude my trilogy of literature concerning the something Something Awful Forums. I did indeed get a response from SA concerning my banned account, as the image for this post suggests. My days as a Goon are over.😱I’ll just have to find some other place to get crazy. My heartfelt condolences to those who would have liked to have seen me post there.

As for the SA forums, I can’t in good conscience recommend anyone join that group. It is a scam. So if you are in KarmaFleet and are looking for ways to further establish your goon-hood, you might want to try something else. The place is a tribe of orcs, not really adhering to any sort of rules, and that’s not a good thing if you are paying money to participate. From the previous posts you see I am not complaining about lawlessness in the form of uncouth behavior, but rather that moderators troll you and bait you into interacting them and then ban you for trolling them. The greater corporate leadership doesn’t seem to care. Ala, culture via tribal prestige, advancement via hand job, you know the deal.

So this just about wraps up the issue with the shortest post I think I have written. I wrote it because I promised a conclusion.

Twenty Dollar Bond

Just a bit more commentary about the Something Awful Forums today, kids. At the beginning of May I joined those forums with the intent of learning about them and Goon culture. While there I pulled a stunt that ended with me banning myself. Afterward, though, some Goons contacted me and told me that they enjoyed the antics and would like to see me on the forums. I looked at unbanning my account, but found that this cost another $10. I personally thought that was ridiculous, but people do strange things on pay day, so while I was paying my bills and dumping money into my Eve subscriptions on the 1st of June, I went ahead and gave it a whirl. The reason for doing it would be the reaction from the Goons who enjoyed my previous two-day foray. Based on their support I thought SA would be a good place to post some really crazy stuff when I was triggered or otherwise in some nutty mood to post something that wouldn’t be appropriate in a more normative medium. In the end, though, it seems that I was simply being defrauded by SA, as hours later I would be banned again:

Notice that I was put on probation by a moderator named FactsAreUseless for six hours, and two hours and forty minutes later, while I was still on probation and unable to post anything, I was banned. I wonder what I did while I was on probation that I got banned for? While I was back on the forums, I only posted one post and made several comments on it.

If you look at the reason that I was put on probation, you will see “error.” If you look at the reason that was banned, you will see “trolled me until I cried IRL.” Now when you get banned, you are told to read the rules to see why. I don’t see “error” listed in the rules. Since I was banned for the same thing I was put on probation for, I assume that my singular crime was trolling a moderator. The thing is, I don’t see a rules violation here.

I did not fail to comply with anything a moderator told me to do. Did I harass Mr. Useless? One need only read the rules to know.

This rule specifically says that flames and insults are not harassment, rather defining harassment as the favorite tactic of our friends in the Goonswarm Federation: revealing personal information or bringing real life into things. It is obvious, however, that I was giving Mr. useless a hard time. When you follow the dialog, though, you see that Mr. Useless’ first appearance in the thread was to post some long, insane rant about how women will be the victors in divorce. Now that comment was in fact written by me, yours truly.

Mr. Useless was, apparently, using a tactic that we in Eve are familiar with from the GSF. He likely already knew who I was, as he searched my posts to find something that he thought would embarrass me or turn the other posters against me. While the latter option may well be valid, the first was ridiculous, as the notion that I would just stop posting because something that I posted elsewhere in a public medium entered the conversation is completely ludicrous. I am actually quite proud of that post. It was originally written as a response to a thread in an area of SA reserved for serious posting. The question asked was serious: It looks like I will have the upper hand in a divorce, and I want to leave my husband, will I be alright? My answer was serious as well: divorce will not be fun, even if you have the upper hand. However, I wrote the thing with a flair that only a PTSD Vet who himself had been divorced would have the ability to think up. The end result was hilarious, which is what I thought SA was about.

But that is neither here nor there. My point is that Mr. Useless entered the situation not as a neutral moderator ensuring quality posting, but to troll me, embarrass me, or turn people against me. Since it was the SA forums, I did what every good Goon would do, or so I thought, and I made Mr. Useless look like an idiot. His response was to put me on probation, and then two hours later, to ban me.

Let’s take a look at three scenarios that could have been taking place here. First, a completely uncouth poster enters a forum populated by civil, intellectual, and socially responsible members and and posts something completely out of form, to which a moderator appropriately responds with a ban. Did this happen? No, it didn’t.

The second possibility is that an uncouth poster posted in a community famous on the internet for being uncouth, at which point a moderator jumps into the fray trolling the poster, and then the moderator bans the poster when he is out-trolled. This is quite a likely option.

Third, however, is that someone from GSF manipulated a moderator into an abuse of his role in order to prevent me from being a member of the SA forums. Admittedly, after years of being Grr Goon myself, the prospect of me actually becoming a Goon and posting happily on the SA forums would be pretty frightening for Mittens and the GSF.

Lately I have learned a few things. First, Goons really don’t like Eve that much. They largely don’t like it because of Goons that are in the Goonswarm Federation. Yes, only a tiny percentage of Goons actually play Eve. Second, both on the SA forums and in Eve, there is a general perspective that if you are a Goon that plays Eve you will be associated with GSF, Mittens, and TMC. Many players are not aware of ElitistOps, Ten Dollar Bond, Groon, and hundreds of individual players that play Eve Online that aren’t in GSF. Goons from the GSF are not in line with the ethos of the majority of Goons on the SA forums that nothing should be taken too seriously, and there are a number of Goons in Eve that are not in the GSF that are more in line with this philosophy.

Now having established that the first scenario is not true, what would the significance of the second be? Well, not too good for the SA forums. The site makes you pay to be a member. If people pay money to go there and post awful stuff, and if they can be banned on a whim for not breaking any written rule, but merely for making a moderator look dumb for trying to troll them, there is at least an element of fraud here in addition to some pretty scary possibilities such as the SA forums being a place where people who post something awful really aren’t welcome, and where the way to get along is just to fellatiate the big dogs. Basically, the SA forums would just be real life.

Now I don’t know if the third possibility is more likely than the second, to be honest. It is weird that I was put on probation and then banned while on probation, almost as if Mr. Useless were talked into doing something else after his original reaction. I mean I must have REALLY gotten him good if he got so upset by my reaction to his trolling that he came back to the computer almost 3 hours later to mete out additional punishment, obliterating me forever from the site, right? Seems hardly likely from a moderator on a comedy site that sanctions insults and flame wars, exempting these terms from a definition of harassment.

As for me, I will be forwarding this post to the SA forums to see if my account will be unbanned. I’ve already sunk $20 into it, and since I still don’t know what I was banned for, I can’t be expected to pay even more, even on pay day. The reaction I get will provide some clarity concerning the site and the way it operates. Beyond that, though, to be honest, my primary interest in the SA forums in the end was merely to have a place to post awful stuff in general, not even Eve related (reference the divorce post), and beyond that, to introduce SA Goons to Eve apart from the Goonswarm Federation, and to rebuild the reputation of our game there that has been sullied by Mittens and crew. Concerning the first aim, I just think it logical that if a moderator comes into a thread and “doxxes” me by copy pasting things I have written in order to embarrass me or get posters to hate me, he should be prepared for whatever I have for him in response. If I am mistaken here, I hope the support staff at SA can clarify some things. Concerning the second aim, well, I do hope that the SA forums realize that catering to the wishes of Mittens and crew has not built a particularly strong relationship between SA and Eve Online.

So am I a Goon? I’ve paid the $20 bond. I am at this time, not a poster on the SA forums. I guess I’ll have to do some more thinking before I decide how to proceed, and the SA reaction will probably be a component of that.

Fly safe,

 

o7

Victory

If you replace Syndicate with Deklein in the image above this post, you have a way forward for the Goonswarm Federation. The last few posts of mine that have been dealing with World War Bee have dealt a lot with the spin coming from TMC and Mittens in his fireside chats. Goons at their hearts have always taken things lightly. They are bad at this game. They hail from a comedy culture at Something Awful. The propaganda that Mittens has been spinning lacks any vestige of that. That, at its core, is what I understand DJ to be saying. It’s certainly what Goons all over New Eden who are not in GSF are saying. It actually saddens me to see that GSF Goons are picking up so little of this and are buying into the gossamer shreds of hope that are being pelted out by TMC. I say this because it will ultimately be the end of Goons to a degree completely avoidable.

Of course there will always be Goons in Eve. I fly with them in Horde and PL. Great folks. Darius is building a crew of them. And of course there will always be a GoonWaffe and a Goonswarm Federation. So when I am talking about an end of the Goons to a greater degree than otherwise, I am talking about an end to the current situation that will take GSF far longer to recover from than if it adopts other paths toward the future. Let’s take a look at some things.

First, World War Bee is not totally and 100% one-sided. Goons win some battles. PL makes some mistakes. Both of these phenomena have happened before, and they should not surprise anyone. Longwinded articles making much of the occasional won battle or successful tactic will not win this war. Right now the CFC war chest is enormous. We know that the MBC chest is too. However, MBC alliances control space and moons. The MBC has revenue. GSF revenue is a trickle of what it was. Money buys a will to fight. Goons have their storied history with which to rally themselves, but will that be enough when the war chest runs dry?

Recently, Seraph IX Basarab wrote an EN24 article explaining the Fabian Strategy in specific, historically accurate and academic terms. I’d like to add an observation to his statements, and further cement the truth that the CFC is not employing a Fabian Strategy. GSF is not Rome, but Carthage, and the GSF doesn’t have Hannibal’s war elephants that enabled him to break Roman infantry and get so far.

It may well be that Goons are geniuses, so much superior to PL and NC. and the remaining MBC alliances, who of course are all idiots compared to Mittens. If this is the case, then rather than describe the situation as a Punic War, we might liken WWB to the Nazis’ invading Russia. The Nazi regime had 35 million barrels of petroleum with which to conquer the world. They weren’t getting any more. Thus the attack on the Soviets. Thus the North African campaigns. Thus the war in the Middle East. That’s why it all happened, folks. Don’t kid yourself into thinking there was another reason for WWII. But in WWB, Goonswarm is not defending its space by drawing the MBC into it. GSF is attacking MBC space. I don’t know how you guys are missing that. You will be as effective as the NPC trash you once mocked before Lenny and IWI came along. Yes, you will indeed be annoying. That’s about it.

GSF is now a lowsec alliance. Your bank balance is what it is. You are being rallied by tales that you have won a few battles and your enemies have made some mistakes – that you’ve done a bit of good. If the tales you hear are not of your FCs winning them ALL, for a long, long, long time, you need to consider that the news is bad. The spin you are being fed is nothing but bread crumbs leading you to a big, bad wolf.

Lately, the spin seems to be centered around a hit to PL’s killboard. I’ve long touted that an alliance reaches its point of invulnerability by its reaction to tough times. Not to say that PL hasn’t suffered defeat before, but if their killboard stays low for a while, they will do nothing but become more resolute. GSF knows this. You guys have suffered some horrendous defeats. NC. has too. This does nothing but grow mojo. You’d better have more in mind that muddying a killboard. That’s not going to get you victory.

Victory almost always involves attacking from a position of strength. Instead of spinning yarns of delusion that you are on the verge of breaking PL because you jacked with their killboard, you should learn from them. Their traditional strength has been to ensure that they attack from a position of superior power. That’s why their killboard is as it usually is. And though they may suffer some casualties in a war (imagine that!), they are being true to form. They are farming you. Sometimes it will cost them more, sometimes it will cost them less. Have no illusions, however, concerning what your efforts are really going to get you.

Buying the spin will hurt you. The truth is that you have a leader that cannot take things lightly. He must be serious. Your leader also cannot be wrong. Mittens will never tell you what Remedial did: hey, it’s time to do something else. This will result in a tragedy of lasting effect. I hate to tell you this, Goons, but the day will come when you will go do something else. Unfortunately, with Mittens in charge, that day will be the day that your bank account is empty. You’ll be just another alliance forced to start from scratch. You could avoid this, though. You could conquer some space with trillions in the bank.

If Mittens won’t change his mind, get rid of him. If you can’t get rid of Mittens, Darius Johnson has the right idea. Go back to what you were. Lighten up, and don’t be stupid. Let yourself be bad at the game so you can go have fun and victory in times to come. Great adventures are in your future. Probably even some payback. NC. got theirs. Victory is waiting for you, but it’s not sprouting from Saranen, and it’s not taking root in Deklein.

Goons began with fun and irreverence of the establishment. A decade later, the Imperium plays you videos about discipline and robotic coordination. Oh how the mighty have fallen.  If you want to ruin somebody’s game, ruin Mittens’. He is who got you here. He is who is squandering your wealth and capability. And he is feeding you false yarns that will rob you of future glories.

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby Right Round Like a Record, Baby Right Round Round Round

“Just when I thought I was out, they’re pulling me back in,” seems to be a common theme in a blogger’s life. Due to some real life concerns I’ve actually taken a week off from Eve, something that I hope to change after the weekend. That was also supposed to include a hiatus from blogging, excepting an innocuous little role-play post about Eve technology. After reading the latest article on TMC, though, I just can’t resist rolling up my sleeves and commenting.

This article shows only the barest understanding of the state of supercapital warfare in Eve, in fact evincing a level of understanding dwarfed by my own as a player who has never so much as sat in any kind of super. It is riddled with references to a type of capital warfare that either no longer exists or is quickly fading into Eve’s history. It is doing this in order to prop itself up as a part of a spin wave churned to the fore in the wake of a recent battle in Saranen with the aim of keeping Goon spirits from waning. So first, I’ll talk a bit about the meat of things concerning super warfare, and then I’ll show you how the article is trying to spin you like tops, Goonies.

First, the article is replete with references to B-R and Asakai, trying to set up some kind of a “he who loses supers loses the war due to waning spirit” kind of a situation, talking about how a future battle of B-R where one side wins, (maybe the Imperium?) could totally change the course of the war. He neglects to mention that HoneyBadger lived far longer than Asakai and N3/PL lived far longer than B-R. Neither battle actually had the effect that he predicts from a future battle of the sort. He makes much ado that Fozziesov doesn’t have much to do with Titans, claiming that such battles will be rare and too costly, and for right now we just have to accept that two mighty supercap powers won’t go toe to toe, although they are probably of equal strength.

This is just comical. Let me explain a few things. To paraphrase the one intelligent thing this guys says: ‘structures might have something to do with something.’ The war you see right now is legacy war with a twist. Station games with Titans. Stations are going away. Future wars will be fought over moon goo and Fortizars. For reasons you will see, no Keepstar is going to be destroyed in K-space unless it was anchored by a moron in the first place. At any rate, camping a power in with an enormous supercap group is a result of two things. The first is that stations exist, and the second is that Titans are now specifically designed to slaughter large subcap fleets as a part of their target package. The phenomenon of a hundred billion ISK ship that can only fight like a 3 billion ISK ship (dreadnought), except for being able to do 3 million points of damage to a single ship is gone. Bye.

As of right now, the primary target of supercapital ships is actually a system of structures that have only begun to be implemented. The secondary target of supercapital ships is actually a hive of subcapitals. Shooting other capitals and supercapitals is actually a tertiary target for these ships to be employed against in the event of escalations.

If I haven’t said it before, the sov system is about ratting ticks. That’s pretty much it. We already see alliances not giving a hoot about what DOTLAN looks like. Once outposts are gone, Ihubs will be it. So this guy’s comment that supercap battles will be rare because the sov system doesn’t need them is just silly. We are just biding our time.

How will things look? Well, the players love to undock when they are going to win. CCP loves attrition. Players love to find some little system they can game such as killboard spying, use of local, or DSCAN tools to get a decisive edge that will cause them to surely win or avoid the fight. CCP loves the fog of war. They’ve already talked about delayed local. We had to scream until they saved fleet warping. Off grid alt boosters are on the chopping block.

Supercapital battles will generally be multicompositional battles where supers play a part, usually in a structure fight, as part of an escalation. With damage mitigation, a small number of ships can tear down a structure, but since that structure is going to be shooting back and have the ability to tear down your fleet, you will need to bring extras in order to actually take it down, and the tactics developed by the attackers will require defenders to actually have more than just their structure on field to be victorious.

This will create an attrition scenario in which supercapitals will be an escalation option available to either side. In the case of a Keepstar, the defender will be able to just undock as many supers as he needs, each one able to rip an entire subcap fleet to pieces. An attacker will need his own supers to keep pace with that. Now chances are, nobody is going to risk sending supers against a Keepstar with that kind of escalation capability. However, with the Fortizar, where defenders as well as attackers will face limitations on their ability to infiltrate the field with apex weaponry, things could get dicey. Asakai or B-R dicey? No. But situations will arise where parties will be willing to commit x resources to achieve an objective. Battles will be measured in lots of subcap losses with the possibility of small or large capital losses and with the further possibility of the loss of this or that super or Titan.

That’s what things are going to look like, folks. The picture will become clearer after the drilling platforms come out. I expect they will come out in various sizes and with various capabilities, and that platform on your dyspro moon might just tempt someone to drop supers on it or at least a lot of dreads supported by supers.

The article is woefully ignorant of all this and pretends that the present and future will consist of the same world that we have known for years of supers normally only being dropped in huge masses completely obliterating their targets or, by some freak accident, are dropped on another unimaginably large super force. Given this false future landscape, the author is drawing up an illusory comparison to WWI in order to con the readers into thinking that the MBC and CFC have a parity that we are never going to see because it’s just too risky, but don’t worry, the CFC is just as strong.

Along with this, you see laughable we-didn’t-want-that-anyways such as the statement that lone supers getting picked off is an acceptable risk for the CFC. Frankly, we’ve been well inculcated that the MBC can kill them with impunity, and with a minimal risk to killing them. The real deal is that if the CFC uses supers, they will get annihilated. The MBC doesn’t have this problem. So let’s not eat the hogwash of “don’t leave us guys, we still have our supers! That we won’t use because the risk is to great for both us and the MBC! It’s like WWI where our using our possibly giant super fleet that might not be camped into MBC POSes just doesn’t help with Fozziesov in a fight with MBC supers who would assume the same risk!”

Joseph Goebbels and Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf couldn’t get together and make this stuff up. Bravo Goons!