The efficiency with which I manage to completely miss what I’m aiming at never fails to amaze me. I am convinced if I aimed a gun at a barn I could shoot myself up the arse quite capably.

So I decided a while back that the reason I don’t enjoy PVP is because, if I’m honest, I’ve never really done it that much. Fair enough too. So, as I have iterated here in the past , I decided to take drastic action and join a PVP training corp in low sec. To get half decent at PVP, that was my aim, and an excellent idea it was, too.

So I’ve been in the corp about two weeks, getting kills and generally having a ball in low sec, when it’s announced that we’re going on a road trip to null sec. Fair enough, no problem with that – kill some people in null sec instead of low sec, sure.

Except we’re not in null to PVP, we’re there to rat. This was NOT what my aim was, if I remembered correctly. Seems our senior corp is busy shooting and being shot at in a war campaign, so we’re keeping up the ole’ sec status for them by ratting their havens and such for them.

Now, the thing is, I’ve done this. Lots of it. It’s bloody boring. Fly in, stop. Kill everything, scan next one, rinse and repeat; as the old saw goes.

I did this for a few evenings and watched the wallet fattening up, nothing like it used to, ‘cos I don’t have my Machariel with me, just a T2 fit Maelstrom; but definitely making good ISKies.

Chased a few neuts around and helped kill a Domi who obviously wanted a ticket out the quick way, unless sitting on a hostile undock on your own in null sec is some new tactic I’m not familiar with.

There’s been good opportunities to get to know my corpies a bit better, which is invaluable when you’re trying to settle into a new corp and get past the “he’s prolly a spy” stage.

There’s also been some unexpected entertainment provided by our head instructor, who was the first to lose a ship to rats, quickly followed by three more, all Drakes.

Upon asking why he was so glum the night before last, he replied, “I’m mourning my fourth Drake loss.”

“Come on,” says yours truly in my best encouraging tone, “it can’t be that bad, you must be getting used to it by now.” I think I may have lost some Brownie points with him there, he seemed a touch miffed at my attempted encouragement. I really need to work on my political correctness a touch, I think.

Anyhow, I was getting bored with the whole process of doing something I had done a thousand times before, in a much better ship, in a much faster fashion and I was getting fed up. Fast.

Until I hit upon an idea. What if I was to turn the ratting trip, with all its attendant repetitiveness, into a PVP training trip?

How? I’m glad I asked.

By putting away the Maelstrom and undocking in a Hurricane instead. Now I can hear all the conventionalists howling, “Drake, Drake, Drake!” However, I would ask you to hear me out.

I agree, the Drake is indeed the battlecruiser of choice, due to its battleship sized ubertank and ability to throw missiles at things a long way away, where they can’t hurt you back from.

I got to thinking, however, of the Minmatar philosophy; you know the one, launching yourself down a staircase on an office chair with an Uzi in each hand, screaming incoherently and firing indiscriminately.

I thus decided to try out a different approach, something different. Of course in the manner of good sales and marketing people everywhere today, first I had to come up with a suitably edgy and funky title for it. Thus it was that I used something I coined during a conversation one day and bestowed upon an old friend of mine, who now wears that same term proudly as a corp title.

We all know about shield tanking, armor tanking, hull tanking, speed tanking and signature tanking.

Now I have come up with a new form of defense, in honour of my aforementioned buddy, it’s called Face Tanking.

The thinking behind face tanking is simple. They cannot do DPS to you, if you’re literally zooming around inside their cargo bay. Incredibly, it works.

Don’t believe me? Don’t blame you, really. It’s really a load of bollocks, but I thought the name was pretty good. In actual fact, it’s a combination of speed tanking and signature tanking, with a bit of shield tanking as a get out of jail free card.

Basically, it’s a shield rigged 425mm Autocannon fit Cane with a Nosferatu (Medium Diminishing Power Drain) and cloak in the high’s (cloaks just in case of unwelcome visitors), Afterburner2 & Large Shield Extender2 and Med shield booster with hardeners in the mids, Damage Control2, Gyrostabilizer2′s and Tracking Enhancer2′s in the lows, plus 5 light drones of whatever flavour works best.

Now, before any EFT warriors start poking holes, poking fun or any other pokey type behaviours, (in my best American voice) just let me say this: it works. Really, really well.

Soloing hubs in fairly rapid fashion with 10 mill ISK + bounty ticks kind of well. And I haven’t lost one yet. Errrmmm … probably shouldn’t have said that …

By comparison, our chief instructor and slayer of Drakes does 8 mill ISK bounty ticks in the same hubs, with better skills than I have.

There are some cautions here, though.

First, remember how I said I was wanting to get PVP training while ratting? Hmmm? Well, now I do. Because the only way to use this fit to it’s full potential (and without dying horribly) is to fly it manually, with the ship zoomed out a fair way. Which is what PVP’ers tend to do, or so they tell me.

So here’s how it works: you fly in to the hub at about forty or fifty clicks distance and straight away turn on the afterburner (it’s cap stable without the repper on) and fly in towards the structure at a good angle, keeping your transversal up as much as possible (make sure you have your transversal velocity on in your overview). Use your drones to start killing the senty guns and launchers first (they really hurt), followed by the frigates and then the cruisers. Use the AC’s as soon as you know you’re going to do decent damage (for me with all medium AC skills at 5 it’s about 30k using -50% range ammo). All the time you must adjust your angle of approach to keep your transversal at optimal. During this initial approach is the only time I sometimes need the repper running, then I use the NOS on the battleships to bump the cap back up.

From here on in you stay as close to the structure as possible, flying in such a fashion as to maximise transversal on all the remaining BS’es, going from one to the next and face tanking them by staying at 500 to 2,000m away from the one you’re currently shredding.

One thing I must stress, DON’T, – FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS MINMATAR -, STOP! – if you do, your death will be swift and spectacular. This means turns should not be so tight that you lose too much speed, and you must avoid collisions with structures and ships at all costs. This gets pretty complex once the BS rats start to split up and it takes a lot of constant double clicking in space. I always have the next target in mind as I adjust my direction, as soon as the current target pops you should already be on your way towards (sort of) the next one.

If this sounds like madness to you, that’s cool. Don’t do it then. Grab a Drake and go get a coffee and donuts between spawns. If you want to be clenching your butt and chewing your nails while ratting, however, I cannot recommend this highly enough. As I get more practice, I set new goals for myself. I can now do the entire hub from start to finish without using the repper at all, most times. I have gotten one 11 mill ISK bounty tick without a faction spawn and in the last few I was having extra fun by flying in between the structures.

The big thing for me is that manual flying is becoming second nature, and I’m actually enjoying ratting for a change. I’m also learning to get faster at turning the ship, engaging and disengaging mods, switching targets and trying to lose as little speed as possible.

Is it as much fun as PVP? No, of course not. There’s no unpredictable behaviour from rats, it’s like fighting the civil service, really. The rats don’t hot drop you, switch targets or suddenly bugger off if they’re in danger of dying. It is, however, much more fun than ratting in a BS, or a Drake or four, for that matter.

It’s all in the mind, you know.

The sandbox environment tends to bring with it all vestiges of meatspace, as players adjust things according to their wishes; unknowingly blurring the boundaries between pixels and reality. Unfortunately, not all the baggage that crosses the threshold is necessarily of any benefit to the game populace.

So it is that we are standing at the threshold of election time in Eve. Yes, even after thousands of years in outer space, politicians somehow conspired to survive. We may have weapons of all kinds at our disposal, but somehow the pesky things have tenaciously hung on and even managed to convince a percentage of us to take them seriously.

Now, though, politics in New Eden just got even more real. How? Let me explain.

In the real world there are a surprising number of people who think that it still matters who you vote for. They take politics seriously; yes, you heard me right. They actually believe that it makes a difference which one of the two or three groups of puppets they elect to the illusion of power; subsequently spending inordinate amounts of time debating and mulling over which puppet will make life slightly more of a mirage of comfort and prosperity for them.

Not everyone is of that mind. In fact in England (for the American readers, that’s the big aircraft carrier you have moored off the coast of France … what? Oh, France is in Europe … what? Oh, pretty big place to the left and up a bit from Iraq), there has existed since 1983 a dedicated political party which stands in the elections there called The Official Monster Raving Loony Party, founded and led for many years by a gentleman by the name of Screaming Lord Sutch.

The idea of this party is not to get elected, oh no. The idea is to lampoon the living hell out of the running candidates and underline the inherent idiocy of beauracratic democracy. Their official political position is “sitting, facing forward.” As was stated by one of their co-founders, “it’s the ones who don’t vote you really want, because they’re the ones who think” (emphasis mine). Incredibly, they have garnered some rather impressive results at times, along the way bringing entertainment and giving much pleasure to those who take a more cynical view of the party preferred electoral process.

So, as we face the coming storm of concerned, committed, caring, electioneering bullshittery by the candidates of New Eden, it was with great pleasure that I read last night of the stated intention to run of our own Screaming Lord Sutch.

Yes, MINTROLIO is standing as a candidate! Read all about it here - http://mintrolio.wordpress.com/

Doubtless with the caps lock button superglued down and spellcheck resolutely turned off, he will festoon the campaign with MUHC GOOD POASTIGN!

 He has already shown good political savvy by emphasising his desire to improve secs for everyone, even those who want a better life with zero secs. Nice to see he thinks of the married gamers too.

I can only say a great big thank you to our favourite semi literate goat farmer for bringing some insanity to what is otherwise a dry, dull and spectacularly boring political process. I hope all the other candidates take serious note of this development. There is the very real possibility of a goat in the seat next to you on the flight to the land of treelessness.

Why?

Because it is my experience that, quite unlike the real world, New Eden has a considerable population of “the ones who think” (emphasis mine).

It’s all in the mind, you know.

I’ve been so busy in game and in meatspace, I have had bugger all time to write. Bit of compensation is in order then, no?

I finally decided to pull Blastie out of my old corp, which is now being put into hiatus while most of the guys are off playing LOTRO and SWTOR, neither of which appeal to me in any way. Matter of fact, outside of Eve, I have yet to try any other game that comes close to engaging my mind in the way Eve does. When my mind needs a holiday and I want some mindless laughs with a few of my mates, I jump onto our Minecraft server, but I don’t last too long.

So, imagine my surprise when I found myself feeling bored with Eve. The question was: what now? Where do I go and what of all my effort and time with my skill queues?

It started with the death of my corp, no two ways about it. We’ve been together as a gang for nearly two years, through two different corps, in null sec and in high sec. We had a ton of fun, an absolute ball. Drove everyone we met mad with our lunacy and complete lack of seriousness, great times.

It didn’t take a genius, though, to see that the party was over. We stagnated, and as we did, we drifted apart. Most of the others left game completely, or now just log in to swap skills up. Couple went to null sec to scratch the greedy bitch itch, couple went to another care bear corp.

I didn’t.

I searched, long and hard. First, within myself; looking for that elusive problem that was dragging me down. It took a lot of fiddling around, but I found it. Something I’ve heard about so many times, but dismissed as not my thing. That thing was -

Pew. Well, that’s only half of it really. Pew pew. That’s what I needed and I didn’t realise it for so long!

It came to me that, outside of some null bear chase the baddies away they shouldn’t be here stopping us from mining and ratting our way to a new shiny ship Home Defense Fleets, I’ve never really done any PVP. I checked my combat log, not too bad, quite a few ships there; oh, hang on a sec … ah, that’s my losses. Now, let’s quickly move away from that pricey list of stupidity, there! Kills. So my grand total of ships I had managed to get a few shots into before the fleet obliterated it was … five.

Five? In two years of playing this amazing and incredibly complex spaceship combat game I had managed to participate in the destruction of five bloody ships??!!!

As the fat greasy mechanic once said as he held aloft a dead spark plug while he wiped the oil and snot from his face with a tatty hand written invoice with an amazing number of digits in the total column: “There’s ya problem!”

I needed to liven my game time up, by delving into the complex and data riddled world of PVP.

There was an issue though. Pretty big one, too. I didn’t know how to do it. At all. Not a flaming clue. I knew I had to learn, but how?

One of the big training corps? Well, sounded to me like there was a fair bit of politics there, and my confirmed opinion of politicians is that they would make splendid ballast for the sinking and burning ship full of lawyers I’m always dreaming about.

It took a lot of time, but I finally managed to join up with an Aussie PVP training corp that inhabits a particularly busy area of low sec. Permanently war decced and constantly blowing up or being blowed up, this corp is great for me and I have never had so much fun actually playing the game of Eve Online.

Of course it’s all a bit stiff and formal, as you would expect of any new corp, ‘specially after the crowd of lunatics I usually run with. There’s probably a fair bit of suspicion coming my way, seeing as how there’s such a great disparity between my time in game and skillset, compared to my knowledge of basic game mechanics. But time will tell on that one, I’m sure they’ll realise in the end that the only thing I want to gain from them is knowledge.

So far I’ve been on a freighter kill (first kill in corp and quite rare, I’m told), a Tengu kill, a couple of battlecruisers and one battleship that robbed us of the killmail by jumping through the gate and getting killed by the gate guns on the other side – git.

One thing that has stood out to me straight away, though, is that training all those ship and gun skills to five has paid off in spades now. I Flew a Tornado for the first time the other day, and I worked out why it’s shaped backwards in the middle. That’s where the guns are, and when you push the fire button the middle bit is going to end up at the back of the ship anyway, so they made it like that to avoid it breaking in two when you opened fire. Plus the ship should realistically fly backwards about 100 km every salvo. Just gotta love that tier three battlecruiser philosophy – thumbs up CCP!

We had our first actual class last night. I gotta tell ya, after two years in game, I was amazed at what I didn’t know. Funniest moment was when we were sitting just outside a corp POS and a WT jumped in. “Break, break, red in system!” I yells, hoping to impress with my little bit of null sec experience.

“Ooh”, says the instructor, “I do hope he warps to us, so I can watch the POS tear him apart and the twelve of us can whore onto the killmail.”

I’m such a damn noob.

We got another class tomorrow night, tactics in gang combat, hopefully they will go over how not to shoot your mates while you rep your enemies.

Plus I have yet to lose my first Hurricane, I brought three down with me, all fitted up. Gotta happen soon. Prolly when I jump into a gate camp, that’s where I always lose my ‘Canes.

Hope you got those BPC’s researched!

It’s all in the mind, you know.

I’ve owned a few businesses in my time, and if there’s one thing I learned it is this; you either grow or die. True, if you have a good business it may take a long time to die; but die it will. While this is not a blanket rule, it certainly applies to the majority of businesses out there.

While we all immerse ourselves in the world of Eve, it’s very easy to forget that, at the end of the day, it’s a product. The other thing we so easily lose sight of is that CCP is a business.

We, the players, are in a symbiotic relationship with CCP. There is no other MMO I would happily go to if Eve dies, not at the moment anyway. So, as committed (most of us probably should be) players, it is in our own best interest to see Eve grow over time. If Eve dies, so do our toons.

Blast Radius1 > watch yourself sunshine

Ahem, err yes, where was I?

Blast Radius1 > on bloody grid with me, mate, and I’m not in a Noctis

Yes, thank you for that, – anyway.

So, while we may have been trolled mightily with this months banter, it has brought up a very significant point. I am not in the know at CCP, but it doesn’t take a genius (convenient for me) to see that increasing new player retention past the trial period must be a priority for CCP.

Our bantering community seem fairly unanimous that non-consensual PVP is, for new players, a major stumbling block. It would seem, in fact, that it is a major contributor to people quitting within the trial period.

Some have argued that such “weaklings” have no future in the game anyway, but I must strongly disagree with this. Some people are able to adapt quickly to a given situation, some never adapt. There is, however a third group; those who do adapt, but at a slower pace. With Eve as it stands, I would argue that many of this group don’t adapt quickly enough, although with a bit more time they could have.

If I had a moment of CCP’s time I would spend it pointing out that particular bracket of customers to them. Mainly because I believe it is a VERY large group  indeed!

Those who adapt quickly and those who don’t adapt at all are the two smaller extreme groupings. The group that occupies the large area in between have to be much greater in number.

We spend so much time talking about what defines an Eve player; but very little time, comparatively, defining how someone becomes an Eve player.

Interestingly, I’ve seen the same thing with musicians. So much credit is given to “talent”, while its poor cousin “practice” is given only passing credit. In my teaching years, I came across so many students who wanted a recording contract after learning one groove that it drove me to quit in frustration. Some of my fellow teachers were quite happy to take the parents money for giving little Johnny the same lesson for six months, but it just seemed like theft to me.

Yet, I have worked with musicians who have become successful without a lot of initial “talent” but they have compensated for that with a ton of practice. (Incidentally, anyone who claims they have succeeded on talent alone are bloody liars, I’ve never met anyone successfully plying a music career who didn’t practice.)

Getting back to internet spaceships, analyzing the formative process of an Eve player is vital to then bringing about a situation where the making process has a greater success to failure ratio than the current set up. After reading many banters it becomes obvious that this would have to include paying greater attention to the non-consensual PVP aspect.

To me, the obvious answer is to implement some kind of protection for new players, that gives them a period of gradually diminishing protection from the non-consensual PVP that hungrily awaits them out there in the wider game universe.

This should start with absolutely no chance of PVP at all, and the way I am inclined to go with this is the protected starter system idea.

from that point on there needs to be a way to allow the player to gradually introduce themselves to the wider universe at a largely self set pace.

One suggestion was to make PVP avoidance linked to the security status of the solar systems (I cannot agree with those who have suggested any kind of “off switch” for PVP, this is wide open to exploitation). There would also need to be some kind of exception to prevent mining and ratting exploitation ( in 1.0 & 0.9 systems especially). One idea put forward that seemed good to me was some kind of linkage to ship types, faction and T2 ships being excluded and possibly anything bigger than a T1 cruiser also unprotected. Anything T2 fit was also suggested as excluded.

I must emphasise, though, I am NOT endorsing any kind of system where players older than, say, three months, should be afforded any kind of potential protection at all from non consensual PVP. Carebears are fine by me, as long as they Carebear by way of self protection only.

There are many holes in all this theory, actually a string bag analogy comes to mind; however CCP has the skillset and manpower to implement some kind of system that works.

Of course, with the next CSM being a null sec bloc dictatorship, CCP will probably need to grow a pair and remember if new subs aren’t steadily growing, it will likely cause the death of their flagship product, and it is highly unlikely the likes of  Mittens & co. will even pause on his way out of game to say goodbye.

The benefits to doing something about the large group of people who come and go far outweigh the slow stagnation and inevitable death of what is really “our” game.

It’s all in the mind, you know.

I am a reader of many good blogs and a few great ones. I’m hoping to develop enough ability to have a good blog myself one day. This, however, is not about me.

There are many types of blogs out there, pirate blogs, ninja blogs, low sec blogs, high sec blogs, null sec blogs, industrial blogs, wormhole blogs, the list is endless. There are standouts in every genre of Eve blog, for one reason or another.

However, there is for me only a handful of blogs which I get excited about when I see a fresh post in my reader. Excited enough to put down my hot milo and sit up a bit straighter to savour every word.

One of those was always Mord .

Anyone who ever enjoyed the insightful null sec political summaries, the rapier wit and the now legendary “Fever Dream”, should wander over to Fiddlers Edge and say thank you and goodbye.

He’s pulled the pin on us before, so I live in hope of his triumphant return, maybe a comeback tour and a greatest hits album?

Whatever happens, it’s a loss to the blogosphere that will be hard to ignore.

It’s all in the mind, you know.

“A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons’ Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships, there were calls for an “opt out of PvP” option. 

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online. Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?”

Brace yourselves, I am about to say something that will stun you rigid.

I am a two year carebear. I’ve carebeared in high sec a lot, I’ve carebeared in null sec quite a bit too. I’ve done some PVP in null and now, as a member of a PVP training corp I’m learning to PVP in low sec (shudder). I will still carebear when I need to grind ISKies, and the last thing I would want is for someone to gank my mission boat and put me behind the financial eight ball.

 I hate high sec war decs, they’re a pain in the arse, as are ninja’s, can flippers and the wanker that won’t shut up in local about “needing some help to finish his mission” – stupid git (Actually, that’s not fair, he’s not a stupid git, he’s looking for a stupid git).

So, do I think there should be an “opt out of PVP” option in Eve Online?

NO!

PVP-free Eve is an oxymoron that is right up there with Military Intelligence, American ingenuity or Australian culture.

I like the fact that Eve is not really safe anywhere. I liked it when I’d been playing Eve for a week and I love it now.

I don’t want to undock my level four boat safe in the knowledge that unless I screw up really badly (always possible), I will be docking up again in that same ship guaranteed.

If there absolutely has to be a PVP free zone somewhere in New Eden, please, please, please, just make it four small areas based around the training systems. I guarantee you would never see me there and it probably would improve the 14 day fail period a bit.

When you walk out of your front door to go for a quick walk (that should get some hard core gamers shaking) to the local shop (just open your curtains and look, that’s called “outdoors” and it has these places called shops), are you absolutely guaranteed safe? Is it not possible that some loser in a hoodie is going to want your money (in a fairly non-consensual way) at some point?

We have heard it said before that “Eve is real”, by some nordic people who have a thing about trees, or the lack thereof. Well, it wouldn’t be very real at all if our carebear butts were teflon coated, now would it?

So what would it be like if New Eden suddenly became all peaceful and luvvy duvvy in high sec, just like it definitely isn’t in other parts of our pixelly universe?

Freighter pilot? No problem sir! Just push that little button (it would probably be bloody tiny knowing CCP) there and all the nasty people in their tier 3 BC’s won’t be able to hurt you. Now push that equally tiny little button marked “A” and off you go to watch some porn and we’ll see that your fifty billion ISK cargo arrives all safe and sound in the station before you can even wipe the soap off.

All of a sudden the gates would be jammed with Russian freighter bots trying to get into Jita and the fifty million ISK price tag for the cargo has been deflated to ten by the time it gets there.

Let’s not forget mission runners, bless their little officer fittings. Overnight the rats would be decimated by a thousand botGolems and their botNoctis buddies, with systems lagged to buggery by the sheer number of tractor beams going off.

Aaannndd the MINING!!! Oh the mining that would happen! Mex would be under 1 ISK and Trit would be bloody FREE!!

NO! No no no no no no no, nope, never, ever, uh uh, negatory nada just bloody FORGET IT!

All the things that stand Eve alone as unique in the gaming world would crumble around us. In would flood the ten year olds all picking their noses and yelling “NOOB!” every five seconds as they rat and mine their way to where they think the boss level might be.

Please put this subject back where you found it Drackarn, and don’t start giving the Vikings any ideas.

It’s all in the mind, you know.

Firstly, I hope everyone had a good holidays and welcome back to lousy old reality, the main reason for us all to be hiding in pixellated space in the first place.

Now, back to the lack of standings. Blastie has fantastic standings with Amarr and Caldari factions and corps thereof. Which is very nice to have, very nice indeed. Much ISKies to be had and jump clones aplenty – fun for all.

So imagine my dismay upon discovering where my new corp (more on that later) is based.

Minmatar space.

Ah, that.

They don’t like me very much down there, very picky lot they are. Seems I should’ve been more careful in choosing missions the Amarr were so happy to foist on me. The agent seemed really nice, too. Deceptive cow.

Situation is I have to move all my nice shiny ships and stuffs halfway across the galaxy and when I get there a big nasty Minmatar policeman is going to blow it all up.

I don’t know about you but that plan has a couple of bloody big holes in it as far as I’m concerned. Much like my stuff will have if I carry on with it.

It could be, though, that all is not lost. I am led to believe that all those tags I’ve been collecting from all those nasty piwates wot I blowed up can be cashed in for – wait for it – Standings!

I’m going to investigate that possibility further and hopefully can make new best friends with the Minmatar race, who make all of Blasties favourite ships, as a sidenote.

Of course nothing with Eve is that easy and I shall probably find out I can only improve my relationship with those deceptive Amarr people who already love me to bits; as opposed to the Minmatar who would like to blow me to bits – a subtle but fairly deadly distinction.

The recruiter who helped me with my application advised me to do COSMOS missions when I get down there, problem being my pod of doom is quite low on DPS, but is the only vessel that would get me there without the aforementioned bloody big holes problem.

I’m sure there will be a solution forthcoming, Google on standby!

In the meantime I have smoothly avoided the dreaded Drake undocking, my corpmate will not be on this weekend and by the time he is I will be sequestered to Minmatar space, there to learn the art of PVP, at least to the level of not quite God awful, several levels above where I currently dwell.

I sincerely hope this year will see us all happily blowing stuff up and being blowed up, for the greater good of all mankind (including Minmatar, hopefully).

It’s all in the mind, you know.

Well written, clear and simple. I have to say I agree with this sentiment 100%.

In my own Eve life, things are certainly starting to happen. This carebear needs teeth and a move to an Aussie PVP corp in null is just weeks away.

Once there I will be learning how to die in fascinating new ways, anyone wishing to make some spare ISKies should invest in a Hurricane BPO and get it researched.

I still have to undock in a Drake yet, when my mates get back from holidays, evil plans are afoot in that direction.

It’s all in the mind, you know.

This special ‘End of Year’ Blog Banter edition aims to be a crowd-sourced game review. Using your gaming knowledge and experience, join the community in writing a fair and qualified review of EVE Online: Crucible. This can be presented in any manner of your choosing, but will ideally include some kind of scoring system.

With each Blog Banter participant reviewing the areas of EVE Online in which they specialise, the result should be a Metacritic-esque and accurate review by the people who know best.

I’m not famous (within my limited circle of friends) for being conformist. In the spirit of that non-conformity, this is not about the game. Describing Eve to someone who doesn’t play it already can be likened to explaining cricket to Americans – for the love of Mike, DON’T try it.

As an interesting side note, our old corp’s TS3 had The Cricket Channel, specifically for Aussies, Kiwis and Pommies to hide from the Yanks while we discussed cricket. We don’t need any such facility in Veggie Warriors, the few Americans we do have know better than to interfere in any serious discussion as to why the Kiwis are so God awful at cricket.

What I intend to do here for the thirty first Blog Banter, is to expand on the types of people who populate our pixelly internet spaceshippy Universe. Thus the imaginary interested ones who read this drivel can ascertain for themselves as to whether they should investigate further or bugger off before they explode in a cloud of game rage and tears.

This is a complex and difficult task that I intend to mismanage to the best of my ability. Complex and difficult because even the social borders of the Eve Universe are extremely hazy.

Consider this, for example – High sec war deccers. Most who populate high sec are regularly hassled by these folks and would straight away imagine a fat masturbating 13 year old in his Mum’s basement picking his nose while stopping them from going about their daily business.

Certainly, from the outset, this would seem to be the kind of game occupation that such a person would enjoy. Except that many high sec war deccers are not that kind of person at all. Neither are Ninja salvagers. Neither are can flippers. Neither are suicide gankers. In fact, successfully running these occupations takes patience, good technical knowledge of game mechanics and split second timing – our fat basement dweller is not going to be big on any of those things.

What about miners? are they all bots? I can tell you quite emphatically that they are not. Are they all unimaginative dimwits who enjoy sitting drilling asteroids for hours on end? Nope, wrong again. We have two guys in our corp who run five accounts, miners both. Both mine right through Hulkageddon every year with all five toons and neither has ever lost a single Hulk. Quite an achievement for an unimaginative dimwit, when you think about it.

Mission runners? Well, it’s how I make my ISKies, but intelligent people do it too, I know a few. One is a sixty two year old financial adviser for a company that puts together multi million dollar financial deals. Stoopid? Uh uh, definitely not.

Null sec dwellers? I know of one who is a retired Navy Seal, causing mayhem on a daily basis for anyone silly enough to get in his way. Another I know is a forty something factory worker with three kids who has an enviable combat record which he keeps adding to while mining, trading, hauling and ratting; all at once.

Low sec? Wormholes? Industrialists? Traders? Scammers? Haulers? Mercenarys?

Choose any area of the Eve universe you like and you will meet the most incredibly surprising people. Executives will laugh along with factory workers, Uni students with retirees, business owners with the unemployed.

This incredibly beautiful game straddles all the worlds social niches without blinking, so it’s not about a certain social bracket, then.

So who really shouldn’t play Eve? That is a really good question – glad I asked it.

I would think that the unimaginative would not last too long. It would seem youngsters don’t generally enjoy it. We have a sixteen year old in our corp, but he’s not on much because he’s well on his way to becoming a fighter pilot in real life, which speaks volumes about his not fitting the general profile of people his age. The impatient type will not get on with the skill queue thing very well at all. The dull witted will struggle with the complexity and complicated playstyle.

So, it would seem that we of the Eve universe are more closely aligned to the misfit label than anything else.

Interesting, very interesting. I’ve always been a misfit. Not a big socializer, I absolutely hate being near crowds, except when I’m behind a drumkit. Others I know of in Eve aren’t like me as regards socializing, though, so that’s not it. I must admit that everyone I know in Eve is … well … unusual among their social bracket.

What do you think? could this be the answer as to what kind of people we are searching for to join us in our mad universe?

The puzzling question as to what the hell kind of people would like Eve may simply be that and nothing more; we want misfits. I’ve read the words weirdo and freak bandied around with regard to us capsuleers, however I think that’s a generalisation, not to mention a bit insulting, really. Too many of us are well educated and mature in everyday life to bear such labels.

There is something very different about pod pilots though, a certain something in our mental makeup that defines us.

That’s why I can’t review the game, it’s why we all struggle to compile this incredible universe into any sort of meaningful terms. Every BB31 I’ve read so far sees the author struggling with the concept. That’s because Stan has thrown us a curve ball in asking us to review the game called Eve Online.

It’s not the game.

It’s the people.

It’s all in the mind, you know.