We're not gonna take it!

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It (Official Video)

So, I've been reading Poetic Stan's posts on CCP's handling of the reaction to the TOS change. I've been (very loosely) following this on the forums, too. I'm not happy. CCP locked the first thread when things started to get out of hand. That thread did not reach Mintchip -gate levels folks. I don't understand why they do that. There is nothign stopping players from creating another thread, which they did. This is poor community relations management. I'm also not happy that the executives in charge of this decision to change the TOS are throwing the GMs to the lions. Lets be real, the GMs aren't rewriting the TOS, that's executives and their legal team. This whole thing is turning into monocle-gate all over again. And you know what?

Let it.

Let's show CCP we aren't dumb. Their insistence that this was always the policy is false. I understand there was a naming policy out there, that is true, but it was pretty much never enforced. If it was enforced, the worst thing that would happen to you is you had to pick a new character name. NBD.

The new policy could completely outlaw many forms of scamming and emergent game play. It can be enforced with bans. This is the difference between tapping someone politely on the shoulder and asking them to maybe keep it down a bit and smashing them in the face with a hammer.

What do?

Show CCP that we won't tolerate being treated like idiots. It blows my mind that they want to replace a loyal, subscription-paying customer base, with some hypothetical people out there that may have been turned off by EVE's reputation. Because that is where this is headed. Make all of the community leaders quit in disgust and EVE will suffer a mass exodus. Who will fill the void once those existing social connections are broken. EVE is an addicting game. But it's not a very good game. I feel bad introducing it to other people, because it's such a pain in the ass. What makes EVE great is the players.

So we need to show CCP that we won't take this lying down. First of all, I suggest a petition blizzard. Petition the ever-loving f$@k out of everything. Petition every player with the game suggested surname, because they could be confused with other players with the same surname. Petition every James 315, Mittani, Chribba, Entity impersonator. Petition anyone who talks in local. Once CCP has about a 5 year backlog of petitions maybe they will listen.

If all else fails, shoot the damn Jita Monument.

Wherever I May Roam

And the road becomes my bride
I have stripped of all but pride
So in her I do confide
And she keeps me satisfied
Gives me all I need
And with dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge will I save
To the game you stay a slave
Roamer, wanderer
Nomad, vagabond
Call me what you will
-- Wherever I May Roam, Metallica

So, I recently wrote a post about Low Sec, but I left it partially written. Unfortunately, I sort of forgot about that, edited it, and hit "Publish". I wrote a few things about the good and the bad of low security space, but I didn't share any of my ideas about how to make it better.

Typical Low Security Space: Nothing to see here, move along...

As I roam around low sec, my thoughts often flow along the lines of "there is nothing here". Some pirate groups which have hunted what little prey there is mostly to extinction. A few FW plexers that will do anything not to PVP with another player. Some roamers that will only take fights when their (largish) small gang dramatically outnumbers and outclasses (ie. having more support than) any opposition. Don't even get me started on gate campers.

Low sec still needs the "killer app". Something that will bring more people there. There are a few good moons, but that mostly just brings large entities with lots of friends. There is exploration, but its not a very big draw. There are a few DED complexes, but they are rarely run. There is FW, but it mostly draws cloaked, stabbed T1 frigs. 

One idea I had was expand on the idea of what makes low security space low security? The empires nominally own it, but they don't really control it. They just take note of your misdeeds (well, at least Concord does). Enter pirate factions into Faction Warfare. Have empire nations do "incursions" into low sec. Get rid of people with people orbiting buttons. Make them really destroy some ships. Make it so when people warp into your plex, you want to fight them (ie. the reward for doing so is high enough to make you evaluate your chances of winning instead of just warping off). Right now there is no penalty for leaving a plex. Make it a BIG penalty, like it counts down at 10x speed or resets entirely when you warp out.  It would be really sweet to do the Serpentis' dirty work and earn Vindicator and Vigilant BPCs without having to go to null sec.

The problem with low sec is there just really isn't a reason to be there for a lot of people. It's risky, but not much potential for reward exists. Make it so the "Big Leagues" are in low sec and high sec is the "minors". 

I know I was pretty much rambling, but my point is CCP should re-purpose some of the existing content and mechanisms to put some more life in to low sec. Keep sweetening the pot until it draws more and more players. If Malcanis' law kicks in too hard then back off a little bit (what I mean by this if large null sec alliances abandon null sec for the land of fruit and honey then you probably opened the ISK faucet a bit too much). I would like CCP to put stuff in space for people to fight over. Right now I almost exclusively encounter other players on gates, stations, and FW complexes (a few brave miners notwithstanding). I would love some feedback on this.

Stuck in Middle Management Hell

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. 

Bob Porter: Don't... don't care? 

Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now. 

Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon? 

Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses. 

Bob Slydell: Eight? 

Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

-- Office Space, 1999

Just listened to the Crossing Zebras interview with Lovelocke (ENL-I) and it was gratifying to see that my post about TEST was spot on.

Things Lovelocke and I agreed on:

• AFK leadership (due to indifference or RL issues)
• No middle management / bench strength (Middle Management Dino doesn't actually exist)
• Toxic forums / social environment. I guess they finally got sick of the constant chorus of "Kick ENL-I"

Things I laughed at:

• "[I] don't post on Kugu, because it is a cesspit of retards"
• Lovelocke talking about his 30 day forum post ban. If you haven't listed to the interview you should (it's somewhere around the 42 minute point or thereabout). 
• FWEDDIT's recruitment poster: "FWEDDIT: Like TEST but with SOV"

I think that TEST's Curse deployment plan is wayyyy better than the "let's go to the shittiest part of Aridia" plan. That was Lovelocke's recommendation and I'm happy they seem to be taking it. I actually had to restrain myself from re-applying (to TEST). This should give them a chance to catch their breath and regroup. They need to actually get some middle management and effective delegation in place and build their FC roster, while not letting their null sec survival skills atrophy.

Good luck, TEST. Also, I wish ENL-I the best in their new home (GSF). 

TEST Alliance: Please Disband

Memoirs of a Former Middle Management Dino

I've been reluctant to speak about my time in TEST, since I was hoping to keep the door open. I no longer feel that that is necessary. TEST Alliance is a failure. Not because they got kicked from Fountain, but because they failed to achieve enough organization and leadership to stay viable. I want to put a massive disclaimer on this. This my opinion, based on my perceptions as a line grunt, who was in a TEST corp, that wasn't Dreddit. This is not intended as scholarly opinion or a journalistic piece.

Leadership

This is TEST's primary failure. First of all. The alliance leader needs to participate. Montolio's reign was characterized by him "winning Eve" (not logging in). Yes, I realize that there is a lot of back-channel things that go on out of game, but for the most part, he was not involved. Same with rob3r. Yes, we got an occasional Jabber ping, and a quarterly forum post, but that is about all we got out of him. 

Environment

TEST forums were the most hostile, caustic environment I have experienced to date (other than my extremely brief stint with League of Legends . And I spent 8 years in the US Navy submarine force, so that is saying something. If you aren't in the "cool people" clique or an "adorable newbie", pretty much anything you say on the forums will be mercilessly down-voted and you will be verbally insulted. Also, they tolerated some seriously inflammatory posting from certain members. The primary intention of many of these posts was just to set new records for most number of down-votes  but if you tolerate this from some members then you should tolerate it from all of them. Which was not the case. 
Now let me caveat this, by saying I am a firm believer in free speech, even if that free speech is offensive to other. I believe that political correctness is an illogical fallacy, put forth by a delusional minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous and sensationalist mainstream media, that holds that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. I even joined the military to protect the rights of people in my country (the US). That said, I believe it is ok for communities to not tolerate hatefulness.

Team Building

This is where TEST failed the most. They did not attract and retain talented people or build bench strength and delegate properly. Basically a small group of individuals bore most of the responsibilities and then were worked to the point of frustration until they rage quit  The "Goodbye, you guys never appreciated me, I'm joining PL" threads were regular and epic. Their FC boot camp program was horrible, because they constantly purged it. Players with limited time would get kicked before they had enough minimum roams to not get purged. Almost no other group purged as frequently as  this one. After a while I quit rejoining this group, basically every time I wanted to FC a fleet I found that I was purged from the group and no longer had access to the jabber channel to coordinate getting a fleet started. This could have been a major reason that Test has so few FCs. Basically everyone that is overworked felt unappreciated and got butt-hurt and left. It also doesn't help that PL and other major players regularly poach actual talented people. If you can't give someone a good reason to stay then they are certainly not going to ignore an opportunity to join PL.

Random Bullshit

Lack of respect.There are stories about people or groups getting kicked from the alliance and then rejoining and doing the same thing again. This demonstrates a lack of respect and unity, but it happened regularly.
Keeping people in the dark. Again there was a regular pattern of keeping the line grunts in the dark and the "elite" fully informed. When members asked "why" a certain thing was done they mercilessly got down-voted and told "because I said so."
I fully understood the need for OPSEC from my time in the Navy, been there, done that, got the Top Secret clearance. But "I told you so" isn't good enough in a video where you participate voluntarily. I'm not saying we should have space democracy or anything, but when I ask why we are doing something, you owe me an answer.

It's Not All Bad

I did enjoy my corp (Ars Ex Discordia) who were from the Ars Technica community. I have enormous respect for those guys and I had fun when I flew with them (which was not frequent). Unfortunately, the corp is mostly a bitter-vet retirement home, so they weren't as active as I would have liked. But they were good guys and the only reason I stayed in TEST as long as I did.

Life In Low Sec

Just Another Gate Camp

I recently listed to my corp-mates, Rixx Javix and Marc Scarus, have a nice chat with Xander Phoena from Crossing Zebras. I thoght I would add some thoughts on living in lowsec and having a negative security status. 

First, I agree that lowsec can be fun and that it is probably the easiest way to undock and start blazing away at someone. Ok, second easiest. The honor goes to RVB for first place in that category. Often there are fun suprises that you really tend not to see in null sec. Like, ratting orcas, or cosmetic faction ships. You get to shoot people who have no business being there and are ripe for the picking. Sometime you get to turn the tide on people that get too greedy and get lazy.

Second, it's not all champagne and roses. Income is tough to achieve from many sources. Missions could be good, but your mission boat is dangling there on dscan like a prize for piratey types, or you could lose it in a gate camp if you have to move to.another system. Exploration yields barely more than hisec, but not more than nullsec. PVP opportunities can be scarce at times. FW plexers are mostly there for the LP and not to fight (I'm not saying FW types never want to fight). It boggles my mind that CCP made the plex changes that took us from gunless active tanking Incurses (that's the plural of Incursus, isn't it?) to completely unfit ships being viable to farm LP in. I wish FW LP farmers needed the slots used by cloaks and WCS to actively do something to earn LP, rather than mindless spamming d-scan. If that was the case I would consider LP. There really isn't any incentive for these guys to fight. They don't need to win to achieve their objective LP, they just need to outlast the hunter in the chase. I have stayed in systems for 15-30 minutes warping around like a Keystone Kops episode to to try catch plexers that didn't want to be caught. They smack-talked me, saying I would never catch them and I was wasting both of our time. Well, at that time, my objective was to disrupt their slovenly, no effort LP farming. So I was succeeding. But in general they are correct. It is better for me to move on and fight someone that wants to fight than to endlessly warp around. Side note: CCP can we PLEASE let the plex timer count down or reset when the plexer warps out? They should incentivized to fly a well-fit ship and fight not run away and come back right where they left off. Other industrial or PVE activities are much worse in lowsec, due to the lack of intel networks and bubbles.

Then there is security status. The bane of the lowsec pvp'er. Also, the badge of honor. While other people having low security status is fun because you can shoot them whenever you want, its bad when you are the one with low sec status. Everyone else gets to shoot first. In a Frigate battle this can be crucial. Being an outlaw also means you are more vulnerable on gates and stations because you don't get protection from the gate guns.

Why do we keep doing it? I'm not sure. The thrill of the hunt?

Bound For The Floor

I've recently hit a slow spot. I have gone on several solo roams where I didn't kill anything (except a few cyno ships). So I haven't had anything to blog about. The other night a corpmate mentioned he was jumping in a freighter from hisec, so I offered to bring out my trusty "Orca-pusher" Rapier and web him into warp. I did so and spotted some interesting ships on scan. By interesting I mean self-named and they guy they are named after is new. Easy prey. I whacked the limited edition Catalyst that I narrowed to a belt (he was on scan from the Ranielles gate), then found an Algos warping between sites. I saw that he was about a week old. He was on a Novice site acceleration gate and I knew he wasn't going in, I grabbed an Atron and went for him. While in warp I discovered my fit didnt work (I had recently been podded and didn't have any fitting implants in) and I only had 2 guns. I knew it would be enough. It was. Unfortunately, some dude in a Kestrel showed up and sniped my killmail and put a scram on me. I flew out of range and warped off since a 2 gun Atron doesn't have a prayer against a rocket Kestrel. 

On my next roam I was playing around with different ships in my hangar and I fit up a Thrasher. For some reason, I could not get a hold of any Small Core Defence Field Extender I rigs, so I had 2 empty rig spots. Apparently I forgot this, because I undocked and started killing stuff. It was a pretty fun roam. 

I had 2 back to back kills in Murethand. I had a nice conversation about Eve with the Venture pilot that I sent to the clone vat. He was on his third trial account and was just over a week into it. I liked his attitude so I decided to be helpful. When I asked him why he was mining in losec, replied that he just got finished the career missions and had a bunch of frigs so he told himself why not and sought out 0.3 and 0.4 security systems and went to go get in trouble. He asked how to make ISK, so I steered him in an appropriate direction. I was going to send him some ISK, but the truth is the starter missions shower you with more ISK, ships, and skillbooks than you know what to do with at that point, so giving him some welfare would probably just stunt his growth as a capsuleer. After that, I started heading back via Indregulle. There I found a Heron on D-Scan at the sun. Usually this means some noob is looking at his system map and scanning for something. This guy wasn't. He had an alt or booster scouting for him. As soon as I landed I was scrammed, so I wasn't able to pull range as planned. I got a shot or two off, but then he got so close I was missing every shot (250mm arties were fit). So I aligned to a belt and hoped for the best. Once I got to hull, I started spamming warp. Eventually I heard the little buzz sound that the client uses to let you know the agression is over, so I assumed I was in my pod. About half-way through the warp I saw that my modules were still showing. I still had my ship! I was at 77% hull, but I won. Had a nice convo with the guy as I warped back to loot and then got out of Dodge. I repaired at a nearby station and went home.

I didnt kill anything valuable, I didnt make a ton of ISK. Many of my fellow piratey types would call this a bad night. But, I had fun. That's really the important part. Its the reason I can't quit EVE. Every time I want to give up, something cool happens and I keep playing.

June Summary

This is a brief attempt to summarize my activities for June. I really wish I was keeping track of things a lot better (detailed spreadsheets), but... effort.

PVP

A decent month overall. 33 kills (2.76B ISK), 10 losses (0.31B ISK), for 89.95% efficiency overall. About half of them were solo. It's kind of hard to tell exactly since killboards count npc damage as another person on the kill-mails. I've been focusing on flying smaller and cheaper ships. Strangely, my top killing ship was my Rapier with 5 kills, which I don't recall even flying that much. The second place was my Tristan with 4 kills. If I was to guess I would have said that the Tristan was the top killer by a significant margin, because I felt like I spent a lot of time in it. It was my go-to T1 frigate. Amusingly, I had 6 kills in "scanning ships" (Anathema, Probe, Imicus) when combined. Last month I had 4 kills in them. I don't have a good reason for doing this other than laziness and I think killmails with what are traditionally considered non-combat ships are pretty much hilarious. I would be doing battle Badgers (and Iteron Vs) like crazy if the frigate-rebalancing hadn't significantly bumped up the DPS and survivability of T1 frigates.
I need to improve on my target selection. I keep killing shit ships and losing nice ones. I don't know what else to do really, because I do not take fights that I don't think I can win. For the most part anyway, sometimes you need to fly at something and hope the pilot is not on his game. Otherwise you will never get the chance to kill shit-fit battleships with a frigate. I probably also need to expand my hunting grounds a bit. I pretty much restrict myself to the Faction Warfare (FW) systems connected in the shape of the infinity symbol on the DOTLAN Caldari / Gallente FW map. Mostly out of laziness, because I can go on a 10-system and end up in my home system without any backtracking. Hunting FW plexers is like tigers hunting scare mice or something. They almost always run, and frequently don't even bother to fit their ships.

Industry

3 Archons came out of the cooker this month. Acutally the first might have been in May. The first 2 sold and the 3rd is still on the market. I lost a small Caldari research POS, so I'm kind of out of sorts as need to put a replacement back up. I previously had a large POS, but the 400M ISK a month fuel bill got old. I will probably put a medium or large to replace it. A large pay for itself under the right circumstances, but I don't have the capital to buy any more capital component BPOs to make it do so. If I was able to make a reaction/research POS, that might actually be worth-while. I will probably sell the component BPOs to generate some cash to buy materials for more carriers. This is the area where I wish I was more careful in recording income and expenditures.

Trade

I pretty much abandoned my trade hub arbitrage and station trading project. Not consciously, but I sold everything and didn't buy more in order to liquidate my assets to jump-start my capital construction project. I did start up my company store for my compatriots in Hevrice. Right now I have about 2.2B ISK in sell orders. I am doing a little bit  better at keeping track of this, but not as much as I would like. I will continue to expand my item list and optimizing it a bit. There are some items I have listed that I'm pretty sure I sold absolutely none of in the past month. I am primarily using EVE Mentat to keep track of this. I am going to have to do some spreadsheeting to identify the slow-movers and move them to a hub to dump. This provides a steady stream of income that is continually funneled back into itself.

Exploration/PVE

Nothing to speak of, except for preparations for running some Epic Arcs for the phat stacks of cash. I am considering running some more COSMOS missions, which I haven't done any for 3 years, but from what I can recall, they don't really pay that well and if you aren't a regular mission runner, you probably won't have the standings to do too much beyond the level 1/2 missions. I do plan to run some exploration sites during quiet times in the upcoming month.

Summary

My play time has been pretty limited lately, at least compared to what I might have done in times past. I have a lot more commitments now that I am married and have a family. I struggle occasionally to properly balance family and gaming in my free time. Sometimes I do wonder where having a hobby ends and addiction begins, but at least it is something that I am conscious of. 
I need to make a new corp wallet division to keep the different money-making activities differentiated.