How Goodfights are Won

A while back, Paul Clavet of My Loot Your Tears post on the Cooper Colors and Ooda Loops.  One of the things that he doesn’t talk about much (because it just isn’t that important to a person on their own) is how long it takes for information to be fed along the loop.  For a person that tends to be nearly instantaneously, or close enough between people that it isn’t the main factor deciding the engagement.  Organizations are very different.

Let’s take two fleets, one travelling along to a POS they plan on finishing off, the other set up to trap them.  Both have similar fleet comps, and a workable plan for how they want to fight.  The travelling fleet is enforcing very harsh comms discipline, most members are muted, except for scouts, task leaders, and the FC.  The defending fleet has comms open but supposedly on “Battlecomms” with people told to STFU when they talk.

The Observe step now takes quite a bit longer.  The defending scout sees the fleet incoming (Observe) pops his D-scan, gets a snapshot of the incoming fleet and decides how to report it (Orient/Decide) then starts talking to the FC (Act) at which point the FC can *START* his OODA loop.  He assesses the enemy fleet composition compared to his own, (Observe/Orient) decides that it’s worth engaging and orders his bait into position (Decide/Act) the bait group has a bit of a head start, they probably heard the scout’s report and that let them realize what was coming so they can more or less skip straight to act.

The attacking fleet’s bait component (the portion reported by the scout) lands and engages the defender’s bait.  Defenders drop a cyno and bridge in reinforcements.  At this point comms are fairly calm, people are reporting the reinforcements but most folks are muted so comms, while elevated, are not overwhelmed.  The FC can still pass orders and drops his own cyno to bring in his own reinforcements.  The defender’s comms are overwhelmed nearly instantly with reports of ships coming in.  The communication channel breaks down and while the FC can still Observe, Orient, and Decide, he cannot Act as he has no means to let his will be known.  Even if he has a plan or counter to whatever has happened, he cannot communicate it, the attacking fleet is now inside the defender’s fleet’s loop, if not the actual FC’s.

Being inside someone’s OODA loop is lethal.  At this point there are so very few ways to change the equation so fundamentally that unless the attacking fleet makes a huge mistake, the defender likely has no control over the situation at all.  Only by a supreme effort to break the attacker’s loop can the defender regain an equal footing.  Think of trying to coordinate a “Combo Breaker” in a fighting game where you had to communicate the plan to a fleet of people and get them to do it right the first time.  Not easy.

The fastest way to win a fight is to break the other sides OODA loop.  Whether it’s having spais reporting everything from the other sides comms or even adding extraneous or simply wrong information  or attacking them in a way that they don’t predict in a place or time they don’t predict anything to generate surprise, shock, or confusion.  In real life this causes panic, in EvE you usually have to settle for confusion, either way you get the win.  Just remember, the more complicated your plan is, the more things you need to go right, the longer you make YOUR OODA loop, and the easier you make it for other people to get inside on you.

I’m using it every time I can

Alliance Tournament Flap

Lots of people have weighed in on this, but perhaps unsurprisingly no one seems to have anything to say to defend Hydra and Outbreak.  I don’t give a rats ass about either of them.  I don’t have a dog in the hunt, no horse in the race, whatever.  However what I’m seeing seems like a bunch of people ganging up on someone and doing it using some somewhat disingenuous methods.

First let’s talk about Hydra and Outbreak’s history.  We get that these alliances are closely aligned.  They are hardly the only alliances like that in EvE.  Nearly every alliance in the game has connections with some other alliance.  They are closer than many, and they understand this.  Last year the openly colluded and threw the finals match which had to be humiliating for CCP during such a highly publicized event.  It was also an awesome demonstration of the power of the EvE metagame.  The biggest difference between that scam and the average scam in Jita was the victim.  To CCP I say the same thing I say to anyone who gets scammed in Jita.  HTFU.

This year they took additional steps to protect themselves.  They e-mailed and petition CCP for clarifications on rulings.  CCP either refused to answer or gave them the go ahead.  Now I am going to talk a bit about the responsibilities of a company and it’s official representatives.  I am going to make this point from the point of view of someone who has extensive knowledge about how important proper dissemination of information is.  When a CCP Employee makes an official policy statement using official channels it has to be upheld.  If for whatever reason it can’t be the reasons should be absolutely open and transparent.  This didn’t happen.  Sreegs removes two alliances from the tournament.  Two very successful alliances.  They worsened the competition.  They say they did it because

 Unfortunately Hydra and Outbreak are working from the same playbook as last year, practicing together in a single corporation on the test server in a single wormhole. We view them as they represent themselves, which mirrors how they represented themselves last year, as a single entity. For that reason they are barred from competition having entered the tournament masquerading as two units while functioning in reality as one.

Apparently Sreegs has decided to draw the line with them being in a single corporation.  Fine.  What’s the difference between that and just being in the same wormhole at other ends?  From what I see other posters saying that’s the Goons/Test method.  Let’s see what the official rules are regarding B teams.  From the Dev Blog Post:

We will be actively removing those alliances that try and add a ‘B’ or ‘C’ team. We want everyone to have a fair chance but stacking the deck in this manner will not be permitted. This removal will also include the main alliance if we detect anyone trying to field more than one team.

Well glad we could clear that up.  That certainly leaves no room for error on what criteria are being used to judge what a ‘B’ team is.  Realizing that this “definition” of ‘B’ or ‘C’ teams was beyond vague, and very sensitive after his recent tangles with CCP, Garmon took the step of asking for clarification through official channels.  CCP’s representative responded with an answer.  On the basis of that answer, Hydra and Outbreak proceeded as planned.  Then Sreegs stepped in.  Ignoring the already in place GM response, he banned both teams, and went ahead and banned one team out of the PL/Your Votes Don’t Count duo.  Here again we see some interesting decisions being made.  CCP is throwing their own employee under the bus, saying we can’t trust GMs.  @ArnarHrafn recently asked:

How do you think we compare to other MMO’s when it comes to handling petitions #tweetfleet

At the time I responded with “My Logs Show Nothing” and generally going on to state that I had little trust in the sytem.  Arnar responded that they had updated it and I would see it was much better if I used it.  Arnar:  Seems to me like nothing really changed.  GMs are still untrustworthy because they either don’t know what TO say or don’t know what they CAN say.  If we are to trust any CCP representative we have to have some level of trust for all of them.  If a GM can be overruled with this level of finality, why should ANYONE use the petition system?  If anyone in the game has a question CCP clearly doesn’t trust it’s GMs enough to answer these issues so we should just flood the forums and look for Dev responses.

Now let’s look at PL and Your Votes Don’t Count.  Again quoting the rules:

This removal will also include the main alliance if we detect anyone trying to field more than one team.

So why is PL still in?  If Your Votes Don’t Count was considered a ‘B’ team, then PL should go too.  This is actually the one part of the rule I’d consider clear.  If you remove one you remove both right?  Of course expecting consistency from CCP is like expecting consistency from Springtime weather at this point.

Now let’s look at the player response.  I’m going to focus mostly on one guy.  Ripard Teg.  Had he posted this as “Garth” I might have given him a pass.  However he did it under his “own” name and he accuses Outbreak/Hydra of using childish tactics.  Going to mommy when daddy doesn’t give them the answer they wanted.  Daddy didn’t give an answer.  Mommy gave one then Daddy punished anyway.  Of course he goes to great length to build and strengthen his argument.  He goes too far.  Here’s a quote:

However we are very concerned that we might be breaking CCP’s interpretations of certain rules without being aware of it.

We are very concerned that we might be breaking certain rules.

We are breaking rules.

Frankly that’s rank amateur, headline grabbing, grandstanding bullshit.  That is literally changing the facts of the case to fit your argument.  I understand that Garmon’s credibility right now is at a low point, but this is a knife in the back even by those standards.  What Garmon said:

we are very concerned that we might be breaking CCP’s interpretations of certain rules without being aware of it.

doesn’t mean:

We are breaking rules.

It means:

Hey what the hell are the rules exactly?  What is the line between collusion, cooperation, and what exactly defines a farm team?

but that doesn’t sound nearly so scandalous so we’ll go ahead and change it right Ripard?

Finally Ripard compares Hydra/Outbreak to Aperture Harmonics.  I might have a bit of an advantage on him.  I wrote for EvE-Tribune here and talked to both sides.   Got their stories and information.  AHARM asked if things were working as intended in Nova.  They provided no information what might NOT be working, they were not asking for a rules clarification, they just asked a GM if things were ok.  Hydra/Outbreak asked a specific question, and got a specific answer.  That’s a BIG difference.

CCP could and should have handled this differently.  If they wanted to ban Hydra and Outbreak because of what happened last year, they should have done it.  It’s their game and if they are going to be “unfair” about it they don’t need to sneak around.  They can just say “Fine, well played.  See you again never,” or some such.  By letting them get this far, put in the effort they already put in and THEN pulling the rug out from them under some legalistic equivocation they look more like a deranged Grand Vizier pulling strings behind their own curtain.  Then CCP goes and breaks their own rule by dropping Your Votes Don’t Count and keeping PL.  Clear, concise rules, with consistent enforcement.  It’s a simple goal.  CCP dropped the ball and the community is cheering them on for it.  As for Sreegs outro:

With all that said we’re looking forward to moving on and making Alliance Tournament X the best and most competitive tournament ever so enjoy the rest of your evening!

Hydra won 9, and came in 2nd in 8, the only reason the insane finals match happened in 9 was that Hydra and Outbreak both won through against each other.  If CCP wants to eliminate ‘B’ and ‘C’ teams, have them face each other in the first elimination round.  Don’t throw your employees under the bus with bad rulings.

I’m using it every time I can

You Got Story in MY EvE

NPC story in EvE is rather limited.  The Role-Play community rather decries it and swarms all over live events every time they happen.  I am not a huge fan of role plying but I do pay some attention to the RP community.

Today my attention was called to a thread on the EvE online Forums.  The most common refrain was “Join nullsec wars and make your own storyline. That’s what makes Eve great for me. Players make history. Not devs and writers.”  and comments like it.  Here’s my problem with that; not everyone wants to drive their own story, not everyone can handle or enjoys the skulduggery, chest beating, and occasional infantile outbursts that happen in null.

I’ve been part of a major, successful alliance all of twice.  With Cult of War I took part in the great wars of nullsec, and found I enjoyed greatly the sense of community, the battles and even some of the reverses.  Sadly it ended badly, with COW being chased out of null in ignominy.  The loss of resources, opportunities, and friends was painful, but not very.

FWA was something else entirely.  The alliance literally flew apart in a mess of backstabbing and accusations.  All the opportunities, all the friendships, all the effort and all the hopes wrecked by other players.  As a CEO I had very little say in what happened, the rank and file had practically no say at all in what happened.

I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to go into that end of the pool.  Even highsec in EvE is a deeper, more dangerous pool than other MMOs.  We put sharks in the shallow end.  The deep end has monsters.  At the same time historically CCP has done a lot of storytelling from live events in highsec, to chronicles, to news events.  This gives interesting content to people who want to play the game, but don’t want to subject themselves to the whims of the “monsters” of EvE.

I may be am harsh towards the more bearish elements of EvE but frankly they play the game to, and bringing them in is one of the surest ways of having more PvP players and targets.  Eventually they will sharpen their teeth and claws and move on to bigger things, or at least find a way to make my ships cheaper.  However with the EvE story languishing, or being provided in what amounts to a single channel dominated by the Mittanis, Helicitis and their ilk.  This means that people who can’t see the point in EvE, or who might want to try but aren’t into the “hardcore pvp scene” don’t have an alternative that they can see.  We might know better as players, but what do people coming in see?  What opportunities are available to people who want to SEE the story, but might not was to really CONTRIBUTE to it?

CCP can look at it, and weight the positives and negatives.  They probably have.  In my experience the communities in MMORPGS scream bloody murder on the forums in the hierarchy of PvPers > “hardcore” PVErs > Regular PVErs > Market Goons > RPers.  This has almost nothing to do with how important that portion of the community is, how big it is, or the state of its issue of the moment.  PvP could be completely brilliant and PvP folks will whine and scream about something.  Market could be buried under a horde of bots and there will be whispers.  RP could languish without an update for years and the RP folks get ignored as they post in character on their own forums decrying the uncaring NPCs lack of interaction.

Empire needs to change in some fashion.  The actions taken by both the capsuleer players and the NPC leaders need to be seen.  The universe needs more awesome.  Most of EvE doesn’t care about the 412th battle of NOL.  They want to see what happened in Jita.  More players have been to Jita than NOL.  It shouldn’t take a lot of resources, heck the team working on it seems to have always had a handful of people.   CCP doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, they do need to push it once in a while though.

I’m using it every time I can

Quick Hits

Inferno:

CCP is missing something in their patch.  They’ve made a lot of good changes, especially to FW and the modules, but I strongly suspect that it will fall just a bit flat on the wardec front.  I have a big draft on this that needs a bit of editing before I inflict it upon you.

Hulkageddon:

Big whiff last night on a smartbombing attack for Fancy Hats.  Failures happen but that one stung just a bit.  1.2 Trillion isk destroyed, over 3600 kills and plenty of mayhem for the longest running Hulkageddon yet.

Blizzard = Good Guys

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/14/blizzard-fixing-game-australias-mess-giving-diablo-3-to-those/

Will be writing a lot on this move as well.  This might be one of the most awesome moves by a gaming company this year from a whole lot of standpoints  Seriously brilliant.  When I have time I will inflict my nollij on you here as well.

Fly Dangerous

I’m using it every time I can

Massively Singleplayer

Recently Diablo III has launched.  I’m assuming I need to tell you this because about the only reason I can think of for you to be reading a blog about a different game is that you are unaware, but hang on just a minute (or read while you download and patch it)

I’ve seen a lot of people referring to Diablo III as an MMO, at first I laughed.  Then I thought about it.  Most “MMO” games, and especially the theme parks are broken into 2 games.  There’s the leveling game, and the endgame.  I’m going to look at SWTOR right now, it’s the newest theme park, and it nicely fits this pattern.  From 1-49 there is no need for a reasonably competent MMO player to even talk to someone let alone interact more meaningfully than sending them credits through the auction house for a shiny new lightsaber.  Suddenly at level 50 this ends abruptly.  Suddenly nearly all of the content requires interaction with other people.  PvE at 50?  You can run dailies forever but it’s all about raids.  PvP by definition requires interaction with other people.  Or you can level an alt and go back to ignoring the masses.

Diablo III requires you to be online and connected to the internet.  Mostly to ensure the integrity of the game because there is NO need to interact with people.  It’s the same game as both games before it.  Lots of clicking, frantic action, fun gameplay and a world that couldn’t be more pessimistic.  Seriously the end of the world happened 20 years ago.

What does this have to do with EvE?  Well EvE is all over the place in interaction.  There’s people who play for years without any serious interaction.  There’s people who join a 5,000 man + corporation on their first day.  EvE also doesn’t let you be the sole decision maker.  Ask all the miners in noob corps who’ve won eggs this month about whether they get a choice about the “Multiplayer” aspect of EvE.  Part of this is a game design issue.  CCP has decided that they aren’t going to create true “endgame” content merely a scale of content for people to go through.  In theory a player could play for a few weeks and find himself running wormhole sites, joining an incursion fleet, pvping in null or any combination of the above all with less than a million skillpoints.  I’m not saying he’d be any good but he might contribute, and would certainly contribute far more than someone with less than 5% of the experience points of someone running a raid in WoW or SWTOR ever could.  The end result of this no demarcation in content between the low skilled and highly skilled players is a more free channel of communication, interaction, and a wider variety of gameplay activities.

I commented to a friend yesterday “If I told you 10 years ago there’d be a Star Wars MMO, a Star Trek MMO, and a Lord of the Rings MMO and that you played NONE of them, nor ever had, instead playing a cutthroat game based on an original IP would you have believed me?” and he responded with:

“Not for a second, and you are leaving out Battlestar Galactica.”

EvE is a unique game.  For years they’ve been cutting their own course of unscripted, open gameplay with players in the drivers seat.  Nearly every other MMO heads towards more scripted, less interactive content, to the point where people call Diablo III an MMO and I can’t honestly say they are wrong without qualifying my answer.  That’s why EvE gets people playing it.  Because EvE only tells me what I can’t do, and even those limits aren’t much.  Everyone else is telling me what I can do, and again, that’s not very much.

But don’t take my word for it.  Your download just finished.  See you back in EvE in a couple weeks.

I’m using it every time I can

 

EvE Propaganda

Propaganda has a complicated role in EvE.  Sometimes it is used to stir up friends and allies to greater activity.  Sometimes to brag and chestbeat about achievements, sometimes to impart key lessons to people.  Often it is aimed at targets, outside the “friends” circle.  EvE has an incredibly diverse community with styles of art, and music running the gamut from the silly, to the sincere, to the breathtaking. At the silly end of the spectrum you have bits like the now defunct I Drawed Sum Spaceships or Little Bees to the more dramatic stylings of Rixx Javix (One of which is at the top of this page I am quite pleased to say, another version graces my Corp Killboard,) to the very focused propaganda put out by Goonswarm in a steady stream lately.

And that isn’t even the top of the iceberg for goons.

Propaganda serves a lot of purposes.  It can affect how you are seen internally, how you are seen externally, it can rally your supporters and demoralize your enemy.  Sometimes an elegant message can spur people to great efforts and sometimes it can crush the will of your foes.  One of the best examples of the latter is a message The Mittani had recently:

The Mittani ‏ @TheMittani

http://i.imgur.com/Gg4dD.jpg 175 dreads have no need for a witty tagline. #tweetfleet#eveonline

Image links to this:

How would you feel if you were responsible for stopping that fleet?  How likely would you be to bring out the super shinys?

On the other hand when the south invaded Northern Coalition years ago they came out with posters like this:

in order to rally support of the rather notorious carebear horde that was the old NC to drive off BoB (whatever they were called that week) Atlas, -A- and god-knows-who-else (I missed the carrier move.  I’m not unhappy about that outcome.) What really made this effort so amazing was that it didn’t create a head to head clash of the titans battle.  It created a situation where the BoB coalition literally could not make people stuck in that system log in because they were trapped in a massively lagged-out system.  Probably not the most noble victory but wins and losses go in the books.  This was a huge win for NC and opened up Atlas for it’s crushing defeat as its pets were isolated and destroyed before finally the bell tolled for Atlas itself.

Additionally propaganda can commemorate specific events that transcend one corp or alliance.  Hulkageddon is a great example going on right now from THIS to THIS to THIS (my favorite but I’m slightly biased) to

My own awful contribution.  The irony of the Hulkageddon posters is they advertise an event based entirely on surprise and ambushing people.  Even funnier is that people still ARE surprised despite the heavy advertising.

Propaganda can be good, it can be bad.  The good is memorialized forever, the bad sinks quickly.  The best ever?  You’ve all seen it before.

This poster is OLD in EvE Terms.  It’s simple, it’s effective, and I strongly doubt it will ever be surpassed, this poster more than anything created the Goonswarm that exists today and has become the engine driving much of the player-generated content in EvE.

I’m using it every time I can

Hulkageddon Math

Assumptions:

1. Average Hulk Destroyed During Hulkageddon:  334.8 Million Isk
2. Average Covetor Destroyed During Hulkageddon:  51.6 Million Isk
3. Mining in a Covetor makes 10 million / hour
4. Mining in a Hulk makes 12 million / hour
5. 2.48% of active pilots are in Hulks and all Hulks are undocked and active (Q4 2010 QEN, someone get me new numbers!)
6. 30k pilots are active on average around the clock
7. EvE-Kill’s Hulkageddon killboard is fundamentally accurate.

Get ready for Maths.  Mining in a Covetor for 24 hours is worth 240 Million – (% chance of losing your ship) * (Value of your ship).  For a Hulk it’s 288 Million -(% chance of losing your ship) * (Value of your ship).  Let’s plug in the known numbers.

• 240-x%(51.6) for a Covetor
• 288-x%(334.8) for a Hulk

744 Hulks are flying around the clock according to my assumptions.  432 Have been killed in the 15 days since Hulkageddon started.  That means that each day 28.8 Hulks have died.  That’s 3.87% plug in the numbers (assuming the rate is the same) and you get

• 238 million isk / day for the Covetor
• 275 million isk / mining day for the Hulk

Now these numbers aren’t terribly accurate, the amount made per hour is probably fairly close to what a smart miner can make with his pride and joy, and the difference in rate certainly is accurate, but the big problem is the number of ships undocked.  Let’s assume that the isk/hour is right as is the rate differential.  Now we figure out the break even point.  I’ll save you the formulas and tell you I came up with 15.5% So if 15.5% of mining ships died during the course of their mining day a Covetor would be worth the same as a Hulk.

Remember where I assumed every single Hulk was mining actively if it was logged on?  Let’s drop that assumption.  Let’s say only 1/3 of online Hulks are mining.  The others are AFK, hiding, spinning, whatever.  11.6% have died.  Doing Math again:

• Covetor yields 234 million isk/mining day
• Hulk yields 249 million isk / mining day

Conclusions:  Mining in a Hulk during Hulkageddon is still a profitable venture overall compared to mining in a Covetor.  Gankers haven’t done enough damage to make mining in a Hulk unprofitable.  In order to create a situation where a Hulk undocking to mine loses money on average compared to a covetor, the odds of killing it have to be 15.55% of all hulks killed.  To make it worth 0 isk to undock, something over 90% of Hulks undocking would have to be killed at some point in their day.

I’m using it every time I can

Count ALL the ships

My inventory is a MESS.  And I have lots of stuff.

I recently inherited all of a friends stuff when he quit EvE.  ALL of his stuff.  Both of us are pack rats.

Megathron:  Old sniper style stuck in nullsec along with an

Eagle: Yup.  They stink

and a

Ferox:  I actually *really* like the rox, and think it will likely be one of the better ships after CCP changes around the BCs post Inferno.

10 Hurricanes:  8 inherited from a friend, split evenly between shield and armor canes.  2 of my own, both armor.

3 Ruptures:  2 unfit, one gank cruiser fit.

2 Tengus:  1 Inherited, 1 set up for null plexing

1 Osprey:  Set up for mining.  This ship might be old.

1 Absolution:  Inherited ship, incursion fit.

4 Basilisks:  3 incursion fit, 1 6:0 2 5:1 and 1 “PvP” fit.  Two inherited.

2 Typhoons:  I actually think this is a fun ship considering I’ve only flown them on SiSi.

2 Primae:  Inherited.

8 Badgers:  2 Mk 1s, 6 Mk2s,  2 of which are Battle Badgers.

1 Echelon:  Lost mine somehow.  Inherited a replacement

1 Scythe:  Not sure what for.

2 Claymores:  Slightly different fits.  One of the more fun command ships if you don’t want to put a loki out there.

2 Caracals:  Hate ‘em.  Gonna fix that later tonight

1 Crane:  Inherited

1 Damnation:  Because perfect armor leadership skills demand a 400k ehp command ship.

5 Guardians:  Because they are awesome and I never have one near me when I need one.  2 are inherited

Mach:  Armor fit.  Inherited.  Gonna change THAT puppy around you had better believe…

Muninn:  Fun little boat.

3 Dominixes.  Dominixi.  Domis:  Most versatile boat in EvE.  One has a 140k ehp tank.  One has a 1300+DPS gank, one is a lazy man’s level 4 mission runner.  All from the same hull.

Rokh:  Who doesn’t want 180k ehp on a gank BS?

Daredevil:  Gotta replace the one I lost stupidly.

Zephyr:  Whatevs.

Abaddon:  MASSIVE MASSIVE armor tank.

4 Harbingers:  2 shield tank, 2 armor tank, all fun.

3 Ishkurs:  Clearly I’m overcompensating for something.

2 Sleipnirs:  Never test out fits without making sure you are actually in SiSi.

Thorax:  GANKYOUMUTHA *ahem*

3 Myrms:  The little brother to the Domi.  Another ridiculously versatile ship.

1 Jag:  Haven’t got the hang of this yet.

Vengeance:  Haven’t lost it yet, I should get on that.

Zealot:  FINALLY scored a kill with it in a WH.  Fun little boat, but fit in the rather dated “Brofist” style.

Blackbird:  Because FU that’s why.  Lots of jams.

3 Thrashers:  Pew Pew

3 Catalysts:  Because somewhere there’s a Hulk AFK in a belt.

Curse:  Powerful, Sinister, Awesome.

3 Armageddons:  My favorite battleship when DPS is on the menu.  Simply stupid damage out to great range.

2 Oracles:  1 beam fit, 1 pulse fit.  I love the Tier 3 BCs

Proteus:  A homage to the nasty R&K fit.

Megathron Navy Issue:  I promise you it isn’t bait.  Really it’s not.

3 Scimitars:  I love them as I love all logis.

3 Drakes:  Another stupendously versatile ship.  Also one staring nervously at the nerf hammer hovering over its head.

2 Maelstroms:  Still trying to get the hang of this bad boy, but MAN does it look great on paper.

Huginn:  Everyone hates this guy.  TPs and Webs can totally ruin your day.

Arazu:  Another recon everyone hates seeing pop up.

Tristan:  THE FAT MAN ENTERS

Taranis:  Because everyone needs to create safespots sometime.

3 Enyos:  They got a LOT better with the AF fix didn’t they folks?

Oneiros:  Still wrapping my head around this one.  I think it’s awesome, but I haven’t got it right yet.

5 Moas:  Because there’s no T1 cruiser more disposable than this ugly bastard.

Crow:  MAEK ALL THE SAEFSPOTS

Tornado:  Because 8x1400mms of FU has to be given.

Naga:  Another ship that I think a lot of despite never using.

Devoter:  Ugh.  Crap fit.  Great for lowsec camping but not something I’d want to lose as the humiliation would be unbearable.

Falcon:  Nothing in EvE gets primaried faster.

Raptor:  MOAR bookmarks.

4 Buzzards:  I keep acquiring these things for wormhole ops.

2 Manticore:  They’ll never see it coming.

3 Rifters:  Best ship in the game available to most players in their first week.

Bantam:  Another mining holdover

Navy Slicer:  Zoom and boom!

Bustard:  Inherited.  I can’t even sit in it.

Ashimmu:  A curse covered in blood and lazzors.

Breacher:  Can flipper.  They never see it coming.

Apotheosis:  Yay.

Crusader:  Yup.  More safespots.

Kestrel:  Light all the cynos.  Do it in a kestrel.

Slasher:  Don’t even begin to know why.

Loki:  I’m in your nullsec ratting my sec up.

Purifier:  Fun for ganking hulks in wormholes I guess?

Nemesis:  The fat man hiding in plain sight.

As far as names go, 90%+ are named _██_ because I’m the CEO of Fancy Hats and it looks like a hat.  Some notable exceptions are gank BS.  ”Say Hello to my DPS” “GANKYOU” and the “Lady Slut” (Megathron) Other ships might have functional names.  For example at one point I had 40 catalysts, so when I fit them I named them “G2G” for “Good to Go” You try fitting 40 gank ships in one sitting and keeping track of them.

I’m using it every time I can

Defining Narrative

But first and most importantly:  Congrats to the newest member of the Blog Pack:  The Nosy Gamer.  He’s been providing solid information on the sordid side of EvE for a long time, and was even recognized by a speaker at Fanfest for his efforts.  If you haven’t bookmarked him already, you should.  Also back in the pack are Rixx Javix’s Evoganda and Helicity Boson.  I’m surrounded by giants and for once am truly humbled when I see the company I’m in.

Now to Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax.

Narrative is a key part to any game.  I’m not talking the strict, dictionary definition of “a story or account of events, experiences, or the like,whether true or fictitious.” I’m talking about narrative in the sense of “The story you yourself take part in in the game you play.”  EvE gives a huge challenge to its players.  CCP doesn’t hand them a narrative.  CCP doesn’t carry them from “Kill Ten Rats” to “Kill Deathwing” because CCP thinks that a cornerstone of the game is the players choosing their options.

Your narrative is defined by the actions you take and the ramifications they have on you, combined with the actions others take and the ramifications those actions have on you.  The narrative is a collaborative effort.  You alone do not define your experience.  In a multiplayer game, without set paths, other people will interact with you, as you will interact with them.  Your influences will color each others efforts.  The narrative you experience is influenced heavily by you and your choices, but other people can, at times, heavily influence you, or even take over your narrative for a time.

The key to remember as a player, is that your intentions drive you to encounters, like scenes or chapters in a book.  Those encounters play out with multiple players, and everyone gets a say.  You will notice some words didn’t turn up in this post.  ”Fair” and “Fun” for example.  This isn’t an accident.  Fair doesn’t exist.  Fun is your responsibility.  EvE provides shovels and sand and buckets.  Building and defending castles is your responsibility.

I’m using it every time I can

The Ego Takes Over

Egos are an important factor in EvE at pretty much any level.  They drive people to do things that might not be terribly well advised whether it’s a corporation, an alliance, a lone pilot, or a blog writer.  Today I’m going to take a look at a few examples of these ill-advised misadventures.  First, being an ego-centric jerk, I’m going to look at myself.

I consider myself a good PvPer.  Not a great one, and I’ve done pretty well at solo PvP.  A little while ago I had a failfit daredevil I wanted to lose.  And I did.  This was actually a REALLY good fight that I wish I’d frapsed.  I yo-yod in an out several times trying to find a sweet spot where I could get damage on him without getting blapped but in the end he managed to tag me and I lost the ship.  Deciding that I should show this upstart how it was done.  And I didn’t.  While I managed to pop his retriever, my tail was FIRMLY tucked between my legs.  I almost brought back a sentinel, which I’m quite sure would have ruined his day, but decided I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I lost that too.  Here my ego drove me to two mistakes.  The first was to go back in a rifter against a ship that was pretty much made to butcher frigates.  He easily has several times my tank, and enough DPS to kill me if he can catch me and I was sloppy enough to let him catch me, then I knew exactly the ship to bring to get some revenge and I neglected to offer battle, even with success nearly assured with the ship I had in the wings.  A cruor would have been even more fun come to think of it.

At the corp level, well, where to start.  Again I’ll pick on my own corp.  Fancy Hats currently has 13 people, of whom 12 have been active in the last week, with 9 contributing kills.  Percentage wise that’s fucking fantastic.  Of course one is a temporary alt, and another one will probably leave soon after Hulkageddon ends.  So really we have 11, 9, and 8.  Like many other corps we have dreams and aspirations.  We want to find a home, be it in low or nullsec.  The easiest way would of course be to find an established corp that’s recruiting and just go.  However we’ve gotten attached to our little kingdom.  We are proud of its accomplishments and its unrealized potential.  It does cost us.  There have been opportunities we have flat out missed.  Invitations we simply haven’t taken because we want to stay under our own flag.  For example we’d love the chance to fly with a AA or AAA alliance in null or low, shake things up a bit and really dig into the big picture experience of EvE.  We threw out some feelers and ended up in S I L E N T..  That ended… Poorly.  had some fun, met some good people but the alliance just fell apart.

Now not all of that is ego.  Some of it is us wanting to challenge the odds and show that we do have the chops to contribute to a major alliance.  However we could do some real damage other ways and make our mark, choosing to do it this way is as much me wanting to keep Fancy Hats going as my leadership saying “LET’S DO THIS!”

Alliances.  Old-School CVA.  Thinking the game revolved around them, bringing in the sick the poor, the downtrodden, and getting them trod on again.  Their high-handedness with their allies and their assumption that the stars would line up for them and their concept of how the narrative of EvE would play out in their favor resulted in countless losses for their pilots and allies.  The new leadership put a thorough cleansing on the whole edifice of the alliance and seems to have gotten the fires out and the ship righted, but it has been a long and painful process.

Finally blogs, the meta game, what have you.  Everyone knows I will pick Mittens, so I wont.  Instead I’ll pick on Roc Wieler. Go ahead and hit his site if you have a few hours to read and try to find something with more than a whispy, tenuous connection to EvE.  He usually has 1 a month that a dedicated EvE player could figure out is EvE related.  For a post that is actually ABOUT EvE you have to go back to around October.  OCTOBER.  LAST YEAR PEOPLE.  If I wanted a fitness blog he’d be fantastic, he really does come up with some decent workouts.  He’s not an EvE blogger anymore.  He hasn’t been for a long time and he clogs up the feeds with his rambling rules, “In-character” posts that have nothing to do with events in the game (as opposed to the excellent posts Mike Azariah does over at A Missioner in EvE.  Roc’s blog has devolved in smug ego-stroking that only becomes more and more annoying with every post and major announcement.  When he ran Capsuleer it was fantastic, a huge contribution to the community and his blog posts talked about things in the game.  Now?  It’s been more than 6 months since he posted something that a casual reader would know was about EvE.  Yet he keeps going, calling it an EvE blog.

All of these are cases of Ego.  Some hurt the player, some hurt many, and some really don’t affect many people at all.  Ego is a factor.  If your recognize your own you can figure out when you are making a mistake and adjust your plan.  Self-knowledge is an important part of your toolkit in a game as cutthroat as EvE.  Bringing this to the table will help you win the fights you need to win.

I’m using it every time I can