Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed tocrazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who’ve been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has your gaming style evolved through the years or months since you’ve started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance – say manufacturing. Let’s hear your story!

Getting near to my third year in EVE — I started in August 2007 — and I still haven’t seen it all, though I’ve certainly been around. Being a carrier pilot is something that will get ticked off this year, after which I need a new list. And while I never say never, 0.0 sov and all it entails is something I hold no real interest in, which is the only area I’ve not really poked my nose into.

A short summary of my carreer could be described as carebear gone pirate but remaining true to that carebear side. And then there is the constant of roleplaying all through the years. The specifics? Well, keep reading.

Alts

• Same account: Valnurana, my trader, newbie hauler and alliance executor resides on the same account as Myrhial, as for a long time I was very stubborn about getting a second account and did not have the income to pay one with PLEX. She’s mostly retired now. Also have the placeholder CEO for Ghost Festival sitting in the third slot.
• Different account: Faber Demaunier is my miner and has taken over the role of hauler from Valnurana. She will eventually take over the role of trader too. Will probably go down the path of research and manufacturing in the future, or mission running, or even both.

Carebear

• Exploration: A constant throughout my career, with which I share a love / hate relationship. Have gotten a rare few good catches, an overall steady income when focusing on radar plexes, but also a great many sites that just were a waste of ammo. Primarily focussed on these in lowsec.
• Research: I have personally researched all blueprints in my possession and aided PRELI with researching blueprints which were payment for the POS tower they received in exchange.
• Manufacturing: Mainly making my own ammo when running missions, or produce rigs for my own use to save some ISK on fitting ships. A few months back I finished Production Efficiency V and started buying up cheap salvage to create rigs and sell them at profit. Not a bad income for the slight effort it takes.
• Mission runner: My earliest source of income. Have done both combat missions and couriers in highsec, lowsec and nulsec, and have worked for the Caldari, Amarr, Thukker and Angel Cartel.
• R&D: I’ve got five agents working for me and once every few months I blitz through highsec to collect my earnings. A nice wallet booster but not as good as it used to be back in the days.
• Mining: I once mined in a Procuror — lol terrible ship — in lowsec just for the sheer lulz. I still get poked fun at for that. When I was a wee lil’ pirate I mined a few lowsec gneiss plexes in an Osprey, but other than that I leave this to Faber.
• Wormholes: Potato RR fleets make quick work of Sleepers, and getting near 100 mil a person for a few hours work is great. While quite dull in itself — point drones at broadcasted target and sit back — the vent chatter does get me through it.
• Trade: Mostly marging trading and probably where I’ve gotten most of my ISK. I’ve also invested in shares and IPO’s, all but one payed off, the one that didn’t was due to the player vanishing into thin air. Not sure if that was an intended scam or not. Have also done some resale for people, and selling goods on their behalf with getting a cut of the profits.
• Planetary interaction: Running a nanite repair paste chain spread over two accounts, with Myrhial working on five planets and Faber taking care of the sixth.

Pirate

• Ships of all sizes: I have flown T1 / T2 frigates (with the exception of ewar frigates), destroyers, T1 / T2 cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships into pvp combat, mostly fit for pvp but the few occasional encounters in pve setups have been there as well. I fly mostly in fleets but have also tried my hand at solo combat.
• Faction war: Busting plexes or simply clashing with a militia group, picking off stragglers from large fleets and even opening plexes to bait targets inside, faction war offers a variety of strategies and was where I really learned to pvp. Operation Bold Harvest will always hold a dear spot in my heart.
• Mission busting: This has got to be the most profitable kill till date. Delicious faction loot. Not all are like that though, and it is usually newer players you catch because they aren’t watching the scanner or even unaware of probes. The bulk of targets in Operation Longshot were of that kind.
• Ransoms: A rare occurrence, not because of a lack of trying but because a situation has to lend itself to it and then there is still the willingness of the target to pay up.

Roleplay

• RP corp / alliance: All corporations / alliances I have been part of have had roleplay as part of their activities. My character has undergone quite the transformation, from State loyalist to Cartel loyalist. While this has had a certain impact on her personality as well as her cultural thinking she’s still very Caldari in her ways.
• Channel RP: From bars to political discussions, I’ve been in a fair number of channels. Favorite hangouts are The Skyhook and The Last Gate. I’m one of those eternal lurkers in The Summit as well.
• In character blogging: Been slacking on this a little — and blogging as a whole — since I’ve stepped down as CEO, but for the two years I’ve been blogging I’m at around at least two posts a month.

Leadership

• Corporate: Have been a director and later on a CEO, now serving as shadow CEO while I take out some more time for myself. Don’t worry though, Naraka will be back, no matter what people are saying or assuming. I’ve already got so much ideas on where I want to take the corporation and being in Veto has been a very enlightening experience so far. Someday I hope to chronicle my experiences in a guide for beginning CEO’s and directors.
• Fleets: PVE and PVP, I’ve been FC, backup FC, backup backup FC and logistics coordinator. Having invested in learning leadership skills I’m also serving as fleet booster when needed.

Participants:

1. CrazyKinux’s Musing: The Heroes with a Thousand Faces
2. StarFleet Comms: Life. Evolved.
3. A Carebear’s Journeu: This Carebear Thinks He Is Developing Teeth
4. The Elitist: Our ventures in EVE
5. A Mule in EVE: From a guppy predator
6. Travels of the Ronin: Evolution and Adaptation
7. The Ralpha Dogs: The Past Through Tomorrow
8. Where the frack is my ship: A journey, not a destination
9. I am Keith Neilson: 7 Year Itch?
10. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Evolution Me
11. EVE Opportunist: A long history of a short time
12. Roc’s Ramblings: Things Change
13. Guns Ablaze: Onwards and Upwards
14. EVE On Real Life: Haven’t you grown up yet?
15. The Fang: The path of the ninja
16. EVEOGANDA: Whoops Apocalypse!
17. EVE SOB: Learning to swim
18. The Life of a Dead Jester: My Time with EVE
19. Personal Files, Ciarente Roth: Personal Diary 18.6.112
20. Learning to Fly: Change is Good
21. Depths Unknown: Falling With Style
22. Morphisat’s Blog: Jack of all trades
23. Sarnelbinora’s Blog: Thoughts of EVE
24. Confessions of a Closet Carebear: It’s the yellow box, stupid…
25. Adventures in Mission Running: My path amongst the stars
26. When 11 Ninjas isn’t enough: First days in the North (continued)
27. Lost in New Eden: My EVE Life So Far
28. Life in my Hole: How My EVE Experience Has Evolved
29. The Lathspell of Mithrandir: EVE-olution
30. Chocolate Heaven: Recurring Themes
31. More as they get published…

[Delicious Tag: eveblogbanter18]

I absolutely love the Pilgrim now I finally got to fly him. Rabisu – his name derived from an ancient demon that stalks the dark corners and porches of houses waiting to ambush humans and tear them apart – really lives up to his reputation.

After spending a few days stationside and only having returned to my duties this morning I found Yishal and Kimochi already out in their pilgrims. We did a lot of quiet observing to get used to these new platforms and the special tactics that come with them. Waiting cloaked in an asteroid belt as we watched a target move around from one celestial to another I finally snatched the Harpy as it landed close enough to me. Poor thing tried to fight me as well. Sadly there was not one but three pilgrims eager to pick him apart. Flying one myself at times I know just how devastating neutralizers and nosferatus can be. Not to mention a swarm of drones. Shame on me though for labeling my drones incorrectly and sending out the wrong group! Although the damage reports show I was only a little short of the damage Kimochi did. That should prove well for when I further finish up specializing in the operation of Gallente and Minmatar drones.

Recon ships also prove to make excellent spectators for other engagements. Looking around for more targets we stumbled upon a friendly corporation laying siege on a POS tower while being under fire by defenders. What a massive fleet they had. Yet for unknown reasons they disengaged after a good while despite holding the advantage in both numbers and firepower. Yishal believes they must have grown tired of it and decided to seek opportunity elsewhere.

And then there is the usage of recons to set up cleverly formed traps. It’s no secret that we sometimes await militia fleets at military beacons to ruin their plans. But it works even better when you’re not actually visible at the location through the directional scanner. Not that a simple glance at the local neocom channel does not betray our presence. But not all pilots bother to do so while blinded by the desire to fight.

I feel a milestone was reached today after so many months and I don’t think all pilots fully understood the significance of this. Or perhaps I am appointing too much value to something as simple as flying a new ship class for the first time. Every day comes after all, sooner or later. But one thing is sure however. Recons are something I want to make an important part of our operations in the near future. As much as I enjoy frigate hulls – and I truly hope they will always continue to be a solid option – I also enjoy further finesse and greater firepower in order to take on targets of more value, more skill and more capability in order to perfect our skills and fill our wallets.

Natakre Read has recently founded a new corporation inspired by the Thukker and Angel Cartel co-operation. While ironically some short while later the Thukker Tribe officially turned to the Republic and loosened its ties with any criminal elements, Stillwater are growing steadily and so far doing quite well.

I feel much joy in having more Cartel supporters amongst the capsuleers of New Eden and even more joy in working together with them. So far they have shown us around Curse and taught us about 0.0, while we have shown them what we learned with Operation Bold Harvest through preying upon the Amarr and Minmatar militias.

I look forward to continueing to work together with Stillwater in the future and see the ties between both corporations strengthened. Certainly since we both specialize in different areas, much like the individual divisions within the Cartel. After all, where would the Dominations be without the Salvation Angels?

In the aftermath of Seylinn, New Eden’s stargates were highly unresponsive which is asking for trouble when having to move through several high security systems as an outlaw. So I was forced to spend the last few days in Derelik where I had hoped to only halt briefly to pick up my exploration equipment. So what did I do when I finally arrived safely in Tzvi again? Get myself into even more trouble.

Mounting a core probe launcher on my ship and loading the other equipment into my cargo bay I set off to find myself one of those wormholes to study. Or well… the initial plan was to simply hone my probing skills but somewhere along the way it changed. Moving around the area for a while I finally found myself a quiet system to work in and soon enough I was staring at one of the most beautiful natural phenomena I had ever seen. A pristine wormhole nearing the end of it’s life cycle.

Curious about what would lay on the other side I willed my ship to jump and in a spectacular blaze of blinding light I found myself in new system unlike any other I have ever seen. The nebula consisted of hues ranging from blue to green. Heeding the warnings I had read of other capsuleers I bookmarked my location and began to move around the celestials. Most planets were barren and cold judging by their icy colors as the faint blue star in the center was not enough to warrant any life.

Looking at my scanner now I found out I was not alone here. I registered a Phobos, several battleships, and other big and nasty ships. Deciding it may be a good time to return I warped back to the bookmarked location. And just as luck would have it the wormhole was no longer there. Thinking initially this was an error I moved from the location and returned only to find that the wormhole must have indeed collapsed behind me. And as a pilot announced on local that he was “leaving through the wormhole you do not have bubbled” trouble was complete. Not only was my exit gone but one of the others would be tricky to leave through.

Throwing out all probes I could control and informing Yishal she may need to find another fleet commander for the scheduled roam that evening I began to look for a new way out. Picking up the signatures for several asteroid belts I discovered another wormhole near the system’s outer planet and began to pinpoint its location. Having it narrowed down to a sufficiently close distance I warped to it only to end up face to face with the previously mentioned Phobos. Knowing I could no longer return I activated the afterburner and crossed a distance of 50km in what is likely a new record as the hostile ship tried to break through my shields. Not even checking what security I’d be spit out into I warped and prayed.

And my prayers must have somehow got heard as I opened my eyes and found myself in a low security system in Genesis. Plotting a course to Tzvi again I raced through a string of high security systems with CONCORD on my heels. Having just faced an heavy interdictor, and unsure if an assault frigate would even make it through 1.0 I was shaking all the way home.

Taking a few hours rest stationside I briefed those present for the roam of my adventures and upon finding no targets we decided to jump into the fray a second time, though now as a team. This time without collapsing wormholes and ironically enough netting us more loot than we’d have found in the Bleaks.

The video feed flickers on showing the majestic image of a Pilgrim and Machariel lined up next to each other. The feed’s quality is high enough to ensure that the crews who are standing at attention behind the windows of both vessels are visible. Pausing a moment to let the viewer admire both ships the camera drone then zooms out revealing the scene to take place behind one of the station’s exterior window and focuses on Myrhial, who is standing in the foreground with her back to the window. She is dressed in a sharp looking grey two piece uniform, consisting of a long-sleeved jacket with high collar and a mid-length skirt completed by opaque panty stockings in a lighter hue and fine black leather boots reaching up all the way to her knees. The jacket is adorned with the PRETA colors, the CEO insignia and several medals. Myrhial appears to be in a very good mood and begins to speak in an animated fashion.

“Today, in this very room, Ghost Festival held it’s first award ceremony. While we have since many months had a solid ranking system into place which has passed through several revisions to ensure it to be simple yet effective, it is for the first time we handed out medals and promotions in this fashion. Several of my pilots went up in rank meeting the requirements set by the board of directors, and several more received awards for loyalty, destruction of hostile capsuleer vessels and the attainment of high standings with factions which we support.”

Myrhial motions to the ships outside of the window, still hanging motionless.

“What you see over there are the latest additions to my hangar and were given to me on this day of celebration for one year service within Ghost Festival and the daunting task of heading the corporation as it’s CEO. It is with much joy I accept the Pilgrim from the hands of my pilots and the Machariel from those of the Dominations themselves.”

“I am proud of our accomplishments in operation Bold Harvest which form the pinacle of our success thus far. I need not remind those that have been following my writings that we rebuilt PRETA from nearly the ground up after the roster split into two. It’s been a road uphill, and each time we slipped and fell we picked ourselves up and continued on, eyes and mind clearly fixed on our goals. And while the summit is not yet reached and the path remains steep it is on days like this we halt and look around us, admiring the view and looking back at the part of the path now lying behind us to reflect upon what we have learned.”

“It has been a pleasure to work and fly with these exceptional individuals, all selected through a strict reviewing process, another thing that has seen much fine-tuning to ensure only pilots worthy make it onto the roster. Some of them are old veterans having been in the pod far longer than I have. Others are new but their enthusiasm and will to learn makes up for the lack of experience and training. I look forward to another year and what it will bring us. One thing is for sure however. The capsuleers present in the regions in which we now operate are becoming aware of our name and are learning to fear it. And soon enough we will fully embody what it means to be a Ghost, striking from the shadows with ruthlessness. So remember…feed us, and we will go away. Continue to feed us and we will leave you in peace. But disturb us or refuse to co-operate and you will learn what the vengeful spirits of old tales are truly like.”

The camera drone shows Myrhial for a good two seconds more as a serene smile ends her speech, before the screen goes black. The corporate logo and name of Ghost Festival shimmer into view together with the details of the GalNet information portal. Showing this long enough so viewers can save it to memory the feed ends.