Diary of a Pod Pilot

It’s time to vote for CSM6, and with having two accounts, I’ve decided that one vote will go to a candidate that best aligns with my personal interests, and the second one is going to go to a more generalist kind of person.

As per usual, since I don’t really have to time to keep up with the details, I’ve pulled out the vote matcher again. It’s an OK tool but make sure to read the candidates full campaign as well as the explanation for their answers. Some questions are really strong opinions, such as “this or that are the most important”. For those I picked that I don’t know or don’t have an opinion,  because some of them are indeed pressing issues, but I do not agree with them getting a full expansion assigned to them, at least no exclusively. Lowsec, piracy, faction war and industry all deserve some love in my book, and roleplay a little as well, but I like my expansions to address several issues where possible. And even when choosing one favorite I doubt a single expansion is going to magically fix a single issue. These things are all rather big.

So, the candidate who best aligns with my views according to the vote matcher is Roc Wieler. I filled in the questionnaire twice on different days, and twice he came out at the top with a 60% match. Makes sense, he is after all a fellow blogger, roleplay enthusiast, the person who spoke up about not being able to run for CSM while having had a media account, and also the person who revealed that us recent fansite program additions should have received said media account. Which CCP Adida did in fact personally mail me about after I commented on Roc’s blog, and got me sorted with, all within a matter of hours. I’m still impressed about that, cause they could have just ignored that!

But back to Roc and his candidacy. Roc as a character and blogger is an interesting phenomena. He’s got self-promotion down to an art, this powerful image that combines both character and player. Casiella, who’s opinion I value, recommended to vote against him. I can understand why he feels as such but I don’t agree. As I started this post with, I think there are two kinds of candidates needed to make a good CSM rather than just one: Strong views on pressing issues, and generalists to even things out and help find a middle ground. My second vote is the latter, and I’ll get to that in a bit. I’m not familiar with the past history for exclusion and disdain, but I can’t see why monetizing one’s blog is a bad thing. As much as we should all write for the fun of it, we all need income, and if you can do that through doing something you enjoy doing then why not?

As for Roc’s campaign trail, I don’t agree on every solution exclusively as he outlines it. I do agree however that the issues brought up are things the CSM should talk about, even the unpleasant ones or those who are deeply ingrained into the core of EVE, and making a suggestion on how to possibly fix things is a good way to get a discussion going. If a suggestion is met with a lot of “DO NOT WANT!” then you at least know what might not be the way to go about it and that helps with narrowing down the possibilities.

But enough on Roc. My second vote is going to Gehen Sealbreaker, a soon to be member of PRELI, who came out with a much lower 49%. It’s an underdog vote, but due to him talking quite a bit in our public channel ‘Naraka OOC’ he’s the only candidate who I’ve been able to ask questions real-time. He is a generalist, with some love towards the roleplayers, but even about that he seeks for solutions that benefit everyone. If you look at his campaign site, he’s doing quite well for a newcomer, certain things like examples on how he is a social person and how that benefits his campaign are basic tools of the trade when selling oneself to a larger audience and he’s using them right. If I am honest however I fear the basics may not enough to compete with the more experienced people, who both have the name and the tools, but he’s doing well for a beginner and that has merit. Do take a look at his stuff please, especially if the vote matcher brings him up in your personal top 5.

You may notice that both my votes are going to candidates who support roleplay. If you know me a little, then you know I am not your standard RP elitist and in fact very much loathe that crowd. Roleplay does not make you a better player and does not entitle you to any special treatment by CCP, let that be clear. But EVE being a MMORPG, and having a solid base for roleplay and a driven storyline and backstory team, I do think it has in it what other MMORPG’s cannot make true. EVE is a single shard game, meaning that roleplayers and non-roleplayers all share the same world, and I wouldn’t want to have it otherwise. RP shards / servers in other games are this constant fight over “who should be allowed to play here” and “how should the rules be enforced” with a whole lot of crying about “developer X does not care about RP /tears”. I’ve also found that during my entire carreer in EVE I have roleplayed more, felt less forced into having to do it because of a server ruleset, and by extension has a lot better RP experience. I’m in fact more in character than in other MMO’s where I chose an RP server and put more work into character development.

On the subject of roleplay, I also feel that by involving roleplay into aspects of the game, such as factional warfare or incursions you create a richer experience for all players. It makes things make sense in the greater whole, and it provides motivations to do them. The whole buildup to the incursions gives you a reason to shoot Sansha, or to defend them (sadly game mechanics do not support that so well, but player creativity goes a long way). If it was just added without background, just rats randomly showing up and being annoying till you get rid of them, it would be a whole lot less bland. Yes, even for the true opposite of the RP elitist, the people who scoff on anything RP because it is “stupid” or “for geeks” (we’re all playing with internet spaceships here!). It is not a base requirement for candidates, in the past I have voted for candidates who didn’t have this as part of their campaign or carried no real opinion on it, but it sure is a nice to have something I do care about receiving some candidate love.

Lastly I want to give a small shoutout to Mynxee, she was well worth my vote on the last CSM and it is a shame she will not run again. I totally understand her desire to focus on other matters and she is allowed a rest after all the work she did. She isn’t afraid to speak up or offend but she also balances that with being this listening mother figure. Add to that my personal bias for her being a blogging pirate lady. The rest of CSM5 also deserves praise, there was lots of building and improving upon previous efforts and achievements, and that’s just how it should be. Kuddos to CCP as well, I was one of those feeling skeptical in the beginning on just where this CSM thing would strand, but as this dev blog reminds us much good has come from it, as well as important learning experiences from the bad. Not something to be taken for granted.

Our rightful home

Been a good while again since my last update. Not for a lack of action, that’s for sure. I dare say things are busier than ever. And while they aren’t always easy, for the large part I am enjoying myself. That’s right, I love my job.

So what’s been happening? Well, the most important part, which I somehow always mention as last when catching up with friends or other contacts, is that we’re now basing primarily out of Curse. All of Naraka except for PRELI is, in fact. Well, and Aria, but Aria does as Aria likes and that’s alright with me.

We’ve grown quite a bit and I really like our new pilots. They want to be here, too. That helps, having people that share your vision, rather than cater to their visions. Ma’asei Merkabah likewise has taken in some solid pilots. We work together as a coherent unit.

Diplomacy has been intense. Some capsuleers down here can be so difficult. And I don’t do that. Why make things complicated when they can be really simple? Less room for error, more efficiency, and not as much headache and frustration. I understand it though, how thing sometimes become the way they are. But this fear of change and the clinging to the status quo? A strange thing in a region that is constantly changing. I hope it is a pattern we will never fall into.

I met up with Vincent Pryce the other day. It was good to see him again, even though things haven’t been good at all for him. He’s changed for the better in the face of terrible events. Even though he sees it as paying a price for all the bad things he’s done. I hope my words gave him some comfort, as I believe he is far stronger than he thinks he is at times. But I am not a professional psychiatrist, the best I can offer is the advice of someone who cares.

Vincent told me a little about how things are with Veto now. A tricky situation. Until word comes from Venal they are told to not fight back any Sansha forces. I wonder how my other ex-pilots are dealing with that. I can think of a few that must be dying to open fire. Yet they can’t. What if Venal decides to ally with the Sansha? What will they do then? What will Ethan do, even? I am also curious about the future of Veto, now that all forces have been merged into one central unit. In his latest IGS announcement he hinted at further details being released at the start of April — an unluckily chosen date, if you ask me — but even with holding top-level clearance for a while I can’t do more than guess. But those are worries that are best not to linger on too long. What is important is that we can strike down every last Sansha if we please to do so and we’ll even get a pat on the back for it.

Now that I mentioned the IGS, I had a little fun with what looks like to have been Revan’s last public event ever. Both Velarra and I made it through the first round even and I had a long chuckle as Koronakesh’s commentary. Milder than I had expected it to be, actually. A shame the second round fell right into a period my agenda was already overbooked. But then things took a strange turn when politics and love meddled into it all, the short version being that Jade Constantine — Revan’s lover — did not approve and used her position to have things called off. Must say I am disappointed, though not surprised in the solution Revan chose. Shame, at least an event like this brought some change to the ever so predictable back and forth arguments.

I’m sure I am forgetting a thing or two, but time is precious and I have to get back to work. Paperwork is nearly all done, luckily, so now we’re getting to the good bits like making ISK and enforcing our position within the region. More on that in a future post, I’m sure.

When Kuvakei announced on the IGS that he’d go for ‘the king rather than the four princes’, nobody doubted there would be another invasion somewhere. It’s almost become “normal” now. Suppose I gave it a bit too much thought, most concluded that the king of the four princes would be CONCORD and it would thus happen in Yulai, yet I figured Kuvakei would never give CONCORD that much credit. Alas, in retrospect, I seems it was not about giving credit, but rather speaking in a language that capsuleers would understand. He wanted everyone in Yulai. I was right on one point though, Yulai was not the main target. It was a decoy and a show of power. Promised Land, one system out of the EVE gate, was where they were really headed.

Having placed some ISK in a local betting pool and wishing to know firsthand if I had really lost — I had bet on the general ‘not CONCORD’ option as well as the ‘main location is a decoy’ option — I contacted Faber to go and take a look for me. Not a problem, she was in the area, and soon a fleet began to form as many other PRELI pilots and fellow Cartel loyalists were also in the vicinity. Reports that 21:00 was when it all would happen came through as those who had been at the previous invasion were told that would be when the Master would next return.

He kept his word, that’s for sure. After addressing the mass of pilots which had gathered by then (roughly 600+ present on local chat) two rogue wormholes appeared in system, one at the sun and one at planet II. Slave Heavenbound02 and her Revenant supercarrier was called out as a target and engaged. Hardly a dent was put into her shields and with the number of pilots entering the system rising — a peak of over 1600 pilots in one system was reached that day — communication systems began to suffer. The fluid routers simply did not have the capacity to process all commands given and several pilots reported a system blackout or shutdown on our external communication network. Well played, Kuvakei, abusing structural flaws and limits to lock everyone in one place while you go and strike your real target.

When Faber finally managed to regain control of her ship, the fleet decided to pull back out and return to daily operations for now. No casualties on our side took place that day, and word goes that three Sansha supercarriers (?) have been wrecked. By all accounts they were probably destined to be a sacrifice to keep everyone occupied long enough. We cannot claim victory here. What happened was just the beginning, as Sansha forces are now invading and locking down systems all over the cluster. Naraka is in the process of working on a plan to fight these incursions, yet we must not lose track of our original goals. One can fight them all day for months and yet get nowhere. And that would really be letting them win.

Attachment A – Kuvakei and Slave Heavenbound02 on Yulai local chat channel

[ 2011.01.23 21:00:34 ] Master Kuvakei > Greetings.
[ 2011.01.23 21:01:12 ] Master Kuvakei > Do not think I do this without respect for capsuleers and their achievements.
[ 2011.01.23 21:01:29 ] Master Kuvakei > Today, I will show you the light, all of you.
[ 2011.01.23 21:02:13 ] Master Kuvakei > Tell me now, how numerous is my Nation among you? FOR NATION!
[ 2011.01.23 21:02:45 ] Master Kuvakei > You see, capsuleers, you are in the presence of true greatness.
[ 2011.01.23 21:03:35 ] Master Kuvakei > I will give you all a moment to reflect upon the weakness of your separate minds.
[ 2011.01.23 21:03:58 ] Master Kuvakei > Do you see how confused you are? How you squabble and bicker. How there is no unity to your voice?
[ 2011.01.23 21:04:12 ] Master Kuvakei > All shouting, none listening.
[ 2011.01.23 21:04:55 ] Master Kuvakei > I must admit, I am enjoying this.
[ 2011.01.23 21:05:32 ] Master Kuvakei > For your sake, I hope your fleet is better prepared than your voices.
[ 2011.01.23 21:05:58 ] Master Kuvakei > You’ll need it…
[ 2011.01.23 21:07:29 ] Master Kuvakei > Begin plasma core extraction.
[ 2011.01.23 21:10:56 ] Master Kuvakei > Begin core fragment harvest operation one.
[ 2011.01.23 21:11:44 ] Master Kuvakei > Begin core fragment harvest operation two.
[ 2011.01.23 21:17:09 ] Master Kuvakei > Preparing conduit alpha.
[ 2011.01.23 21:19:40 ] Master Kuvakei > There is no end to my Nation.
[ 2011.01.23 21:22:33 ] Master Kuvakei > Initiating anti-drone pulse wave.
[ 2011.01.23 21:26:28 ] Slave Heavenbound02 > Then The Master will lead us to the Promised Land.
[ 2011.01.23 21:30:45 ] Master Kuvakei > Slave 32152, enter the conduit.

Records cut off here due to system failure.

Attachment B – Camera drone captures

2010 has come and gone, and with being 11 days into 2011 it is a good time to reflect on what has passed and how it has shaped the present, in order to clear the road for a better 2011.

Leaving Goinard

The start of this year was marked by the search for a new home. The search was long, and lead us to many places, but ultimately wasn’t very fruitful. When you are established in a location that has nearly everything to make life in lowsec easy, and share it with a group large enough to keep others out, you’re in a pretty perfect situation. Any other places with similar combinations of being an highsec bordering system, having a sufficiently large market hub nearby, having access to most of lowsec space, medical facilities in your home base, good rats and so forth are bound to be taken by someone, who likely will run you into the ground in the defense of their perfect situation.

Our situation was further complicated by the fact that Naraka then existed of a lowsec piracy focussed group (PRETA) and a highsec industry focussed group (PRELI) and we wanted an ideal situation for both. Even when we eventually expanded our scope and were willing to give up certain benefits, we just could not make it work.

Operation Longshot

Since finding a new home was getting us nowhere, we opted for something similar yet different: Nomadic roams. One picks a location that looks interesting, sets up camp for a while, exploits the area and when things either get boring, or too hot under your feet, you pack up and disappear again, all thanks to the convenience of carriers. Operation Longshot was supposed to be the solution to our problems, and despite indeed solving them, it sadly was not in the way that was intended.

Veto

When faced with the choice of joining a big established corporation which does what PRETA did (lowsec piracy), or diving into the unknown depths of nulsec piracy with a corporation that is falling apart, well, it is pretty obvious what people are going to opt for. The great irony is that people leaving us for Veto was not really a threat when we were simply doing what we do best, but became an issue when we planned for getting away to eliminate the “danger” and put an end to the whole being called pets by certain groups. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20, I made the call, and it turned out to be a bad one. In the end it did clear the roster of people who’d probably be better off in another group anyway. Not that I hold grudges, I am happy they are now enjoying themselves, or eventually discovered that they were just done with the game.

Being a shadow CEO within Veto was educational. While it is not exactly positive, it was somehow reassuring they deal with the same kind of issues a small corporation deals with as well, and that there really aren’t that much differences other than more numbers. Summer inactivity? Yep, they got it too, and having more members might mean that more stick around through that period, but also means that more of them disappear. If you’d use percentages, they would be very similar. More was also learned by simply observing how situations are tackled, and even though ultimately Verone’s style of leadership is not one that suits me, it is one that gets things done and going his way. Respect to that.

As for what I did with my time besides lurking, I spent a while going on every possible operation I could go on, buying ships and training for them as needed, and good times were had. Over time however I felt my inner CEO nag, and set up my own operation “Platinum Halo” which brought myself and a few others to Curse to do mission work for the Cartel, and supply Veto members with Dramiels. I wasn’t quite planning on giving up my colors, after all, and made a pretty sum off of it. Alas, in the end nearly all my profits were destroyed when the Tengu I had invested in to run the missions with exploded due to ending up in a mission that was not quite speed-tank friendly.

Silence

Despite being the dream of many budding outlaws, life in Veto soon grew old. I think never intending to make more out of it than a temporary residence has a lot to do with that. So I simply fell off the grid for a while. Burnout and bitterness were catching up with me, too, and then there was the Tengu loss. Time for a breather.

Ghost Syndicate

Ah, Alexander Rykis, entering the roleplay community with a bang, shaking the foundations of just about everything, and having some ideas that seemed really good on paper. Had promise, too bad the execution did not live up to it. A shame he chose to lash out at everyone when things didn’t go quite as planned. Given more time and patience there could have really been something in the making here. In the end, it is not all his fault however, the roleplay community in certain ways is just way too stagnant for big revolutionary ideas to take liftoff within the span of a few weeks.

A slow restart

Ratting up my security status is one thing that took way longer than expected, even with help. Combine that with actually not being fully ready to lead a corporation again and not quite knowing what I wanted to do with it meant for a slow restart of Naraka. Not getting any members back from Veto other than myself and some alts — most play very casually these days — meant starting from square 1 again. Having all options open where to take PRETA next was actually not so good either, trying a bit of everything eventually gets nothing done. I am afraid I might have wasted the time of some good people there who joined to help build something.

But the end of 2010, and now the start of 2011 has things finally taking off: two new corporations into Naraka, differences of opinion within the Cartel community exploded with a bang which while not ideal does resolve a whole lot of headache, the second part of the Incursion expansion is upon us giving us many storyline hooks, and writing a year review has given me ample time to reflect upon mistakes made one final time, heed their lessons, and set off in such a way as not to make them again, but also not let them dictate me any longer. I now know what to not do again, and why. “Fail often”, they say, as well as “If it ain’t working, know when to quit, and then try again”. These wise words have made me realize that while 2010 may have consisted of periods of wasted time, they also served a purpose on a greater scale. I hope they will help in making 2011 a year of success for Naraka.

Different looks, same result

Little over a month ago ANN rocked the boat with this article, a speculatively in character piece about how “broken” the Cartel community is. Sparkahn edited it a little and took out the gravest errors after certain individuals were ready to execute him on the spot and I stepped in as mediator, but the promised follow-up interview has yet to take place. It would be a piece in which the insiders gave their version of the truth, to correct the negative publicity, which was decided an acceptable alternative to the demand of taking the article down. As this continues to irk me I’ve decided to write a response of my own, to at least share my view with the EVE community.

Now, why the cries of outrage? ANN is run by Milo Caman, former PRETA member and Serpentis loyalist. When he back in the days told me about the site, he said that it would get an alternative use as a propaganda tool. Which at present very much clashes with the article in question. Now I assume others were told the same and we were all still under this assumption while this either never made it into the final plan or was removed from it later on. I personally feel this article is poor form even if it was done from a neutral and in character point of view, because Anshar Incorporated are Serpentis loyalists and as only ones actively roleplaying the faction — which story-wise has close ties to the Cartel — they hang out with Cartel community a whole lot. And that makes for an uneasy situation.

As for what is truth and what is fiction, I’ll be the first to say that the Cartel community is indeed divided, on an out of character level, which then creates an odd situation in character. Aodha Khan (Ma’asei Merkabah), Marcus Gord (PRELI) and I (PRETA) are outspoken voices in favor of putting past disagreements within the community behind us and work together in unity. Nikita Alterana from Risen Angels can be counted into this group as well, though they are also pretty content to do their own thing, at least that is the impression I get from their director Myxx. On the far side of the scale is Stillwater, whom are skeptic about the whole joint effort, which while understandable due to the directorship consisting of people that left PRETA because they felt I did not run things as they would want it, also means that we’ve got to continuously prove ourselves to them. And while a questioning voice is good to keep everyone on their toes, building something together won’t work until everyone is ready to forgive and forget. Now it is not all bad, I get along well with Nakatre Read, who is the CEO of Stillwater and a nice guy in my books. And I can understand the arguments of not wanting too much blues and just doing their own thing in their own time without too much hassle. But there is a big difference between shooting down nearly everything that is proposed, and that. Lastly there are also the outsiders, The Flaming Sideburn’s and Utopian Research I.E.L. who have always been content to do their own thing in nulsec, and were only recently really asked to take part in the community. Both seem willing to work with the community where possible, but the former being part of Waterboard and the latter of Hedonistic Imperative, there are alliance matters that come into play as well.

Now, some things I’d like to clarify on: Risen Angels ended up not joining Naraka because war decs would put the whole alliance at war, which is bad news for PRELI. Even if they would be willing to adapt to this, there wouldn’t be a sufficient gain, and thus it was blown off and replaced by receiving shares from RIA as a symbolic union, as well as the promise that when desired I’ll act as an advisor for them. It gives RIA the space to do as they please, and nobody can say that they are lifting on our success. As pointed out in the previous paragraph, Stillwater isn’t as bad as they are made out  to be in the article, and they have their reasons. If in the end they would be the only ones to remain by the sideline or only lightly involved, then so be it. At the end of the day you cannot force people to do something they do not want to, and it would not sit right with me if it came down to that, because this is still a game we play for our enjoyment! As for how that translates into in character, the Cartel is a big and varied group, so it isn’t all that odd that its loyalists also differ. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness, or something to be avoided. Aodha then has his reasons for forming his own group, such as favoring members with high Cartel standings, and he is filling a niche within the Cartel community with a group that focusses on elite slave trade as one of their activities, one of the big businesses the Cartel is in. This is something that PRETA is not and probably never really will be into, so why then should he have joined up with us? Or Stillwater for that matter, who operate in lowsec, where as MM are looking to build a home in Curse.

That being said, I hope things make a little more sense for those who might have been wondering what is going on. I hope as time passes the Cartel community will grow strong and even get some love from CCP. It’s long been my baby, as it was Aria’s before me, and while at times it is a little weird to see it grow and take on its own identity it is so nice to not be alone in it.