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]

What better way to celebrate your new alliance than with a little roaming? And it gets even better if you take your favorite alliance along. Enter Sunday’s destroyer op.

I must admit I have always looked down on destroyers. When I was still working for Apex my trusty Cormorant was set up with four tractor beams, four salvages, propulsion and capacitor modules. Even when I switched corporations I continued to use it when doing agent work for the Thukker. In my eyes destroyers were a failed concept that made a good salvager due to its many high slots. Well, I am glad I got corrected there. Noticing their popularity amongst Factional Warfare pilots, who gladly use the frigate-killers’ ability to activate small acceleration gates, we gathered a nearly exclusive fleet of them and set off to see what we could stir up in The Bleaklands and surroundings.

Things started out really well for me. Killing blow on an Arbitrator, killing blow on a Rupture (who did manage to take Vendrin’s ship out), slowing down a Trasher that tried to run from us on an acceleration gate… Ah, that damned acceleration gate! No sooner had the Trasher gone down or massive reinforcements were reported and we were ordered to enter the complex. Having drifted out the furthest I was unable to initiate warp in time and watched my ship getting torn apart. And then my pod. And while I awoke in a clone vat, I missed the rest of the fight. To see the full picture, you need to have a look at Veto’s records of the battle as well.

In the end, it was us that held the field. And more losses were on Heretic Army’s side than on ours. MirrorGod getting podded made me smile a little. It seemed just, a CEO on each side ending up in a new body.

—

OOC: Links may break as ghostfestival.net is currently switching hosts. Apologies, working hard on getting that killboard back up!

More OOC: Now running Intense Debate for comments. Leave a comment if you like the new commenting.

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?

Another monday, time for an update. To start off, I have taken more time to go out roaming. The first roam early last week was a training session and almost became very profitable when we found 3 mining barges at a gravimetric signature. Too bad they noticed the scanning probe. The objective of the roam, to teach some of our new pilots a thing or two about flying and surviving in small gangs, was reached however.

Then near the end of the week as I was cleaning up some rogue drones (read: turn them into scrapmetal) for the Thukker, I noticed a Rupture in one of the belts. Alerting about this over the corp channel, said Rupture was quickly tracked down and taken out. Turned out the Rupture pilot was an aquintance of Kelsy, and wanted to test out a setup passed on by his grandfather. I’m still not sure what to make off the man, he seems to enjoy hanging around the Skyhook though. Between the destruction of the Rupture and some rum shots at the Skyhook, we went on another roam, but a large recon conflict which we got caught inbetween forced us to turn around.

In the other news, I’ve been participating more in discussions on the IGS. Aria has written another excellent piece, there was some drama which I couldn’t resist sticking my nose into, and I even congratulated Duty. on making a smart move. Beats the usual dreadfully long posts with little to no content which I hardly bother paying any attention to. Most notable however is this broadcast.

And what about our industrial plans? As always there’s progress but we’re not yet at the end. I personally hope to have that changed by the end of the week but realistically it could take another two weeks at least. Still the outcome should be worth all the hard work.

In my last entry I commented on the poor attendance at the Apex meeting. However it turns out that my assumptions were wrong. Vendrin has left Ghost Festival and it seems Apex is getting back in business as an independant corporation. I’ve had no contact with him since the meeting but I hope things will work out well for him. He has my best wishes and support.

Two entries ago I briefly mentioned the plans to move to another region. They have been finalized after the needed diplomacy and logistical preparation took place. I am glad that I had already done a throughout hangar and asset inspection, so the only work left was pack everything up and squeeze it (quite literally) into a freight container. In the coming days I plan on doing background research about our new home and it’s inhabitants. It’ll sure be a change after spending the last months with the Thukkers.

Now that I am becoming quite experienced at flying the Raven class battleship I’m seriously considering exploring a new path. I’m thinking of learning how to fly Amarr heavy assault cruisers and recon ships. Their performance simply seems superior for our line of work not to mention those golden hulls have always struck me with awe. And there should be plenty of opportunity to use them in our new home.