Old Friends

So as you can read from here http://yosagiyojimbo.blogspot.com/2010/07/safety-of-being-out-of-range.html I have left Sto-vo-kor after about nine months.  Essentially some of the old guard left, then some others and all that was left was myself, a couple of old members and a bunch of new ones.

For some reason the dynamic had changed and I decided to head back too YHI, just in time for a nasty little high security war which you can also read about at the above link.

Getting away from the war though I was sitting in Olo and one of the old Stov members who left first did the total “Oh my god it’s Yosagi” thing, so we chatted for a while.

Then I was invited/dragged into a public chat channel which as it turned out is a refuge for old Stov members, like some sort of halfway house or retirement home.  It was awesome, I had a massive grin.

So chatted with them for a while and one by one they discovered I had also left Stov, turns out I was regarded as one of the old guard. Nobody was more surprised than me.

So anyway a rough plan is formed for the future which is subject to change, so not really worth passing more information on at the moment.

You’ll have to figure out how the header image applies to this post, I just liked it.

The Safety of Being out of Range

Woke up this morning feeling terrible, slept longer than usual.  Wiped the sleep from my eyes and shuffled off to do my morning bio’s.

Couldn’t figure out what to have for breakfast, settled on the usual, seemed easier.

I think a fairly heavy depression was sitting on my shoulders, I should take a pill for it I suppose but for now it can stay, sort of like having an old friend over for a while.

So I finally left the corporation.  They were a great bunch of guys but my feeling was their soul had moved on.  The remains are still there in Sto-vo-kor but for me it was over.  I’d hung on for a while to see if the feeling of loneliness and change would evaporate but each day I would wake up and feel the same. I assumed I would feel better once I left, turns out I don’t.

Low and zero sec wars are a war of choice, you can escape to high security space and enjoy the safety of being out of range, something I was about to yearn for.

I joined Yojimbo Heavy Industries (YHI), or re-joined rather as I had been here quite sometime ago.  I have some good friends here, Roku is also here and some others I know but little did I know about the nasty little war that was brewing.

YHI has some other friends (.ARR.) whose corporation was war decced by either a small mercenary corporation or a local pirate group in training.  These friends are not fighters, they are making their way by mining and manufacturing, with the odd mission for the various factions.  So YHI decided to declare war against the, lets call them merc corp, to try and help the friends of YHI.

YHI is outnumbered three to one, but it was assumed that .ARR. would help out and augment our fleet with some combat ships, sadly we were mistaken and at the time of writing they were corp hopping to try and escape the merc corp.

So we fell back on one of the few tactics that are available in a situation like this, hit and run, annoyance and ambush if possible.  For a short period of time we were able to accomplish the task quite well and probably drove them mad either trying to find us or sitting outside our station waiting for our undock when in fact we are at the bar trying all the blue liqueurs.

Once or twice we saw some opportunities but as this is an ongoing operation it would be remiss of me to describe something in detail that may be of some use to the enemy.  However I can say that so far we have lost a Battleship and nothing more which is within budget.  Roku had a Hyperion destroyed due to a successful trap which involved a bait Typhoon on station and a long range warp in of a Megathron, his name didn’t even appear in local until the last second.  Suffice to say we gave him a few “told you so’s” in the de-brief and that tactic is unlikely to work again.

From my point of view the purpose of the war is diminishing, .ARR. have moved on so they no longer need protection so all we are doing now is trying to save face, sometimes you just have to accept a defeat and move on when the odds are too great.

Avoid!

 

I have to learn to avoid the forums.  The heavy cloud of depression that descends on me after reading what is 95% garbage is extraordinary!

Especially at the moment after the news that CCP will not be devoting any real resources for about 18 months to fix current issues.  Rather they would prefer to continue developing DUST514 and their FOTM MMO, World of Darkness.

In addition we have now found, long suspected by me however, that the CSM has ZERO power, CCP has already pre-determined the future two years of development and the CSM can make no changes to that.  So this CSM and the next are a total waste of time, all they can do is make noise on the forums, their own blogs and elsewhere until CCP get sick of them and remove them as individuals, as happened recently, or kill the CSM as a whole.

Do it CCP, do it now.  While you’re at it also kill the General Discussion section of the forums and police the forums with this mythical “Ban Hammer” I heard about a very long time ago.  The filth will just move to a non-CCP forum and continue bitching, but that is fine.  The facade of perfection will have been re-created, the virgin will be a virgin again!

Of some interest though is the fact that DUST514 is almost done.  So DUST514 will be entering a console market that is already saturated by FPS games from franchises and companies much bigger than EVE Online and CCP.  Another issue on the horizon is the fact the current consoles that DUST514 is aimed at, the XBOX360 and PS3 are entering their evening time with replacements expected in the next 2-3 years. So what does this mean?  Well potentially the new consoles will not be backwards compatible, it has happened before.  Also the popular peak of a console game is short, all that development time for a peak of a few months, is that time well spent?

Finally we arrive at World of Darkness (WoD), by some quirk of fate it may, I say may, arrive in time for the most recent surge of vampire popularity, namely the Twilight travesty they call a film franchise, so maybe the local crowd of dyed black hair and full length coats will be able to drag themselves from watching the god awful movies for the umpteenth time, reading the even more god awful books time and time again to try WoD.  How many variations on the name of Edward and Jacob do you think will exist before someone ends it all with a strategically placed candle and the application of a four pound hammer?

Seriously CCP SORT YOUR FUCKING GAME AND COMPANY OUT!

Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert!

So the authorities have given us access to most planets for exploitation.

This is a first time, well at least as far as I can recall, that we have been given official access to pillage most planets in high, low and zero sec.

So I studied the proper subjects, jumped in a hauler and picked up the Command Centre of my choice, found a planet and setup my base.

Awesome now the ISK should really roll in, go!

I am still waiting.

I have also had another prospector setup his base very close to mine, potentially robbing me of minerals and therefore I will not stand for it!

Retaliation!  Blow up his base, set fire to his goats, eat his corn etc etc.

(Looks up the CONCORD rules for Planetary Interaction (PI))

Hmm it seems I can do none of that. A war declaration will possibly catch him/them when the materials are picked up, but the base can be remotely controlled so this could be at anytime.  Setting an ambush at that planets customs station for all eternity does not fill me with any joy.

What to do…

I know! I have some spare marines, I will let them loose on his base and leave it in ruin!

Hmmm I no longer seem to have any marines.

(Quick investigation)

Turns out if you leave some marines in close proximity with exotic dancers you end up with janitors, with no marines or dancers to be seen.

Least the hanger is clean now.

Council of Stellar Management

The Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is a body of players that are voted for by the players and represent all players with direct meetings with CCP and also correspondence to try and improve the game for us all.

The CSM has no power, they cannot force any decision upon CCP and mostly is a creation by CCP to try and calm the rabid hordes in the forums with the weak claim the CSM is helping you all so just shut up for a while, or something like that.

For disclosure reasons I must say I am not a member of the CSM, most likely never will be and believe it to be a total and complete waste of time.

So CCP have control of the situation in every respect, the CSM is their lackey, their lapdog to do their bidding when and where they see fit?  Well perhaps not.

We have news, ironically delivered by CCP via the News of Eve Service that a CSM member has been "removed", but then goes on to say that it was the only possible solution to protect the integrity of the CSM but as the matter is confidential they will not discuss it further.

So let the forum explosion happen....NOW!

The irony behind the delivery of this message was this, if CCP hadn't delivered the message the person had been removed then I, and probably many others wouldn't have known about it and then start questioning what had happened.  So now we have a situation where the only person speaking about it is the removed one and CCP are staying silent, although I suspect not forever.

So what happened?  Is it because of the description of the meeting or something else?  Does it involve a television thrown from the third story window, some hookers, the tight curve of an upper thigh and some blow?  What if it was caused by the soiling of some hallway etc etc etc.
We don't know, at the time of this writing, so we speculate, and don't think the pit of stinking monkeys that seems to inhabit the chat forums these days are not going to go totally bat shit insane about it.  Though to be fair few of them probably care about the issue but it's another lever to move the trolling crank.

Don't forget that more forums exist for chatting about Eve than the official one, the Scrapyard Challenge one comes to mind, their are probably others.

What could be saving this from becoming a huge issue is the general feeling of apathy towards the CSM, only a few thousand active accounts bothered to vote, out of, supposedly, three hundred thousand accounts.  Surely that confirms the CSM is an inert lump of clay, never to have a scroll of words inserted into its head?

Corporation Death

It's funny how quickly a corporation can die.  Often they don't disappear totally but just last week I was happy in the warm embrace of Sto-vo-kor, chatting with the other members over the sub space.

Something has changed, the mood, the feeling, something.

The CEO, or co-CEO I'm not sure, has stepped down.  Many of the pilots are not jacking in, not coming online.  It could be the recent move to a new zero security area has damaged the morale in some way, I'm at a loss to explain it.

So we will see what happens.  I suppose I could head back to the corporation I founded, I assume Roku would be okay with that, sort of makes training those new guys redundant though.

Change of plans new guys!  You are now forming the nucleus of a new corporation! YHI is no longer a training corp!  YHI is now a war deccing corp that will also roam low sec looking for trouble!

Yeah and watch them all shit bricks and I think one of them would explode.

I need a drink.

Damn refugees.

"Damn and blast the mother fucking Sansha driving this human refuse into my station!", the walls ring to my sudden shouted outburst.

Now I really need a drink.

Leaving my room behind me I head towards the bar.