Aww, you're all sweethearts.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! Best present: Mynxee’s autograph! (She signs them in autocannon rounds, apparently.)

Upheaval, Reflection, and a Special Day

Yeah, it feels like a year has passed since the last time I posted. To make a long story short, I had a bunch of RL stuff going on that I'm now trying to put behind me. Within EVE, I left the Tuskers a year ago yesterday, joined Death by Design with Predator Elite and friends, stopped playing entirely for a while, then I rejoined some old friends in Molden Heath under the banner of Calamitous-Intent (which seems to be a Voltron-esque amalgamation of former RANSM, R1FTA and THC2 pilots, among others). After joining 7-2 I promptly vanished once again, and only really returned to the game about ten days ago.

Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Big thanks to Kaeda Maxwell for sending me this.

Anniversary

Almost two years ago, I undocked a ship with the intention of using it to PVP, without any idea what I was doing. Realising this milestone has made me reflect on the changes that have come over the past two years, and the people I've had the pleasure of meeting and flying with (and sometimes against). PVP is mostly a social activity for me, so I think it's appropriate that I take the opportunity to offer my thanks.

Explosions!

Since this blog is about EVE Online, and the vast majority of the pilots I currently fly with are in the game for the "pew pew", I thought I'd give a summarized version of the spaceship murder I've recently been party to in the name of "good fites".

• A hat trick of firsts: my first night in R1FTA, my first kill as a member of that corp, and my first killmail as a member of the corp, all on the same Myrmidon.
• A brawl with RANSM at the Angel Creo-Corp plex in Heild. This was actually a series of four separate engagements: Haerod's Enyo and Duke's Wolf popping Dirty Protagonist's Coercer while my Jaguar and Ris' Enyo took Totera's Thrasher down (later joined by Haerod's Tristan and Aliaksandre's Rifter). Second, a group of us jumped on Titus' Bellicose after I had reshipped into a Stiletto. The third fight was a larger frigate and destroyer brawl that spelled the end of the same Jaguar that had killed Totera earlier. Finally, a little later that evening, I had a 1v1 against SneakyBadger's Thrasher that I lost by the skin of my teeth (Sneaky was at 6% structure when my Retribution popped). 
• A pair of 1v1s with Naoru Kozan of the Tuskers where I lost a Retribution and a Jaguar. Due to the comments left in the second lossmail, I suspect the surprise pointing incident was arranged by Jaxley. :P
• This Vagabond aggressed my Retribution on the undock of our home station while I was typing something to a corpmate. Though he managed to burn 40 kilometres away in the time that it took me to dock and reship, it wasn't quite enough to escape my Lachesis' point range.
• Unfortunately, not everyone who offers 1v1 fights has good intentions. This particular pilot offered a "friendly" duel in a Nighthawk, showed up on field in a Daredevil (which stood far less of a chance against my Hurricane's 720mm guns), and then proceeded to call in a gaggle of friends to gank my poor battlecruiser. I was miffed about the entire affair for about half an hour, but after that, it was more hilarious than anything.
• On the generous invitation of my friend anf fellow Woman Gamer of EVE Shalee Lianne (who sounds SO CUTE on comms!), I spent a few hours camping gates in The Forge lowsec with her and her corp, Imperial Outlaws. Among the results were a Talos (my first tier 3 battlecruiser kill), a Lachesis and a Ferox.
• Last but certainly not least, the only explosions to come out of a brief venture into Innsmother with my partners in crime Huo and Judge. We had just returned from a tour of 0.0 featuring some module lag shenangians and a frustrating lack of kills. On the lowsec gate from L4X to Skarkon, I saw a gate flash, and what popped up but a Vindicator? Unfortunately, contrary to Cyber Ten's assurances, it did not end well. (Despite that, though, we had a blast - pun definitely intended!)

While I try not to dwell too much on killboard stats, I'm pleased to note that in the past eight days since joining R1FTA, I seem to be on my way to setting personal records for both kills and losses - I'm currently at 21 kills for the month (with a record of 53 in March of 2011, primarily due to participating in the Wensleyday Roams), and 12 losses in the same period (with a record of 14 in March of 2011, likely also due to the Wensleyday Roams :P).

I certainly won't claim those as examples of prolific PVP activity - I know pilots who pull in as many kills in an average-to-busy month as I have in my entire four-year EVE career - but if I maintain the pace that I've set for the month so far, it'll represent significant changes in both the quantity and quality of my fights in New Eden. I'll discuss that in more detail in a separate post, so if you're interested, keep an eye out!

Look ma, I'm on Sov Wars!

As fate would have it, a mere day after I started writing blog posts again I was contacted by Shalee of Sovereignty Wars to see if I'd be interested in doing an interview. I'm sure you all know how well I get on with the opportunity to ramble at length about anything, so I was more than happy to accept!

Direct link to the interview is here.

Frustrational Warfare

With a post title like that, I think I've succeeded at both banishing any confusion about what the topic might be, and losing the interest of a significant portion of anyone who might read this blog. Since I've already managed to accomplish two things with this post, I reserve the right to present the rest of the content in an utterly pointless way. :P

My perspective on Factional Warfare is admittedly narrow; I haven't spent a great deal of time in the FW environment recently, and I've never really ventured into the Amarr-Minmatar side of the conflict at all. If you're interested in getting a broader view of things, I'd highly recommend a blog written by my awesome Amarr counterpart and fellow gamer-chick Shalee Lianne. You can find it over at Sovereignty Wars.

WARNING: This is going to be a long post, even compared to some of the wordier ones I've written here. I won't be offended if people don't read the whole thing, so don't expect me to come out and randomly start quizzing people on its contents or anything like that.

Updates!

It's been quite a while since I've updated this blog. I'll try to remember everything that's happened since then, but if I leave anyone out by accident, my apologies!

I think I can safely say I've resolved my dilemma about flying Minmatar. The answer ended up being "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", and looking back I'm honestly glad I've made the jump. I still have a special place in my heart for Gallente ships, but I've been spending more and more time flying rustbuckets with guns - even I'm shocked to see that the last few kills I've gotten have been in Firetails and Hurricanes, respectively. In turn, that lead me to a couple of other discoveries regarding my style of PVP.