DiS’s second war is coming to an end today. To call it a war is somewhat misleading, because in reality it was a week of DiS ships going boom. Early in the week we gave it our all, and had some good, small-scale fights, but as each result was the same (DiS boom, enemy shields full). Moral naturally dropped and activity became light. For me personally I was just running low on ISK to keep tossing ships into the grinder, and towards the end of the week it was pretty common to see no one online from our Corp (more on this later).
Until last night I was pretty down on the whole thing. Not because we had lost ships, but because our enemies seemed invincible, with a very creepy ability to be online just at the right time, with the right numbers, in the right location, and in the right ships. If we had 2, they had 2, if we had 4, they had 3, if we flew frigs, they had frigs, if we went BS, they went BS, etc. Multiple times I put this to the test, and as soon as I undocked in anything worth shooting, sure enough an enemy would log in. Dock back up, enemy logs out. Rinse repeat for as long as I had the patience to continue.
So when I logged in last night, and got an email that the war was in its final 24 hours, I messaged the most active enemy to say good fight. He accepted the convo invite, and actually thanked us for putting up a fight and expressed a little bit of regret for war-deccing us. As he explained, his group had just gotten back into EVE, and before fighting a bigger enemy (they usually war-dec large empire corps), they randomly picked our corp as a tune-up. Our corp is perhaps a little misleading, as many of us have old characters, but most of us are in fact noobs, especially when it comes to PvP.
As we talked, he asked if one of our members was in fact very new (Kobea), and when I confirmed this, he sent him 75m ISK to offset a recent loss. He also broke down a lot of the tactics they used, especially around some of their fits and how they went about picking fights and knowing what to bring. In 30 minutes or so I learned more about EVE PvP than I have in all previous encounters.
He went on to ask what our goals are, and when I expressed an interest in low-sec PI, he gave some tips about that and wormhole space. I also jokingly said I might hire them if we need some help defending a CO, and he replied that they would gladly help, without the need for pay.
As is almost always the case in EVE, the lows of being blown up ended in a huge high, this time not because of a single massive encounter, or some ‘epic’ loot, but from a great conversation, an understanding of how the other side plays the game, and in gaining a potential ally and friend should we require the help.
I always laugh when I see outsiders comment that they won’t play a game like EVE because of all the horrible people who only play to ruin the game for others. While there are certainly those types in EVE (and in every other MMO), I’ve found that with just a little bit of effort, it’s very easy to find great people in the game, be they corp mates, random pilots in local, or even your enemies. And I am fully convinced that the mechanics of the game, including the FFA PvP and full-loot aspects, go a long way in shaping the community.
As for the effect on our Corp activity that I mentioned earlier; the biggest issue here was our overall corp size and general activity. As we are not a big corp, the difference between two people being online and four is huge in terms of our total numbers, and because we are mostly a PvE/Industry corp, not being able to do those activities resulted in people logging in, seeing no one but our enemies online, and logging off. Had our enemies been less active, or our corp a little bigger, I don’t think the effect would have been as dramatic. I also think the lack of voice chat and a message board fed into this, as we had no way other than in-game to communicate or to coordinate. Certainly things to keep in mind going forward.
Hardcore Casual 
Don’t discount the possibility that your opponents had a spy in your corp, that’s the easiest explanation of how they knew your details.
Naw, they just had cloaked alts in good spots.
“..a very creepy ability to be online just at the right time, with the right numbers, in the right location, and in the right ships..”
“..he asked if one of our members was in fact very new (Kobea), and when I confirmed this, he sent him 75m ISK..”
Kobea was his alt, imho.
Sorry, you are incorrect, I was often the only one on taking heat. He would have kill mails of himself when no one else was on if I was his alt.
Losing cheap ships solo to throw us off. I don’t know, looks pretty shady Kobea the spy…
You’re right, you have cracked my grand scheme….
Step 1: Get Syncaine a free plex
Step 2: Infiltrate his corp and lay low for a month
Step 3: Kill his Noctis
Step 4: …
Step 5: Profit!
Great post.
I have found an interesting combination of people in EVE. On the one hand it has some of the most annoying, adolescent pedants I’ve encountered since my 8th grade D & D days. The ridiculous over-complication of nearly everything in the game rewards that. So it makes sense that spoils go to the ZOMG N00B PWNZ0R LULZ crowd.
On the other hand, and in the main, I’ve met a huge number of very helpful, generous players.
Many people gave me isk without my asking for it when they learned I was an enthusiastic new player. I’ve now been able to pay that forward to another new player. Vets have broken down over-complicated mechanics to the point where I could finally understand them, and try out bigger ships, jump clones, and PI. I’ve received literally hundreds of millions of isk and hours of help from complete strangers who have become in-game friends and mentors.
I have to say I’m really loving EVE, especially the community, so thanks for the posts that got me curious enough to give it a shot.
Yeah, I have to say I was really impressed with them too. I definitely ended up with a better understanding of how some of the game mechanics work than I had before after chatting with him (pro tip – if someone scans you down in mission space, they actually find the acceleration gate that leads there, BIG difference). It also gave me something to think about as far as what I want to do in the game going forward. I don’t expect fights in Eve to be fair, but honestly, even with the loses this week, the actual fight is only a small part of the action. The bulk of it is the cat and mouse/chess game that leads up to the engagement. Even though I didn’t really stand a chance once the guns started blazing, I was able to put up a fight in the other aspect, where “winning” for me was avoiding the engagement (and accomplishing my other goals) and for him was forcing the engagement. Sure, I made mistakes that caused me to lose ships, but in each case where I lost something, I could see other choices that I could have made which would have avoided the loss. I was never in a situation that I had no power to affect the outcome.
Yeah, basically neut-alt faggotry is the #1 reason wardecs need some major overhauls… and hence why most hisec dec corps won’t follow or engage in low or null — the mechanics there effectively delete their neut alt advantage.
Syncaine. Your stories of EVE and DiS, along with the R&K: Clarion Call video, the past few weeks has gotten me wanting to try the game myself! I’ve always had the desire to try it but was always entrenched in another MMO (EQ – WoW – EQ2) to give it a shot. Last night I signed up for the free 14 day trial and was excited to get into the game and finally try it out, only for my game to consistently freeze at the Character Creation screen. This always happens particularly in between Race and bloodline selection… It’s infuriating!
I guess since you’re the only one I know of who has knowledge of the game, I’m asking if you know any workarounds? The forums are fairly useless. I would love to get into Tranquility ASAP!
P.S. – I don’t post here much but I low the blog! Your one of 6 i have bookmarked on the iPhone for my lunch break. Keep up the good work!
Top 6? Seriously? Come on man…
Your first mistake was not requesting an extended 21 day trial from me. Provide an email and I’ll set you up.
As for the crashing, that sounds very odd. I know they had a patch today, that fixed some issue related to creation, so maybe that did it for you. If not submit a ticket to CCP. They are VERY good in terms of replying and helping you out.
Are you running Windows XP? Players using XP have been having issues since Crucible launched. Otherwise perhaps the character creation system (which is much more taxing on your rig than the actual in space portion of the game) might be causing you to lock up. At the very start of the creation process before you choose a race hit ESC -> Display and Graphics Tab. Turn on “Low Quality Characters”, turn off Physicly Simulated Clothing and Hair and set Texture Quality to Low
In regards to corporation activity. The period right before Christmas is always a little slow what with the holidays and exams coming up. Generally the weeks following Christmas see quite a bit of activity. I know I won’t be able to log in for much until the twentieth so I’ve set a “essential” rank V skills to carry me through past exams.
EVE is actually now offering a 60-day free trial that players can send to friends – the codes just need to be redeemed by Jan 24th. http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=3234
You only get one 60 day trial per active account, and I’ve used mine to create a 3rd and 4th account. New User experience is pretty sharp in EVE now, from what I’ve seen of it so far.
I still have mine if you want to forward me the email of someone who wants one.
What part of “I’m trying to get rich off PLEXs being sent my way” is hard to understand you knuckleheads?!
How else can I support taking 1b ISK PvE Faction-fit Rattlesnakes into PvP situations?
Heh, yeah, Xris mentioned he had wanted a piece of your CN Raven, I just said to him, “Did Syn tell you about the Rattlesnake? You aren’t getting close to the Raven”
After reading 3 posts gushing about one generic, unimpressive aspect of SWTOR after another, this post was (A) a breath of fresh air and (B) proof enough to me that anyone willing to jog in place on yet another loot treadmill has either forgotten how long it took to tire of the last one or wants their gaming time to be ridiculously simple and not require even a moment’s thought given to strategy or tactics.
“many of us have old characters, but most of us are in fact noobs”
Fits my Darkfall character to a T – good character skills, considerably-less-than-good player skills. Especially in PvP.
Your stories make me want to play Eve.
I’ve played as an industry/miner on and off over the last few years (mostly off). Love the system, though visually the game has always bored me.
The big thing that stops me, is my character is probably stuck in 0.0 space in a location that, as far as I know, has been overrun a few years ago. I’d probably start again with nothing but trained skills.
Seems like a tough game to get into, especially for a player who was mostly duo with a RL friend, and no PVP experience.
You can reverse-redeem a 30-day game time PLEX and sell it on the market for about 400 million isk. That’s more than enough to start afresh somewhere else.
Also, put up your existing stuck assets at fire-sale prices :)
As someone knowing not much more than what’s posted here and in a few other places…
What do you mean with the being stuck part?
I mean, I know what 0.0 space means, but what do you mean?
No ship to get out of there?
Being blasted to bits the second you log in?
In Empire space, the stations you dock in belong to the various factions and conglomerates of the four empires. The station may attempt to shoot you when you undock, but at least it lets you dock again.
Conversely, in null-sec space, the stations are conquerable, which means if it is taken by the enemy, they can prevent you from refitting your ship, repairing it or even docking at one of their outposts, so you lose the ability to get your stuff out (barring the lone ship that you undock with to escape, and good luck escaping if it doesn’t have a cloaking device or is as fast as an interceptor)
Makes you wonder how trapped assests might change if they ever impliment destructible outposts.
@sauselah: “wants their gaming time to be ridiculously simple and not require even a moment’s thought given to strategy or tactics.”
That me. As a software engineer and lawyer I spend all day dealing with strategy and tactics. SynCaine’s discription of EVE has me running in fear for my sanity. I want my gaming time to be pure escapist fun. Story is what I seek from a game (and escapist levels of power ^^).
If I could play something like Neverwinter Nights over the Internet with a small group of my friends I’d be in heaven and would probably never bother with an MMORPG. However, as far as I know, Internet capable co-op RPGs do not exist.
My friends are now scattered around the world, busy with careers and families, and the days of LAN parties are long gone. (*sob*) An MMO like SW:TOR allows me to play, a few hours here or there, with my friends in a mytholgy I enjoy. I tried WoW but never could get attached to the mythology or story.
I’m sure I’ll enjoy Skyrim but that’s solo. I *like* adventuring with my friends. So that leaves tabeltop RPGs (for which I DM a Pathfinder campagin) and MMOs. *sigh*
FWIW, I enjoy reading about the fun SynCaine has in EVE but it would not be fun for me.