WANDERLUST

18Oct/110

Moving Spaces

Just a quick note to those that check in on this blog - it has moved!

It is now called Malefactor, and can be found at http://scaurus.com

Thanks everyone for your comments and reading over the past year. Make sure you continue to do the same at the new location!

Filed under: Uncategorized No Comments

14Oct/112

I’m a Tusker, too! (But Better Than Rixx)

The title is something that Tek would absolutely say – I’m a Tusker, but better than Rixx. Unfortunately, like Tek’s claims, it also isn’t very true – at least the better bit Rixx has already had an opportunity to participate in some kills as a Tusker while I’ve been busy with school and moving my crap.

As he wrote, its just three jumps away – but for my freighter it is 11 jumps, as the 3 jump route includes Lisbaetanne, Aeschee, and Hevrice – not the friendliest pipe of lowsec in the world. So, it’s the long route for my hauler alt through high sec, but I’m happy to do it – because I’m at long last a Tusker.

It’s not as if I tried again and again and finally overcame all the adversity to achieve my own personal victory, but it still feels a bit like an achievement for myself in Eve to be sporting the TSKRS ticker now. Adjusting to the ‘family friendly’ atmosphere that the Tuskers have established over the years will take a little doing after over a year of flying with miscreants like Professor Terror and Myd’raal – as well as adjusting my own personal style of smack talking the hell out of people in local when it serves a purpose (or I’m bored). However, I’m happy to do it.

Last night in particular was an opportunity to mock and enrage a trio of pilots in Lisbaetanne. Abellona had come over to help escort my freighter in and out of the Train and got caught by a Thorax, Firetail and Slicer upon jumping into Lisbaetanne from Aeschee. Abe already had aggression to the gates from previous shenanigans, so all the trio had to do was keep Abe pointed and under guns and they would win. I was unable to do anything but watch as it all occurred under gate guns and all I had left myself was a Wolf to fly around (should’ve left out the Rapier, derp).

Anyways, Abe took down the Thorax pretty fast and burned away from the gate. Despite having a massive speed advantage over the armor Cane Abe was flying, the Firetail and Slicer couldn’t keep point and Abe got out in 5% structure. The old Marc would have immediately begun mocking the pilots for their failures, partly for fun but also in the hopes that they might aggress my Wolf. However, at the last moment I recalled the new corp ticker and refrained from the discussion in local.

I thought I would miss smack talking more than I actually do. I just chuckled a bit on Vent (btw, UGH VENT) with Abe and we went about our business of trying to find some fights and get the freighter runs started. Naturally we were unable to nail down any targets, but we did get some of Abe’s stuff moved as well as the beginnings of my hoard of crap, so it was a bit of a moral victory in the end.

On a sad note, it appears that the Sinners. meltdown continues. Crocodile Tear has decided to app over to another pirate corp, further reducing the numbers that Sinners. can call on. Terror has informed me that he intends to make a go of it, essentially from scratch, and I wish him all the best in that endeavor. He’s always had a knack for attracting a good, solid core to his corporate ventures.

With that meltdown in progress and Tek still unsubbed, Ransoms and Roams is unfortunately on hiatus – no eta for our return to the podcasting waves, but return we shall at some point. I’m also getting my fingers into a couple other projects, one of which I can’t speak of at all at the moment, but the other is pretty exciting and not SUPAH SEKRIT either! Over at Voices from the Void, Hallan Turrek is MIA. He was noticeably absent from the latest episode featuring Seismic Stan and Mynxee in a roundtable about Hilmar’s Apology letter, and apparently is still missing! So it looks like I’ll be lending a hand and filling in, along with CSM White Tree, sometime in the next couple days. Quite excited to work with Arydanika, who will hopefully introduce me as Marc Scaurus and not some other bloke.

Fly Smart,
Marc

Filed under: general/other crap 2 Comments

11Oct/112

Moving On

Today I have a very heavy heart, as I informed the few remaining Sinners. that Marc would be retiring from the corporation. After reflecting over the weekend, I decided that the best thing I could do would be to move onwards in Eve, for a variety of reasons.
First, there are my ever present time constraints. I simply do not have the time to be a CEO, as I have discussed before. What Eve time I do have I would much rather be spending relaxing with a cold beer while making people explode in various tragic fashions, as opposed to guilt tripping myself over the state of the corp. To their credit, my Directors and friends in Sinners. have been very supportive over these past weeks, but I feel like the corp is more theirs than mine now due to my inability to be on for the hours required to be an effective corporation CEO. So I’ve given it to them. Just now I made Professor Terror CEO of Sinners.

Second, there is my personal goal of self-improvement in Eve. I really do have a desire to be more than just decent or competent in this game. While I will certainly never hit the top 10 in Battleclinic, I want to be able to confidently say I’m a fucking good PVPer in Eve. Spending my time organizing ops and talking to recruits and such is a luxury in Eve for me – I like doing it, but it isn’t a need when it comes to playing. Getting better at Eve is a need for me, one that I’ve been forced to neglect for some time now.

Third, since I became a pirate I’ve wanted to be a part of the Tuskers. Literally before I acquired a GCC, that has been my desire in Eve. However, roadblocks always seem to have stopped me in the past from pursuing that goal. First, it was the friendships I developed while in my first stint with Monsters. Then, it was being a Director in Monsters during my second stint. Finally, it was because of my desire to try and build a corporation with those bonds I made in Monsters as the foundation, and the subsequent obligation I felt to seeing things through.

Now, however, I face a bit of a perfect storm of opportunity. While my play time is severely reduced from the levels I was able to sustain over the summer, I do still have the time to log on a few times a week if all I have to do is undock and shoot shit. Free of the encumbrance that Sinners. became, I could finally enjoy some time in Eve. The Tuskers are closing in on the end of their recruitment cycle, and I now have a few friends in Tuskers that I know I get along well with, both on comms and in fleet.

I don’t want to give the impression that I blame anyone for anything that has occurred over the years with Sinners. and Monsters and my inability to join Tuskers. I genuinely enjoyed my time spent in both of those corporations, and feel like I made a few very good friends along the way. I’m grateful to all of them and hopefully they won’t hold my leaving against me. When I speak of things like encumbrance, guilt tripping, obligation – all those dirty words – I speak of the craziness that goes on in my own head and nothing in regards to the people I’ve flown with, who are all pretty cool guys.

Anyways, today I let the Directors in Sinners know that I would be retiring. CEO has been passed off to Terror, alts have been dropped from various corporations, and an application has been posted to the Tuskers. If I do not, somehow, get accepted to them, I will likely roam solo in an NPC corp for some time, focusing on getting better at this hobby of mine.

In closing, thanks again to everyone I’ve ever flown with in Monsters, Sinners. and Burn Away – you guys are all awesome. See yall around in one fashion or another.

Fly Smart,
Marc

Filed under: general/other crap 2 Comments

6Oct/114

All things born must die

You’ll have to forgive the bit of melancholy today. Yesterday Rixx Javix announced his intent to dissolve the Burn Away alliance and place Lucifer’s Hammer into ‘hibernation’ mode. His reasons are many and valid, but it doesn’t make parting ways with LUCRH any easier for Sinners.

Not that we’ve been on the market very long in terms of hunting for alliances, but LUCRH and Burn Away really is (was, I guess) a good fit for Sinners. Same attitudes towards the game, same goals and desires, etc. The guys were fun to fly with and although recent departures could probably honestly be said to have depleted the skill point pool a bit, we were still a well rounded bunch of pilots.

However, Rixx has decided to simplify his game, and while disappointed I cannot blame him at all. Especially considering my own circumstances…

Sinners has quietly been fading a bit in the last couple months. Most noticeably Tek, Terror and I have all had our play time reduced to essentially nothing. Several members we gained in our summer swell have either disappeared or quit altogether. While recruiting trudges on, and Croc was made Director to shore up our ‘leadership’ (as lol as that concept is in our corp) presence online, things are just kind of dying.

Then there is Lisbo. I still like Lisbo and the opportunities it offers. However, due to massive camping campaigns by PIRATES and Yarr Collective a couple months back (both of whom have since moved), the steady stream of adventurous high sec souls has dried up almost completely. Next door, Shadow Cartel moved in, took on Douchingtons, and is merrily blopsing everything in sight. In short, its turning into a bit of a wasteland instead of the verdant hills of PVP it was when we moved in.

So where does that leave Sinners.? Good question. With an absent CEO (me) and two out of three Directors also absent, for starters. With about three active pilots. With no Alliance and really a bit of a loss of identity over the last months. I imagine Sinners will go solo for awhile, though the guys that are active have apparently become pretty good friends with the guys of Lion’s Den (also formerly of Burn Away).

But, this is my blog, so the more important question is – where does that leave Marc? Truthfully, I no longer feel comfortable making any kind of decision for the corporation, which when you get down to it is really a CEO’s job. My play time situation hasn’t changed for the better, though December promises to be much better (a break from school – yes!). My urge to play hasn’t diminished at all, but finding the time has become impossible these last couple of months.

So, what this all means for me is a bit of reassessment. I’m going to have to try and find the right path to tread with Marc. Until then…

Fly Smart,
Marc

Filed under: alliance, general/other crap, piratical philosophy 4 Comments

19Sep/1115

Why Eve University Should Change Its Name

For nearly as long as Eve has been around, the player-run corporation Eve University has done an admirable job of taking in complete newbs and helping them ascend the steep learning curve of Eve Online. Their classes and wide ranging knowledge of everything Eve has established them as *the* place to go to get a bit of a grip on the game. I wonder, though, if ‘Eve University’ isn’t a bit of a misnomer.
You see, there are a lot of things that make Eve unique among the ever growing MMO market. The fact that it is player-based, where each pilot kind of makes their own content as they go; the player-run market, with its in depth charts and ‘market pvp’; but most uniquely out of so-called modern MMOs is the PVP. I’ve spoken to a lot of players over my years in Eve Online, and the one recurring theme that seems to really hook people into the game is the phenomenon of ‘pvp shakes’. I know I haven’t gotten the shakes from any other game out there and I’m definitely not alone.

With Nullsec Warfare seen by many as the true ‘end game content’ of Eve, as well as the various rapscallions (+100 scrabble points for using that bitch in a sentence, btw) who lurk in lowsec or do nasty things in high sec, I think it is fair to say that Eve’s PVP is really a core concept behind its success. This is not to say that Eve’s PVP is unique – ‘true loss’ PVP has existed for a long, long time. But, it is rare these days to see in a world crowded with WoW and its clones, all offering life eternal at the low, low cost of ‘free’ (respawns, etc).

That being said, is Eve University really teaching about the core concepts of Eve? Or should it be more aptly called ‘High Sec University’? Or perhaps ‘Carebear University’? Eve University sucks at teaching PVP. There have been stretches of time when E-Uni actually forbade their students from undocking during wartime. What exactly does this teach the student about one of the fundamental parts of the game? Answer: nothing.

Gradually, E-Uni became a tad more militaristic and began forming the infamous E-Uni blobs. Touted as a way to teach students how to act in fleets, the E-Uni blob swiftly became a large deterrent against simple minded griefers who want nothing more than easy high sec noob kills. They taught a little bit about following FC commands and stuff like that, but over time it became apparent that these fleets were not about teaching students, presumably the goal for any operation undertaken by a corporation calling itself a University. Instead, it became about protecting E-Uni’s name, discouraging PVP and making things ‘safe’ for E-Uni students to learn about Eve.

Once again, we must ask – what does being ‘safe’ teach students about PVP in Eve? Nothing. However, as time pressed on and students became bored, you began to see the E-Uni blob doing anti-pirate baiting in hotspots like Tama, Mara and Aurohunen. But once again, the virtually risk-free nature of most E-Uni blobs doesn’t do the students justice. So what would you do, Mr. Know It All (I can hear you asking)?

For this, I would have to agree with TG’s recent post. Blobbing doesn’t teach much besides learning to do exactly what the FC tells you to do and when to do it. Not discounting this as valuable, as it certainly is a good foundation. But, small gang warfare is where you will really learn how to fight. If E-Uni were to make it a habit of splitting into squads, <10 students with an instructor leading the way, then perhaps students would begin to appreciate the ins and outs of Eve PVP. In smaller gangs, the actions of individuals can often decide an engagement. With the stakes raised, the fate of your corpmates ships on the line, I can’t help but think that those with a bit of a PVP streak will find their game elevated.

Of course, this means taking losses. This means actually putting up fights as opposed to massive ganks. This means, in short, putting the teaching of students and imparting of knowledge FIRST, and the ‘safety’ and sanctity of the E-Uni brand name (as it exists in Eve) second. In my opinion, based solely on outsider observation, this won’t happen, especially with rumors abounding that CCP may coopt E-Uni wholesale as a player-run NPC corporation (explain to me how that makes the remotest bit of sense), immune from wardecs altogether.

My advice: get with it, E-Uni. Get fights, not ganks. Learn something. Or change your name to Carebear-U.

Fly Smart,
Marc

Filed under: general/other crap, piratical philosophy 15 Comments

Older Entries »

About Marc

Marc Scaurus is Founder and CEO of the Eve Online pirate corporation, Sinners., as well as co-host and editor of the Ransoms and Roams Podcast. He can usually be found buzzing around lowsec, bored or dead or both.

If you would like to learn more about Sinners., visit the corporation's home page. To get in contact with Marc, drop by the 'Public Sins' chat channel in-game, or drop a line at the Sinners Forums.