I started this blog in its current state about a year ago and I am moderately happy with how it has run. Although I haven’t posted regularly or nearly as often as I would have liked, I feel my “relaxed” stance towards it is what has kept me coming back to it.
Key to this was not writing to a schedule – I don’t know how people manage to do that. Trying to keep Eve as a hobby, not a job, I wrote on my blog whenever I felt like it – which in some cases was a couple of days apart, and sometimes a couple of months in between.
I also found myself switching writing styles a few times – I’m not good at writing narrative/fiction but the last few months the posts I wanted to write felt best coming as either the Narrator or in character. Sometimes it worked, although more often than not I posted stuff I wasn’t happy with just to get the idea out of my head.
Kailii Severasse: Enough with the self-indulgent preamble and get on with it already!!!
Alrighty then – here it is my year in review:
The Good
The Squirrels Moving into Querious: In February, the offer to take sovereignty in Querious arose and people were near universal in their approval of accepting this proposal. After much to-ing and fro-ing between Greygal and the leaders of the Querious Fight Club (QFC) at the time, Affirmative moved into 60M-TG and the surrounding “Diamond of Querious”, which was soon renamed Squerious.
All of this happened with the shadow of World War Bee up North, and while Pandemic Horde ultimately left the QFC to seek their fortunes in the war effort, everyone else remained behind. I still believe this to have been the right decision, despite the events that would later unfold.
Accomplishing Goals (aka Op Success): At the beginning of the year I set myself the in-game goal of trying to become a Fleet Commander (FC). Although I only got as far as getting involved in a training course, I do feel confident should the opportunity arise to one day lead a fleet larger than one.
As I will elude to shortly, my (temporary???) departure from Affirmative also opened up an opportunity to complete a goal that has sat unfinished sinch I first joined the rank of capsuleers nearly 3 and a half years ago.
Working towards accessing the Gallente Epic Arc, “Syndication”, was one of those activities that as a new player got me hooked into the New Eden universe, but sadly one that eventually got pushed aside as other opportunites came about. It was tough and challenging, but nonetheless extremely rewarding to finally complete this long term goal.
Community: While Eve can be an unforgiving place, the people over in the other pods are, by and large, an amazing group of people. From banding together to support each other in times of need (eg BroadcastForReps) to creating a fun environment where people from varying aspects of the game can chat and hangout (eg Tweetfleet on twitter, any player gathering).
Having moved back into a larger city this year, I was able to more regularly attend player gatherings. This has led to the development of some amazing relationships with other players. This even extended to EveDownUnder this year, where, as a solo, mostly PvE player at the moment, I was able to sit down and enjoy sharing stories with other players who were drinking shots over the loss of their alliance’s first supercarrier (this same group later got evicted from a pub for drinking the water in the “tips” jar – can’t say I was surprised).
The Bad
Squirrels Leaving Querious: If nothing else, the events that led to this left an extremely bitter taste in my mouth, ultimately leading to my absence from the game for nearly three months and soon after a “holiday” from Affirmative to get away from null sec politics.
When Pandemic Horde left Querious, it was not necessarily on the best of terms, essentially because no one else in the QFC would follow them. We had built our homes here and were not about to get caught up in someone elses battles (namely World War Bee).
Under the new QFC leadership, we braced ourselves for any possible retaliation and for the most part actually held our own. We wanted to fight for our homes and the friendships we had developed over the past few months (remember what I was saying earlier about the importance of developing relationships in this game).
It eventually came as World War Bee was coming to a close. The Imperium were beginning their move South into Delve, and we were excited about the content they would bring. It didn’t matter that we had no counter to their blops, this was content and the Imperium were bringing it to us.
Sadly the “Big Bois of Eve” had different plans. Long story short, people were pissed that QFC never moved North, and most definitely did not want anybody to providing content to the Goons after they had holed themselves up in Saranen for the duration of the “war” and denied them any meaningful fights.
Side note: The fact the Goonswarm and the Imperium refused to play the game as others wanted them to is very commendable. I am no Goon sympathiser, however I am a strong believer in having the freedom to do what I want in the game and not be limited by the decisions of others – as you will soon see.
The QFC essentially got bullied out of Querious by people we had considered friends, and indeed our friends, Tactically Challenged, in Delve also got shafted by the “Big Bois of Eve”. The willingness of these larger groups to kick over our sandcastle purely so noone could fight Imperium was jaw dropping and downright shameful.
In the end, Imperium took Querious and set up some psuedo-QFC that has nothing to do with what we had developed. It was a sorry end to an amazing ride.
The Soapbox
Gambling Gets Banned: Totally agree with this one hands down, but it also raised a few points that really got me riled up.
Firstly, the fact that it helped pay for content. Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed the Eve News websites begin to become “bloated”. Gone are the smaller blogs, podcasts etc. Instead we are left with a handful of major sites that “pay” people to produce “content”.
My arguement to this is that things like writing things for Eve is not a job and it should not be treated as such. Play the game for what it is. If you want to write/produce content outside of the game, you do so without the need to “sell” your things. People will decide if they want to pay you ISK or not and thats fine, but to decry the end of services because you cannot pay your “writers” from money obtained outside of the game is not cool.
Go out there and mine, run missions, scan down sites and earn ISK the way the rest of us do it!!!
Twitch Streaming: I am sure there are plenty of good shows out there on twitch, however I am sorry to say I cannot find anything less interesting than watching someone else play a videogame – especially Eve.
I still remember getting frustrated growing up watching my siblings and parents doing all the wrong things in Alex Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog and now we have Twitch to remind us of those good old days.
In some ways this goes back to what I wrote just before about paying for content, but I am a cynic as well, and encouraging people to watch you play when they could be playing the game themselves just doesn’t sit right.
Conclusion
So there you have it. A few of the highlights (and lowlights) of the year as I saw them. Thank you to everyone that occassionally took a few minutes out of their lives every now and then to read my rambling nonsense.
YC119 looks set to be an amazing year – Trip to Iceland and Fanfest not withstanding.
PS: Please feel free to leave any comments, feedback and suggestions below 🙂
Variable Conclusion 
Great read!!!!
Thanks
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