Madness in B-R5RB, and one last move

It is about a couple of week since a little dead-end system in the ass-end of Immensea went from just another staging system in Null-sec space to a battlefield with legendary status over night. So legendary that in the space of 48 hours after the end of the following downtime (which happened to break standings... good job breaking stuff again CCP) people who previously had no idea what EVE Online is are now interested in its vast and crazy politics and economics. I have buddies at work who are gamers but refuse to start playing EVE because they know of the commitment required and claim they don't have the time, but the Battle of B-R5RB (henceforth known as "Titanomachy") have pushed them just a little closer to the deep end of the pool and it wouldn't take much to see them dive in.

The way it happened from my spectator's perspective, having nothing to do with any of the coalitions (more on this later):

At around 11AM last Monday I get a message from my buddy Cartboard Box that said the following: "PL just lost 3 titans, losing more as we speak". I asked if this was another Asakai event (some dude jumping his Titan to the bridging cyno) but the answer was swift... "Someone forgot to pay the sov bill in the staging system. CFC went balls deep". The rest of that afternoon had me poking at CB for more info as more and more titans were dying, time dilation started kicking in, and all Hell broke lose.

When I got home the roles were reversed as I was the one with access to the streams and #tweetfleet on Twitter, and as the evening advanced my jaw kept digging a bigger dent in the floor. First the smashing of the previous "titans killed in a single battle" which was 12. And then the 20 mark, 30, 40, 50... at that point reports started getting different from one source to the next. Some sources were saying that over 100 titans had died while others were very conservative at around 40. It would take CCP going through the logs to find out, and a few short days after the battle, they delivered the results. Of course I had to explain to tons of people who were now discovering this game about space conquests and "how in the world does one lose 300 thousand US dollars worth of internet spaceships made of pixels?!". I could scarcely believe it myself and had to do the the ISK/USD conversion by hand multiple times to be convinced.

Now that the battle is history, CCP turned it into the most dangerous tourist attraction on the face of New Eden. As of this writing I have yet to do the pilgrimage, but anyone who has read the EVE content on this blog knows that not only am I crazy enough to do it, I plan on doing it very soon indeed. It should be a fun trip :)

***

The last move, at least for a while!

I've said it before and I'll said it again, playing EVE on a tight schedule is a hard thing to do but the lure of space is too great to give up. But there are some annoyances that need to be avoided when you can only log in every so often but still want to have fun. I've narrowed it down to three things: wardecs, reinforcement timers, and moving. The corp I was in just before the holidays had great people to fly with, but it became part of an alliance that lives constantly under multiple wardecs and moving often to bring the fight to the enemy. I have nothing against flying in the middle of hostiles but I do need a breather sometimes. Timers of course mean that X POS will come out of reinforced at Y hour, which of course had a tendency to happen either in the middle of my work day or while I knew I was busy somewhere else. But logging in after a week spent out of game for various reasons to find out the alliance is now 15 jumps away and you're alone in a sea of flashies, that just blows chunks. During the holidays I got very sick coming down with influenza H1N1 v2.0, which kicked my ass like nothing had kicked it before. When I started getting better I did play a little bit of EVE but it was only to consolidate my assets because I knew a move would be in order. But I also knew that a small financial snag meant my account would have to go dormant for 3 weeks. No biggie, it even gave me time to plan Cozmik R5's future.

The first decision I took was to train a ship class I've been putting off for the longest time: carriers. As much as I hated to move that often, it taught me that having my own carrier would have saved a lot of headaches. But to continue proving my disdain of capital ships, I will go for the Nidhoggur! Second was to find a new home, and that was very easy because something special happened. One of the Montreal EVE Meet regulars is pretty highly ranked in the alliance that has always been one of my favorite enemies. With the green light from the alliance he offered me sanctuary and the Red Carpet Treatment. So now unless another massive war happens again I have made my home in the heart of Providence among CVA! But fear not (or rather, fear!), even though the region still plays under NRDS rules of engagement, the role-playing CVA of old is no more and there is a very stong core of pure PvP players which I am now a part of. And there is no shortage of targets because pretty much half of New-Eden is red to me! Another advantage, I know the region like the back of my hand from having hunted and roamed in it for so long. Only this time the ever-annoying jump bridge network is now something I have access to.

So yeah. Some would say that I've turned coat. Some others would say that I've turned into an Amarr loving POS (and I do NOT mean player owned structure) role-playing hostie d'tapette. But in reality all I do is what I've always done: follow an FC's orders, give him the best intel he can have, and tackle/trample whatever happens to be in the way!

PS: Yes, we visited Titanomachy. and obviously Razor Alliance had bubbled out the wazoo. But we had a great fight. Not a tenth as great as the fight that had happened there the week before but a great skirmish nonetheless!

Fly hard, shoot first, and ask questions later!

o7

I'm back... sorta!

Yes, the move is finally done, but no, I don't have my internet and TV connections yet. I get those on Thursday. And it'll be about time because I need to feed my cyber addiction :)) The move went without a single hitch; what made things a lot easier was not having a lot of big furniture to move. This meant that 1.5 hours before the U-Haul truck rental ran out we were already drinking beer and devouring pizza. I want to give a special shout-out to the following EVE pilots, without whom the move would not have been so easy: Letrange, Cartboard Box, Uozag, Unzer, Suletsap III and Si Gong. Whenever any of you guys have to move, you will have my arms!

So of course who says "no internet" also says "no MMO", and who says "moving" also says "unpacking". So take a wild guess what I've been doing. Slowly but surely my new place is starting to look livable, but I admit I took it easy over the weekend because I was way behind on much-needed Zzzz's, and yesterday I took the day off for my eldest son's 5th birthday. I did spend a little time at the computer; I played a bit of Diablo II, and when I got too tired even for that I watched a few movies. I also played with EFT a bit but this only emphasized the fact that I can't play EVE yet. Yep, it's hard to be a gamer without an internet connection these days!

Along with my internet and TV, I'm also waiting for another toy. I will be ditching my tiny and weak cell phone for one of those smartphones everyone is talking about. An HTC Nexus One if you want to know. One of my buddies has one so I got to see it in operation, but before I even get it I downloaded the *gulp* 340 page manual! Yes it will be nifty to have e-mail and web access wherever I go, with double the storage of my MP3 player, and maybe more cuz I intend to put in a roomier memory card, and also a pretty decent camera for pics and vids. But I think this phone took a page from CCP's book in terms of learning cliff. I should be used to it by summer :))

So there ya go, the quick "I'm almost back" update as I wait for my connections of various kind. Good thing I had a long skill to train up!

Fly dangerous for me plz

o7

Friday's Electric Lunch Hour - 2011/02/25

I'm neck deep in boxes so I figured I'd post the Musical one in the last moments that my computer is plugged in. By the time you read this the 'puter will be stashed and ready to go on its trip to the new place. I'll be getting my internet back on Thursday but I will be able to keep in touch during my lunch breaks. I've still got 3 weeks left to Command Ships V so no worries there. I just can't wait to get to the beer and pizza part of the move :))

I'll say it for once... fly safe ya'll !!!

o7

Crunch time

Well, here I am once again. Five days until I load up a U-Haul truck with my stuff and move IRL. Already twice in the past 3 years I've said "Goddamnit I hope I won't have to move for a long long time!", and 2 other times I had to help my ex and most importantly my kids move, but as you can see, telling myself this has pretty much backfired like Elmer Fudd's shotgun. This time I'll just shut the fuck up and go with the flow. On the positive side, this will be a light move: zero electric appliances, no couch because it suffered 4 years of baby abuse, no bookcases because they've suffered way too many moves for their own good, and no TV unit because it's just too damn big. I may have to carry this last one and drop it off in the middle of the move, but still, technically this should be one of the easiest moves I've ever had.

And why would I talk so much about a move on an EVE blog? Because moving would be a much shittier proposition if I didn't have my EVE buddies to help me. Since February 2008 this will be Move #5. The first one was my ex leaving the house, but I helped her because I wanted my boys to be settled in as fast as possible; I even painted their room. Move #2 was the worst one ever. I was alone to finish packing what was left in our old suburbian bungalow, got some movers for the big stuff, and did the rest on my own. Alone. To make matters more "interesting", what was left of a bungalow got crammed into a 2 1/2 condo. If you can avoid this, do so because it just destroys you physically and emotionally. Number 3 was more fun (if you can call moving "fun") even if not quite expected. My ex's cousin which had helped us by having us rent an appartment in her building, announced non-chalantly that she was selling the place, and the new owners wanted us out. Awesome. But by this time we had shed a lot of the extra stuff from the house so packing was easier, and on moving day I had movers for the big stuff and a good chunk of the Montreal EVE community to help. Move #4 was on an awkward day so not a lot of people could come and help, but it was also fairly easy with some movers, my ex and my girlfriend of the time (which is now also an ex... *sigh*). Unfortunately this is also when the financial gods started to shit on me because the two surprise moves, 2x mover teams, and car problems meant that my debts were going crazy. But oh well that's all behind me.

And now here I am about to move again. It's looking like it will be the easiest move so far but you never know. Once again the Montreal EVE community has made it clear that I will have some help. I'm usually the one who updates the EVE-O forums and the EVE MTL channel MOTD for our pilot meets but last sunday I had quite a surprise when I noticed that not only was the channel MOTD updated, but a line had been added saying something to the tune of "Cozmik R5 is moving !!! Contact him to give him a hand!". I think I have an idea of who put it there and yes, he will get an extra beer!

To the Montreal pilots: guys, I thank you from the bottom of my heart to help me through this ordeal once again, and just tell yourselves this: no matter if the move is easy or not, there will be beer and pizza at the end of it, and if that's not enough there's also the EVE Meet at Brutopia :))

Flying, or moving, with buddies is more fun!

o7

The calm before the storm

Well here we are, I'm currently sitting in the middle of boxes, empty cupboards and drawers, and various appliances strewn all over the place. Tomorrow morning at 9AM the truck should arrive and the final part of my crazy Summer of Moving will be starting. It was something my ex and I had to do for our kids' sake, but doing two moves in the same summer is not something I want to do ever again. This means that starting tomorrow I'll be connection-less until Thursday evening, and as I start my next Dad Week on Friday I will not get much play time in this week. I have a feeling that I'll become a huge couch potato during the month of October!

In the little time I've had this weekend I got a in on a few kills, but not nearly as many as I would've liked because I've had to log in and out and get off early if I want to get anything done before tomorrow's moving storm. But still, fun was had. I also got back on Sisi for a bit to try various things both with and without my BOZO brothers and sisters. I really can't wait for all this moving stuff to be over and done with and do a really long roam in a big fleet. Now that summer is almost over action should be picking back up again, especially as we're approaching the Alliance Tournament and Fan Fest. The last tournament was when Tranquility got populated by over 50000 players for the first time, and with the player population slowly growing all the time I don't see why new records shouldn't be achieved.

Another event that's happening soon and that unfortunately I'll be missing is the 2nd annual BOZO Extravaganza. There may be a quiet weekend online for the BOZOs but I'm sure that Mexico will never be the same after BOZO's passage :)

So there ya go, a short update before I have to start unplugging stuff. Here's to an easy move, and good beer and pizza afterwards !!!

Fly safe if you're haulin'

o7