Adjusting to Reality

EVE is real, the old saying goes and of course its correct.  EVE is a component of all our lives whether we play it solo every few weeks or take out fleet after fleet and guide fellow pilots to victory.  By definition, if you are playing EVE, you are not doing anything else at that time and EVE has become the reality for you.  The big question is not whether EVE is real but how much of Real is EVE, there is only that much to go around.

And based on that calculation, I decided that I can’t participate in any meaningful way in Noir. anymore and dropped corp yesterday.  I knew this was coming about 3 weeks ago and delayed it since I really did not want to click that “leave corp” button.  I worked hard on getting into Noir., deliberately took the long route via Noir. Academy and earned my invite based on participation and willingness to learn from my dumb mistakes.  I adapted pretty well to changing roles, I even did logistics for no other than Alekseyev Karrde and lived to tell the tale (Aleks has a fearsome reputation as FC with zero tolerance for fuckwits)).

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Oscillations

My time in EVE is directly linked to a few factors:

Weather.  If the weather is good, I much prefer to be outside and exercise my “chainsaw therapy“.  

A Chess Game with Fleets

This week saw an amazing amount of content in and around New Eden, proving all those mouthbreathers wrong who called EVE dead years ago.  Vast navies clashed in tightly choreographed fights, supply chain and logistics operations burned through the night and restocked the armories while the propaganda teams flooded the metaverse with incendiary posters.   It was all out “war” as much as it can be done in a computer game in 2016 and I truly hope that I will retain my memories of this day so I may compare it to an equivalent fight in 2036.  (lets hope TiDi is fixed by then)

The Great War

War is upon us as you – handsome and well-informed reader – surely have learned already.  On one side of the war is the Imperium, an organization that had smashed itself to an undisputed leadership position by brute force, intelligent diplomacy and benevolent dictatorship .  On the other side is an uneasy coalition of alliances who – until recently – were frequently at each others’ throats but are now fighting under the banner of Voltron.

Big Boy Ships

So, I mentioned before that our mercenary outfit is deployed somewhere and is shooting at ships that appear red on my overview.  Thats about the level on intel I have but unless you – dear, smart and handsome reader – live under an asteroid, you know that a multitude of parties are currently fighting the big, bad wolf called the CFC or Imperium or (goons + pets) or – if you are Gevlon and for your sake, I truly hope you are not – Emporium.

Active Listening

In my place of work, “executive” managers apparently have been told to use “active listening” techniques.  They now repeat everything I (or my colleagues) say, ostensibly to prove that they were listening to our arguments. In reality of course, this technique allows them to claim good ideas for themselves and belittle me for being a bad communicator who need everything repeated.  Its one of these workplace things that I observe and then gently dismiss – like all other management techniques it will soon fade away.  I just found it amusing in context of my last post that I had linked on Reddit.  I don’t routinely do that (I stay away from Failheap Challenge, EVE O Forums, Tweetfleet Slack, Redddit), the site offers nothing valuable.  My linking the post was a spur-of-the-moment thing, egged on by EVE friends who thought the idea of biometrically monitoring and punishing CSM members was hilarious.

Into the Black

Oh no.  What have I done?

As of last week, I joined Noir. Academy – the training center for the mercenary corporation Noir..

I am actually quite apprehensive about this.  Firstly, Noir. is famously serious about spaceships and I have never been in an environment where anyone cared about killboards.  Secondly, I have never flow in Nullsec or Low sec, I literally spent the last 4 years in a hole.  Thirdly, my experience with organized fleets is minimal.  Sure, I have been in open fleets and from our alliance we had a few roams but that is as different from a real nullsec fleet as a pick-up-game of soccer with a league game.

But why?  I had a good thing going?