May 2014 – Content, Content, Content

RvB Spring Cup – Streaming & Commentary

May 272014

On the 7th & 8th June, RvB will be holding a tournament for its members, the RvB Spring Cup. A tournament with a prize poll of around 20 billion ISK.

The Spring Cup tournament will comprise of 5 man teams duking it out across a Double Elimination format with the following limitations and rules:

Points:
We will be using a points system as with the AT, SCL & NEO. This will make for more interesting matches as the points & rules do not allow you to just bring 5 mallers!!!
Teams are responsible for providing their own ships and fittings.
Teams have a maximum of 30 points to invest in the following ships:

Logistics Cruiser – 13
T1 Logistics Cruiser (Augoror, Exequror, Osprey, Scythe) – 10
T1 Cruiser – 7
Electronic Attack Frigate – 5
Pirate Frigate – 4
Faction Frigate – 4
Assault Frigate – 4
Interceptor – 3
Destroyer – 3
T1 Logistics Frigate (Bantam, Burst, Inquisitor, Navitas) – 4
Tech 1 Frigate – 2
Tech 1 Industrial Ships – 3
Ships not mentioned in this list are not allowed.

Fittings:
Tech 1 & 2 modules are allowed
Faction and officer modules are not allowed
Tech 1/2 Rigs are allowed
ECM target jammers are not allowed
ECM target jammer drones are not allowed
Only one local repair module per ship
Only a logistics cruiser or logistics frigate may use remote repair or capacitor transfer modules
All implants are allowed
All boosters (drugs) are allowed
Faction ammo is fine. Pirate ammo is frowned upon (and will be demanded as tribute to the AT team anyway if you use it).
Faction drones are fine. Augmented drones are frowned upon (and will be demanded as tribute to the AT team anyway if you use them).
NO smartbombs
Boosting via command ships or tech 3’s is not allowed
NO Deployables. Only I will have one out, and thats an MTU.

Rules:
Teams will field a maximum of 5 pilots.
A MAXIMUM of 3 of the same ship types are allowed per setup. Example 3 x caracal 1x burst 1x random frig is fine; 4 caracal 1 x condor would be bad. This includes skinned ships.
Only one T2 logistics cruiser OR T1 logistics cruiser OR T1 logistics frigate per team.
The arena will be have a radius of 200km. Leaving this arena bubble will mean disqualification.
Teams will be allowed to warp to the arena before the match starts. However only at a range between 0km & 50km.
No podding – do so and your team will be disqualified.
No warping in the arena.
Matches to last 10 minutes. No more. (In the event of a tie, an extra 3 minutes sudden death combat will be added and the arena will reduce by 50km. First side to kill a ship wins the match).
If a team is more than 2 minutes late to a match, it automatically forfeits that match.
Team that goes into the Finals as the Victor of Match N, will be allowed to issue 1 ship ban per the final “Best of 3”.

The Spring Cup will be held on TQ over two days. Schedule of the matches is here.

Now, I would like this event to be streamed and commentated upon, again as you see with the AT, NEO & SCL. Currently we have some commentators lined up: Mizhir of the One Man Crew project, Connall Tara of Fly Reckless, RvB’s own Thecla Elark and Catalyst XI amongst them. Not all of these gents will be in a position to stream while commentating due to circumstances beyond their control. Connall is very much willing to be the host of the event, for instance constantly running on the RvB Ganked mumble with other commentators, feeding match commentary and between match chatter to a group of dedicated streamers, Mizhir and Thecla are both very technical individuals with a great depth of tournament experience who will give us that “real” feeling when it comes to the matches themselves.

As I say above I would love for this to be streamed, and this is were the EVE streaming community comes in, I am looking for streamers who want to provide visual of the matches across the day, streamers who know both what they are doing and how to present this tournament in the best way to the viewing public, and in as professional manner as possible. You would also be in a position to commentate on matches along side the people named above as well. Done right and this could really work in your favour as free publicity for your streams, as well as for RvB. I am even willing to provide a PLEX for your services as the tournament will take a lot of time to cover I am sure.

If you are interested, you can mail Mangala Solaris ingame, leave your thoughts in the comments to this blog or find me on the RvB Jabber from Wednesday onwards. I really am a stream novice, totally in awe of people who spend their time working that medium to its fullest, so anything you have to say on how to make this a reality will be appreciated. If you have Jabber issues, give @Khador_Vess a shout on twitter for assistance.

Additionally I am looking for interested parties to help with refereeing on the weekend, team managament between matches and so forth. I have some volunteers from within RvB, but more is always good for that too, as the event is quite long over the two days.

No Duck left behind

EVE, Fcing, Ganked 13 Responses »

May 252014

Last night we formed up for Ganked 117: No Duck left behind. Yes, it was a Drake night. While we had many many Drakes, as well as logistics, other missile ships and plenty of frigates, we had a surfeit of something else: a high number of people 100% new to the NPSI scene. And even to large scale fleets. This of course did not stop us roaming, it just made for a strange experience, the vets were super relaxed, comms reflected this and the new guys were damn eager, this is all well and good until things actually began to happen.

Of course events did not happen immediately, word of 200+ russians in BS over in FDZ etc came down during form up, but Drake night being what it is, no way could I burn us there while still accepting people – many of whom are new to Ganked and/or pvp in general (downside to the theme I suppose), by the time we do arrive they have done what they were in system to do and gone, not even a vodka and black bread party in BWF.

Move onto my planned route, and some gate campers pick off stragglers as we free burn through lowsec, retreating every time we even think about sending groups of us back (GIS basically do this for a living as utilising their skill set in a better way is too risky for them). Eventually we get into nullsec and start moving only for 5 Titan Bridge Legion to come and play. After much “jump into us” “no U” went back and forth, with neither side being willing to give, my fleet scattered on grid to chase random shit, I got bored and fleet warp us off, however PL chose that moment to come in. They follow us to our out gate were I make a snap decision to fight and its on.

We brutalise much of the PL logi and take down a bunch of expensive vultures, then they bring in the triage. We could still land damage on targets, however due to varied amount of sp/experience of mass pvp/general “huh”, our positioning isn’t amazing and much of our damage is wasted as by now the fleet was strung out following me (good work following me though :D), and so range was all over the place – that’s a downside to missiles. Still we did better against a smaller superior force than other groups (HAI PROVI) have done without access to caps and/or reship ability.

Reforming we were to help Ceofore Aideron lose a dread, however PL Nyxed that idea – the result of lots of miscommunication between Ceo & myself, and me trying to keep 100+ dudes entertained. Lowsec was mostly a bust as well, and Providence was pretty quiet. Ended the night shooting Alpha :evil:

So a pretty quiet night. Not the highest scoring, although certainly well attended by pilots new to the NPSI scene, I just hope that all you new guys keep coming back and do not get soured on pvp by how the roam went. Seriously ask around, we often have stellar nights with good times on comms and awesome fights to be had. And if there is anything that Ganked can do to make the NPSI experience easy to pick up as a pvp newbie, let me know in the comments to this piece.

NB: if you know anyone looking to FC an NPSI roam, get them to contact me, Ganked is always on the look out for guest fcs.

The Guestlist

Fcing, Ganked No Responses »

May 022014

Over the past two years and 10 months, Ganked has gone from strength to strength.

We have progressed from a gaggle of drunken fools with a shared taste in hulls liberally covered in sensor boosters, to an organised group of drunken fools with a shared taste in hulls that actually work.

Since July 2011 we have run over 120 roams (numbered and special events) scoring over a trillion isk in damage spread over some 13,500 kills, thats more than some corporations make in their entire lifetime!

Much of this success has been down to all of you.

The guys that come along week in, week out, or just fly when the theme is one you like the sound of. That so many you are willing to take part in the NPSI experiment, often flying ships considered expensive for such fleets, or in themes & doctrines that do not look they will work but that work anyway, is what keeps me FCing you all as often as I do and keeps me focused on making the NPSI scene in EVE, the best it can be.

However, it is not just you guys who have made the past 34 months some of the best times of my EVE career so far, but the many guest FC’s we have had along the way and I urge you as we push on into our third year of operation, to get your favourite guest FCs to step to the plate and take you all out to play. And if you know of anyone else who would be willing to guest for us, then get them to get in touch. Let all FC wannabe’s – existing guests or otherwise – know to check out our public schedule for Saturdays that they can do, and to let me know so I can get details from them for the roam they want to run.

(NB: For those wondering our past guest FC’s are Ali Aras, Alphastarpilot, Combat Mink, Green Gambit, Greygal, House2twist, Jayne Fillon, LuckyCCS, Mirrogod, Ne’rubis Tanthalas, Rebbeca Neresh, Roigon and Tgl3.)