May 092018
 

I won EVE a few years back.

Like many others, I did not simply walk away and forget this place, this community, this world that had kept me intrigued for nearly 9 years. I found myself popping back in for a moment here and there, Ganked turning 5, World War Bee with Spectre, trying to entertain some “Dirty Crims” and a couple of other times when I had the urge to check up on this most amazing of games.

However, each time I tried again, I found myself with a problem, I really didn’t feel at home anywhere, so visits to EVE dwindled away. Eventually I came to realise that the only place I would feel comfortable, the only place I know I am content to provide content in EVE was the place I had called home for many years and had left behind back in 2015, RvB.

And so earlier this year I resubbed to EVE, over 12 years since the firs time, spent some time reading through around 18 months of changes, sorting my stable of characters out then more recently rejoined RvB and I’ve never felt more welcome, even when I rejoined slap bang in the middle of my own life rearing its ugly head!

Folks will be reading this and thinking that RvB is dead, that it “closed down” in autumn 2015, or simply withered on the vine as other entities gobbled up the newbies and spai alts of EVE.  The changes RvB went through since I walked away back in spring 2015 will no doubt be covered by better men than I, but suffice to we are still here, and I have Firetails to lose:

 

So I am back in EVE, back in RvB and am looking at NPSI stuff too, I’ll see you out there folks!!

Mar 082016
 

Just when you think you’re out…

Nearly five years ago, RvB took on the duty of offering the people of New Eden a regular NPSI roam. You may have heard of it, it was known as RvB Ganked. Somehow, “Ganked” very much became my baby, something I managed for years until the time I stepped away from EVE, following which the Ganked mantle was taken on by the good people at Spectre Fleet. Even when I came back, I was (and still am) happy to see Ganked continue with Spectre and show my face from time to time to fly with friends new and old. I was happy doing that, I thought I was out of the limelight.

They pull you back in!

Recently, Vision Thing Achasse got in touch with me to say RvB was starting up a new NPSI roam as part of their efforts to rebuild the RvB brand following some drastic changes late last year, and offered me the chance to FC the first roam/event.

I checked my schedule, gave it some thought, and agreed. I put 5 years of my EVE life into RvB, its a time I’ll never forget and to be offered this opportunity to help them just made so much sense.

So on Saturday 19th March, come join me, Mangala Solaris, and a host of other pilots for a roam in search of DEATH & GLORY, in the inaugural RvB Memento Mori roam.

As FC I got to choose the ships and what not for the night, and following a long look at all the options available (NAUGS, Eagles, AHACS to name a few), I decided to rock it old school. To bring back that insanity that signified the early days of RvB Ganked, when my RvB experience still influenced how I ran those roams. Namely, FRIGATE HULLS.

Yes, you read that right. Its a kitcken sink frigate fleet. Break out the frigate hull(s) you love the most and lets have a great night in support of RvB and it’s future within the EVE community.

Small print:

You will all die eventually, you’ll lose your ships, get shouted at by me, and you’ll enjoy it. Meet me in Oisio/Hysera from 20.00 on 19th March. Comms will be an RvB Mumble server:
server: public.rvbeve.com
port: 43224
pass: RvBLives

Dec 032015
 

Once upon a time, I won EVE.

Then one day I stopped winning EVE and for a variety of reasons, I returned.

I stepped back into the game just in time for a rather memorable Ganked, in which I even managed to FC for a short while. Followed by another great Ganked the week after. However, this wasn’t so much a triumphant return so much as it was me easing gently into the game. A game that had changed so much in the few months that I was gone.

Then as quickly as I returned, I was gone again. Fallout 4 had released, and all my free time disappeared into the wasteland. I binged on Fallout any chance I got, putting in nearly 70 hours over the past few weeks, despite work eating into my free time as well! Fun thing is I haven’t even scratched the surface of the game yet, I’ve only JUST reached Diamond City….

Anyway, this post isn’t about me failing at failing to win EVE, nor is it about Fallout. Its about my indecision to find something to do in EVE now that I am back.

In the before time

My history so far in EVE is very much intertwined with that of the second iteration of RvB. I, like many others, started off with an alt there until one day I found myself at a lose end with my main, Mangala Solaris. I took the decision to move Mangala into RvB as a place to get some pew pew until I found a new home. It never quite worked out that way as the past five and a half years demonstrated. As RvB grew and changed, so did I.

At first I was just a regular pilot, then I started acting as a backup caller, then fully fledged FC running multiple fleets daily both for RvB activities and against war targets, culminating with me becoming one of the main war time FCs when it came to the very large fleets that RvB was throwing at the world then, especially when fighting the folks over at EVE University and BNI. In conjunction with this, I organised many large events for RvB, and through the aegis of RvB Ganked, the EVE public. From simple roams right up to live streamed tournaments, I had to have a project rolling at all times. Knowing that others were enjoying their game experience kept me going.  Until it didn’t.

FC wat do?

Now that I am back, this question is the one that is on my mind. After years of focusing on RvB, and groups connected to it, I am finding it incredibly difficult to decide on what exactly my next steps are. I know for certain I am not going to remain in RvB much longer. While RvB needs all the pilots it can get following some serious upheaval back in October, it is for others to rebuild it. I am content knowing that it will still be there, continuing to provide a home for many pilots I consider good friends.

As someone who has played this game (on and off) for around 9 years, I have experienced quite a few aspects of the game, so it becomes pretty hard for me to narrow down my options to specific path. Despite my prior experiences, there are still parts of the game that I have little experience in – wormholes, FW in its current form, the other side of Empire war decs, piracy, small gang operations and even solo pvp; Additionally there are aspects of my EVE experience that I would love to delve deeper into, notably the support and building of NPSI communities in readiness for the day when CCP give social groups their attention.

Of course I could ignore all the above and finally accept Doomchinchilla’s invite to his corp, and end up in Pandemic Legion.

Meanwhile…

For now I am just going to keep up with some well needed asset consolidation and try to get some minor projects rolling, including FCing again. The environment of EVE has changed enough that rolling around with a few (or many) of you, destroying stuff seems like a fitting way to find some inspiration both for my own future and on how I will provide for you all.

Feb 242015
 

This morning a close friend, fellow pilot in RvB and all round top bloke, Dracoth Simertet passed away after a short battle with cancer. This cancer was diagnosed last October and while Dracoth and his friends within both RvB and the greater EVE community hoped for the best, it was not to be.

Personally I am torn apart. I feel like I lost a true friend, and no matter that our friendship was mostly founded in EVE, I considered Dracoth as close as a friend as the people I see every day. His humour, even when directed towards me, was enough to lift your spirits at just the right time. His enthusiasm for everything was contagious, you could never feel down around him, even in the midst of a tremendous welp.

By his passing, and the passing of other members of this community, I feel we are diminished; however I know these fallen pilots will forever leave an echo of themselves in and out of game thanks in to the community they called home. They will travel in the memories of those they touched, even when EVE is no more.

I just know that I’ll miss my friend of the past 4 years.

———————————————————————

Several members of the EVE community asked me for details of anywhere they could donate in Dracoths name, I have been in contact with his family and they would prefer donations are made to The St John’s Hospice on the Wirral.  This hospice provided considerable relief for Dracoth in his final days and survives only on donations, so anything you can donate will go to ensuring they continue to help those with progressive or incurable conditions. For ease of use, they do have a Just Giving page.

Oct 232014
 

RvB-Tyrian-Trophy-800x200

This weekend I am hosting a 5v5 Tournament for RvB.  This tournament is to be live streamed (on Twitch) and commentated.  Currently RvB’s own Thecla Elarik, and the great Ceofore Aideron are signed up to commentate. We did have two more, however apparently studies and getting your insides cut open are more important to those people.

Anyway, this is a VERY last minute call to anyone who would fancy joining Thecla and Ceofore in commentating the matches.  Check out the rules, prizes and so on below. Schedule is here, get in touch if this interests you with a slot you can fill in to commentate.

You can get an idea of what you are in for by watching a tournament from earlier this year, that was ran in the same way. Videos are here and here.

RvB Tyrian Trophy Rules, Guidelines, & Points information:

Points:
We will be using a points 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 33 points to invest in the following ships:

T2 Logistics Cruiser – 13
Battlecruiser (None Faction) – 12
Faction Cruisers (Not Pirate) – 10
T1 Logistics Cruiser (Augoror, Exequror, Osprey, Scythe) – 9
EWAR Bonused Cruiser (Blackbird, Celestis, Bellicose, Arbitrator) – 8
T1 Cruiser – 7
Electronic Attack Frigate – 5
Interdictors – 4
Pirate Frigate – 4
Assault Frigate – 4
Faction Frigate -3
EWAR Frigate – 3 (Griffin, Crucifier, Maulus, Vigil)
Interceptor – 3
Destroyer – 3
Tech 1 Industrial Ships (aka Haulers) – 3
T1 Logistics Frigate (Bantam, Burst, Inquisitor, Navitas) – 3
Tech 1 Frigate – 2 (Except EWAR Frigates)

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 Rigs are allowed
NO T2 Rigs
Only one local repair module per ship
Only a logistics cruiser or logistics frigate may use remote repair or capacitor transfer modules or RR drones
No Pirate Implants are allowed. EVEBoard will be used to check this.
All boosters (drugs) are allowed
Faction ammo is fine
Pirate ammo is not allowed
Faction drones are fine
Augmented drones are not allowed
ECM Modules are allowed ONLY on a hull bonused for ECM.
ECM target jammer drones are not allowed
No smartbombs
No links in any way
NO Deployables. Only the Referee will have one out, and thats an MTU.

Rules:
Teams will field a maximum of 5 pilots.
A MAXIMUM of 2 of the same ship types are allowed per setup. Ie 2 caracals, or 2 moas or 2 harpies (Skinned ships count towards these totals) etc etc etc
Only one T2 logistics cruiser OR T1 logistics cruiser per team OR 2x T1 logistics frigate per team.
One (1) EWAR Bonused Cruiser or Frigate Hull is allowed.
The arena will be have a diameter of 200km (so a radius of 100km). Leaving this arena bubble will mean disqualification if you do not rectify this within 30 seconds.
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.
NO prelocking the other team. Only lock them once the match countdown has started.
Matches to last 10 minutes. No more. (In the event of a points 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 the Winners Bracket, will be allowed to issue 1 ship ban in the 1st and 3rd “Best of 3” matches.
Team that goes into the Finals as the Victor of the Losers Bracket will be allowed 1 ship ban in the 2nd “Best of 3” match.

Jun 142014
 

A great discussion just cropped up in the RvB Ganked channel and it lead to this post.  To cut a long story short, RvB Ganked (otherwise known as a vehicle for my ego) is lacking two things.

Firstly a video that does a great job of introducing Ganked to newbies/those unfamiliar with Ganked and public fleets in general. 

This would be a great thing to have at hand to show off to folks with.

Secondly, we are also lacking a 15 second Alliance Tournament advert video. We should totally rectify this. Rules are found here:

General Rules
All video material must be Eve related!

The item/service being advertised must be Eve related.

The advert must be suitable for all ages.

Content must be respectable (no attack ads) and suitable for broadcast.

Adverts must be in English.

The quality of the advert must reflect positively on EVE itself, we will work with you on improving the quality of the video until we can accept it. The earlier you get in touch and send us material the more we will be able to advise you, the closer to the event we are the less time we will have to help you.

The deadline for each weekend of the tournament is midnight on the Wednesday of that week. That’s August 13th, 20th 27th and September 3rd. If accepted your advert will be shown on all the subsequent weekends of the tournament. Please keep in mind if you want to be sure your advert will be included please submit it at least a couple days earlier.
Technical Rules
1920×1080 resolution with a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, failing this you can submit as 1280×720, adverts will not be accepted in any other resolutions. Video should not contain black bars either horizontal or vertical.

Either 30 or 29,970 frames per second, adverts will not be accepted at any other frame rate.

15 Seconds long [img]exactly[/img], adverts will not be accepted if longer or shorter.

We suggest the video is delivered as a Mov or mp4 file with H.264 as a compressor at 15 to 20Mbps, WMV is also acceptable, MKV are not.

Video quality is more important than small file size!

Anyway lets brainstorm a few ideas in the comments as the weekend moves on, and we can start blagging people into doing us huge favours and making videos!!!  

FYI: Ganked logo is here.

Jun 072014
 

RvB-Spring-Cup-forum_banner

 

Day one is over. 

This isn

 

Anyway, vote for your player of the day from the Spring Cup by posting in the comments to this post.  A rough list of characters who flew today can be found be looking over the killboard for the system:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=system_detail&sys_id=132&view=kills or check the thread here for a rough idea of teams: http://rvbeve.com/forums/index.php/topic/7819-the-rvb-spring-cup-a-team-tournament/

Go back to around 14.00 EVE on the 7th June 2014.

They’ll win a Navy BC of their choice.

 

 

May 272014
 

RvB-Spring-Cup-forum_sig

 

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.

Apr 302014
 

Back in late 2012, a MMOFPS launched that I decided that I wanted to play, that game was Planetside 2.

I took many of you along with me on that wild ride.  Then we got sidetracked by things in EVE and I ran for CSM and so on and so we stopped playing.  We tried again a while ago, but SOE had the bright idea to turn our regular play day into patch day. Which sucked all the fun out of that given other days are reserved for other things.

However, SOE finally did something right.  The forerunner to PS2, Planetside, was opened up as Free 2 Play yesterday.  And the best F2P of all. One with NO cash shop and no cash advantages over others. Admittedly PS1 is as old as EVE, looks like ass, has some broken aspects that SOE wont touch however compared to PS2 is a veritable feast of features and meaningful combat opportunities.

So for the first few weeks of the newly reprised PS nights, we will be playing Planetside 1.  Get it here: https://launch.soe.com/installer/PS_setup.exe  It is a small 1.8gb download. You can use your existing SOE accts to log in I think (Not ProSeiben).

We will be playing Planetside every other Wednesday starting today April 30th from around 18.00 UTC. And every other Tuesday starting on May 6th.  Obviously if the wider community interest in PS1 dies, we’ll switch back to PS2 on those nights, but for now old school fun times are a go.

And in a small change from our PS2 faction choice, in PS1 we play as New Conglomerate (NC.).  As thats the faction I have played in PS1 for ever. I can be found on one of the following characters:

Mangala, Eaglestalker, Thevir, VirMax, Walkindude, EnginVir, Tiberian3

Some useful tips can be found here – the DO THE VR TRAINING one is like the most important:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=42566

https://forums.station.sony.com/soe/index.php?threads/for-new-players.11500063743/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/24bpz1/planetside_1_is_really_confusing/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/24btqu/new_player_ps1_tip_use_the_vr/

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=55203

 

And here are a few videos:

Apr 132014
 

FuHX8PA.jpg

 

This coming Easter Weekend, RvB Ganked invites you all to join us for a weekend of wild abandon, drunken comms and crazy carnage. 

We will be running Saturday, Sunday and Monday!  Details of everything are found below, please note that we will be using the Ganked Mumble for all comms over the weekend.

 

Ganked 113: Concord Hymn

Date: Saturday 19th April 2014

Time: Form up @ 19.00 / Depart @ 20.00

Where: Hek / Hagilur (For Blinkies)

FC: Mangala Solaris

Theme: Autocannons, Shield, MWD, Minmatar. BC, Cruiser, Frigate.  Tackles needed, Ewar needed, Shield Logis highly needed.

The title does not refer to EVE’s popo’s, but to the start of the seppo war of independence and its opening battles. Additionally we WILL be out long enough to take part in the final one of these events: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4464168 Specifically this one “April 19 – 22:00 UTC”

 

Ganked: Resurrection Day

Date: Sunday 20th April 2014

Where: Rens / Uanzin

FC: Mangala Solaris

Now as this is resurrection day, we will be reprising a couple of my favourite themes from the past few months.

For part one we will fly Interceptors and will be roaming deep into renter space – Bring some probes!!!! We depart Rens @ 12.00 UTC

For part two we will once again fly out in my favourite Amarr based theme. Lasers, Neuts, Armour (Basically fits from 4 weeks ago and the Ides of March roam) 

Prophecies, Harbs, Omens, Mallers, Arbies, Ashimmu’s, Cruors etc.  Armour logi will be excellent.  Tacklers & Bubblers (Hics & Dics) too.

Part two will depart Rens @ 19.00 UTC

 

Ganked: ‘Straya

Date:  Monday 21st April 2014

When: 13.00 UTC

Where: Mista / Kheram

FC: Mangala Solaris

Theme: Enyos/Wolfs/Retributions. 

Armour fit, short or mid range. A nice spread of these would be great. Armour logi, tackle, ewar, bubbles, and PROBES!!!!