2015 is nearly at an end, and like other entities, I have the urge to reflect on the year gone by as well as give you all a look the year to come for as long as I am in game.
What Was
2015 started on a massive high, Ganked had reached 150 weekly roams, Spectre Fleet was a year old and Nashh was going to sacrifice a titan for something. Jayne, Doug & myself called for all our forces to fly Golden Fleet that night and took them along to the Titan Smash event, nearly 1000 of you (directly fleeted or simply tagging along!) showed up. Despite failing to kill the titan ourselves, the numbers, the doctrine and general atmosphere demonstrated just how popular NPSI is, and just how much NPSI had grown in the previous year.
Following 150, the weekend roams went from averaging 150-170 pilots to continually pushing 200 or more, especially if Apex, Doug, Jayne or myself are the FC du jour.
Alongside this high in my NPSI life, it was not long into 2015 that I became one of the RvB CEO’s, a move which stumped some people as so many of you always assumed I was one anyway – being a gobshite on social media helps with that I suppose. At the time, this was amazing, something I had considered over the years but never really thought would happen. However, in retrospect this really wasn’t a good thing for me. I was still on the CSM, I was a leading light in the NPSI world and from time to time I would lead the forces of RvB in glorious warfare. It was such a bad thing that I played less and less until eventually I didn’t even log in for NPSI. Then I realised I had won EVE. As you all know that was a temporary victory and I continue to lose this game on a daily basis.
In the wider world of EVE, we saw many alliances die, most notably BNI. In their stead more organised groups with a similar focus have arisen, Pandemic Horde, Karmafleet, Nova Haven, Signal Cartel to name a few. 2015 also saw RvB “die”, but much like my victory over EVE, their death did not last long and following a management change RvB is getting back to its roots of providing fun, constant, bullshit free pvp (looking at you ECM!). I wish Lady, Vision, Jasper and many others all the best as 2016 begins.
The end of 2015 was as exciting as the beginning for me, I returned to the game in time for Ganked 200, where I managed to get mself DD’d by PL. Apparently there was a bit of a race to be the one to DD me! The event – Ganked 200 – itself was great fun, quite a turn out of pilots many of whom I had not seen for months, it was like a school reunion. Just without the bad 90’s pop.
@awanderingjon It should make you feel even better to know there was a bit of a race to get you. All in the very best humour.
— Carathas (@Carathas) December 28, 2015
2015 was not all sunshine and roses, some of those we started the year with we are not ending it with. Dracoth Simertet, Robyn Aurilen, Photon Torpedo are but a few of the pilots we lost this year. With the EVE community being so close knit, every loss affects us – diminishes us – however I know that those pilots fly on with us as part of our collective memory.
What will be
2016 promises to be a very interesting year for me. I am currently investigating a myriad number of options for places to call home, from EVE University, to Spectre, and a whole gamut of opportunities in between, including Pandemic Legion. I am even entertaining the idea of expanding my current one man corp into an actual thing and using it as a basis of yet more investigations into the future of social networks within EVE.
In terms of how I will affect YOUR game during 2016, on the drawing board right now are more player tournaments, more roams led by Mangala, greater involvement with NPSI communities across New Eden, a foray into small gang environments and so much more that its best if you all just watch this space and see what my mind spills out as we move through 2016.