So as you know I am in Red Versus Blue (RVB). For those that have no clue what this is, it is 2 corporations (well alliances) which spend 23.5 hours a day – except on patch days – killing each other over and over and over again. And we do this with only a few rules, the 2 main ones being no ECM and no Podding. Surprisingly its a system that works.
So much so that CCP created a splash screen for us this past weekend and as a result both corporations have grown over 20%! It also means that we have more and more new people joining daily who wonder what we are all about. So every week for as long as I get fed words from our members, I shall post a selection of their RVB experiences here on my blog.
And so without further ado, I give you RVB’s members.
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Bernadette Kasenumi wrote:
RvB has been an interesting experience for me. The first time I played Eve it was with a few co-workers and it was… overwhelming. Mining was about the only thing I understood, so that’s what I did. Eventually I got bored and stopped playing. One thing I didn’t stop doing, however, was watching the alliance tournament. That’s how I was introduced to PvP, and it looked like *fun*. A lot of fun. But the tournament made it seem like PvP was only for the elite. I had some picture in my mind of these players roaming through low sec (I’d never even heard of null sec by that time) stalking their prey like a cat. A space cat. I remember RvB in this tournament. I thought the alliance sounded like a fantastic idea; creating an group whose point was PvP and lots of it. But I still thought this was something I had to work up to. Until one of the co-workers I played with previously, Cameron Zero, told me he had joined RvB. He sent me a free trial and I started a new account. After a bit of training and some re-learning I too joined RvB.
At first RvB seemed scary. Really scary. You had a whole language I didn’t understand. Plus, half of you are not from States like I am (bollox this, wanker that), so that didn’t help me to understand you all any better. I was intimidated. I was scared. That is, until I joined my first fleet; blew up my first ship. It. Was. GLORIOUS! After that I was hooked.
After a few weeks of this I joined my first ganked. By this time I had come to better understand the difference between high sec and low sec, but this null sec… I was scared again. And I stayed scared up until the first time I was podded. It wasn’t so bad! And it gave me a chance to look at some of the kill mails we were getting:
http://rvbganked.co.uk/kills/index.php/kill_detail/1217/
HOLY CRAP WE KILLED HYDRA! I recognized this name from the alliance tournament as well. And his ship cost sooooo much isk (ha). Mine was practically free (my rifters still cost me less than half a million), but by golly I killed me a big one!
Recently I’ve finally developed the guts to 1v1 on my own, what with the SWOT event. A portion of my bravery is the 300m isk I won designing the ganked board header (which is in honor of my favorite ganked theme, arty thrashers) but most of my bravery is a result of RvB showing me that *I* am the scariest thing in space, because I don’t care if I go boom.
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Venuri wrote:
I thought I would jot down my experience of going from Carebear to RvBer. You may or may not find it interesting. If I had to give it a title it would be ‘How not to get into PVP’
Firstly my instinct is for flight and not fight so I am not a natural PVPer. I spent my time in-game mining in a Carebear corp. The corp decided to venture into null and needed to get the mining index up , so I volunteered. I undocked my Exhumer warped to the mining op and immediate lost my ship to a bomber.
After that episode, I did an Agony Unleashed Basic Course. I came across RvB from the Agony forum and through I would give it a go. I join Blue Republic with ten T1 frigates all T1 modules. It didn’t take the Reds long to realise I couldn’t fit ships for shit and soon lost my ten ships. I left RvB to get some isk for more ships and never came back.
I was getting restless mining and decided to try PvP again. This time I would do it ‘Properly’ I would go through formal training and where else to do formal training that Eve-Uni. After sending in my application and waiting in an queue for four weeks I eventual got my interview. I was reject by Eve-Uni (so that was four weeks well spent).
I then tried for Noir Academy. I was to late (I must have been in the wrong queue), the semester had already started. However they made an exception and let me in. I thought that the Noir Academy was great. It was very strict. no talking in local, You were told a ship type and fit and you had to adhere to it. I saw one guy have is ship blowed from under him, on the FCs orders because one of his modules wasn’t specified. If you lost a ship then you had go into chapter and verse on why you lost that ship. If it was felt that the ship loss was avoidable and you were on a contract you got kicked.
Despite this draconian regime I enjoyed my time in Noir Academy and graduated with a medal and a cookie. I was then moved into Noir Mercenary Group. Being in Noir was like having an in-game job, but wait I had a job in RL! I never screwed up on contract while in Noir but came very close, so decided to leave.
Okay so now I had the basics I needed some mileage under my belt. Agony Unleashed were recruiting I would give them a try. Agony go to great lengths to explain that they are a PVP corp living in null sec and the PVP Uni is a very small part of what they do. However only knowing Agony from the PVP-Uni I have to admitt that this disclaimer didn’t sink in and I also have to admit I did put them on a pedestal. I was with Agony in Venal. I was a little surprised to see lots of blues in system and most of the fleets were CTA. I was under the impression that there would be no blues and fleets would be small gangs. I don’t know if it was the time of month, but I felt I was really screwing up in Agony maybe I was just trying to hard and I became very frustrated. I decided that PVP was not for me so back to mining. I was much encouraged by the guys in Agony and yes I would give PvP one more try.
The MOTD in RvB chat said ‘EU players join Red Federation’ so I did. The RvB way is very simple and for me it works well (I still screw up , but hey who give a fuck).
This extract from corp chat sums RVB up for me,
noobie: “Hi just joined to learn PvP. What do you want me to do?”
RvBer: “kill shit”.
Noobie “I’ve never done PvP”
RvBer: “just get in a fleet and learn the hard way”
And that’s the RvB way*
Now that I have whored on over a 1000 kill mails and died in glorious fire many time. I thought I would try null sec, after all that’s where the real PvPers are. So I re-applied to Agony and yes I got an interview. So here I am sat on TS3 in the Agony lounge for over an hour and nobody from Agony is turning up.
Mmmmmmm! Here we go again.
(Mangala’s Note: Venuri is back in Red Fed for anyone wondering)