Oct 022013
 

Its that time again, just a brief round up of various items from the past few weeks, from CSM to Ganked to RvB and EVE in general.

CSM_LOGO

The Summer Summit Minutes are coming on a treat with the old guys of the CSM putting us kids to shame and doing 4/5 sessions each, cant say when they will go public as that relies a lot on CCP, although should be noted that some of the content unveiled with the Rubicon announcement makes certain sessions moot.

In other CSM news, as you may know I held my first Watch with Mangala during the Winter Expansion announcement last week, and it went very well. 50 of you were on comms for this as well as many more hanging in the RvB Ganked channel ingame too.  Lots of good discussion during & after the Rubicon announcement, especially during when being “live” people had less of a chance to think their responses to new features through.  I’ll certainly be repeating this for future expansion announcements as well as any other live streams that CCP do – just as long as it isn’t a live stream of a roam as I will be logged in shooting at it!

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The RvB Forever War (just the war between Red & Blue) has been running (nearly uninterrupted) for 4 years and 4 days, and at 02.57 UTC 29/09/13, we hit the 500,000 kill milestone. Yes, HALF A MILLION kills in a little over 4 years.

This is the kill that took the 500,000 mark, typically it involved a Maller. Well done to everyone who got us to this point over the past 4 years, old & new members alike. The winners received this special medal:

I Was There [500,000]

This Medal was awarded to those pilots involved in the 500,000th Forever War explosion.

Accept this award on behalf of all past, present, and future RvB Members

gankedyr2mk2

Plans for Ganked 100 are really firming up, I will have my final decision on shield or armour caps before I depart for EVE Vegas on the 15th.  Regardless of how this goes if you are one of our prospective cap pilots please add to this spreadsheet, as well as get yourself training the same skills on SISI, as we will be having a training session or two on how to use caps in the run up to Ganked 100. 

The schedule for the Autumn & Winter has pretty much been settled amongst your FC’s – there is still room for some changes if anyone else wants to give it a go of course.  Check this spreadsheet here.  As you can see a good variety of roams coming in the next few months, as ever logistics will be welcome on all of them, so if that is what you like do not feel a need to stay home!

Ganked also passed 9,000 kills over our 94 total roams this past weekend, and it was this kill that took us there.  Red Bishop won a Armageddon Navy Issue – courtesy of our sponsors at SomerBlink – for snagging Final Blow & highest damage on the pod.

RvBP is also back playing Planetside 2 every thursday night from 18.00 UTC. Give us a look on the Vanu Sov over on the Mattherson server.

For those who missed it, here is a video of the final part of our last minute roam against CCP on Friday 27th September:

 

Remember that this weekend see’s the first Crossing Zebras Community FFA. This free for all will feature CSM, Podcasters, Bloggers & of course YOU! So from 20.00 UTC on Saturday make sure you are in Asakai to take part in the fun – you can even get to shoot me!  For more details check the Crossing Zebras site here.

Jul 082013
 

alliance-tournament-xi-header

 

AT XI kicks off in 12 days with the matches below making up the opening games of the first day of the tournament.  Below you find my predictions for these matches – my chosen winners are highlighted in BOLD:

Circle-Of-Two vs SCUM. (The team with an AT pedigree v some lowsec gate-campers? No contest.)

Of Sound Mind vs YOUR VOTES DON’T COUNT (While I like SOUND, I have had many more good times with & against the waffles.)

Curatores Veritatis Alliance vs R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N (T.O.O M.A.N.Y D.O.T.S.  So I am favouring CVA, although will they form up before the match begins?)

THE R0NIN vs CAStabouts (Another team with AT Pedigree v ? Yeah.)

Goonswarm Federation vs Sleeper Social Club (I’d like to see Goons get far this year so I can take their scalp for the RvB scalp collection.)

Verge of Collapse vs Outbreak. (VoC riding a wave after last year, so totally favouring them.)

Wormhole Holders vs Rote Kapelle (I would love to face RK again this year, without them flying out of the arena.)

Perihelion Alliance vs The Fourth District (I like the 4th, and root for them every chance I get.)

D3vil’s Childr3n vs Late Night Alliance (Not a clue who either are, so I flipped a coin)

Clockwork Pineapple vs Rainbow Dash Friends (Ponies. Nuff said.)

RAZOR Alliance vs Babylon 5.. (I just finished a rewatch of B5)

Sicarius Draconis vs Test Alliance Please Ignore (Id like this scalp too)

Moist. vs Transmission Lost (Not a clue who either are, so I flipped a coin)

Surely You’re Joking vs Nulli Secunda (Scalps for the scalp throne)

Exiled Ones vs Choke Point (Not a clue who either are, so I flipped a coin)

JIHADASQUAD vs Exodus. (Exodus. seem like a pretty good group of small gangers, so I went with them.)

Noir. Mercenary Group vs Shadow Cartel (This was a hard call, both are good groups of pvpers, but in the end I also flipped a coin)

HUN Reloaded vs DarkSide. (HUN should do really well this year.)

Darkness of Despair vs Quebec United Legions (Lets see what these russians can do)

M.I.F vs Angeli Mortis (I have at least heard of Angeli, so I am going with them.)

Kill It With Fire vs Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork (Kill it could surprise me, but I know a few pilots in Ministry and totally will be rooting for them.)

The G0dfathers vs Urine Alliance (Urine are a scalp I want, and a group I want to do well, will they become Kings of Tourney space?)

SOLAR FLEET vs HYDRA RELOADED (Solar cant bot the tourney.)

End of Life vs Darkspawn. (Not a bloody clue.)

Heretic Initiative vs No Holes Barred (Fuck the franchise.)

WHY so Seri0Us vs RvB (Seriously, you expected anything else?)

W-Space vs Mildly Sober (Flipped a coin)

The Obsidian Front vs The Initiative. (Totally expect Initiative to take this.)

Confederation of xXPIZZAXx vs Dead Terrorists (Pizza will be great to watch I am sure.)

Sadistica Alliance vs Agony Empire (I like Agony, and know many of their pilots. Friendship, best ship.)

Pandemic Legion vs Synthetic Systems (Too easy a choice)

The Kadeshi vs Drunk ‘n’ Disorderly (The Kadeshi is a long term tourney participant, they should do this easily.)

If you have your own ideas, feel free to post them in the comments.

 

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CSM_LOGO

Not really too much to say on the CSM, except that the past 3 weeks or so have in my opinion been really good for our interactions with CCP, I cannot say on what subjects, but I have felt like I have been contributing a lot more.   Additionally the summit dates are the 28th to 30th August, I will not be “live”, but I will be there remotely due to work commitments.  

Also, please join me on the EUNI public mumble on the 13th as per this post on their website.

 

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This past weekend Ganked 75 rolled over 120 talwars into space and scored over 120 kills.  It was a strange roam, we had a quiet time in Syndicate, helped the blues of a fleet member defend a sieged POS, and got to Fountain were comms proceeded to break down enough that I got really annoyed and kicked everyone…  

Now in my defence I had 2 guys giving varying intel, 1 guy rehashing a fight some slackers had just had, and a few other people continuing to sing – after an admittedly great fleet wide rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody – and someone else calling a cheetah on a gate as primary, just to see our own bubble go up as some bombers decloak while half the fleet is warping into our bubble and the other half is jumping away from the bombs, no wonder I was annoyed.

Anyway, I soon calmed down and we reformed around half the fleet in Stacmon – usual after a whelp – and went and fought an Agony Empire PVP Basics roam. Welcoming newbs to pvp always feels good.

We did have an array of Somer.Blink sponsored prizes too, and here are my winners for the night:

Spots: Hookbill (Rexanna Gold, Stian83, Rebbeca Naresh, Jeff Spartan, Saintcav, Lenier Chenal, Targan Yaken, mach eon, coat hanga strangla, kitty baugh)
Distinction: Navy Drake (Telemachus Rheade, FishySquirrel)
Excellence: Raven Navy (Ceofore Aideron)

Final Blow & Top Damage on our 7000th Mail: Osprey Navy Issue x2 (Redbad)

May 212013
 

Hi guys.

Going forward I have decided to post a regular blog entry that will summarise the past couple of weeks of my EVE time especially the following:

  • Ganked Prizes listings for those Ganked’s I do not write about seperately
  • Fun things RvB may have got up to since the last of these articles
  • Updates about CSM: how I am finding it, the people, CCP and so on
  • Videos I have seen that I think more people need to watch
  • Anything else I feel you want to briefly read about

 

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gankedyr2mk2.png

 

Ganked 69 was held this weekend, and it was a glorious 5 hours in Rahadalon fighting the forces of Brave Newbies Inc, TEST, CVA & Friends, and many others who I forget at this point. Suffice to say the system was rammed.  I had plenty of prizes to award over the evening from both SomerBlink and the wonderful guys over at Angeli Mortis.

First up are the SomerBlink sponsored prizes: 

Fed Navy Comet x15 (1 per) – Bandsaw1961, VALENTLEADER0524, Trinneth, Brutor Adtur, Ian Lemmy Killmeister, Sun Seer, Rexanna Gold, Gyouzac, 2Larmer, Mogubu, Mourning Souls, Melancholy707, Rida Carter, Rasputin1979, Serenety Steel

Eris x3 (1 per) – Local009, Butch Cassidy, Fishysquirrel 

Exequror Navy x1 – Charlotte Winter (A none rep hull for an awesome repper!)

Deimos x1 – Xan Drakov (Because a man should care about the sanity of others)

Vigilant x1 – MirrorGod (BNI POS hates Mangala, so again he came to the fore!)

Navy Megathron x1 – Meirantean (Didn’t want that corp anyway)

The above will be contracted out by a rep of SomerBlink this week.

 

And now for the prizes generously donated by Angeli Mortis. (Who assure me they are always recruiting new members, so look into them if you are looking for a new home!):

Vulture & Aliastra Catalyst – John Hartley (Excellent Warp-ins)

Harpy & Aliastra Catalyst – Horus H’kaan (Fix Rails Mang!)

Basilisk & Aliastra Catalyst – Charlotte Winter (Love reps)

Sabre – PVDNS77

Wolf & Stabber Fleet Issue – Miss Snuggless

Vexor Navy Issue – TGL3

Keres – Equinox Starborn

Gnosis – Caterpil

Raptor & Taranis – Sascha Naskingar

Daredevil – Irodanis Maricadie

Dramiel – Miri Boirelle

Ishtar – Xallaxa

12 Rifters  – VonSpaky (for asking if he won anything!)

 

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In RvB news, we are at war with Brave Newbies Inc. Despite appearances to the contrary we have done this for fun, and boy has it been fun!  The BNI guys really are mostly a great bunch and the fights I have had with them have been bloody good ones.  We have a few days left in the current war period and I am hoping for even more explosions before it comes to an end, although it may not end – watch this space!  

For those wondering, RvB are closing in on 2000 kills in 5 days, including a couple of freighters and a rather shiny strategic cruiser.  Neither side has lost carriers yet despite RvB moving a couple over. I have hope for a sweeping capital engagement though! 

Good thing about this war, I get to stop losing sec status from spending time in Rahadalon. Which is good as I am far too lazy to rat to get my sec back up. So roll on Odyssey!

 

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CSM_LOGO

As you will be aware, I have been a member of the 8th CSM for around 3 weeks now, and for the majority of that period I have spent a lot of time reading super sekrit CSM forums, getting to know both my fellow delegates (many of whom have vast knowledge on parts of the game I only have the most basic conceptual grasp!) & the members of CCP to whom we currently have access, and digesting much of the material released about the upcoming expansion than I normally would, especially anything relating to the changes and additions that I am not very confident on.  I would sooner be able to represent you all by understanding how everything fits together than just spouting something because I feel a need to be seen to do “something”. All of this just ends up with a very quiet Mangala, not the person you are all used to I know.  However, as time goes on I hope to become more vocal, especially if anything happens in the content area’s to which I have concerns or hopes for change.  

 

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And that guys is the first News Round.  Not much to say, but lets hope I can improve that over time.