Red Versus Blue – Members Words Part 2

 RVB  No Responses »
Mar 122012
 

Every week for as long as I get fed words from RVB members, I will be posting 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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The Mittani wrote:

Red vs Blue is one of the coolest things in #eveonline, holy shit. Been riftering all day, can’t stop. source

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Delucian wrote:

Since joining RvB, I have had some very memorable fights and been involved in some very memorable events.

For most the lure and ease of getting into large fleet fights, which Mangala details here, are of course the bread and butter of what RvB is.

However, for some of us, there is the lure of solo and small gang (sub 5 man) guerilla warfare that really get us going. Yea, I still get in and even FC fleets from time to time, but my favorite thing to do is to go out on my own or with one or two more and see what I can pick off.

Generally, RvB land is rich with viable targets – if you can get in and get out fast. You don’t, and you die horribly to the fleet that your target is inevitably tied in with. Learning to cull out people from the pack and then being able to either do a lot of damage fast or call in a few Wolf pack members and bail creates both great fun (for the Wolf pack) and, at times, many tears and moans in local from the target.

I think solo and small gang, IMHO, at least provides some level of survivability for a target over the typical blob mentality. So my sympathy for the target is diminished. However, I am always game for a follow on 1v1 should someone feel the need for retribution. I get a lot of good secondary kills this way as well, and those I lose I typically end up with a 50/50 outcome unless I get greedy.

Small, fast and ganky is the way to go with these guerilla tactics. Tanky will typically just get you killed slower. In a recent fight with a frig and an Arby, our small gang was able to take down the frig quickly, then pop the Arby as two other cruisers jumped in. I was targeted, webbed and scrammed as I finished off the Arby, began to burn out with the AB overheated and break scram. However, I did not burn out far enough and as I realigned to warp out drifted back into scram range and got popped.
Regardless, it was a great fight with only me losing a Rifter and I learned a valuable lesson.

What I have found with both solo’ing and small gang engagements is a level of finesse and skill that I was not learning in larger fleets. My evolution from my early fights where I just died a lot in as heavily tanked frigs and cruisers as I could build, to better brawling skills and handling kiters, to both building ships tailored to a type of fighting style and tactics to the situation at hand.

I also cannot say enough about the massive need for situational awareness. I found as this improved my ability to manage the situation improved. I know that sounds very rudimentary, but it is amazing how exponentially simple situational awareness can improve your fighting skills.

[Mangala Edit: Too many words so I snipped]

Solo’ing, small gang action and full on fleet have taught me a massive amount in a short time. As I try to pass these tactics along in RvB NoobFleet and get new players to follow an FC the way they should, I am very grateful to those who have taught me (both in Fleet and 1v1 – like Mangala), who make RvB what it is.

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House2Twist wrote:

RvB is fun because I log on and can just go pewpewpewpewpew all day long 

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Ash Veratis wrote:

I love that RvB has let me get over losing ships. I blow up, i dock, i reship, and undock again. I’ve lost more ships, even a handful of relatively expensive ones, in the past week than i had in the prior year, and even though most of them were shit-fit rifters, it’s still been awesome. 

=====================================

Saint Cav wrote:

To this date I have been in Blue Republic for about a month and I have loved every moment of it. I can login and normally within moments join a fleet and start shooting at something. The problem I have now is keeping ships fitted to throw into the fray, but trust me that is a good problem and I wouldn’t have it any other way. With the limited combat zone (Lonetrek) for RvB I am still able to keep my jump clones and mission ships out there to when needed jump into them and do some missions, but it is not required.

Thanks to RvB I have found the reason why to keep playing Eve, my real life friends may no longer play but I have through RvB found a community that I enjoy flying with. So to all of you out there thinking is RvB for you, give it a try, you can come and go as you please, but remember to have fun and fly dangerously while doing it.

 

Join us again next week for more members stories, as well as some images and even vidya!

 

Red Versus Blue – Members Words Part 1

 EVE, RVB  No Responses »
Mar 052012
 

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.

=====================================

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.

=====================================

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)

672369023, 720126238, 21745392, 028462926, 193624635.

 Fcing, Ganked  2 Responses »
Feb 272012
 

We are not merely numbers in a register somewhere, we are free men, and last night we proved this in the best of ways during the setup time for Ganked 18: As I would not be a Slave.

As ever we had started forming up way before the kick off, when a couple of the blinkies meeting us in Kheram mentioned very casually that they had 15 dreadnaughts on scan. So being pretty much ready to go myself, I moved the earliest arrivals to the gate, and waited on Thecla to get us eyes and a warp in.  Which he did.

Suddenly we spiked Kheram local by 90 guys and warped straight to the caps, who had just begun cyno-ing out after reinforcing a POS. Luckily, there was still a couple on field, so I called for points and we started agressing. Initially a few of us hit a Phoenix, but this being lowsec I changed my mind and focused us all onto a blinky Revelation. The remaining caps bailed before we could point them.  To our surprise, the sub-cap support for this Revelation warped back in, and so we kept it tackled and proceeded to demonstrate Minmatar supremacy all over their boats. 

The Revelation took this moment to go into siege so we quickly dispatched his would be rescuers and got right back to killing him, knowing that there was a chance that on exiting siege mode he would cyno out. Luckily we got him before that!

[ 2012.02.26 18:59:33 ] Dragon Venom > DIEEEEEEEEEEEE
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:33 ] Ai Tsuwa > gf
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:33 ] Phantom OfKrankor > lululu
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:34 ] General Escobar > BAZINGAAAAA
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:35 ] House2twist > GF
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:38 ] Sadario > WHOOOO
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:39 ] MuxaRu > gf
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:39 ] Jaiimez Skor > GF
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:40 ] NopeChuckTesta > :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:40 ] geddonz > gfgf
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:42 ] Xander Phoena > YYYAAASSSSSS
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:43 ] Zurvan Akarana > Good fucking gank
[ 2012.02.26 18:59:44 ] Wiccan999 > Well done rvb

10 minutes, and a few billion isk in kills with minimal losses – and 1 very debatable loss when a Red Fed member opened up on a Blue Rep member.  Lots of bitterness there, given they were BOTH IN THE SAME FLEET!

Ash Veratis did a vidya:

As did Sheral Udan:

 

Following a brief period in which we reshipped our losses and in a few cases waited out the GCC for the initial pew pew on the Phoenix, we headed off towards Providence to show the Amarrian loyalists there our new found freedom, and to spam every local with the Revelation mail as proof of our intent.  The dreadnaught loss may have scared them off. We killed an Onyx while its mates warped to our in-gate AFTER we had left it, nuked a bunch of bombers that repeatedly kept trying – and pretty much failing – to bomb our brave band, until I decided we would leave Providence as the Amarrian Pig-Dogs just really did not have a will to fight. 

So much for Amarr Victor.

After a quick run to Agil and a short break we moved into Querious (not Queerious or any other bastard way of pronouncing it, I am right, you are all wrong) which AGAIN was too damn quiet.  As an aside, we did discover that Owen Wilson plays EVE in the guise of our very own CAPTAIN HURRDURR.

  

So we went to Delve chatted with some locals and then found SNIGG in D-W7F0 and we do like to shoot them. However they had other plans – which included giving us a Nem3sis POS password, which worked until they changed it, but we did smash a drake that left the shields – and eventually we tackled the Nem3sis gang as they tried camping a SNIGG staging POS, SNIGG proceeded to Tier 3 them to death while we applied a silly amount of damage from our little frigates.  Apparently RVB does this as a contract thing:

[ 2012.02.26 23:40:52 ] Zandramus > so good job contracting rv b as your tackle

First I heard of it. I was under the impression we did this because we prefer people who will fight to people who just will not unless they have overwhelming odds or 2 logistics per combat ship (At least it isnt falcon alts).

And that gentlemen was the end of the night. We started with 120, ended with 50 loyalists roaming around and making merry on comms – except this one time when I kinda yelled at that and said the “c-word” a few times… We smashed over 90 ships and caused nearly 10 BILLION isk in damage along the way as well. Great Success!

Geddonz vidya of the whole night:

 

[Editor’s note: Penis Night write up to follow as I still cannot put that into words really without going off on a rant about logistics]

 

 

All back of the [short] bus…

 Fail, Fcing, Ganked  3 Responses »
Feb 062012
 

Let me tell you managing 220 people, some of whom have never flown together, some of whom have never flown in anger, is an experience.

Yes folks, it was Ganked 15: All Back of the Bus last-night and it was a memorable one.  

First off we had advertised the roam on the EVE sub-reddit and it had also been arranged that EVE Radio would be in attendance, as a result we opened up the fleet to the listeners of Tranquillity’s premier radio station, which resulted in over 220 in fleet at its peak.  Which was a glorious sight, especially as 90% actually turned up in the hulls suggested by myself: Brutix, Cyclone, Ferox & Prophecy.

We managed to leave Rens back on time – and hit the low sec meetup to grab our blinkies, then piled into Great Wildlands and moved down towards Curse, with not much happening along the way, until we get into K-B2D3 where there was a large gang featuring Machariels!

It was here that the size of the fleet, the general unruliness of comms and my obvious sobriety came into play, with a total clusterf*** resulting from messed up fleet warps, to scouts calling stuff for other scouts to bits of the fleet trying to be warpins – and failing; we did score some kills, but lost a fair few folks along the way while doing so. But thems the breaks I suppose. I know now that my limit for “command” is around 150 at most for a Ganked, maybe 100 for more serious affairs.  

And so we moved on, having realised that -A- had retaken HED-GP and are usually good for the under the shirt, over the bra action we all really craved we headed there.  Your’s truly decloaked first when we jumped into a gang of Zealots off a gate, luckily House2Twist took the reigns again and did a marvellous job from then on including a good fight in HED itself.  Awesome work as ever!

By this time the fleet had dwindled downwards to much more manageable numbers, however apparently there was a sporting event in the USofA and many folks logged to prep for that. The best of us stayed on and ventured through Querious and into Delve, were we messed up some locals – we hoped they would bring friends but they didnt. Since we had not yet died, we decided to visit Test again, this time we went to Fountain.  Took us some time, and some local spam, but the locals agreed to fight us.  

We who are about to die salute you!

Except we did not die, we fought a drake heavy gang with logi support that jumped into us, and won. Well that was a new one for us.  

Suddenly it was 2am and we meandered out of Fountain and through Aridia and into high sec space again, 30+ of the original 220+ left standing, having roamed over 100 jumps from the south east corner of empire to the north west corner of null, taking over 100 names along the way.  

Overall a brilliant night as ever, very messy early on, but that improved along the way, and I know I need to drink more at the start of the nights now…

Next week we return to Saturdays, with the Kaley Cuoco Principle. I shall see you in Stacmon at 21.00 on the 11th February.

Videos:

Jaymes Whelty’s Us V TEST

Geddonz of the whole night:

strongfarce (Not sure who you are in eve fella) did a couple of vidyas:

EVE University V RVB Round Two

 EVE, Fcing, RVB  3 Responses »
Jan 272012
 

As many of you will know, I have been a bit bored lately, only really logging into EVE for Ganked roams and rare skill changes (30 day skills are fun!), so I decided to spice things up a bit.

By approaching the Eve University CEO and the RVB CEO and asking them for a war. 

To my surprise – especially given the actions that caused the last war to end early – everyone said yes! We added a couple of rules for this conflict however, no HQ area camping/shooting of pos and no killing of pods (to encourage attendance), both of which have been at least to my knowledge well received. Unless you are Captain Hurrdurr.

The war itself went live at 10.59am GMT yesterday and is to last 72 hours till Sunday at 10.59 GMT, and there has already been some fun fights had between the terriers of RVB and the lazy, left wing students of EVE University.

The first couple of fights took place not long after downtime yesterday in Uosusuokko, a small gang of RVB pilots in a mish mash of frigs and larger took on a bigger gang of Unistas in frigates, battlecruisers and even battleships.  First fight (11.57 to 12.17 or so) we won as their use of cloakies or spies meant that when they came in, they landed right on us at our tactical and RVB does like to brawl up close, however the second  (around 12.40) went less well as we were much more spread out, we still took names just not as many as we could have done.

Here is the battle report for this – I am using EVE kill as linking it from the 2 new RVB boards is effort.

Following this, and knowing they had a large gang sitting in the Funtainen system, we reshipped into a mainly Abaddon focused group, gathered some more folks, and headed over there hoping for a good brawl with lots of pew. The Uni guys then disappointed me by not coming out to play despite both sides being fairly well matched, this went on to be the pattern for the afternoon and early evening.  Disappointing, but RVB at least had itself to shoot in between our fleet assembly sessions. So all was not lost.

Oh and along the way we may have spammed the inbox of one CSM 7 candidate with 

[20:26:41] Mangala Solaris > NO FIGHT NO VOTE 4 CSM7

Later on in the evening, I got word from Kelduum Revaan the CEO of EVE University that their force in Funtainen had found an FC, and wished to fight my vicious terriers. So I quickly setup a fleet and got everyone assembled in record time and took a wander over.  My force was primarily ranged hurricanes, a drake blob, three battleships, some logistics, ecm platforms and the usual RVB frigate and cruiser squads.

After some he said she said with Steve Fire, the Unista FC, over whether his group would ever jump out of Funtainen – I even gave him some advice on a way to do it that could mess up my group – eventually I forgot this was serious business and called a leeroy into them (their fleet being close range fit did not come into play at all in my mind…) with a shiny uncloaking a few seconds ahead of us to draw the Uni fire, while my fleet began to burn off grid a ways.  

10 minutes later it was all over.  

75+ Unista vessels had been taken down quickly and methodically for 15 or so RVB losses.  I had only spent that fight calling the big ticket items, having left my cruiser and frigate pilots to do what they wanted / keep ships locked down – and RVB’s pilots are pretty damn awesome in smaller hulls.  Everything I called melted when looked at. All in all the best near serious fight I have had in a long time. We even looted the field, despite them having supplies to reship to in system.  

And that – for me at least – was the end of Day 1.  I had a really good day, despite the waiting around from time to time, that ended in a fight that I thought would go much worse for us – especially given how I have not FC’d RVB properly for some time now and how rusty I felt in general about FCing serious fleets.

I look forward to more action.

 

Taste the Rainbow!

 EVE, Fcing, Ganked, RVB  1 Response »
Nov 222011
 

Well Ganked 6, success or great success? I am still thinking it over, I mean we did not actually die (well not all of us) in a horrible fire, but we did get an epic fight…

Anyway, we set off slightly later than the 21.00 kick off – due to people setting up mumble, trying to fit lasers on anything and what not, but when we did leave we had quite a respectable fleet rolling, some 70+ people, the majority on mumble (even Jagtor despite his protestations that there was no discipline … “BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE”) and all with an awful lot of lasers to throw around. Rainbow goodness!

Vale was emptier than I can ever recall (bring back IEGEX, all is forgiven!), and as part of the “plan” (ie I basically looked at my EVE Universe poster and randomly picked places…) we would meander southwards – via the east – so the fleet moved towards Geminate. Fintarue calls on comms he had a duder tackled on a detour to BWF, and so I fleet warped us to a gate that I thought was on the way to him, turns out it was a gate 141AU in the wrong direction… Fin died :(

However the simple act of actually getting the fleet into BND and moving towards BWF somehow enraged the locals and they brought out a bunch of ships and 5 guardians! Oh noes, “we who are about to die salute you” we thought. Then we ran around playing kisschase with them until it turned out they had used a jumpbridge and got ahead of our little band.

Much discussion ensued – and some nifty “tactics” I am borrowing for the future were raised – until I called a leeroy. 

Much carnage was the result.

BUT.

Not of our fleet, of the UPS fleet (Geminate locals).

2 Guardians bailed as soon as we jumped in, the rest got ecm’d and tackled (love ecm drones!) and eventually killed while their fleet just went pop, pop, pop, pop one after the other to our rainbows. They really did taste them!

Then as fast as it had began it was all over, and the fleet was all “wait, we won?” “we didnt die” “what?”. Epic fight was truly epic, victory from the jaws of certain flaming death.

It was pretty late by this time and slowly people logged/went afk until a small band moved into Etherium Reach and decided to engage a kitey gang, killing an SFI but pretty much dieing in the process. However fun was had, shit was chatted on mumble, and the night was ended satisfactorily. 

Numbers:

40+ Kills (Campaign)
2.5billion ISK damage done;
Beer consumed (lots);
Fun had (also lots);

Video (Courtesy of Geddonz):

RVB Ganked: The Holiday Extravaganza!!

 EVE, Fail, Fcing, Ganked, RVB  1 Response »
Nov 172011
 

The holiday season is nearly upon us, which means plenty of beer and plenty of time for spaceships, which when combined result in hilarious explosions, and there is no better way to partake of these two wonderful gifts than an RVB Ganked roam.  Or several in a row!

Here is the program for the coming holidays:

19th November 2011 – Ganked 6: Judean People’s Front.
 The theme is lasers.  Preferably on Amarrian ships, but you can stick them on whatever.

26th November 2011 – Ganked 7: Get back in that kitchen.
 Anything you want to field, as long as it is battlecruiser sized or smaller.

10th December 2011 – Ganked 8: Viagra+Crucible=Penetration.
 Destroyer Hulls.  Post Crucible buffs.

17th December 2011 – Ganked 9: Chesnuts roasting on an open Fire(tail).
 Republic Fleet Firetails. Everywhere.

26th December 2011 – Ganked 10: Boxing Battleships.
 Will we get hotdropped? (if you cant/wont fly a BS come if anything else. Id prefer BS though.)

7th January 2012 – Ganked 11: We’re going to need a bigger plane.
Battlecruisers. Tier 3 preferred.

14th January 2012 – Ganked 12: We come for our people.
Rifter hulls. Because.

21st January 2012 – Ganked 13: Quack, Quack, Quack.
Drakeswarm (and other assorted missile boats).

I will send round individual mails to the ingame mailing list “RVB Ganked” about these, as well as make posts for each on the RVB forums, and a post in the Ganked thread over on Failheap, as well as keep the RVB Ganked in-game channel updated. So guys, keep your eyes peeled, stock up on the beer and isk (isk=ships=explosions) and we will have a bloody good holiday!!!

To FC or not to FC

 Fcing, RVB  3 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

… that is the question.

And it is one I have been asking myself for a couple of weeks now, especially since the Unista war and leading several large, very serious business fleets against their blob. The fleets we in RVB put together for large scraps against E-Uni, were very very impressive especially when you consider the “rep” we have as a pvp training group. However, the sheer amount of organisation required in getting nearly 100 people together, getting a fleet set up just so relevant boosts take across it, then getting all of that from point A to point B, and ensuring that everyone understands the plan, and is willing to win by potentially dieing in a fire, eventually just gets to you.  

I know it did with me.  

Since the end of that war, and with the exception of 2 events, I have not really done much FCing as it just feels so much harder now and so much more stressful, even in the smaller fleets that happen daily in RVB. With the varying levels of experience found across the members in both Red Fed & Blue Republic, it often feels like herding cats with ADHD, mainly due to one or all of the following:

  • Poorly set-up overviews (if set-up at all);
  • In-ability to follow call lists “durr, wut iz primaree”;
  • Not following any plans that may be in place;
  • Jumping, when not being told to jump;
  • Bringing the wrong ship type, when the fleet description says otherwise;
  • Back seat FCing in chat, but not stepping up themselves;
  • Not getting on comms;
  • Joining fleet and then never actually joining the fleet at their location;
  • Not knowing how to give correct intel;
  • Bitching about one or two losses;
  • When the FC goes down, no one steps to the calling plate, and the fleet dies as a result;
  • Joining the fleet, then immediately claiming that you are under attack or there is x or y on the un-dock of HQ, when the fleet is no where nearby.

Eventually you can start to feel really angry about doing it – no matter how much you enjoy it – or even worse, just end up hating it.  And in RVB when you start to feel like this, then everyone suffers, as we have a dearth of FC’s and people willing to call on a regular basis, or FC gangs that leave the respective HQ systems. I know that as I got close to my snapping point I was letting go at my fleets much more often on the slightest of things, eventually it came to a head in a gang that TGL3 had been running, he went down, I took over and then just went off on a tirade against a fleet member who I felt was trying to back-seat FC, on top of a fleet that was not addressing the targets as I called them.  Since then I have just not really tried. Although I am still enjoying my time in RVB, especially since my latest RVB event “Anywhere But” got going.

Now, the question is how does someone who likes to FC, get over the burnout, and get back to it?

Truthfully, I do not know.  

Right now, I am soloing around, in the hope that my event, will get more people out and about as well, giving me some rest from the recent nonsense that I feel contributed to me snapping and getting myself back to the fun of pvp, which once I rediscover that, may kick start my will to pass it on to others. Although people being people, not many folks will wander and roam without an FC – big catch 22 right there.  

Other FC’s within RVB spend their time missioning when it gets too much, others just do not undock or log that character on.  It really is a difficult problem to solve when simply upping and leaving is not an option as you love where you are.

So to recap, I am burned out, other FC’s are burned out, and yet there is no obvious solution, but RVB is still fun for the majority who do not see these problems. And as long as RVB is fun, then I’ll be around.

 

 

Happy Birthday RVB

 Fcing, RVB  1 Response »
Oct 022011
 

So, a couple of weeks ago my beloved RVB was two.

We celebrated this with two Ganked nights during September, the first of which was a Thrasher hull night, and which went very very well from start to finish. Seeing what 100 thrasher hulls can do – especially when armed with artillery – is just an amazing thing, like really amazing.

Take a look at the Ganked killboard for a quick overview (Right now this campaign is not displaying correctly, but you can at least see the numbers, until I figure out what is wrong) of the kills we got during Ganked 3: Time On Target.

The second September Ganked was one that took the majority of the attendee’s back to their pvp roots: Rifter hulls!!  And as with Ganked 3 (and indeed any Ganked) it was a great success!!  Fleet was a sight to behold with – again – nearly 100 rifter hulls rolling out to mess up the evening of anyone they came across – and we did it with style, despite 1 smart bombing abaddon, and a group of very determined Scythe Fleet Issue pilots (We love you too Hydra) trying their best to under cut our fun!

However, the main event – and an internal RVB one at that – was one I termed “Sink the Bismarck“. This final birthday event would see a Red Fleet try and guard it’s flagship, the RVBFS Bismarck from Veisto to Oimmo, at opposite ends of the RVB combat area, while the Blue Fleet tried to prevent that.  Battleships, Battlecruisers, and relaxed rules on logistics and electronic counter measures made this a much more interesting prospect than every day RVB and both sides pulled in 70+ members for their respective fleets.

Both fleets surprisingly had formed up on time and the hunt was on, Reds rolling with an excellent scout team, and Blues with Fintarue – who is a scout team all on his own!! (They did have other scouts, however AFKing on a gate does not a scout make). Eventually, Red Fleet got near to Oimmo, and a stand off ensued.  However, it did not last too long as the Red FC made the decision to leeroy into the Blue Fleet who had setup in Vourrassi on the Hageken gate.

The rest is glorious.  Ships burned, logis repped, ECM jammed and carnage happened.

RVB did what it does best.

Happy Birthday RVB.

 

Note: I personally lost 2 battleships, and 2 loaned guardians.  And it was so worth it.

 

Red Versus Blue against EVE University: The 1st Night

 RVB  No Responses »
Sep 212011
 

“Be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parlay; we may show mercy – we shall ask for none.”

Eve University, what can I say about them that has not already been said by so many others before me. They are good for Eve, good for the hordes of new players who pass through their doors, and partake in the lectures and classes offered by their instructors. Many go on to be productive members of society on Tranquility, others take up less salubrious roles, even more just shoot npc’s all day in some mindless quest for isk. Then of course there are those who mine.

Despite all the good, in the minds of many something about Eve University does not ring true, could it be the cult like way ex-members talk about them, or could it be the non-aggressive stance they take, in a world wrought by war and terror? Yes, it is that exactly. How can an entity that tries so hard to be good for Tranquility, be so opposed to the basic fact of life here: People die, often in explosions.

However, it seems that for some time all has not been right within the sheltered halls of Eve University, people have been questioning their non-aggressive stance, been wanting to know exactly why they wave the white flag when attacked, why they dock in their stations and refuse to come out, why with their numbers can they not fight! And so they took the decision to fight, and to take that fight to some of the best and brightest in the Empire controlled area’s of Tranquility.

Best, being Red Federation & Blue Republic.

When we heard the war drums beating for the upcoming conflict, both sides rapidly started gearing up and putting our plans in motion, including a combined fleet that would roll down to their space and punch them in the face repeatedly, for having the audacity to challenge US!

Cue a day spent gathering intel and forming a fleet, which when it did roll out was amazing to see, nearly 100 Red and Blue pilots working well together and moving as only a well oiled machine should. After a small stop to reship in Hek, we moved onwards towards Aldrat, having heard that the Eve University defence fleet had annihilated a smaller, but stronger (on paper) fleet from another group who they had challenged to a war.

“Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Fleet was split at this news with much doomsaying from several of the fleet, however I as Fleet Commander knew that come what may our 15 Battleships, 35 Battlecruisers and myriad other supporting vessels would eventually win the day, once again demonstrating the superiority of Red & Blue over all challengers to be found in Empire space.

However there was the small matter of an insidious smell following us around as we endeavoured to pull the Eve University fleet out of Aldrat, it turned out that there was a spy (possibly more) in our fleet reporting everything we said and did to a neutral party who then fed all that information publically to Eve University in the local chat of Aldrat. So after bouncing back one system then changing tactic too fast for anyone to catch on, I ordered the destruction of the spies ship.

Suddenly, Eve University lost their will to even camp their own in gate and retreated to their POS. It seems I had hit one nail on the head perfectly. Using this mistake by their command, I order the Glorious RVB fleet, now numbering over 110 ships to jump into Aldrat and we immediately started hitting various safe spots in system, all the while demanding they speak to us, tell us why they chose us to have a war with, and then not fight us at all.

Eventually, the only reply they gave was a Raven un-docking from their headquarters and attacking a fleet member, which resulted in our fleet warping in and destroying said Raven, just as the entire Eve University fleet landed to try and save him. Battle was brought.

Immediately I called several targets including various battleships and battlecruisers, wanting to get these heavy hitting vessels out of the fight early on – and having intel of my own, I knew several of their command would be flying such vessels. Cut off the head and the body dies does it not?

And that worked, as I called more and targets, they fell faster and faster, eventually the Eve University fleet – what remained of it – bailed off their OWN headquarters and we were victorious. Scoring the first victory against Tranquility’s latest aggressors, despite the other forces arrayed against them.

“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

All in all chaps, yesterday’s OP was a huge success on so many levels, demonstrating what we can do when we put aside the nonsense that so often plagues our daily explosive interactions and are united by a common enemy.

I totally look forward to seeing us do as well, if not better in the future.

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