High Stakes

Recently, a lot of people have been asking me "So, the blog... Where's the new stuff?"

I have very aware that there hasn't been anything new on here for a little while. Of course, there's a couple of problems I have with this. Firstly, there's having the time to write about new stuff and then post it. It's real easy to use the holidays as an excuse here. Until recently, I had the luxury of having a boss who was utterly clueless as to what I actually did, so as a consequence, I did most of my blogging at work. I should probably clarify here that I have not just been sacked for not doing any work, but I have been looking for a new job that's more involved... better paid, better pension, more holidays - the usual stuff.

Secondly, and most importantly, new stuff needs to happen. Of course, things are always happening in Eve, but these thing aren't always worth passing the time with writing about while pretending to be working because your job is so dull you'd rather be playing spaceships.

So, what has happened? New year, new job, new eve corporation. Or more accurately, new-old eve corporation. I've noticed I do get a certain itch when I change jobs in real life to refresh things in game. This in no way whatsoever means that when I've changed corporations in Eve, I've got a new job. It's usually a bigger thing. A new, exciting challenge in real life that gives me new energy and enthusiasm inevitably filters through into the digital world.

There was nothing really wrong with United System's Commonwealth to give me a straight-up, black and white reason for leaving, but there was just a few things I couldn't help but think to myself 'I'd do that differently.' For example, pay people the ISK they're owed - Galmas, take note FFS [edit: thank you for the ISKies Galmas] !

It had been over a year and a half since I created 13. I had originally intended it to be a kind of PvP side-project. With the things you can do solo in high-end W-space being fairly limited, I wanted to use it as a fallback for when things got quiet in Blackstar - when people were still logging in or had logged off. It had worked out that way pretty well. Jano Prim had offered us a place in F.E.R.A.L. while they rented space in Detorid, which presented plenty of small gang opportunities for Setimalas, Odidi and myself AKA Doctor Skinner, Elina Evon and Keeley (before I sold the toon). Seti even set up a twitch stream for a while.

F.E.R.A.L. eventually ended up having to relocate to lowsec after The Unthinkables withdrew renter space. For better or worse, this happened at about the same sort of time that Blackstar got evicted from our C5 home. Blackstar could now work directly with F.E.R.A.L. while figuring out what to do. After Blackstar splintered from Enigma Project and joined Disavowed, relations with F.E.R.A.L. were ruined when Dizzy pointed one of their ratting carriers after they moved back into null, effectively leaving 13. redundant.

I thought we'd given it a decent start though, even if we never recruited more than a few extra members, so like the alliance, I kept hold of it.

For all intents and purposes it might well be a new incarnation of corporation and a resurrection of the alliance, but I see it as 13 version 2.0 - a chance to use what I've learned from the space in between to not repeat mistakes that were made in Blackstar. Bigger ambitions generally mean higher stakes, and not just financially. The spare billions that were padding my, Odi's and Utari's wallets were quickly depleted, but there were no complaints. To have people buying into the idea with the same commitment is awesome.

And whether we like it or not, people are watching how this hand plays out. Guys like Galmas and Moore McRay had been scrutinising the killboards from the get-go, with Moore eager to attempt some light provocation about a Naglfar mishap that involved Lazerhawks seeding in the system for POCO timers.

Jay Joringer > Since you guys are here, you wouldn't mind finishing this one off, would you?

ksig cook > 500mil for our poco removal services

pubway Shi > But link POCO KM if you get it?

Azerath > You have no idea how much trouble your death was :S

Hidden Fremen > ^ lol

No, no. I know how much trouble it must have been all too well! We suspected someone had seeded in. What we got wrong was who. We'd taken some precautions earlier, but a couple of hours later with fleet numbers dwindling they appeared as we were on the penultimate POCO. They'd waited for the golden opportunity and fair play to them. I don't think I'd have had the patience though and Moore left the conversation disappointed that it wasn't a sore point. By the way, if anyone feels like sending Moore a mail about how cute his toon is, it's something I would actively encourage.

We even had Hard Knocks' recruiter asking us why he hadn't seen applications from us instead of setting up our own corporation, which provided us with some amusement. As did ViscisBreeze's attempted goading over us recruiting Zerolaws. Zero had been flying solo for a few years and had lost several billion in a stratios to No Vacancies. Deciding that it was now time to stop flying solo, he asked No Vacancies about joining them, where he was sent packing. Viscis was still buzzing about ganking him while we had got Zero onto TS and were finding out he was actually a really cool guy, albeit with some things to learn about J-space. I straight up told Viscis we were recruiting him, to which he replied "Fuck you!"

Incidentally, this was all shortly before learning that he has a quote from my blog as his desktopbackground. A quote that does infer ever so slightly that he is a bit anal retentive when it comes to API keys and background checks. Only a capsuleer could be proud of that!

To round things off, I will say that I myself am not entirely satisfied with the tenuous link between the title and the content that is usually customary of a smug bastard post. That's because I'm going to finish off with a shameless plug that will reveal at least some duality of meaning. Me and few others have been holding regular poker tournaments for ISK. I think the biggest pot won has been just shy of 2 BillionISK (which sadly went to Zosius and not myself), so if we have any readers who want to join in with our game, send me a mail in-game and I'll invite you to the channel. Instructions on how to get involved as well as tournament timetables will be found there.