Modesty

I met someone around my home system the other day that started chatting me up. We had a good conversation and the following day he told me that he stumbled across my blog. He also called my modest and said that my in game knowledge seems to be greater then I give credit for.

I don't like to lose track of how much I do not know. Its important. Surviving in low sec has taught me a lot. I have a natural thirst for knowledge and I absoutly adore my internet spaceships. Reading a forum post last night, I saw exactly what I do not want to become. This is why I am careful about becoming to comfortable in my knowlege.

The thread is here "How do I deal with Ninja Salvagers" in the New Citizens forum section. The gist of it is that the player feels that salvaging should be a theft offense as looting is. As it stands now, only the loot in the ship will cause a theft flag. Using a salvager module on a wreck is not stealing, no matter who the wreck is. This player feels that it should all be theft and open the person to pewpew retaliation immediately. The older player base gives him reasons why it should not and discussed the fact that PvP does not have to equal pewpew. He says that their reasons do not address the topic. It goes on and on for pages. It was busy last night so it took me most of the night to read it.

Anyway, he says:

"Impractical solutions aren't real solutions. If I fit probes I lose my drone aug which, because I'm a new player, limits me to 40km range and many npcs will be too far which means I lose dps and there are npcs where if I don't have my drones I can't get through their rep. Why? It's because I'm NEW and lack training for dps. If I give up 2 slots, for a salvager and tractor then there would probably be l3s where I couldn't get through the rep of some npcs. You're right though, I can be a little bit too arrogant for my own good, but it's with good cause. In my short time in Eve I've been soaking up information as much as I can. Between that accumulation, paying attention to the minutiae of fitting and other activities I've had occasion to teach players who've been playing for years new things they overlooked which were painfully obvious to me, things which let me create fits they were surprised by. All said, I'd be humbled and most gratious for information that offered a practical solution, but no one has given that, you haven't given that, and pretending you have, in order to dismiss my suggestion, is just as impractical in proving a point as your suggestions have been."

My eyes almost fell out of my head.

One reason bittervets do not want to take on newbies is this type of behavior. The mouth says "I want to learn" but the words say "I've already figured it out." It is not that a new player can not bring a new outlook on things. They do. In fact, most of the bittervets I know enjoy playing with new players because of their different view points and the endless enthusiasm that comes with learning how to play eve. But then there are comments like the above that make me rub my eyes and wonder if I really just saw what I saw.

Later, he finally starts to back peddle a little bit. I found myself so irritated with him that I rolled my eyes as he discussed how he has some 6.5mil skillpoints but he has not actually 'played' he just skilled up so he could 'play. This is one of my personal pet peeve at other new players. To me, it means they have not grasped the multilevel aspect of the game play and believe that skills = ability. I am not saying that *I* am incredibly brilliant as a player. I am saying that I have learned how to fly some of my ships. I do most of my NPC pewpew in a ship that has a good fit but T1 stuff at level 3ish skills and I do it pretty well becuase I have learned to fly that ship and that toon and understand what she can and can not do. If I was handed her a fully T2 fit and skills but with no time playing to learn her, she'd die in a horrible fire in a ridiculously easy mission because I would not know how to play. I can do somewhat hard things with her, maybe not well, but successfully, because I have become comfortable, due to practice and repetition.

I moan and sigh over skills. I want to do things much, much beyond myself because I live with people who can do these things. I hate feeling like a burden or having to have my hand held.

However, as I wrote this I scanned out a 4/10 plex :D I'm happy again and off to make isk! (I hope)