Alliance Tournament X - Match 3

The link for the tournaments viewer channel can be found here. I don't want to call it a television channel, it just sounds wrong. I guess it is a live stream. I watch very little video of anything. For all my tech abilities, the one that has always eluided me was anything related to the teleivison or video or recordings or whatever. I just don't watch things.

The Video itself is here. Our match starts at 2 hours and 28 minutes in.

The full video on you tube of just our match is here.

The predictions were rather grim. I skimmed through Poetic Stanziel's blog last night and saw that he predicted a loss. Then today, those listening to the commentaries said that everyone had given Verge of Collapse the win.

Failheap.Challange called for it.

The Eve Online forums called for it.

As for me, I was ready for it to be over. Win or lose I wanted it done. The entire morning became a frustrating event. The blood dripping from me smashing my forehead into my desk was blurring my vision a bit.

Herding Cats. The first time I heard the term I found it amusing. Until I started participating in the event I had no idea how accurate it is as a concept and exhausting it was as a task.

Since last weekend, most of our energy has been focused on the AT. I'm surprised that people's copies of Eve Fit (EFT) have not reported them for harassment and moelstation due to the amount of use. Theory crafting, fleet comps, decisions, they have all flown back and forth up and down and all over.

Last night, coms is on the lock down. I guess it makes sense. A good number of people have our com information and could pop in. I understand it. It makes me roll my eyes but I understand it. However, coms are on the lock down and things are just going pear shaped.

People lost power and could not log in to arrange final fits, people were on vacation and various aspects of their coms were not working or they were on strange machines, people had real life situations popping up left right center up and down... and to top it off the time slot was in a terrible time zone for our alliances main fliers.

I'm a creature of organization. I can't stand to procrastinate. Along with the fact that I was grumpy and tired due to my schedule change, I debated how much I really wanted to possess a head of hair. A bit before I went to bed, Kazz asked me if I'd be around to fly just in case. I told him "That is why I'm going to bed. Like sports or not, I'm going to be there if I am needed."

I went to bed. A lot of other people did to. Times were checked and double checked. Phone numbers were verified. Serious Internet Space ship business is serious.

I then woke up three hours before the match. I had an errand to run and I wanted to be around in case I was useful. Others were staggering on. I will say that numbers increased and we had more then enough people to fit and fly everything.

Then things got weird. Come here, stage there, fit this, change that, scripts? Implants? Ships? We all set? Fleet? Where is? Alternates?!

Holy hell, what a nightmare. Loyalty Points are awesome as one is pulling implants out of the store and handing them to people like candy. The loyalty point interface sucks terribly, as always. I am even more in awe of large alliances who coordinate major logistics. I'm exhausted after chasing a dozen guys around and yelling at people for a few hours. Plus the isk. We've been pouring it out like its water. But we have it to pour out like water.

Mad props to Ender for getting the ships moved and fit. They just had to be handed out with very few tweaks.

I wish I had been in space with them when they were moved to the tournament field. Then it was just a pause. Time ticked down. I got some private messages asking when our match was and I said, "Next? Now?" I don't know. I had decided not to listen on coms.

There was nothing left to do but wait. We heard what was on the field. Someones overview was screwed. Everyone seemed stable. It was time to fight. "Take care of business" was all that needed to be said.

Those who did not go watched the stream. I kept chat up and decided to distract myself for a bit.

It wasn't to be. All my my chats were going on about the tournament. Buzz, buzz, everywhere. Then, I see something about our Sleipnir going down and we're getting beaten then the stream dies and everyone screams "no" about it. Before the stream comes back up, alliance chat lights up with news that we won.

The results for the Capital Punishment. vs Verge of Collapse group stage 12 v 12 for Saturday 14th July 2012 at 1720hours.

A lot of support has popped out of places. People are dropping into TEXN's public chatroom -TEXN-. One of the anti-pirate groups we've been at war with more then once gave us their vote to win on the forums and Molden Heath local has held congratulation wishes from people.

For me, win lose, move further or not, I'm happy that what has been accomplished has been accomplished. I'll let others ignore the pieces of success for the final results.

I think our next match is tomorrow.