The Underside of the Circle

Back in December I had a bit of a rawr moment after I moved TCS to Sujarento. The war zone was hot and heavy and someone kept trying to buy me out. I believe in smothering fire. They would purchased my entire stack of cheap modules and hulls.. I'd relist it. They did it again. I shrugged and replaced it. It kept me on my toes for a few weeks. The player was in a NPC corp and I speculated wildly that it was about the market and such things.

And then, today, I got this eve-mail.

Formal Apology, Sujarento Market Manipulation
From: M-----
Sent: 2015.02.08 18:32
To: Sugar Kyle,  

Hello !

I would like to apologize for the market shenanigans of December.

I joined faction warfare on my combat character in September last year. Due to school and work I was inactive for awhile. After Thanksgiving I had the time to start moving assets from my previous home and try and eek a living mining, manufacturing, exploring and trading to support my combat alt. Fast forward a few weeks, 

I was trying to help my Faction in the struggle over the region. I was hoofing stuff in from Jita the long route and I noticed how wonderfully stock the Sujarento market was. So I popped over on to Regional Market and started surfing the prices and volumes, I have to say I was impressed, nay, a bit jealous.

So I asked myself "Why couldn't my Faction stock our system???" Needless to say, I purchased a large volume of ships, modules, rigs and drones, many of which I handed straight to the leadership of my alliance and some items I stocked to the market where my combat character and there belligerent buddies deploy from.

A long while later someone told me about someone posting something about market manipulation in Sujarento in the weeks before Winter Holiday... They posted the URL in an alliance email. http://www.lowseclifestyle.com/2014/12/shelves-overflowing.html I thought oh goodness, I have become one of them, one of those people that try to control things that ought to be free, to mucky up commerce, to take away the freewill of the open market.

I too take pride in trying to deliver my market the best of goods, in the variety and volumes needed. M---- has a lot to learn from your posting on Lowsec Lifestyle.
Please accept my sincere apology, thank you for providing your market and the people of Faction Warfare a means to enjoy the game. I will not interfere with your trade and look forward to more of you posting on Lowsec Lifestyle. If there is anything I can do to help please let me know.

Thank you and take care !

M----

I was not crazy! I was not right but I was not crazy. In fact the entire situation was better then I thought it was. It was exactly what I wanted to happen and one of the reasons why I enjoy running a market.

Re: Formal Apology, Sujarento Market Manipulation
From: Sugar Kyle
Sent: 2015.02.08 18:34
To: M----

Hi! 

This is such a great mail. Yes, I saw your name a lot and was like, "what is this?" :P But you can see in my words my responses and reactions. Can I use this mail on my blog? It is amazing and would be a great view of the other side of things.

I feel bad for dumping all that stock on you but! Must keep the spaceships blowing up. 

I have such a grin on my face.

-Sug 

How I giggled. I was also very, very excited. It is rare that we get to to know what actually happened. I can guess and speculate to the best of my abilities but having an event come to a full circle is one of the best parts about Eve. There are so many sides to this game.

Re: Formal Apology, Sujarento Market Manipulation
From: M-----
Sent: 2015.02.08 18:45
To: Sugar Kyle,  

Hello !

You hvae my permission to use my email in your blog. I just strated reading it and I think its great. People are really caught up in the politics and the pomp of it all. There is sooooooo much fun to be had in all area of EVE. I think your posts and attitude portray, maybe even exemplify waht makes the game great and never dull. I remember when I first started to play, when I left all my friends who play WoW and all those games. When I saw the industry, trade, manufacturing and research of EVE, I was delighted. I thought... this is a real economy. 

I have been going to business school for the last 3 almost 4 years, much of what you learn there is directly applicable in EVE. I have been toying with pursuing my masters, and if I did so I would teach. I would try to make the senior class project EVE based. Tell the class you have a week to learn EVE, then I give each of you 50 million. You can do whatever youd' like, create teams corporations the skys the limit. Give me your API's, you will be graded on a curve, most profit, the best grade. Have fun.

Thanks again !

M----- 

And such was my joy to share this story.

But I almost didn't.

Recently, I read something about myself that made me ponder my market postings. I know that I have tilted heavily into market and industry from PvP focus since the CSM started. A lot of that has just been about time. Unlike being in space, I can break up a market or industry session over the course of the day and through other obligations. It often takes me the bulk of my day off to finish doing market buys where it once was a focused hour due to how spread my attention now is.

That made reading some sharp words hurt that much more. I'm soft tempered in general so I am poor at shrugging things off. But, I've never, ever said that this blog was all about PvP. I've never said that I was all about PvP. I picked Lifestyle back when I badly wanted to be a pirate and did not feel that I deserved it as a salvager and newbie. Back then, I was called a scavenger by someone I respected and that made me look at salvaging and wonder if I should keep it up. The same words about how all I am is the market and industry when it comes to low sec made me wonder if I was doing something wrong. For a moment I questioned what I was writing and why.

But, I picked Lifestyle for the name of my blog because living in low sec is not about one thing. It is not about one type of person. It is not about one type of activity. Nor is playing Eve a singular thing. There is no one thing about Eve. That causes us frustration when we try to explain it but it also is one of the most compelling and enthralling thing about the game.

What compels me is the people and the interactive web that we create intentionally and unintentionally. It is probably what I love best about the game. It is my time wheeling about space in a Jaguar being the forward tackle for a fleet. It is feeding capitals into the hungry maw of Snuff Box. It is unknowingly supplying a corporation when I think I'm fighting a market war. It is every part of every day. There is no best part of Eve for me.

There is just Eve for me. Not to be anyone elses right way. Not even when it gets me mocked and insulted. I know that we all play games for different reasons. I often consider Eve to be similar to a book. I rarely read books for the ending. I read them for the story. Eve is very much the story of games for me.

And that is why I play.