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What Was Paid Forward

I was telling Kaeda today how Lue has told me that he is proud of what I have become. I find it amazing because in my mind, I am still his newbie. I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for the days when I drifted about in space with him. I often talk about it because It was a very good time in the game for me and created the foundation for my love of low sec.

Lue, Diz, and Ender are very much my idols in game. I spent a lot of time trying to become a pilot that they could be proud of. I look back on my time with them in an extreme sense of nostalgia. If there is anything I ever want to retain and wrap my game of Eve around it was the time I spent in Klingt learning how to play, living, and doing.

I remember the times Lue abandoned me to go assist groups. I wasn't part of any of the local channels back then. Lue would just say that someone had called for help and vanish for a while, leaving me to clean up and occupy myself until he returned. I remember wanting to get to that place and point where I could respond to people and be useful.

Thinking of the future also makes me think of the past. I know that I want to develop something that will help people jump off the same cliff that I did. Not into low sec and piracy per say. I want them to become comfortable and capable in dangerous space doing whatever they happen to want to do in Eve. It is a tenuous thought still but one that I want to let lay on the back of my mind and grow a bit.

Do you have idols in Eve? Ender, Diz, and Lue are not the only people that I admire in this game. That is a long, long list. But they are my Eve Parents in many ways. I may never catch up to them. I won't ever be them. But the ground work that they laid I will build upon and hope that they will be pleased with the return to what they paid forward when they raised me.


Comments

  1. Ahhhh... noobhood. I loved my early days... my sons brought me into the game and are here with me today. Two of the players I have known the longest and learned so much from, I still fly with everyday today.

    Two others, one is a corpmate of mine for the first time, and one... the guy who I learned so much from, the guy who took me, well, us, into our first wormhole.. the guy I got my first every kill and podkill as his wingman... he's still here in chat often... but we don't talk much... He decided to check off one of his bucket list items and corp thefted a really good group of guys... good friends of ours. Oh well.

    As for paying it forward.... we have I think, 4 newbros incorp right now... teaching them how to live and die in New Eden and how to love the life and death we share here... I am reminded of my noobhood everyday, and I love it. =]

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    1. I guess I should do the shout outs...
      AINeumann... HBHI CEO, my son and the best friend a man could ask for...
      Strigon Leader, HBHI Cap Pilot, F1 Junky and my son-by-another-father...
      Sovereign Meari, HELPeR CEO & FC Extraordinaire...
      Tsra 'Le Bank', HELPeR CFO, POS Mgr & Anthrax Supply Coordinator
      Endymi Typhirr... Nipple Master, 'nough said.

      and to my new and old bros, whether noobs or jaded vets... thanx for making this game so much more than just pixels on a screen. =]

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  2. I can honestly say I have no EvE idols. That's not to say I haven't learned from (and am still learning from) a number of players over the years. But there are no players I aspire to be or that I want to make proud of me. There are a few I remember fondly, friends I very much wish I was still flying with but who no longer play or who have moved on to different aspects of the game. I'm also incredibly lucky in my current bunch that I fly with.

    As for paying it forward, I'm trying to be less bitter, more relaxed about certain things, and more open to others in the hope that I can contribute to and help perpetuate the atmosphere of acceptance and seriously non-serious fun that exists within the corp I'm flying with.

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    1. Less bitter is good. I don't think we have to have idols. Just as we don't have to have heroes or role models. But, when I think about Eve and interact with Eve it is through he ground work those three laid out and I love them to death.

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  3. I have a couple :)

    First and foremost Wensley. It was his rifter guide that elevated my PvP from just random experiments and copying (bad) fits of battleclinic to actually having some "academic" insight into what I was doing. It was that guide that was the foundation for my long standing love affair with game mechanics and fitting.

    Paul Clavet was another, the way he interacted with EVE (ninja looting in highsec) was my first real eye-opener to the type of outside of the box stuff that you could successfully do in EVE. It forever altered how I look at the game and risk. It also was the starting point of a far deeper understanding of aggression mechanics in EVE.

    Bjurn Akely, a multi-boxing wormholer with the patience of a saint, who engages in a form of PvP I don't have the grit for and somebody who's killboard never ceases to amuse me :)

    Naoru Kozan, who made me not hate PvE anymore, I'm not sure he wants the credit for that, but he's getting it anyway.

    And then there's Sugar Kyle who taught me to look at EVE not exclusively through the eyes of a predator which is probably the most recent of my revelations about the game.

    In addition there are entire groups of people whom I have deep rooted respect for because of either how the play EVE or how good they got at it. The Tuskers, Genos Occidere (and the people around that corp), and last but certainly not least my own corp mates in Screaming Hayabusa a number of whom I've looked up to over years.

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    1. Found this by accident. I'm humbled, K. Thanks a lot. Especially coming from you who have taught me so many of the hard and intricate points of the game. Bless you, bro.

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  4. I have to mention Taurean Eltalnin and Azual Skoll, especially the former. His blog was an amazing read.

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  5. The eyes behind the Dire grow misty.

    Ahhh, my first PvP engagement. T’was long ago and not on this character. I’d taken my arty fit Thrasher out to low sec for a little rat stomping. It paid surprisingly well and I went unnoticed for several days. When Ozkar (my pirate) found me he brought his Amarr Crusader in fast and tight and proceeded to dispatch me without breaking a sweat. Post engagement, once I got my head screwed back on straight, I chatted him up via private convo. Cheery fellow and absolutely delighted to discover he’d grasped the honor to pop my PvP cherry. I kept track of him for quite a while but alas he went inactive. I miss him. Knowing we wandered the same universe filled me with the happys.

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  6. Idols? Well... sort of. I'll certainly mention Penny and before her, Chessur, both of whom inspired me to want to hunt people in wormhole space. I never flew with or even saw either of them, just read their blogs. (I did see Sugar once! Woo!)

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    1. Right now I'm like a static lump in Sujarento. :P

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  7. I don't have idols, just friends who stopped playing what CCP decided that it was the wrong way to play EVE...

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  8. Ripard Teg was very influential for me. I remember reading all of his training guides and learning so much. I bookmarked his blog and made it my home page. I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to see what he wrote. People joked about his ability to blog. I remember one particular blog he wrote about losing his dog. The article really hit close to home as I had just lost one of my Boxers. It was a sad day when Ripard stopped blogging. I still check his blog from time to time hoping maybe some how he's re-spawned. It was a real sad day for all of Eve when he quit. Ripard if you're still out there - we miss you buddy.

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    1. You can hunt him down on failheap I believe!

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    2. I still keep open Ripard's blog to browse for new entries on the blogs he follows. And i miss his voice, frankly, as he's one of the persons I've met who loved EVE the most... until he burned out.

      Was sad to see him throw in the towel, yett that's what EVE does to those who care about it.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. [grumble grumble typos...]
      Again, /o\... "...that's what EVE does to those who care about it.

      Wrong. I care deeply and have for 4 years... and I personally know many who have played longer than me who feel exactly the same. Don't go lumping your entitled discontent on others...

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    5. Oh, but you're a wormholer. You play the game right. There is no merit in staying that way. The only hint of misfitness in you, is that you think that CCP still is interested with WiS.

      It is painful to see people go away because their love is never corresponded. Because they dare to love what CCP doesn't loves. Some mothers should not have had children. And EVE should never have had PvE. I blame CCP for that.

      In retrospect, I should have never played EVE. I sitll miss playing it, but I know that if I resubbed and started playing I would be doing exactly the same things, with exactly the same ships, in exactly the same way, just alone and without friends. And I still would be paid back with scorn and neglect for daring to think of a larger, better EVE, where all gameplay was created and treated equal.

      Let alone a EVE where we were people and not spaceships... a EVE which CCP shot dead, buried the corpse and will be on their way to remove the tombstone once the legacy code of the CQ becomes too onerous to entertain, compared to its null usefulness and purpose.

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    6. Ripard was one of my idols as well! His blog actually sent me to Sugar's great writing.

      I really hope he blogs again soon.

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  9. This would make a good Blog Banter submission Sugar.

    This is going to sound corny, but coming into the game in 2003, my biggest idols were the EVE Devs themselves. Sure, there were a few infamous guys and groups back then (Sir Molle, Tank CEO, m0o, m3g4, Taggart Trans Dimensional to name a few), but I didn't aspire to be like them and didn't take my cues from them. For me, long before the days of youtube or twitter and being able to put a face with a name, I devoured dev blogs and blue posts, and being young and naieve, I lived the game through their eyes and saw the potential in depth and scope that they saw. Having a dev visit us in Deklein was a huge deal, like a visit from Santa Claus. I don't think of myself as a fanboy, but the community was much smaller and the devs seemed more human.

    The closest non-dev that I followed was Dumbledore from eve-i.com (long defunct news page and ship database).

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    1. There is a superstar aspect of the devs. They remind me of the immortals in my MUD in many ways with the contact that we have with them.

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  10. I used to idolise a Tusker called Tsubutai, even more than everyone else in that corporation. Today, my only Tusker idol is the breacher king of Jovainnon.

    I greatly admire those who can engage in truly asymmetrical fights...and win. You can treat EVE PVP as a game of numbers (statistics and bodycount) with a 'rock, paper, scissors' meta (most evident in solo FW PVP) where you manage your risk and pick your fights based on what is on Dscan and who else is in Local. I see the great PVPers as those who can engage statistically stronger opponents and exploit player behaviour, such as by splitting gangs on-grid and off-grid, to secure kills and avoid dying.

    I also think that Azual Skoll is a hero for making the Turret and Launcher Reference chart; if you don't need to use it then you are a better PVPer than I am!

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    1. Did you reach them or move past or was the reality not the same as the dream?

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    2. I'm an ex-Tusker now (no bitterness) so I see them as equals.

      I made joining the Tuskers my long-term goal but once I achieved it I lost access to a lot of reliable fights (as they were now green on my Overview) and without a goal in EVE I found myself logging in less and less until I unsubscribed for a long while and came back with a fresh face.

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  11. I think the most important thing an EVE player can have is compassion. I think a lot of us back when we were EVE noobs fondly remember those veterans who had compassion on us and were patient enough to help us or teach us something on that day of, ect. I remember those people always. F
    EVE being such a dark game, those who lend us light and teach us to make fire are usually remembered to those they helped bring out of the dark.
    :-)

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