So I got booted from DUCKS.

Automated Message: Welcome to Narwhals Ate My Duck.
From: Kniht
Sent: 2014.06.10 05:04
To: Longinius Spear, 

Read corp MOTD. Always wonder. Never not do something. Create content.


This was the welcome message I received when I joined DUCKS.

Seems straight forward.

Never not do something, and create content.

I'm a podcaster, I'm a blogger, I'm a solo and team player. I quite literally can't not, "create content".

Granted, my flavor of content is slightly different than your typical group, but to deny that its content would be just silly.

Thats why when I was hauled down to a private channel with Putrudius (director) and asked to leave Ducks it was a blind side.

What makes it weird is all the factors that occurred before that happened.

These are the facts, and I have no reason to lie, who reads this blog anyway?

Day One: I'm in my interview with FOX and Putrudius explaining who I have become and what I do in wormhole space. I'm a solo invasion player, I have enough ISK in game that I don't really need to do PVE anymore, I mention the podcast, the blog.. they all say "Hmm thats interesting" totally UN-impressed.

Honestly I felt like the new kid at a new school. I could impress a whole new group of dudes. What made it super strange was the voices. These were people I had been corp'ed with in the past and their voices brought back all sorts of fun memories. It was like opening a time capsule and having an interactive conversation with it. It was truly surreal.

I app with my Longinius Spear. 

Day Two: FOX asks me to app with my other characters.  I figured, sure in for a penny in for a pound. They are doing some fights and don't have an entrance so I can't move in my stuff.

Few days later: I have been logging in every day into Team speak waiting for an entrance when I notice a common trend in conversation.

The term "Try hard" is thrown around in BNI and I have yet to find a better descriptor for people who take this game super fucking serious. A Try Hard is someone who will make fun of your loss mail because you have T1 rigs on a T3. Not talk about the fight, or how much fun you had, just the fact that you even thought to not use T2 rigs on your super serious space ship. Its still YOUR ship, not theirs, but they some how feel you fit it wrong, you're a noob because you didn't use the total best gear and they want to rub it in, just cause.

That's a Try Hard

It wasn't just one conversation I overhead, it was multiple, and they were not quick Trolling jabs, this shit went on for hours. I have NEVER been in a corp like that.

This has never been my style of game play. Never, even when someone does some crazy shit with their fits, I have never had the gumption to make fun of their loss for hours on end because they fit Meta 4 vs T2.

I wonder how they would view my triple box ECM Armor drake pvp gang?

So I brought it up.

Silence. Like not just a stunned silence but a "I can't believe this person even spoke to me" silence.

Hmm I see,

The entire time, they keep going on and on about SRP (ship replacement program) everything revolves around funding it and what fits are appropriate to even try and get reimbursed. I ask for some JamGu fits, they were provided.

The first one linked is so old that it doesn't even work. I found this out after buying everything for it.

When I brought it up, I was linked a different fit, which I bought 3 copies of. Maybe I will impress my new friends with my Tengu Triple box prowess..

Yea... no... Dual boxing in pvp is VERY frowned upon, if you thought would get made fun of for fitting meta 4, FUCK don't you dare try double boxing.. in pvp.. hell, I can't image what kind of punishment I would get for triple boxing ECM tengu.

Well fuck... Now In a corp with 5 characters... essentially 5 accounts worth of characters I can't use in pvp. I can't fly fun crazy shit, yea. But I still want to be part of this new thing that's happening. 

 I make the quick choice to drop corp with all but one character.

A few days later...

I manage to get my solo character into the DUCKS home hole. Kniht asks me if I need a tab and I want to share some divisional access with some random stranger. I say "Naww its cool" "I don't need that right now."

If I'm only going to fly this 1 approved ship, why bring more into the hole? Why bring more characters in the hole, whats the point? To be made fun off for fitting random welp trash for the fun of it? Naww fuck that. I'll fly the approved SRP approved JamGu. Follow the rules, be on coms, join every fleet from the home hole. These guys are super space serious and I was going to adapt!

Not only that, but I'm not going to store some 650m ISK tengu with some random I don't know my first week in a corp. I'm sorry but the rate in which people are joining the corp and all these strangers around, naww fuck that, this is EVE my shit is going to get robbed. Nope. Not going to do that, I'm not that guy.

I offered to put up my own POS and pay for my own fuel. I was told "you can't do that" "We pay for your fuel and give you a spot, in a medium POS" I asked, "you allow medium POS in your C6?"

Yea, I wouldn't store a fucking T2 in that shit, let alone a bunch of blinged out T3's. You're asking to be invaded and flattened with that crap.

I'll keep my footprint light. Go in with whats required. Try and get a feel for the people I'm flying with.

A Few Days Later... 

Chitsa Jason pulls me down into a chat and asks how I like the corp. I explain that I'm getting a feel for the corp and its pilots. I explained that I felt the "try hards' were thick and I wasn't sure if I liked that.

He laughs, and then says "I plan on getting Bronya and Jack into the corp". I said shocked "I'm not sure Bronya is going to like this"

(Side note: I had already talked with Bronya about my first impressions of DUCKS and he was like "damn I'm glad I didn't join that shit", I explained with my normal optimism "well Ducks may work themselves out, I'm going to give them time")

I told Chitsa I'm taking it easy and good luck with getting Bronya.

This is where shit gets weird. 

Chitsa Jason asks me if I want to be a director. I'm not making this up, he fucking asked me. I have been in this corp for less than two weeks and I'm offered a directorship.

I instantly say no. For a few reasons.

1. I don't want to be in charge of anyone for a long while. I ran my own corp for over a year, it burned me out, I'm glad to not have that responsibility.

2. If I'm a director I'll have jobs, I'll have drama, I'll be doing things other than playing EVE. Nope not going to have it.

3. I have been in your corp for less than 2 weeks and you offer that to me. I instantly thought to myself, "who else has this very conversation happened with" are you fucking kidding me? Does this guy just give director roles to randoms the knows? Thats a super bad sign for joining a corp.

4. I don't know how to be a director for a corp full of try hards. How do i relate?... Do I need to start making fun of loss mails and making fun of people for getting caught solo on a low sec gate? I'm not that guy.

Yea, if I was on the fence about bring in major assets before, that little offering just vindicated my earlier paranoia. Some fucking guy that Chitsa some how trusts can go ahead and offline everyone else's shit, I'm not going to be that guy.

 So now I'm along for the ride. I"m not sure where this is going to end, but I do notice a reoccuring trend in voice coms and mails. 

From: kiachi sukando
Sent: 2014.06.16 22:34
To: Narwhals Ate My Duck.,

Hello Everyone,

So as a verryy new corp mate, 3-4 days now, I have had an extraordinary amount of fun in the fights I have had here (the Paladin kill to name a few). The structure of PVP and FCing is top par from what I have seen. Everyone wants to fight and destroy anything and help anyone they can in this alliance. There is one small issue I have taken notice to which is the lesser motivation on site running. As an amatuer player compared to you vets I do not have the most isk and am struggling to make enough for the skillbooks let alone the ship itself. The money I make I just want to pour into ships to help the community, a dread, to be specific. I'd love to fight along side all of you every bit of the day killing anything in our path but it is hard to do when I do not have the isk-flow that most of the vets, with the important site running ships, have. Id just like to know from all the higher ups, are we going to have more of a scheduled site running (not just when nothing is going on). This will continue to bring in isk for corp and for members alike.

Thanks for the time and opportunity to be here,
AmD


This mail really does bring out the type of conversations that occurred almost nightly about how people wanted to make money, couldn't make money because of lack of motivation, ships and or skill. Not only that, but with a 50% home site tax, people can't really make much when it split between 10 + people.


This is the SRP situation.

Hello all,

Starting from today the alliance SRP works in the following way:

All doctrine armor T3s are SRPed at 500mil a peace.
All capitals are SRPed at 80% of their value minus insurance.
All doctrine Ishtars, Guardians, Scimitars, ECMgus, Heavy Interdictors, Armageddons are SRPed at 100% of their value.

Directors or CEO have the right to not give out SRP on case by case basis (stupid losses, bad fits, etc).

All other ships are not SRPed unless case by case basis (CEO or director decision again).

All the previous 100% SRP payouts are gonna be done, it is just question of time.
After the 100% SRP payouts are done the corp tax on Home sites is going to be dropped from 50% to 35% and further down to 25% after corp has 30bil liquid.

Chitsa Jason


Sounds good right? The main trouble is, after a fantastic welp that ducks suffered a few days ago the SRP program went entirely into the negative.The desire to dig out the SRP program for the majority of the corp wasn't its highest. This was felt by the frequent conversations on this topic, who as to blame, was their shit fits to blame.. was it the FC to blame, this conversation went on for DAYS not hours, but fucking days..
 
Now remember, I don't do PVE. I don't need to and its not why I log into the game. I sure as shit don't want to do PVE for 50% the reward. I did that for THE H0NEYBADGER to build up a replacement cap fleet so I could start wars with people. No wars were started... lord only knows what happened to those caps.

Now I got another person wanting me to esentially log into the game, play their game, give them half my profits and then make fun of my style of play when I do fun shit on the side.

 Not only that, but if you look at the detailed part of the SRP message from Chitsa, you will see what the most common conversation was about SRP.

Directors or CEO have the right to not give out SRP on case by case basis (stupid losses, bad fits, etc).

Now remember anyone is essentially a Director... and on a case by case basis, they could simply deny you this SRP they were taxing the shit out of you for. Great place to hang out right??

Nearly every night, they run sites. Not just in the home hole, but in an expo hole they created. Almost every night. I sit in my 650m isk Jamgu night after night waiting. Instead, its sites for SRP and poor people who lack personal motivation and cry about it constantly.



Tonight: I'm brought in a private convo with Putrudius. He tells me "you aren't working out"."You seem to have your own thing going on and its not the direction DUCKS are headed"."We are removing your roles and booting you"

I'm not going to lie, I was hurt. Clearly DUCKS had some shit to work out, some priorities they needed to straighen out, my solo Tengu character sitting in their HQ POS was obviously different from what they wanted. The only rational was that I wasn't contributing to running sites every night.

Not sure exactly what I was hurting, but simply sitting in coms with old friends was too much for them.

I was more hurt by what the image of what DUCKs was and what its become. Whiny little isk hungry fuckers who just run sites and talk about how elite their fits are. Essentially everything I hate about some 'pro wormhole corps'.

I wanted to change it, inspire them with the actions of my out of corp characters, stories, shenanigans... Nope. Not the direction DUCKS wants to go.

I say to Putrudius "You know Chitsa just a few days ago asked me to be a director right"?"And now I"m being booted, WTF ?!"

He says ... and I quote: "That was a Test" It was a test to gauge your interest level"

I'm floored.. wtf.. a test?! Who does that?

Treat people how you wish to be treated, be honest, if anyone asked me why I left with my other characters I would have explained why. Nope. You're not contributing to the SRP and you don't want to grow up and be in management.

In conclusion: 

Part of me wants vengeance. To simply move into their holes and punish their ISK gaining obsession with a little wreck bombing.  But that wouldn't change them, it would just make people I called friends angry with me and make their life shittier.

Do I want that? I don't know. I want to take the high road, but then again this is a video game. The low road is just as valid.

I also don't want to set a precedent of shitting on people after they find our relationship has come to an end.

I just know that I had high hopes for DUCKs, what they could become as content creators. They may sort themselves out, but not at the rate they are going now.

"A test..." wtf Chitsa.. 

The Respect of Wormholers

(TLDR: I find an off line Drop Bears POS, I explode some stuff, aDAMNPATRIOT jumps on voice coms with me and asks me to stop. I do.)

So I’m in my new corp Ducks for less than 24 hours and I’m sitting around my high sec base of operations. Its where I store all my stuff that I’m not either flying or in a wormhole somewhere. I figure I want to try out the ducks wormhole tracking software “dippy” or “Sippy” or whatever.. forgot the name. Still not used to using it.

What better way than to jump into some wormholes and see what happens.

For wormhole PVPers there are are a bunch of different ways we find targets. One is called “High Sec Diving”. This can be done solo, or with a group but the style is the same. Everyone starts from usually a trade hub and spreads out in different directions. Dropping probes in each system, looking for holes and jumping in them when found. We are looking for people doing sites, people bashing Pos’s, people hauling things to a trade hub, whatever, just something to shoot at. It’s a good way to pass the time.

Well that night I was solo(5 accounts) and operating from my high sec base of operations.

I come across a High sec to C5 connection 1 jump from my base. I jump in and hit scan. Nothing. I book mark the hole and proceed to warp around the system looking for people. Nada.

I drop probes and begin to resolve the system. This C5 was a C5 static C6, so I would at least be able to check one more hole before I moved along. I find this hole has 6 null sec connections and one static C6. I book mark everything and jump into the C6.

Nothing on scan. I bookmark the way in and  warp to the outer planet hitting D-scan the entire way.

I pass by something that I love to see.

Tower on scan. Ships on scan. SMA on scan. NO Force Field on scan.  

This means 1 of two things. There is a small fleet bashing an offline POS or this POS has been off lined for lack of fuel. Either way, I better move quickly to figure it out. I do a quick D-scan with moons and narrow it down which moon the POS is at. Its one of 3 moons, I don’t try and figure out which so I just warp to each of them at 100.

2^nd moon, I land on grid with a Drop Bears POS offline, with unpiloted ships floating around it. I book mark the tower and begin my looting process.

With offline POS’s you need to move quickly because sometimes the owner maybe on their way back, just logging in.

I scramble my other pilots. 1 pilot in a shield Talos that I happen to have lying around. Another in his pod. Another character in a scanning ship to watch the High sec hole in the C5. I’ll be making runs back and forth with haulers so making sure a fellow wormhole hunter doesn’t murder me while I run off with the loots is a good thing.

My talos makes it up the chain without problem. Still nothing on scan. The Talos lands on grid and blaps CHA. https://zkillboard.com/kill/39445504/

Cans start dropping, 1^st one I check, towers. More than 1. Random Modules and ammo. Some wormhole gas. But more strontium than I care to move. I start shooting the stront cans. I get my character in a pod to land on grid and hop in a fit Iteron 5. I scoop everything I can, blow up the worthless stuff. The itty 5 makes a run for it out to high sec.

I haven’t even started on the hanger when Fox (director in Ducks) says “Spear, are you fucking with Drop bears”. How in the hell did he know?! Did the kill mail post that quickly? I respond “Mayyybeee” and laugh. Fox says “I just got a ping from ADP asking why we are attacking his corp”.  Damn!!!  Well the tower wasn’t blue to ducks.. so fair game right?! I continue with the looting.

aDAMNPatriot jumps into the Ducks voice coms. Oooo dear this is going to be awkward.

ADP knows exactly what is happening and asks me to stop or something to that effect.

I asked him, “ADP, if you found an offline POS, I know your ass would blow it up without a second thought” He laughed and said ‘Of course but I’m asking based on our prior dealings to work with me on this’.

So, here I am a solo murderer being asked by a fellow wormhole inhabitant to cut him some slack. It clicked in my head for a second to tell him to get lost. But it takes more work to build a bridge than to burn it. Grrr fine, I agree. I swear, if it was ANYONE ELSE! I would have taken the kill mail and served a slice of harsh lesson on never letting your POS run out of fuel

I ask “What did you have in mind?”

He says, “how about we split what’s left in SMA” I said “well I get half no matter what right now”. “He says “I know, but you would have my gratitude”.

He would essentially get what would normally be exploded in the SMA. I still get paid, but he walks away with what would normally be destroyed.

I invite him to fleet and get him the high sec entrance.  

He then starts to send a steady stream of drop bears in through the high sec to C5 to his C6.

IF shit didn’t get weird enough, I’m sitting on this high sec hole in a pod and a uncloaked scout. Along comes a Hard Knocks scout and jumps in from the high sec. I say to ADP, “umm Hard Knocks” just found the wormhole. Turns out they actually had the C6 and the whole chain already scanned out because they warp directly to the C6 and jump in.

So I’m sitting in some one else’s C6 in a Talos, next to a bunch of shuttles/Pods of Drop bears guys at an offline pos next to a full SMA and Hard Knocks just jumped in. If they hit D-scan mid warp, they are going to see all these pods, ships, SMA and NO fucking force field on scan! WE ARE SCREWED!

Another Hard Knocks person jumps in from the high sec, I say in local chat “I’m not really sitting here in my pod on this C5” he responds with a laugh in local, then jumps in without a care in the world. ACK! Now there are two of them. We are really screwed.

We sit waiting in this offline pos while ADP travels to Amarr for fuel blocks to turn the dumb pos back on and get the ships out of the SMA. Meanwhile two different Hard Knocks scouts are passing us by. I’m freaking out! I don’t want to lose this offline SMA kill to Hard Knocks so I jump into the nearest combat ship that’s floating unpiloted in this offline POS.

Ooo a Zealot. SHIT! I can’t use T2 Med Lasers! I target the SMA and get ready to drop the drones it has. Maybe I can at least get on the kill mail with something before Hard Knocks shows up.

ADP shows up in the high sec in an Iteron filled with fuel. He starts his travel through the C5 then to the C6. The same chain and holes the Hard Knocks guys just went through. I’m like “dude, you’re going to die” “ADP just laughs”.

He makes it! He puts fuel in the tower and starts the onlining process. 8 minutes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! We’re dead, we’re sooo dead!. I had moved my talos out to come back in a pod to help move the ships ADP is going to give me from the SMA. Turns out these 3 medium drones are not going to cut it when HK comes for us.

I get my Talos back to the POS and wait with guns over heated. There are Drop bears all over this thing, there are unpiloted ships all over the place. I get ready to just go ‘last star fighter, death blossom’  I’m getting on as many kill mails as I can before I go down. Drop bears, alts.. Don’t care its going to be amazing!

Those 8 minutes took forever! ADP pipes up and says “Orca and Scorpion on scan, now they are off scan”  O thank you BOB! They are rolling their hole. ADP gives me the force field password, so I don’t get kicked out when the force field turns on.

He tells me there are 8 smart bomb fit battleships in the SMA. He then keeps his word and removes the 4 battleships from the hole, taking to the nearest station system.

He one by one trades me the battle ships. Somewhere along the line, I told him I would swap out my Talos for one of his battleships, and as a departing request ADP says.

“Hey, where’s that Talos you promised me?”

I traded it to him, and said goodbye.

7o Mad respect aDamnPatriot.

And now for something completely different.

TLDR: I leave THB and join DUCKS.

A few weeks ago, I was toying around with the idea of going to a different type of space. I even started some convo’s with recruiters. One of which was a corp in Black Legion.

I have always been a huge fan of Black Legion and their amazing skill fighting out numbered. This type of game play would be very different then what I  have been doing and since EVE is all about reinvention I figured ‘why not’. Well, I was quickly talked out of it by some people I respect.

It wasn’t the fact that they have skill and I simply lacked it, it would be a dead end road for me. To play it out, the way it was described for me. BL’s style of play is to be one of the best there is. They don’t fuck around and are very harsh on failure. Let’s just say I was able to withstand the constant Null sec verbal diarrhea  and didn’t get trolled into hating myself/family members and all the people I currently value as friends. Let’s just say I step up and become the ultimate in Null sec TIDI wonder combat. I what, kill some caps every day, a super a week and a titan a month?

What then? Where would I go from there? I didn’t like that question because I couldn’t see where I would go from there, without losing who I was as a player.

Sicks (THB CEO)  answered the question for me with a mail stating that he wouldn’t be living in the C6 wormhole anymore. I did a quick evaluation of why I was actually in The H0ney badger. I sent this mail.

THB,
Well its been a great run, thank you for hosting myself and my Ex SUSU guys. It’s been a pleasure.
The people who I joined to play with, don't really play anymore or are taking a break. The people I brought with me, have gone someplace else.
Those of you who are left either don't use coms or are on permanent local mute.
"anything going on?"
-- Spear

The "anything going on?" (inside joke/troll) 

Story: I fucking hate it when people log into EVE and say this, the very first thing. You could just apply 2 minutes of listening to coms and hear if something is going on or not. And if nothing is going on, go fucking make something 'go on'. And if something is going on, wait let me stop everything and tell YOU what is happening because you can't be bothered to be patient and listen. Day in and day out it started to chap my ass.  I told the corp this much. They then made it their personal mission to say that very thing every time they logged in. I permanently muted them. Problem solved.

I found that content generators and scouts would be the people making efforts while the people who log in for 5 minutes and ask "Anything going on" would simply sit in coms doing nothing and play other games. Eventually more than half the people in coms would be muted and no one doing anything.

Now that Sicks left the C6, Glyndi doesn’t play EVE much anymore, all the SUSU guys have gone off to Rolled out. I was left with a couple cool people, but the majority were not people that I really matched up with. I had no interest in joining Rolled out because there were personality conflicts with some of their FC’s/Skyfighter carry over. I’m not about to be yelled in a fleet by people I dislike.

Well Chitsa Jason sent me a mail a few weeks back.

Re: Re: Hey Spear

From: fox weik
To: Putrudius, Longinius Spear, Maverick Capasso, Chitsa Jason

INBOX

fuck yeah

-------------------------------- Re: Hey Spear From: Longinius Spear Sent: 2014.06.10 04:25 To: Chitsa Jason, fox weik, Maverick Capasso, Putrudius,
Still looking for pilots? I'm looking for a new home.
-- Spear
-------------------------------- Hey Spear From: Chitsa Jason Sent: 2014.05.26 15:10 To: Longinius Spear,
I am reviving Ducks,
Let me know if you get bored of you current corp :) Could allways take one good pilot in.
Chitsa

So now I’m back with Ducks. 

Its slightly surreal honestly, the voices in this Ducks are almost exactly how I remember them. Its like I have gone back in time and everything is how it was in the beginning. Like a lost summer romance. I’ve changed, they’ve changed, but the voices are the same, the little ways of playing are the same. 

We got the band back together. Now let’s see how we can fuck it up!