Anti-Gank: Uedama 1/31/2015

A few folks within Brave teamed up with CODE tonight to gank freighters in Uedama.  The High-Sec Militia and AG supporters were successful in stopping multiple ganks throughout the evening.  Several bumper ships were destroyed as well.

A big thanks goes out to those who worked hard to coordinate AG efforts throughout the evening.  It was a solid night.

Scope Works, The Scope Project, and CAS

I continue to keep my eyes open for interesting organizations that look to nurture fun without the griefing and tear collecting BS that has been all too visible in Eve this last year.  It is part of what my version of Ganker Bumping is all about -- enjoying Eve while countering and/or avoiding the negativity provoked by some of the more dubious Eve ganksters.

I'd thus like to take a moment to mention a few organizations that have popped up into my field of vision recently.  Information on these organizations is not the easiest to find, and I actually had to hunt around the Internet and on various forums to collect some of the details, and I'm still missing a lot.  For whatever reason, most Eve organizations/corporations seem to lack a central public home on the web like you would find for most guilds in other MMOs, requiring much more effort to find and assess them.

The Scope Project

The other day, a curious character named Vapor Ventrillian mentioned The Scope Project in the Anti-ganking channel.  Vapor leads The Scope Project and has an interesting flair to him.  Some seem to find him offputting while others enjoy his whimsical nature.  The Scope Project has no corporation; instead, it is an organization of people with a common interest and a shared set of chat channels whose members may be in non-player corporations, one man corporations, or other player corporations.  In Vapor's words, "its about having the freedom while benefitting from a collective. So you can succeed where normally you could not against a strong collective.  it is finding the balance between the two..." (1) .  I have also heard him talk in game that it is about bringing together people from all walks in Eve to go have fun while avoiding unsavory politics.  As far as what they have up and running, I found this (2) :

we have lowsec roams in place NPSI
we have mining ops in place-highsec atm
we recruit explorers to gain us intell on pilot movements as the see it
we recruited awoxers to disrupt corps that attempt to undermine the project
we have more spias then anyone else because hell...its the Scope

All told, I find this organization intriguing but I do have some concerns about it.  In particular, it appears as though they are not opposed to destroying other corporations by awoxing from within.  While I am willing to let spying slide, I have a personal opposition to awoxing that defaces a corporation or steals it's assets.  I know some people believe this is acceptable in the world of Eve, but I do not agree, and I would not want to be associated with an organization that engages in such activity.  It is far too close to just hacking people's accounts to steal their assets.  It is unclear exactly how far The Scope Project takes this activity.

Scope Works

This is a rather interesting organization led by a seemingly angry character named Anslo.  If you look through his forum posts on the Eve forums, you will find a link to https://proveldtariat.wordpress.com/.  But stop there, as that site does not appear to be what Scope Works currently is, and it hasn't had a blog post in a very long time.  But it appears to be where the Scope Works got it's start, from what I can tell.  The Proveldtariat seemed oriented primarily towards miners and casual gamers who wanted to organize against bumpers and gankers and was another organization that did not have an in-game alliance or corporation.  But they appear to have evolved over the last couple of years.

What are they now?  A fairly recent recruiting post by Anskek (probably an alias of Anslo) on eve-inpiracy.com had this to say (3) :

WHAT WE DO:
-Medium+ gang sized pvp
-PvE fleets for SHEKELS
-Capital/BLOPS
-SRP
-Professional Haberdashery lessons
-Shenanigan Ops

WHAT WE NEED
-5 mil SP minimum
-Members who love GOOOOOOOOOOOOLD
-Proactive Nerds (be an expert in something in Eve, Teach Nerds, Lead Nerds, talk with Corp, don't just be solo all the time)
-Willingness to Learn (If you welp a thing and learn from it, good. If you welp a thing and don't learn, stop being bad)
-Thick skin

That seems pretty far removed from The Proveldtariat.  And they now have a corporation, Scope Works, and an alliance, Psychotic Tendencies..  The killboards show mostly low sec and some null sec activity.  The alliance has what could only be described as a spam-ish description and web site.  But the corporation seems okay from what I can tell, and if they have stayed true to their origins, it could be a great organization.

CAS

Finally, a quick mention of CAS.  I've seen people mention it, but I still have no idea what it is.  I just know it's sometimes mentioned as related when talking about Scope Works and/or The Scope Project. 

It might be this (4) :  Center for Advanced Studies' nullsec NPSI fleet

Or it might be this (5) :  CAS Corporation, some kind of new player organization.

Could those be the same thing?  Hell if I know.  All I know is, they need better advertising, as I can't figure out who or what they are even when I'm trying to.

Pilgrimage to B-R5RB: Graveyard of Titans

It's a dangerous voyage deep into lawless null space.  A battle was waged in system B-R5RB.  One of the biggest battles in Eve history.  The battle was of such scale, that a monument was erected to commemorate it, with tens of ship wrecks left in space indefinitely for travelers to see.  I traveled there to see it myself, and thought I would share a few notes on the trip.

The monument is called Titanomachy.  You can see it on the Overview, assuming you have it set up appropriately.  I brought scanning equipment along in case the monument had to be scanned down, but such was not the case.  As you engage warp for the monument, you are provided a small informational window about the site.  The monument itself is one of those jellyfish-looking space structures, and it is surrounded by ship wrecks of Titans, Dreadnaughts, and Carriers.


The trip there is not without peril.  The closest high security space is about 15 jumps away, and you may encounter gate camps on your way there.  Be careful with what ship you choose to fly there, use a clone with no expensive implants, and whatever you fly, bring a cloaking device.  If not on the way, you will want to cloak once there to take a look at the site in relative safety.

I considered flying a Covert Ops ship, but ultimately decided to go with an Interceptor for it's immunity to warp bubbles and high speed.  Still, my first attempt to visit the monument ended with a ship wreck of my own.  Even with an Interceptor fitted with 2 Nanofiber Internal Structures, a Test Alliance gate camp was able to lock, warp disrupt, and kill me on my way.  I changed up my fit, adding two warp core stabilizers, necessarily dropping one of the two Nanos but keeping the other, and intentionally hit the same gate again to test if my revised fit could break through the gate camp.  However, when I got there again the gate camp had diminished quite a bit, and I passed through with ease, not really giving the new fit a solid test.  (Update -- based on the helpful comments, an effective strategy for getting past even the best of gate camps is ensuring you have an align time under 2 seconds; based on EFT, I could have done this in my Malediction by utilizing 3 Inertia Stabilizers II modules)  A passed a few other ships along the way, but made it safely to the monument and fulfilled my desire to experience this piece of Eve history.  I can't say if others will find a trip here worthwhile or not, but I'm glad I took a night to go check it out.

Clandestine Moon Mining

I've started taking a look at what it takes to build T2 equipment, all the way back to the raw source materials.  Most of those raw materials come from moon mining.  I'll be dipping my toes into these waters in the weeks ahead, and will report on my experience over time.  In the meantime, I ran across what looks to be a nice informational guide from TenTonHammer on moon mining without an Alliance to back you up, and thought I would share here.

Clandestine Moon Mining (Part 1)

Clandestine Moon Mining (Part 2)

Good luck if you try your hand at this.  It looks risky but it could be good fun for the right Industrialists. 

Blog Categories

I've added Blog Categories to the sidebar of this blog (links also available in this blog post).  This will make it easier to browse for the type of content you are interested in.

My currently list of categories includes:

• About This Blog -- Information about this blog, why it exists, and things I'm doing with it. 
• Anecdotes -- Mostly short commentaries, possibly humorous. 
• Anti-Gank Reports -- Reports of Ganking and Anti-Ganking activities. 
• Ethics and Philosophy -- Ethics and philosophy regarding Eve, mostly focused on ganking, but could include other topics. 
• Fictional Stories --  Sometimes I like to write fictional short stories about character experiences and Eve lore; you will find those here.
• Gameplay --  Thoughts on playing Eve, my amateur guides and tutorials, and reviews of missions.
• News and Information -- Anything news-ish; things going on in Eve, information on feature releases or bugs, etc.
• Tools and Programming -- Tools I have created for Eve, information on other 3rd party tools, and information on computer programming related to Eve.

In-Game Browser Note: No JavaScript trim()

A quick note for anyone that develops or wants to develop dynamic web pages for use in Eve -- if you didn't already know, the Eve in-game browser does not support the JavaScript string trim() function.

 If you need to trim white space from the front and end of a string, you will need to supply your own trimming function. Here is one that is short and sweet, (albeit not so intuitive given that it uses a regular expression) courtesy of w3schools.com.

function myTrim(x) { 
    return x.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/gm,''); 
}

tl;dr

I don't know who came up with the whole "tl;dr" thing, but it's brilliant!  Not only does it allow someone to come out and express they are too lazy to read a post about a topic they might otherwise be interested in, it shows they are so lazy they couldn't even be bothered to type out the words "too long; didn't read".  And if anyone was wondering what "tl;dr" means, now you know.  I hope that wasn't too long a post for any of you "tl;dr" folks. ;-)

Is Ganking Bullying?

I'd like to make a quick post regarding the "Ganking Is Bullying" crew and what they have to say.  Some members of CODE have been suggesting that the Ganking Is Bullying blog is my blog, or have associated me with them in some way.  I would like to officially state that the Ganking Is Bullying blog is NOT my blog.  Furthermore, I have no association with their crew nor do I even know who they are.

That said, I have read the one blog post on that blog.  It makes a case as to why ganking is bullying and reads like a FAQ.  If you are wondering my opinion on it, I would say it's a reasonable argument, but only for ganking that pushes the role play boundaries too far and intentionally attacks the person behind the screen and not just his or her character and ship.  But maybe that is how they define ganking.  So it depends on how you define ganking.  By my own definition, not all ganking is bullying.  Some of it is just playing the game.  But intentionally try to attack the actual person behind the screen emotionally and it becomes bullying.  That's where I stand on it.

I do wonder why anyone troubles to make such a blog, though.  Even if their argument is sound, who is the audience?  A bully will not be swayed by their arguments.  Do they believe that some people are being bullies without realizing it?  Maybe, but I don't believe you will convince such people that they are actually being bullies.  I think they need a different strategy.  Some other way to persuade people to change their behavior, if that is their goal.  But some bullies will always be bullies.  They need to also help people learn how not to succumb to bullying tactics.  If they haven't tried that, they should. 

End of the Argument: Role Play vs Real Life

I'm making one last statement regarding the argument that who someone is in game does not reflect on who they are in real life, and the impact it has had on relations between CODE and the Anti-ganking (AG) community. 

This argument has been going round and round lately, and it's getting tired.  Forum participants are tired of it, Anti-ganking moderators are tired of it, everyone is getting tired of it.  So I'm saying one last piece and then letting it go.

I have never outright suggested that the average supporter of CODE is a bad person in real life.  What I have suggested and continue to believe is that by pushing the boundaries of role play too far (under the assumption that it is role play), they have made it very difficult for others to distinguish between role play and real life.  That the argument persists incessantly is evidence of that.  Some CODE supporters will say on forums or elsewhere that in game behavior does not reflect on who people are in real life, but their argument always ends there.  Have you ever seen one of these people step out of character about specific incidents and demonstrate that there is a good friendly person underneath?  I haven't.  Not to say it hasn't happened, but I haven't seen it.  I want to see it.  I haven't.  It makes their argument feel shallow and suspect.

Ultimately, it should be no surprise that some people continue to question the real life character of CODE members and affiliates.   It is the bed they have made for themselves.  They blame the AG community for not being able to tell the difference between role play and real life when it is they who bare much of the blame for making it so incredibly difficult to tell in the first place. 

I write this not to badger or berate CODE members and affiliates.  I write this hoping they will read it, consider my words carefully, and start to change the manner in which they conduct themselves.  I will take a leaf of faith and accept that the CODE community is mostly good people.  But you have to do something too.  Step out of character more often, leave the whole "tear collecting" meme behind, and try to show people that you are here to have fun and not just to trample on the fun of others.  Do that, and you will find many people, myself included, be much more amiable towards you.  I will never join you; I like playing the good guy; but I and many others would very much like to play against you with more a feeling of confidence that we play against friends.

Announcement From Scott Bacon

I recently read through the Announcement From Gorila thread on the Eve forums and would like to make a post of my own in response.  I will add this to the Eve forums if I can, though currently the Eve forums are not accepting new posts, so I am initially posting it here in my blog.  My response follows:

---

Being away for the holidays, I did not get a chance to comment on the recent Announcement From Gorila thread before it was locked.  I am therefore making this post, as I feel my viewpoint is important.

I started playing Eve back in early May of 2014, about 8 months ago.  To date, I have never been ganked in high security space.  That's not what got me into the Anti-gank (AG) community.  I learned of ganking and the Anti-ganking channel via someone mentioning buying permits in the rookie help channel.  Since that time, I have become very much on the side of the AG community, primarily in opposition to CODE and their backers.  Not just because I like to play the good guy -- which I do -- but more so because of what I have seen and heard from both sides over the last 8 months.

Each side has vocal members claiming the other side is "toxic".  But what I have personally witnessed over my last 8 months is a lot of arguably toxic activity coming from the CODE side and very little if any coming from the AG side. 

I don't have anything against role playing, but I expect players to remain civil and respectful towards others.  If tempers flair over "bad guy" activity, I think it is important that the "bad guy" be able to step out of character and attempt to explain and defuse the situation.  In my 8 months, I have never seen the "bad guys" step out of character, except in forum posts where the "bad guys" use it as a tool to attempt to paint the AG community in a bad light.  When this happens, a person role playing a bad guy becomes indistinguishable from someone who is truly trying to hurt people, albeit through a game.  To borrow a quote from a movie, "Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you."

Furthermore, this role playing, if that is truly what it is, should not extend outside the context of the game.  But an argument can be made that it does.  I would argue that the take over of the Anti-ganking channel by CODE in late December went beyond role play into attacking the mechanics of the game that allow players to communicate.  That is perhaps debatable, but it's not the only example.  There are the blogs.  CODE players troll me personally about my Eve blog, which stretches and arguably surpasses what qualifies as role play.  The fact that "tear collecting" is a phrase gankers use is also evidence that their intent goes beyond role play into attempts to emotionally attack real people.  When the Anti-ganking channel was taken over, before I was muted I suggested that perhaps they had stolen Gorila's account, and my suspicion was met with laughter by members of CODE.  Given the severity of what I was suggesting, it would have been a good time for a good person within CODE to step out of character to set the matter straight.  That didn't happen.  Then there was the whole bonus room fiasco.  None of these things by themselves prove anything, but all of these things together start to build a convincing case that it is CODE and their ilk that are the real "toxic" community.  It is for this reason that I hold such a dim view of CODE, and the reason I am rather harsh towards Gorila for joining up with CODE and allowing them to vandalize the Anti-ganking channel, even if it was only for a short period of time.

Maybe I've got it all wrong.  But CODE has spent the last 8 months convincing me I'm not.  It takes time to build trust.  Right now, I trust that members of CODE are generally disrespectful towards other players and are a detriment to the Eve community.  If that is not really true, it will take at least as long to undo that damage to my perception of them.  I know there are likely those within CODE that believe they are good people and that some of the AG community is unjustly biased against them.  But perhaps this viewpoint has been taken to the extreme to where general respect has been lost, and it has led them into becoming the very thing they claim not to be. 

Believe what you will.  I believe that honor trumps all.  I may not agree with some of the folks in the AG community on certain issues, but it looks to me that most of the time their hearts are in the right place, even when I think they are wrong.  For that, they have honor.  It saddens me that I can't say the same for CODE.

I know some CODE members have reported receiving real life threats from members of the AG community.  I am not personally aware of any such threats.  But I would like to emphasize that I do not condone such activity.  Real life threats are never appropriate.  If someone feels they have been wronged in a serious way, they need to maintain proper discipline, keep a cool head, mind their tongue, and report it.  But always remain respectful.