Deviously Delicious

There is something deviously delicious about being invisible, then suddenly uncloaking to take a victim by surprise before they realize what the hell is going on.

The endearing and ever-talkative Kumq uat invited me the other night to meet up with him for a little roam to terrorize Providence with bombers. After sneaking in through a wide open entry point with nary a bubble in sight, we continued a couple of jumps in hopes of staying under the radar long enough to find a juicy target. Scouting a familiar ice field in his Nemesis, Kumq uat discovered some busy miners. Their spidey senses must have been tingling, though, because they warped off before we could get into bomb range. After hanging around for awhile, we decided they weren't coming back so we bombed the jetcans they'd left behind instead and then moved on.

A system or two later, we got lucky and found a Harbinger ratting. We maneuvered into perfect range from opposite directions, aligned on the Harby, decloaked and let the bombs go--followed by a volley of torps. Uh oh, fella. BIG shiny explosion. Amusingly, the pilot just sat there in his pod for what seemed like forever. Lacking points, we couldn't pin him down and our torps failed to hit him. Maybe it was their bright flash tearing past his pod that finally woke him up because he warped off at last, denying us the pleasure of cracking his egg. Darn it.

Being able fire torps from 50-60K out is nice from a "can GTFO if I gotta" point of view but they take forever to reach the target. Sometimes you get a volley off but the target dies to the combined fire of fleetmates at closer range before your damage happens...such as in this little encounter. Sad panda :( But a short while later, I got a bit luckier with this one. Although my torps once again didn't reach the target in time, but at least the target painter did. Hey, it's a killmail. I'll take it. The explosions were satisfying regardless, and it was fun to fly with Hera Darkthorn and Naxias again who are both excellent pilots.

I haven't flown stealth bombers nearly enough and therefore am not particularly skilled in piloting them but the last two days reminded me what fun they are. I need an excuse to fly them more. You know what I'm thinking, don't you? Oh yes, the Hellcats Bomb Squad is exactly what I have in mind. Perhaps coming soon to a wormhole or null sec system near you. *smiles deviously*

It USED To Be Quiet Around Here...

Although just a few jumps from the hornet's nest that was Old Man Star when the Faction Wars first started up, travelers through Vitrauze a year ago were somewhat infrequent. Not so much anymore, as we've discovered since returning to our original base. For one thing, there are some decidedly hostile locals in residence. They are often to be found camping the Onne gate in sensor-boosted ships and HICs, popping anything that comes through--including more than one Hellcat. This has made roaming to or from that direction a bit of an interesting proposition even in smaller ships. Engaging them on a couple of occasions seemed to attract hostile gangs within a suspiciously few minutes. It could have been coincidence considering the frequency of fleets moving through the system these days, but intel from knowledgeable sources suggests other possibilities. Individual pilots passing through are more frequent as well. Interestingly, a few old friends of ours have independently relocated to the area. They have been in touch with me in the last week or so. It all adds up to interesting times in Vitrauze--much more so than I anticipated when we decided to bring our toys back down here to play for awhile.

Have You Voted? Voting for CSM candidates began on November 12 and will continue through November 26. I'm very pleased to see more community "buzz" around the election this go-round. Blogging, Tweeting, and podcasting are all being used quite effectively to get the word out by and on behalf of the candidates--well, some of them anyway. I hope this results in more voters turning out to express their opinions--even if they choose to abstain. Personally I view abstaining as a cop-out, since I believe there are candidates worthy of your vote. Plus by not spending your vote(s) on a candidate, you do nothing to potentially offset the numbers that can be brought to bear by the big voting blocks for THEIR candidates. Biomassed/Hitch disagrees with me rather strongly on the matter of abstaining and there's an interesting debate going on in his blog about it. Want to listen to the candidates themselves debate and answer questions? Check out the Planet Risk CSM debates hosted by Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm of Split Infinity Radio.

E-ON Articles in the Works. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working on an article for E-ON about women EVE players (there are quite a few of us!). Part of my research included surveys and focus groups on voice comms with several women; the information and opinions shared were as varied as the players themselves. This article is scheduled for the next issue, so I will be focused on getting the draft done this week. Once that's a wrap, Flashfresh and I plan to collaborate on an article we hope to get in a future issue. We already have an outline drafted and have had several good conversations about our selected topic. It is an extreme pleasure to work with Flash on any project and this one will surely be no exception. I am very much looking forward to working with him as we dig into the details of our article.

Some have asked me how one becomes a writer for E-ON. The short answer: Just Do It. Seriously. The longer answer:

1. Come up with an interesting idea for an article or feature
2. Query E-ON editor Zapatero to see if there is interest
3. Work out the details and agree to a timeline
4. Plan, research and write (it's more work than you think--Zap likes meaty articles with a LOT of words!)
5. Submit drafts and review/revise til Zap is happy

After that, all you do is wait for the issue to come out featuring your hard work and bask in the subsequent fame and fortune. Well...sounds good in theory, right? I won't lie, writing a GOOD article for E-ON takes work. But it really is worth it...both from a self-esteem and wallet perspective (they pay in ISK). Zapatero is easy to work with, so don't hesitate to get in touch with him if you've got a great article idea.

Speaking of writing...I need to get back to it...

Discussion #8: CSM4 Visibility & Voter Outreach

Welcome to another topic in the LILS Discussion series. Please participate by leaving comments--even if only to share a link to your own blog post or other resource that contributes to the discussion. In the interest of intelligent conversation, I will delete flames, trolls, and non-substantive "Me, too" and "I agree" quips. Please don't hesitate to speak your mind, disagree, support an idea, or ask questions--just do it in a civilized fashion.

The discussion this time around focuses on Council for Stellar Management (CSM) visibility and voter outreach. Most of you know I am a big fan of the concept. But it's still seems that a large number of players--maybe even the majority of players--are unaware of what CSM is and does. The voter turnout for CSM3 was rather disappointing. I find myself wondering what those of us who support the concept of CSM can do to reach out to more players and increase the votes cast during the CSM4 voting period of November 12-26, 2009.

Obviously, I blog about it and other players are doing their part to help get the world out. For example:

• Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm of Split Infinity Radio and the Planet Risk podcast are conducting round tables with the candidates. Their first CSM round table is now available for your listening pleasure and includes Song Li, TeaDaze, Mike Azariah, and Helen Highwater. It's a very good listen and I like that format a LOT. Really gives you a feel for the individuals who are running.
• Hallan Turrek asks some hard questions of candidates he has interviewed on his blog. So far, he's hosted Jonathan Dawnchaser, Z0D, Alekseyev Karrde, and Spectre3353 (whose candidate application CCP rejected, sadly).
• Dillon Arklight and WarChilde have discussed the CSM in various episodes of their podcast PODDED, most recently their RAW 8 show (which also has a hilarious story about the demise of a Sylph mothership).

But...what else could be done by the player community in particular using in-game mechanics to reach those players who don't read blogs, listen to podcasts, or visit the forums? Maybe I'm naive in believing that there is a large population of players out there who aren't voting just because they are uninformed about CSM. Maybe an average election participation by 10% of the player base is the best we can hope for, given the combination of alt armies, lack of faith in the CSM itself, and bigger picture politics in play. But--eternal optimist that I am--I don't think so.

What else could be done by the candidates themselves? I'm always curious why more of them don't actively blog, post in their candidacy threads, or participate more actively in Assembly Hall and Jita Speakers Park. I can only conclude that the ones who do that are the ones who are going to take the job seriously. I guess the rest are either doing it as a joke or just looking for a free trip to Iceland to serve the interests of whatever alliance or group has put them up to running.

Floor's open! Share your thoughts and ideas on CSM visibility and what can be done by the player community and candidate themselves to "get the vote out" for CSM4 and future CSMs

---

Useful Links

• The CSM Page (EVElopedia) provides access to CSM info, minutes for past meetings, and more.
• Assembly Hall (EVE-O forums) is a platform for players to bring topics to the attention of the CSM.
• In an Assembly Hall sticky post, CSM3 delegate Mazzilliu provides an explanation of how the proposal process works and provides several useful links at the bottom.
• Jita Park Speakers Corner (EVE-O forums) provides a less formal venue to discuss or debate whatever you wish regarding the CSM.

Selecting a CSM Candidate: The 80/20 Rule

49 candidates. Looks like it's gonna be a strong race, eh? Not so fast.

Of the 49, 23 have blank, non-serious, or non-informative campaign statements/tag lines. This leaves 26 who made a reasonable effort to communicate what they are about when filling out their CSM application. Of that 26, however, 18 or so have broken web links or links that don't go to a page with any information about their CSM candidacy or platform. A couple of those 18 do link to blogs on which you can find a CSM-related post if you go to the trouble of looking at the archive.

After the numerous complaints in Assembly Hall and Jita Speakers Park about the CSM's failure to communicate effectively, you'd think more of the candidates would make an effort to communicate with voters. Unless of course they've never even bothered to look at those forums. Or don't give a shit. Or both. Considering that some of them appear to be running as a joke, it wouldn't surprise me.

As it is, we've got roughly 10 candidates (20%) who took the time to write an informative campaign statement AND provide a working link to a forum or blog post about their CSM platform. I'm going to invoke a variation of the Pareto Principle and suggest that this 20% of our candidates is likely to provide 80% of the attitude necessary to effectively represent and communicate with the player base. If you don't already have a candidate in mind, a good place to start looking for a worthy one is in this group.

As for me, I'm splitting my votes between two candidates this time: TeaDaze of Agony Unleased and Alekseyev Karrde of Noir. Their broad familiarity with the game, PvP experience, and holistic viewpoints give me confidence that they will be capable of assessing player proposals effectively and acting for the benefit of the game as a whole. However, this could change if I don't see them actively engaged in discourse about their platforms and proposals raised by players between now and when voting concludes. Those boys better be workin' it if they want my votes.

Remember, voting is due to start on (iirc) November 12. Get to know your candidates, make a choice, and vote! Blog about the candidates and the election, post in the CSM forums, Tweet about it, chat about it in-game, put links to CSM info in your bio, educate others and encourage them to participate in the vote. The more players who participate, the better the CSM will serve all of us.

Note to CCP: Would it be too much to ask that you update the main CSM page with information relevant to this election? Like the dates when voting will begin/end, for instance? It's likely to be the first place people look if they are browsing eveonline.com for CSM information and would be a logical place to summarize such details.

Update: Hidden away in CCP Xhagen's Dev Blog thread about the call for CSM4 candidates was this rundown of important dates relative to CSM4, as (re)posted by T'Amber:

5 Oct. Opening for candidacy runs for the fourth CSM.
19 Oct. Closing for the candidacy applications.
12 Nov. Voting for the fourth CSM opens.
26 Nov. Voting for the fourth CSM closes.
2 Dec. A permanent announcement made about the results of the fourth CSM elections.
5 Dec. The fourth CSM will meet online for the first time.
24-28 Feb 2010. The fourth CSM arrives in Iceland to speak with CCP.

I remember seeing this somewhere else awhile back, probably buried in some official place in the forums or dev blogs. It sure seems like it belongs on the CSM Main page, dontcha think? *grumbles at people not seeing the forest for the trees*

Now THAT Was a Party!

OMFGLOL I am so brain-fried after the awesome party in Hellcats Pub last night. It was an intense four and a half hours of giving amazing stuff away (here's the list of prizes, donors, and winners) every 10 minutes, of trying to keep up with a chat that seemed to scroll at 600 mph (the log is 1,488 KB in size; we had around 300 people in channel at one point!), of fielding numerous convos, of responding to constant emails, of trying to keep an eye on the madness in Evati Local, and of trying to converse at least a little in the Pub channel itself aside from announcing winners.

Shout-Outs

This event owes its success in large part to the contributions of a few key individuals. I've mentioned them before but now that the party is over, it's more clear than ever how pivotal they were to the fun we had:

Happy San. This clever Bastard wrote the app that allowed everyone to register for drawings in-game and provided me with useful tools for conducting them in my OOG browser. Thank you, Happy for making my life a LOT easier--and for being cheerful throughout the "testing and tweaking" process. By the way, for those who don't know, Happy is the brilliant mind behind The Bastards Ransom Board and is himself one of the most successful ransomers in the corp. Those of us in the alliance get to read the more amusing convos he has with his victims and all I can say is, the man is possibly the most polite, persistent, profit-minded pirate in New Eden.

Luminus Aardokay. Lumi, you did a FABULOUS job DJ'ing the event on SI Radio all evening. I can't tell you how much it added to the experience for everyone! In addition to playing great music, your smooth commentary and ability to keep things lively is much appreciated. Will I ever get sick of CCP's HTFU? No. Could your parody "Jizz in My Pod" be any funnier? No! Do people really enjoy listening to wall-of-noise metal like some of what you played? Holy Pound-Your-Brain-Into-Nanoparticles, Batman. And thanks too for your wonderful contributions to the CDM 16 video--it turned out so much cooler than I ever imagined when this all started! (Quivering Palm, we really missed you. Hope you were dreaming of wonderful things as you recovered from your two weeks of work hell.) SI Radio rocks.

Larz Smith. Larz, your generosity in donating items for the party prize pool is nothing short of astounding. I am awed and simply cannot thank you enough for making a good time even better. No...not just better, but EPICALLY better. In addition to all the amazing ships you donated, the 100 Rifters with T2 fits were very popular in Evati on party night. Everywhere I went, there was Rifter debris--at planets, belts, and stations. I don't think there is a more fun way to enjoy reckless PvP than with a Rifter! Thanks for fueling all that fun! You're the best. (And by the way everyone, check out Larz' EVE killboard and other hosting site, POD Splatter.)

EOH Bankers. Dudes, you are awesome! AdmiralDovolski, Antron Kilren, DrJ Zoidberg, Niraia, Sergiiy Kortos, Siigari Kitawa, and WNKyle, thanks a ton for all the sexy stuff you donated! Now somebody bank before Selene fires us all.

Ophichius. Besides your "chemical stimulation" of the party prize pool, how hilarious was it for you to bring loads of boosters to Evati and toss them out into space as party favors? Everyone had a great time with that! Many hugs for adding a welcome bit of criminal flair to the party.

Nashh Kadavr. Your CDM concept is brilliant. I enjoyed flying with you for the CDM against Lumi and QP, even though we lost. Such is life in the pod, but tying this event in with the party and having the video and post-fight interview to share with partygoers was a lot of fun and added much to the build-up.

Teadaze. Thank you again for commentating and putting so much creative effort into our CDM 16 video. It's really neat to have such a cool record of that fun if fateful fight. Good luck with your CSM campaign!

Friends from the Pub and Elsewhere. Your generosity helped pump up the awesomeness of our little shindig; special thanks to Alekseyev Karrde (also a CSM4 candidate--good luck, AK!), Caleidascope, Chainer Cygnus, Escoce, the delightful folks from Ghost Festival, Helicity Boson, Jaxxon Voers, Kaldor Mintat, Kiithilurin, Miranda Tenoba, Nauticaa, Reiger VaunBraun, Reverend Book, Shae Tiann, Veronica Citron, Viginti, and Varnoka. Also thanks to James Egan for the Massively love and to all the EVE Online tweeters and bloggers who helped promote the event. Oh yeah--many hugs to Roc Wieler and my alliance mate Ravenesa who helped me fit up those Rifters (even with the in-game fitting tool, fitting 100 frigates and tucking ammo in the cargohold is a very time consuming task). If I overlooked anyone, I'm sorry--there were so many of you!

Limericks

The limericks submitted for the party were very entertaining. Many thanks to those who participated. If you didn't get a chance to hear them during the Hellcats Pub Party, they are linked below for your amusement. Please vote in the poll to select your favorite!

• Algazel for Pirate Life for Me
• Avan Sercedos for Rifter Named Holly
• Gabriel DiCozza for Anti-Pirate, Ladistier VI, and Running From Pirates
• Jorshan for Bubbled
• Jose Gali for Whore From Scalding Pass
• Ixyltrix for Hot Pirate Whore
• Kiithilurin for Rita in Jita
• Luniticus TheSane for Too Much Blue
• Mike Azariah for Pirate Chicks

Behind the Scenes

From my perspective it was madness! As my fellow EOH bankers know, banking for EOH can get really crazy busy sometimes. Take that and ramp it up a magnitude and you've got some idea of what it was like for me to manage the drawings and everything else that was going on. For each drawing, it was necessary to draw the winner, announce it in Hellcats Pub, monitor the supersonic chat spam for the winner's "X" (while filtering out the jokers who posted their fake X's!), do a new draw if the winner failed to X up in time, update the MOTD with the prizes and time for the next drawing, contract prizes to the winner, update the Winners list Web page content, and post the update to the Hellcats Web site for Lumi to reference so he could announce winners on-air. This mean a lot of alt-tabbing between the EVE client, Firefox, the HTML source file for the winners list, and Filezilla. This cycle was repeated EVERY 10 minutes...it got easier as I fell into a rhythm but it required very high focus.

While all that was going on, I was also conversing on the side with Lumi, the Hellcats, and the Bastards about party logistics, and what was going on in Evati Local. I was also dealing with complaints from a couple of whiny fuckers (HTFU!), responding to convos and emails from partygoers, and monitoring Hellcats Pub chat for asshattery (I only had to get out the Mute Hammer once for someone who ignored numerous requests to stop with the ASCII spammage and kept posting that annoying shit. Sorry, T.). Because of all this unrelenting stuff, I did not dare undock to join in the frigate frenzy in Evati until after the party. I'm really sorry I missed the opportunity to 1v1 with folks who I saw in Local but I did manage to have some fun fights afterwards!

On reflection, I could have delegated a few tasks better to lighten my load. Shae and Venom provided all the support I asked for, but not having thought it out too well in advance (mainly due to optimistic assumptions about the level of effort that would be needed to manage the drawings) I wasn't able to easily hand things off once in the thick of things. Lessons learned as usual that will certainly inform the planning next time!

That's a Wrap!

In conclusion, I'd like to say thanks one last time to everyone who contributed to and attended the party. If the emails, convos, and tweets I've gotten are any indication, everyone had a blast! There are some stellar individuals in New Eden--as I stated in the Events post on the EVE-O forums, I feel privileged to play the game with all of you. Party on!

This Party Just Keeps Getting Better!

UPDATES:

• Check out the additional ships donated...the list is now pretty epic!
  
• Our party got some big time love on Massively.com. Thanks, James!
• ZOMG! 100 fit rifters with T2 fits donated--come to Evati for some the frigate pvp during the party and I'll give you one to fight with!
• Post in EVE Online Events & Gatherings forum. Replies encouraged!
• Six limericks received, more wanted!!!
• Drawing frequency increased to every 10 minutes for a total of 24 drawings.
  

The Hellcats Pub Party is just a few days away (see flyer in sidebar for details)! The Hellcats and our brothers The Bastards are looking forward to enjoying your company for some fun times that will include prize drawings, streaming music from SI Radio, entertainment, and the usual “lively” chat in the Hellcats Pub channel. The party is intended to express our appreciation of fans and friends plus give folks the chance to hang out, share stories, wave e-peens (this means you, Sergiiy Kortos!), and get to know each other. I promise to drink much wine and act outrageous while giving away all sorts of goodies. Hell, I might even undock for some frigate 1v1’s if you wander over to Evati and shout out in Local.

What kind of goodies are we going to be giving away? Well, thanks to the EPIC generosity of folks, the list has gotten SEXY SWEET and includes the following:

• Fully fit Loki
  
• Rattlesnake w/T2 rigs
  
• Thanatos
• Rigged Helios with Cov Ops Cloak
• Rigged Iteron V
  
• Daredevil
• Gallente Navy Comet
• Firetail x 2
• Dramiel
• Ashimu
• Phantasm
• Gila
• Cynabal
• Succubus x 2
  
• Rigged, T2-fit Armageddon
• Rigged Drake
• Another rigged Drake
  
• Core C-Type 100MN MicroWarpdrive
• Dark Blood Medium Nosferatu
• Dread Guristas Explosion Dampening Field
• Gist C-Type Photon Scattering Field
• Mizuro's Modified Adaptive Nano Plating
• Imperial Navy 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates

Other donations include A-Type and C-Type platings and possibly booster “packs”. I will be giving away ISK in 50M and 100M chunks, some Hellcats corpses, forum sig/blog banner art (by me, Shae, and Helicity Boson, and more. Plus at any random time, myself or others in the channel may just decide to toss out party favors in the form of random contracts to random individuals in the channel. The names of donors will be revealed when their items are given away during the party (and I’ll publish a list of items/donors within a few days afterwards as a public thank you). If you’d like to donate something for the prize drawings, contract it to me in-game with the description Hellcats Pub Party Donation.

There will be 24 drawings (one every 10 minutes; was to be every 15 minutes originally but due to the number of donations, a frequency increase was only fair!) during the party. Thanks to Bastard HappySan, you can use an in-game app to easily enter your name for the drawings. I will be running the admin version of that app which will randomly draw a winner’s name for each drawing. Rules: You must be present and awake in the channel to x up and claim your prize (it will immediately be contracted to you when you do) AND you can only win once. If you don’t x up for your prize within five minutes of its announcement in channel, you forfeit it and I’ll draw another name. If your name comes up a second time for another drawing, I’ll draw for another name. We want to spread the love around, after all. The list of prize winners will be updated as the party progresses.

In addition to the prize drawings, I’m sponsoring a Pirate Limerick Contest. Limericks must be:

• Original
• Saucy or funny or both
• About Hellcats, Bastards, or EVE pirates in general
• Constructed using standard limerick format
• Recorded as an MP3
• Submitted by Saturday 10:00 EVE Time
  

Send limerick recordings along with a transcript and your in-game name to Luminus Aardokay at amusic@siradio.fm. If you don't want to record it yourself, send it to me instead at mynxee@eve-mail.net and I will record it and get the file to Lumi. I will pay 10M for each of the first 15 limericks submitted. Lumi will play selected submissions on air during the party. If your limerick is played on air, you’ll get another 5M. I’ll settle up with limerick contest participants following the party. Plus, I will make a special blog post for the paid limericks, including links to the MP3s and names of the submitters. I've gotten six limerick submissions so far...I know some more of you have saucy thoughts that would be perfectly suited for a five line poem, so sharpen your pencils and your wit and get on it!

And don’t forget that the video and post-fight interview for the 2v2 Celebrity Death Match that Nashh Kadavr and I had with Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm will be released within the first hour of the party. We’ll post a link to the video in the MOTD and Lumi will play the interview on air. For now, here is a teaser AND thanks to Teadaze and Lumi for the amazing hard work on the video! I hear it's going to be epic.

That’s all I can think of for now. Mark your calendars…hope to see you in the Hellcats Pub on Saturday! Check back for regular updates.