5 March 2007

Returning From RL!

Well I've had a pleasant few weeks off Eve recently. I was moving house back from the south of the UK (near London) back to my home town of Leeds in the north east of the UK. As always in the UK getting a new phone line and my internet established was made far more difficult than it needed to be as I had to go through the incumbent supplier who still has a monopoly on the actual connection to all the homes in the UK. British Telecom are a joke. Anyway, I got moved, settled in and connected again a couple of weeks ago right before going to France for a week on a skiing holiday. All in all I've been pretty much offline for 3.5 weeks now.

My timing has been both awful and priceless at the same time given the events of the last few weeks. Awful in that we'd kicked off another big campaign, had a lot of the scandal of Dev missbehaviour and had half of Eve decide to go to war with us so ideally I should have been around to lead the guys. Priceless in that I've managed to miss the worst behaviour from an online community that I have seen in about 10 years of online gaming. Whilst I am as disgusted as the next person at the actions of a couple of CCP employees I think I am actually more disgusted at the way in which common sense, capacity for independant thought and self moderation have fled from the community at large to be replaced by idiocy, mob mentality and lack of self discipline.

Anyway, I'm back and have quite a few entries in the works based on recent events that I'll be posting in the next few days.

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back.
I quit eve myself because of the dev thing...
Though not because of what the dev(yes, it was not a good thing that happened but what's done is done) did, but the reaction to it from the community at large.

Anonymous said...

yarrrr, welcome back BL, most of BoB have stopped reading the forums now just because they have degraded that much. Sad thing is that it is the same 20-30 people traching eve-o over and avoer again. Not a good representation of the 150k+ subscribers.

lets go kill some s**t!

Cheers CamMan

Anonymous said...

About time u get back and do something useful for a change.

welcome back biatch

Anonymous said...

nice post, but you left the bit out about how BOB is gonna die as a alliance in the next couple of weeks ;) have fun, see you in delve this weekend :)

Blacklight said...

"nice post, but you left the bit out about how BOB is gonna die as a alliance in the next couple of weeks ;) have fun, see you in delve this weekend :)"

This made me really chuckle. Bob != it's current space you silly rabbit. We gave up the entire north a couple of years ago to move south just for the hell of it. We could give up our current regions tomorrow and BoB would live on and move on to new challenges.

Whether the Coalition of Frothing Loons takes all our stations down south or not will have no bearing on the continuation of BoB as an alliance, it will merely cause us to adopt a different style of play for a while (which I might add will likely as not be even more painful for our enemies).

Anonymous said...

"This made me really chuckle. Bob != it's current space you silly..."

Why don't you spawn Tech 2 BPO about it?

Blacklight said...

"Anonymous said...

"This made me really chuckle. Bob != it's current space you silly..."

Why don't you spawn Tech 2 BPO about it?"

Translation "Hi I am retarded and my record is stuck".

Anonymous said...

"nice post, but you left the bit out about how BOB is gonna die as a alliance in the next couple of weeks ;) have fun, see you in delve this weekend :)"

haha, gotta love it how trolls hide behind alts and anonymous. Grow some balls and post with your main you chump.

With cowards like you on RAGOONS side I really dont think BoB is feeling threatened.

Esurnir said...

The tinfoil hattery arround the t20 stuff was completly useless and pointless, I'm quite saddened myself, and actually I think your departure was quite helpfull, you missed the worst.

Anyway good luck with the war :).

See ya on the battlefield.
Esurnir
Frege

Anonymous said...

Welcome back BL. I missed your house sets on BobRadio.

Anonymous said...

Welcome back blacklight :P

Anonymous said...

stop fracking blogging and do a GD set on bob radio

Anonymous said...

It seems we are currently allies in the North, so... Welcome back to Leeds :)

Hope you settle in well in Eve & RL ^_-

Anonymous said...

What was this Dev scandal ?


I just got told by a friend that I was supposed to be a dev :/



DD WoW junkie

Ex - Junkie

Anonymous said...

Welcome back, you old bastard!

Cheers,
Jonny D.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, good post. Like the way you described the madness about de uproar on EVE-O. forums.

I agree with you fully on that.

Anonymous said...

sad things you all have to answer for.

Anonymous said...

Good to see you back Bro...and glad your back in good old Yorkshire :)

See you in the field..BTW We are not all frothing loons as you well Know.

Drantis
PURE

Anonymous said...

"
This made me really chuckle. Bob != it's current space you silly rabbit. We gave up the entire north a couple of years ago to move south just for the hell of it."

This is bullshit and you know it.

Evol was more ore less inactive at said time and the most active BoB corp was BNC, and you couldn't defend the space you own. So after some fights, some won some lost, you decided to pack up and move to Delve, which at that time was a piece of shit compared to Branch/Tenal. No one who had a hard grip on the territory they're supposed to claim would've changed Brnach/Tenal for Delve.

So stop telling this stupid ols lie no one believes, not even members who were in BNC during the move to the south.

Turkantho

ps WB

Anonymous said...

I'm looking forward to BL's blog posts about the recent events, especially last night's capital yard loss. To be honest, what ever BoB HC say about it they are going to get smacked all over the forums, truth, proof or none, but it would be interesting to hear their take on it.

Let's hope these promised blogs actually appear unlike *some of the previous ones* hint hint :)

Anonymous said...

Hello!

Just read your blog here! And I have to say im agree with you. Made some posts on it on EVE-O forums myself, telling i was quite disgusted by the playerbase. Sad really, it was quite good before.

Best wishes on your campaign against the coalition!

Niccolado Starwalker!

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, welcome back!

Nicco

Anonymous said...

Its kinda sad that bob doesnt understand why there was such an outrage about the whole dev thing.

Sure in the grand scheme of things it most likely didnt change much at all, but a dev spawning items for his corp on the live server is like the worst thing that can happen for any online game.

IMHO bob handled the situation totaly wrong by ignoring or even mocking (DEV tag etc) the whole thing.

Polly Math

Anonymous said...

You have been replaced by Chow

Blacklight said...

"This is bullshit and you know it.

Evol was more ore less inactive at said time and the most active BoB corp was BNC, and you couldn't defend the space you own. So after some fights, some won some lost, you decided to pack up and move to Delve, which at that time was a piece of shit compared to Branch/Tenal. No one who had a hard grip on the territory they're supposed to claim would've changed Brnach/Tenal for Delve.

So stop telling this stupid ols lie no one believes, not even members who were in BNC during the move to the south.

Turkantho"

Actually Turk Evol did suffer a dip in activity at the time and went off for a few weeks to do their own thing whilst BNC and RKK initiated the war with FIX.

That doesn't change the fact that we quite deliberately decided to give up the north to face a new challenge, that challenge being to take Delve and Fountain, destroying FA in the process. FIX was thought to be a quick roll over and needed removing to secure our supply lines to Delve.

Just because it seems alien to you that we would give up all our regions just to go and face a new challenge doesn't mean that is the case for us. I'm not sure we'd do it again because of all the infrastructure these days but BNC certainly always has a plan in our back pockets in case we feel like totally uprooting and moving again.

So, don't accuse me of being a liar old bean when you don't have the full story or have missinterpreted what you have heard or think you know - especially on my own blog :P

Blacklight said...

"Its kinda sad that bob doesnt understand why there was such an outrage about the whole dev thing.

Sure in the grand scheme of things it most likely didnt change much at all, but a dev spawning items for his corp on the live server is like the worst thing that can happen for any online game.

IMHO bob handled the situation totaly wrong by ignoring or even mocking (DEV tag etc) the whole thing.

Polly Math"

Actually we understand the situation better than anyone, you should see some of the messages that have been written to CCP regarding the fuckup one of their employee's perpetrated and the impact it's had on a great number of BoB pilots who wouldn't cheat if their gaming lives depended upon it.

The difficulty from our perspective is that whatever we say about the T20 situation or the accustations of ISD favouritism etc. will fall upon deaf ears or be shouted down by the same fickle, jealous and frankly idiotic morons who pursued that vitriolic witch hunt on Eve-O.

Take one classic example of a 'fact' regarding the T20 incident, it is believed by the great unwashed masses that T20 was in charge of BoB's capital fleet. That's utter shit to be honest, he was a Director in RKK and looked after their fledgling Capital fleet for a while but never got anywhere near the other corp's or alliance capitals. BoB's early capital ops and all our associated learning about how thing's worked were conducted initially in fountain by BNC because we raced to get 4-5 pilots into Revelations as soon as they were released. We learnt by practice and making mistakes and certainly had no input from T20 or anyone else 'in the know' for that matter.

That's just one fairly trivial example of all the drivel floating around regarding the T20 episode and their are literally hundreds of other erroneous facts.

I was going to blog my take on the whole affair myself but I can't be arsed having to delete 20 posts a day from moronic wankers who would rather believe the sensationalist bollocks being spread about by certain sections of the community and will more than likely flood my blog with accusations of cheating based on no facts, conjecture and a desire to believe we don't beat them because we're simply more dedicated, disciplined and hard working - at this game - because that's how we derive our fun from Eve.

It's possible to argue that strategies other than silence on the T20 saga may have worked better but I sincerely doubt they would have.

We have chosen to let people believe what they like and just get on with doing what we do and knowing the type of people we are.

Puncher Davis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I'm glad your starting these blogs again, it's nice to have a little insight in to BOB.

I'd be interested in your views on the T20 incident, all i've read has been from the other side. Obviously I understand your reasons for not wanting to write a blog on it.

Anyway, good luck in the war.

Amalas
Huff Technologies
Privateers Alliance

Anonymous said...

As someone who's seen both sides of the war, I have to say that the sensationalism and scandal, despite their effect on your reputation (was there one? I was not aware the BoB were universally loved prior to the incident...), have worked largely in your favor. The Frothing Masses sincerely believe that a few T2 Ammo BPOs have been the key to your success, forgetting your coordination and skill entirely. Surprise! You know the game, and play it well, and until someone respects that you're in no danger.

The fact that the coalition hasn't twigged to the irony of rallying behind a banner of "anti-metagaming/exploitation/cheating" that is being waved vigorously by /REDSWARM/ pretty much embodies the problems inherent in the effort.

Anonymous said...

Hmm.. nice blog (although some of the ASCN stuff brings back painful memories!).
This puts a refreshing 'human' quality to the alliance that everyone loves to hate.

Anonymous said...

Though I agree with you that alot of people are parnoid, and ideocracy, I really wish to ask you and don't take it the wrong way what are you going to do after BoB takes over 0.0?

Anonymous said...

Think you'll find Leeds is pretty much dead centre in the UK, not North-East. NE of England, I'll agree with ;o)