More on the war with Dark Grendal

I'd just like to thank Dark Grendal for going to war against OUCH, and thinking that their highsec griefing is a problem for us. In fact, it's inspired a whole lot of OUCH members to tell them to fuck off. They're spamming corp members with evemails, and even spamming those that have left OUCH. It's quite amazing, actually, as to how pathetic they are.

They think they're awesome in using T2 ships and battlecruisers against lone noob frigates, and then they dock up when OUCH amasses a reasonable force, or flee the system. Inspiring, really.

Yes, OUCH members have lost a lot of ships. But they don't care. They joined OUCH to learn how to survive. Dark Grendal is inadvertently helping them do this, but in the process they're also helping show how awesomely, awesomely pathetic they are.

I'm humbled by the support that I have been given from my corp members. These people who have joined OUCH to learn nullsesc survival have made the decision they will not bow to threats, intimidation, ransoming, griefing, harrassment or spamming. Their support of what OUCH stands for is truly inspiring. I'm so grateful to be leading such a great bunch of pilots.

One of our fellow bloggers, and a member of OUCH, wrote an excellent post on the subject that I'd like to refer you to:

Its not because its piracy baby! Its because you're a pathetic bitch.

Have a read, you'll love it.

The Eve Elitist Pack

CK has recently announced that he's dropping the Eve Blog Pack to 21.

I'm completely against the Eve Blog Pack, to the point that a few months ago I removed it from www.evebloggers.com (which lists over 500 blogs about Eve Online). I'm against the Pack because it promotes elitism, by its very admission. I know there's a lot of bloggers who ARE elitists, and they fight and scramble amongst themselves to get on the list. They want to be considered the best of the best of the Eve bloggers.

I couldn't give a rat's arse about it.

I've always blogged for me, for the game, and for the community, and the community is NOT just 20 blogs (+ 1 for CK). The community is a whole lot more than a bunch of people scrambling to vote themselves and their favourite blogs into the the Eve Elitist Pack.

I know that there's always going to be a lot of people who like others thinking they're the best. One thing I've learned in my time here on this earth is that those who seek approval, acknowledgement and recognition aren't usually worth it. The true quality comes from those who just get in there and do it, and they don't seek reward or recognition.

So, in saying all that, I'm withrawing my interest in continuing to be part of the Eve Elitist Pack. It's flattering that a lot of people have voted for this blog, and I really appreciate that. But I cannot condone such an elitist attitude towards blogging about Eve Online and maintain my presence in it as well, especially when I am trying to support the Eve blogging community as a whole. I fully support the Eve blogging community, and even if that means my exposure is reduced because I'm no longer in the Elitist pack, then so be it.

CK, I'd appreciate it if you leave me out of your revised list, thank you.

To continue, I think it's a shame that with over 500 blogs in the community, both CK and the people behind Capsuleer are working together to promote elitism. I sincerely hope that Capsuleer can open up its promotion of all Eve blogs, rather than just a select few, and if they want to chat with me and Ga'len about how to achieve that, we'd be happy to discuss it with them.

I also think it's a shame that very few people promote and discuss www.evebloggers.com I know it's because we're not encouraging elitism, and I know that doesn't sit well with a lot of people that want to be thought of as being better than everyone else. It saddens me that more people seem interested in promoting themselves and a few elitists, than they are in community as a whole.

I don't care that some bloggers aren't 'as good' as others, neither do I care that some aren't as active as others. What I care about is that, as far as I can tell, Eve Online has more people blogging about it than any other game in the world. And if there ARE more people blogging about any other game, they don't seem to be pulled together into a single community.

Ga'len and myself have been working hard to promote the community as a whole, and I'm disappointed to see so many bloggers struggling to shrink it to a select few elitists. I'll have no part of that any more.

In October last year I wrote:

You know, I'm sick to death of all these social niceties that control us. We don't say what we really feel, believe or think because we're afraid of offending people.

Well, you know what? I'm over it.

If you get offended at what I say about things in general, and you take the opinions I have as personal comments against you, then you're far too sensitive and insecure for me to waste my time and energy on trying to keep you happy.

If you're stung by my words, then maybe the truth hurts. Maybe you see yourself as an elitist, and you're not entirely comfortable about it. Maybe it hurts to hear the truth. Well, you can change that if you want.

Support the community. Support your fellow Eve bloggers. At the end of the day, we're all the same, enjoying this virtual reality called Eve Online.

Do you have the longest-running Eve blog?

I was just thinking about blogs and blogging, as I often am, and I wondered - who has the longest-running Eve blog in our community?

I've been blogging since 2006. My first post is here:

Day One - The journey continues

I've come a long way since then.

I'd like to see who started before me. So if your blog is older than mine, please post a link to it in the comments. Let's see how far back we can go.

What's in your EveSpace?

I think it was Mynxee that started this ball rolling with a photo of her workspace, and a few other bloggers have done the same thing. So I thought I should post mine too.


I've got a new 27" iMac within the past couple of weeks, and have connected the 22" monitor to it that I was using before I got the iMac (I was originally using a 17" MacBook Pro notebook connected to the 22"). Plenty of screen space for eve (at 1920x1200 resolution), Tweetie for Mac next to it (Twitter program), Chrome browser on the other screen, with my chat program next to that.

Sometimes I get a sore neck from swinging it back and forth to see what's happening on both screens... It's a hard life, I tell ya.

A closer view.

Check out the new blog

Well, it's not 'new', as such, but due to some recent changes, I decided to freshen the blog up. Thanks to some wonderful work by one of our members and his graphic designer friend, OUCH has a new banner which I decided to put up on this site.

If you're reading this blog via RSS, click on the title of this post to go have a look at the site. It's an awesome banner, and it's exactly what OUCH is all about.

Along with the banner, I changed the colour theme of the site to match the colours of the banner. I'll keep fiddling around with it over the next few days or so to get it 'just right'.

Oh no! We're losing! Good.

Well, the war with Dark Grendal (DG) has been going a day or two now, and like everything else they've been doing, OUCH members have been throwing themselves into it with a vengeance. As of this writing, OUCH has 36 losses to DG's 1. And we're loving it! :)

DG are a dedicated PVP corp, and as such, we knew that we weren't any match for them. That's why they declared war against us, of course. That's what high-sec griefers do, look for weak targets in Empire because they're too scared to go into nullsec and fight. All they do is sit outside a highsec station and camp in a bunch of frigate flyers with their battlecruisers, and when they get jammed by any of our frigates, they dock.

Cowards.

So anyway, we knew that as a 'noob training corp' we couldn't defeat a bunch of more experienced and skilled PVP'ers with battlecruisers, battleships and T2 ships. So on our forums I've been discussing 'the economic war' and providing instructions on how we could potentially win based on the value of losses. We set up Wolf Packs, fleets of frigates designed to overwhelm single targets with organised tactics and planning.

It was working well to start off with. We killed 1 battlecruiser at the cost of 9 frigates, with DG losing 80 million ISK and OUCH losing 32 million. I was encouraging this to continue!

And then someone decided that they'd do well with a Muninn, a Heavy Assault Cruiser (HAC). And they lost it at the cost of 145 million. And then someone else thought a Covert Ops ship was 'just a frigate', and that cost 35 million. One Covert Ops ship was worth 9 frigates... One HAC was worth 35 frigates...

So right now we're losing the economic war, and I'm banging my head into the keyboard.

jhmjhmjhmuyjhmnujhmujhmik,

See? Told you.

But it's all good. OUCH is learning how to deal with this war, and even if we lose, we win - because we learn so much. This will help OUCH's members moving forward, understanding how war is waged in Empire space, what's important, tactics and strategies.

They throw themselves into it, and I'm very happy that they're not afraid to lose. Even in loss comes learning. That's what this is all about.

"You're going to die. A lot. But along the way you'll learn how to die less."

We're going to war!

OUCH has been wardec'd a few hours ago by a corp we'd never heard of, nor had any dealings with, until we received their wardec. Dark Grendel.

Turns out we've been flying with a corp they have a grudge against, so now they have a grudge against us. Also, all their money and resources have been focused on going to war against us.

Which surprises me, when you think about it. If their grudge is against the other corp, why aren't they focusing their efforts on them?

OUCH's motto is:

"You're going to die. A lot. But along the way you'll learn how to die less."

OUCH's members have joined with the expectation of dying. It doesn't scare them. In fact, they're looking forward to this.

Yes, OUCH will lose a lot of ships, and the members will be podded. But we're going to kick some arse as we go. OUCH is a nullsec survival corp, and this war will be a good highsec training exercise of what life is like in nullsec.

Bring it on. :)

A status update

This is OUCH's new logo. Just something simple, but I like the meaning behind it... The 4 points symbolise the coming together of the 4 races from throughout the galaxy, joining together in a single entity: OUCH.

And together, everyone learns how to survive in nullsec. :)

I've slowed down recruitment a little, focusing on setting up some departments for the more 'normal' corp operations. Basically, OUCH is still focused on providing nullsec survival and PVP training to new players and veterans that don't want to be carebears any more, but we also are structuring ourselves to be self-sufficient.

• Industry helps mine and build the ships that the trainees use, along with looking after our POS's, engaging in group missions and wormhole operations
• Security provides combat support to all other operations within the corp
• Special Forces is our T2 combat specialists, dealing out pain wherever they find targets
• Intelligence gathers intel that supports corp goals and operational activities
• Training provides all the various training information, courses and operations for nullsec survival and PVP

So as members learn all about nullsec survival, there are departments that they can be part of. They can mine or do missions if they want to make money for themselves or the corp; they can join Security to provide support to other departments or go on roams with our blues; they can go out into the depths of space in their cloaky ships and gather intelligence; or if they're flying T2 combat ships and are good at what they do, they can be part of OUCH's Special Forces teams.

Something for everyone!

It's starting to settle down a bit now, after our recent alliance shenanigans. I'm about a month away from starting my own alliance, and we've got a few friendly corps lining up to join us once I do.

It's all systems green as we continue moving forward to provide nullsec survival training.

I think I'll go dance in the rain now....

Hello Capsuleers!

I've been getting a few comments here and there that people are missing me on Capsuleer. Since I know I was on CK's Eve Blog Pack, I was wondering what was going on, but I didn't do anything about it. Until today.

So I think that after Twittering CK about it, I was added to the Blog Pack RSS feed that caters to Capsuleer. Woohoo!

It's good to be 'back'. If anyone on Capsuleer wants to say hi in the comments, I'd love to hear from you. And I hope you'll be looking forward to getting more of my posts in future! :)

OUCH is readjusting itself

OUCH is no longer a member of the alliance we were part of. Things went chaotic very quickly after the alliance executor decided to create a new corp and effectively go his own way. He tried to drag OUCH along for the ride, and I was torn between doing what I felt was best for OUCH and the goals I had for it, and doing what a number of corp members wanted - which was to follow the new corp.

In the end it got quite messy after I ended up vetoing his attempts to take control of OUCH's destiny. He then tried to manipulate OUCH members into following him instead of me, and used comments taken out of context to 'prove' to everyone in OUCH how much of a bad idea it would be to stay in OUCH.

If one were so inclined, one might suspect he was even paid by some other training organisation in the game to do what he could to destroy us, as it looked like that was his intention. His attempts to manipulate OUCH's failure were very, very obvious. But it's a good thing I don't believe in such conspiracies.

Politics is a funny creature, isn't it?

Like anywhere in this world, there are people who will fall for the manipulations of others, and so it is in OUCH too. A number of members have left OUCH to follow the one that tried to destroy it. I wish them well.

I remember a time long ago when I ran another corp called Black Scorpion Ltd. I had a trusted Director who put so much into the corp to help it grow, but then he didn't agree with how I handled a war so he provided intel to the enemy in order for the corp to die in a screaming heap. I won that war, and I found out what he did and kicked him out.

Every time I think I can trust someone in this game, they prove to me that I can't, and that I shouldn't have in the first place. Corp thefts, political drama... It's all such bullshit.

So no one can be trusted any more. It's a real shame, but such is the nature of this game.

They fuck you and fuck you and fuck you, and just when you think it's over, that's when the real fucking begins!
- Conrad, The Game

So no one has full access to hangars any more. No one has access to the corp wallet. No one gets any major assets given to them for corp or personal use without first providing a signifcant collateral so that it's not in their interest to steal it. They get that money back after returning the asset.

I'm talking about freighters, in this case. The corp is still giving away free ships to its members, and that won't be changing in the short term, although we'll be moving to a different business model soon. Basically, any ships that get donated to the corp will be given to its members to fly and use for their training or personal use. Any ships that the corp builds for its members will be sold to them at 80% of retail value. So we'll be working on a combination of donated items handed out for free, and built items sold cheaply.

I rcognise this past month has made me cynical about the people behind the characters in this game, but that's not going to stop me from driving forward with the goals for OUCH. The nullsec training continues, and now even stronger than ever.

What we're left with is over 150 members who are committed to the ideals of OUCH. We've had our 'trial by fire' to see who is loyal and who's not, and I'm impressed with what's come out of it.

We have our blues in the area, who are happy we're staying. There will be continued training operations, along with joint training and PVP operations for the purpose of training and clearing out our own territory. We have 2 POS's for moon mining to help bring in an income, and we're looking at a third POS for building and researching over the next few weeks.

The corp is being restructured to facilitate a more focused and dedicated approach, and a lot of people are working together to help make that happen. In just over a month I'll be ready to create my own alliance, and our blues can come together under a single umbrella.

Our future looks bright! Where's my shades...

Looking for ex-Goonswarm trainers!

I've heard that Goonswarm has disbanded. Wow, that's huge.

Well, I thought I should put this out there....

If you're an experienced trainer of PVP or anything else that could be related to nullsec survival training, I'd be interested in discussing with you how you could join the Open University of Celestial Hardship (OUCH).

We need trainers, and you might be able to help us!

So if you enjoy training, and want to do your bit to get more people into nullsec, contact me to discuss your interest.

Note: you don't have to be a trainer to join OUCH. We're an 'open university', and we take anyone and everyone that wants to learn how to survive in nullsec. We'll teach you.

OUCH's motto:
"You're going to die. A lot. But we'll help you learn how to die less."