OUCH has a new CEO

As of today I am no longer CEO of OUCH.

I've handed the role over to CampoV, who has been my trusted Lieutenant, my right-hand man, and my Training Director for the past year or so.  He has effectively been running OUCH from within the US/EU timezone, and has been responsible for the training that has been developed and implemented since I handed the training over to him in 2010. Today I have rewarded him for his hard work and dedication by officially handing over the leadership.

With me being in the Aussie timezone it's been a challenge to effectively run the corp. Right from the beginning I knew that I had to find trainers and leaders in the US and EU timezones to manage the state of affairs while I was asleep. It took some time, but I was able to achieve my goal.  I developed a core group of Directors that took on senior staff roles, and I could not have continued without them. OUCH's success so far has been thanks to all of them.


Why did you hand over the CEO position?

I'm not so egotistical to think that the corp couldn't survive and prosper without me.  I am not the corp.  [Edit: I'll revisit this in 12 months and see if I'm right... :) ]

From the beginning of OUCH's inception, I knew that this was just another step in my ongoing path through the Eve Online galaxy. OUCH was a great idea that needed to be developed and implemented, but I knew my leadership was only temporary. I knew that one day I would hand it over to someone else.

So I set in place the mission, and I looked for the leadership staff that would share my vision for OUCH, who would follow it, and who would promote it. Once I was satisfied that CampoV supported that mission, and waited some more until he himself was ready for the role, we organised the transition that was completed today.

My involvement with OUCH is not over, and it might never be over. I am now a Director of OUCH, and will be responsible for recruitment and public relations moving forward. Oh, and maybe a bit of management advice every now and again.

This is OUCH's mission that I'll continue to promote:

Mission Statement
OUCH provides nullsec survival and pvp training to help new pilots and carebears survive and overcome fears about the dangers of nullsec, and become valuable assets for any nullsec corporation or alliance.

What next?

Now that I'm no longer CEO, I'll have just a little bit more time to do some other things that I want to explore. My alt, Alexia Morgan, is a Director in a new lowsec PVP corp called Kadavr Black Guard, and will be assisting its recruitment, growth and operations. Now I can focus a bit more on this.

As Alexia, I want to do the following:

• I want to do more hunting for the abandoned POS's of inactive corps and organise battleship fleets to go smash 'em up and scoop the loot
• I want to be involved in more wars
• I want to get better at PVP (I never considered myself a good PVP'er, and OUCH started as a nullsec survival corp... the PVP training came when I had good PVP'ers onboard who could provide that training)

As Black Claw, I want to do the following:

• continue to help OUCH grow and become the premiere nullsec surival and PVP training corp in the Eve galaxy
• promote OUCH's activities more in the public arena, eg. blogging, Twitter, etc
• get more involved in PVP (see my PVP comments above)

As you can see, I have some nice plans for my enjoyment as Alexia, so I'm quite looking forward to that!

Thank you

To all those who have supported OUCH, or gone through OUCH training and moved on, or are even still in OUCH today - thank you for your support.  Without every single one of you, OUCH wouldn't be the successful corp that it is today.

And it's only going to get better.  

Eve Online Education Organisations

This is exciting!  I got an email from CCP today to advise me about the new Eve Wiki entry about Educational Organisations being run by corps and alliances within Eve. I was very excited to see that OUCH was already included and even had appropriate content provided by CCP.

Eve Online Educational Organizations

I've done a little bit of editing to tidy it up and get it up to date (some of the info and links were to stuff from last year), and now it's ready for access.

Just another element in the exposure of OUCH as a training organisation.  Yay!

ECM and the Art of War

There's a lot of people that seem to think that using ECM ships is cheating, which is quite odd when you take into account that CCP developed these ships to be used. If using them was 'cheating', then they would be removed by CCP, Eve Online's developers.

But no, using ECM ships is not cheating.  Instead, it's taking advantage of ship resources (when available) in order to gain an advantage.

"All warfare is based on deception.

1. Therefore, when you can attack, it must seem as if you can’t.
2. When moving your fleet, you must seem idle.
3. When you are near the enemy, you must make them believe you are far away.
4. When you are far away, you must make them believe you are near."

- Black Claw's Art of War

The real issue is not with ECM, but with the people that are too lazy or too stupid to learn how to deal with it. Instead of thinking about the situation and coming up with strategies on how to mitigate the effectiveness of ECM ships, they cry.  Boy, do they cry.

Every time someone complains about something in the game rather than thinking of a strategy to deal with it, I see a child who just hasn't matured enough to cope with a changing environment. Maybe they will, one day.  But for now, they throw tantrums, cry, and complain that their opponents are cheating.  Or they're gay. People that use ECM are gay, they say.

Stupid.  Really stupid.

And it's really sad when people that you once respected as being your adult equals, when confronted by ECM ships and ECM tactics, break down and cry and scream and do their absolute best to show you that they're really small children with no ability to cope or think outside the box.

I have no time for them.

The Art of War Alliance is for smart people who want to use their brain and understand how to fly smart.  Most people fly stupid, and after some recent crying and gnashing of teeth by some ex-alliance members, I've decided that we just don't want those kinds of people in our alliance. 

I've had reports that some corporations and alliances that pass through our operational areas of nullsec do their very best to avoid us, apparently because we use ECM and we cheat.  I laugh a lot when I hear these stories.

"Therefore, to fight and conquer in all battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without actually fighting."
- Black Claw's Art of War

You have to remember that OUCH is the primary member of the Art of War Alliance, and OUCH is filled with noobs and carebears.  it's a great feeling to know that elite PVP corps and alliances are wary of us.

Of course, sometimes they want to fight us, and sometimes we fight them back. Sometimes we avoid them.

"It is the rule in war:

1. If our fleet is ten to the enemy’s one, surround him.
2. If five to one, attack him.
3. If twice as numerous, divide the fleet into two.
4. If equally matched, we can offer battle.
5. If slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy.
6. If unequal in every way, we can flee from them."

- Black Claw's Art of War

It amazes me how many people think that 'real PVP' is all about fighting losing battles against overwhelming odds.  You're not a real PVPer unless you repeatedly engage ships you can't win, and you avoid using ships or tactics that will help you win because you believe that doing so is 'gay'.  They're the ones that call you 'gay' or 'faggot' because your single frigate runs away from their fleet of battlecruisers.

It's amazing how much stupidity there is in Eve Online.  If we could smell in space, we would know it is filled with the aroma of stupidity, left in the wake of all those that travel the systems, imagining how 'elite' they are because they lose their ships against overwhelming odds.

The fleets of OUCH and the Art of War Alliance are commanded by people who understand the Art of War.  It's an essential element to our success, especially when our fleets are populated by pilots who are inexperienced at nullsec PVP or even to the game itself.  Most of our successes against the 'elite' are from noobs and carebears who are taught how to modify and use the environment to their advantage,

"There are five essentials for victory:

1. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior fleets.
3. He will win whose fleet is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
4. He will win who, prepared, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the civilian leadership.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, you will gain as many defeats as victories. If you know neither yourself nor the enemy, you will always fail."
- Black Claw's Art of War

No matter what people say about our tactics, they work. And at the end of the day, if you're going to engage in battle with someone, you should be choosing to engage to win.  If you don't think you can win, why fight?  We're often engaging in guerilla warfare tactics, knowing when to fight and when not to fight.  It means we win much more than we lose.

After some recent experiences within the alliance that have been great for helping me learn new things, I've decided that any potential new members to the alliance must agree to certain expectations based on the Art of War.  If they're going to fight within the Art of War Alliance, they need to commit to learning and practicing the Art of War. And flying ECM ships to gain an advantage over your opponents is allowed and encouraged - with appropriate support and leadership, of course.   :)

I don't want any more stupid in the alliance, it leaves a bad taste.

Tales from the front line #5

Please enjoy another 'tale from the front line'.

It's all part of the service

Open University loves to bubble camp.  As part of our null security survival training program, members of OUCH religiously bubble camp the same single system in Curse almost everyday.  We do it to provide basic PvP training for our students, but admittedly, we just like it.

Unfortunately, we've recently discovered that bubble camping is NOT Real PvP.  Truly, we did not know this. We don't know how this could have happened.  We were trying so hard and it certainly seemed like PvP to us.

We have learned that from the POV of our adversaries, all OUCH does is gank 'poor innocent travelers' in pods, noobships and shuttles (not to mention pvp fit dramiels, vagabonds, and cynabals) when they land in our mobile warp disruptor bubbles. We dishonorably use ECM and EWAR to score cheap kills on Real PvP pilots just looking for a good fight (and a killmail or two). We don't even fly real ships, (just cheap cruisers and frigates, and "damned cloakies"). And when a fleet of Real PvPers (in HACs and BCs) comes in, we hide instead of giving them a "good fight".

Damn.  You caught us.  Guilty as charged.  Mea culpa.

What our detractors don't understand is OUCH provides a valuable service.  We provide ready targets for solo pilots and small gangs on roams, looking for something to do.  Sometimes we fight (and kill) cruiser and battlecruiser gangs who fly all the way (or titan bridge) from their home bases to get a shot at killing noobs who don't do Real PvP.

Now, sometimes we just safe up and watch them kill our bubble. It happens. You just can't please everyone. Bubbles are cheap.

Either way, we give these pilots something to do.  Sometimes, we send them home in pods, where they can complain to their mates that Real PvPers don't use ECM.  Alternately, they go home in their ships, pausing only to call us rude names for not engaging their 6 (sometimes 20) ship BC gang with a handful of frigs and cruisers.

Either way, if OUCH didn't provide this vital service, many of our adversaries would just roam through Curse bored to tears, flying from gate to gate with nothing to do.  For these pilots, OUCH brings vitality to otherwise boring lives.

Here's feedback from interaction with some of our adversaries:

• "Don't you guys get bored doing the same stuff everyday?"
• "Everyone in Eve knows about your stupid bubble camp."
• "I'm going to have to come back and grief you everyday now."
• "Fight me, or I'll kill your bubble."
• "I still like you guys, I just hate what you do."
• "We would have owned you if it wasn't for that Blackbird."
• "You obviously don't know what a good fight is."
• "Come on kids, go to bed already."
• "You guys suck."

Sometimes we wonder if it's worth it, bubble camping a small unimportant system trying to teach new players that null sec doesn't have to be scary.  It's testimonials like these that keep us doing what we do.

And for that, we like to send a "Thank You" to all of our happy customers.

Sincerely,

Bren Genzan
Open University of Celestial Hardship