On Making Decisions

In the life cycles of corporations and alliances, there are decisions that have to made and choices that have to be faced. There are often as many or more choices and decisions that need to be ignored and left to wither and die in the desert of inattention. Member pilots are all [or were] human and as such have opinions, ideas and speculations that they feel is necessary to share and express with the leadership. Sometimes these are viable options that need to be considered in the light of the ever changing space-scape, while others are valuable tools and nuggets for future use. Some things that they share are sadly just simple thoughts that they opine at every possible moment. To both groups I say thank you. It helps to know that you care enough to at least speak up and often to put actions to words and make things happen.

There are other decisions that fall into the “Critical” category. These include things like setting standings/treaties, war declarations and responses, recruiting, moving and policies. If the CEO or executor manages to screw a decision like this up, the results can and often are disastrous to the rank and file, the corporation/alliance and can even have a fallout affect on other seemingly unrelated entities. As CCP tries to present in their Butterfly Effect and Causality videos, there can be far reaching consequences to all the choices made in New Eden.

Now is the point where WHEN and GREAT are facing decisions about the future. We have been enjoying our time in the class four wormhole that we call Home. Home is where you anchor your POS, as they say. But lately some of the challenge has been leeched away as anomalies become routine, cosmic signatures are done without concern and – hold on to your hats – combat pilots are even mining and harvesting gas for diversions. Thus we contemplate a shift to a class five wormhole to create more opportunities and potentially more conflict. We are scanning around for systems and will settle on one in the near future. We have some competent pilots and I think personally think we are up to the challenge.

On Doing Things Together

As part of an ongoing series of posts about corporation life, one of the issues that I have wanted to discuss for some time is the concept and process of being a team and cooperating. There are many pilots out there in New Eden and many of them want to be left alone.

• They are running missions and hoping Ninjas do not suddenly appear to steal their salvage.
• They are quietly mining ice with the desire for Battleterons V’s to be bothering others in some distant system.
• They are changing their sales by 0.01 isk to keep others items from being the best price.

All in all, they are not doing anything wrong other than missing out on the single biggest reason to keep paying a subscription to an online service, namely, interacting with other pilots. The single shard [Can you still call a system without other "shards" a single shard?] universe with all pilots interacting in the same temporal dataspace is essentially the paramount momentum behind being in New Eden. Even the aforementioned solo pilots rely on the rest of the universe to make their activities have meaning. They need others to buy and sell goods, power POSes full of arrays and even explode in fiery bursts of atmosphere and essential fluids. Without all of that, their activities in New Eden quickly become Sisyphean in nature.

Moar Droan Plz

For the rest of New Eden, the whole of the experience my best be paraphrased by Kirith Kodachi’s re-occuring motto, “Do Things…. With People” [though I am also sure he would like the rest of New Eden to chant, "Fix The Rokh"]. Whatever it is you like to do, I am positive there are others out there who would like to do it with you. There is always something more to do in EVE and someone new to do it with. It is an almost limitless universe with pilots constantly searching for new ways to beat the house, break the bank and burn the barns. If you constantly find yourself flying your ship solo, then you need to seriously ask yourself, “Am I doing it wrong?”

Sharing is Caring

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating against solo PvP or saying there is not a place for flying a mission or ratting by yourself. There are always times when you have to step to the side and get something done. No one else can raise your security status for you as well as you can. No one else wants to solo PvP with a partner [though two-man roams are wicked fun]. I AM saying that even all of those activities are better done in the midst of a group of like-minded pilots who both want to see you succeed and are trying to accomplish similar goals. It does not really matter what those goals are as much as your agreement and participation with them.

Rep or Die

In the end, you really have to ask yourself, “Am I doing stuff with people?” and for some people the question looks more like, “Am I supporting the group of people around me, doing the things we love?” Sometimes this can mean doing things differently and even expanding your horizons to include new activities or ones that you would normally not do. I do not mean to imply that you need to do things that you do not like, but rather there will be things that must be done, and the people that you have surrounded yourself with will likely find them just as burdensome as yourself. The more you do stuff with people, the more stuff that you can do with people.

Another pilot made the point that sometimes there are people who, for whatever reasons, prefer not to be around other people. Believe it or not, but there are other people out there like them. The reality is, we all have a need to belong even if we do not want it. As much as we might hate to admit it, we do need the next person [with the occasional exceptions, but you can just pod those pilots].

On Keeping and Disseminating Information

One of the things that I suggested in a previous post was a dedicated list of wormhole blogs. So without further commentary from yours truly, I present the WHole-Pack, a list of informative and experiential blogs about pilots living in wormholes. This list is also available via Google Reader.

This isn’t a static list nor exclusive. If you think your blog should be here [i.e. you post about wormholes], the let me know.

My corporate compadres, denizens of Domnion, wanton wormhole wanna-be’s are relentlessly reminding me that it has been a week two weeks nearly three weeks since I posted any information. I’ve been sorely remiss in spending much time posting information here, as I’ve been busy trying to live life in a pod out in the wilds of Apocrypha. Dominion brought some changes, but nothing overly significant to the capsuleers who fly here the wormhole. So then the question I need to answer to myself is, “What has happened?”

We’re still in the same system and we’ve managed to pick up another regular engineer. He really seems to be settling into the opportunities that exist out here in the unknown and is always eager to learn more. He laughs at our attempts to explain that living out of one or more  metal boxes powered by a large metal candy cane is a “Lifestyle Choice,” but is excited about the future. We’ll have to revisit the idealism when he’s been ganked a coupled of times, podded and otherwise thrown under the bus [bus being a euphemism for Tech 2 ships with overwhelming firepower and numbers.]

The ability to run sites has picked up some as well with a fairly balanced effort at participation from all involved. We have tried [and been fairly successful] in making everything a concerted group effort, though the industrial side of things is still a bit of a struggle. The new guy has been very giddy about not only mining Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite, but being able to be compensated for it without having to worry about the market, hauling, refining, et cetra. We’re excited about his excitement too. Along the way we’ve become very adroit at operating together as a unit and understanding each others’ strengths and weaknesses. In many ways our efficiency is finally picking up and coming together.

The flip side of this situation is that we are also beginning to realize just how isolated we are. Our jargon and vocabulary has shifted significantly and we communicate in seeming nonsense to some of our corp-mates. We haul our “bloot” to market, we talk about our gases and our pre-warps, we know that “@#$@” and “aoliv89#*&”  mean someone is about to die. We have reached the point where we know within a few million isk how much a particular site is worth. We can judge approximate time frames for running those sites. We have become fairly comfortable with suggesting fittings and I would go as far as to say know what should work. We have established procedures for scanning, scouting, bookmarking, mining, fighting, etc that aren’t really written down in electrons anywhere.

This is all to say that as we add new people to our endeavor out in the uncharted realms of otherwhen, we’ll be struggling not only to bring them up-to-speed, but also even just communicate.

Technorati Tags: old players, new players

Like some sharks, our gypsy base must keep moving to live. A constant stream of new anomalies and signatures flowing over its hangars is required to keep it alive. The task of dismantling the current location, loading up the wagon train and heading out for the new frontiers is quickly delegated and distributed. In quick succession, the tower falls and is exported. We’ve collectively decided to move on to something a bit more challenging for the future, so we shall have to see how that comes out.

The medium Amarr tower has performed amazingly well for us and we’re proud of it. It has become a sort of second home for many of us and each time we set up, we give someone new the chance to give it a name. We have had some really good suggestions so far, including Slight Doom, and Event Horizon. The only real problem is on my end with the need to move stuff between the two holes for mfg or back to our high-sec base. The logistics behind it all haven’t been difficult, but I would be guilty of withholding the truth if I didn’t say they were time consuming.

As an aside, I want to put in my two bits in support of a corporate bookmark facility. If we can share corporate fittings, why not corporate bookmarks. Throwing a system of bookmarks in a can everyday for the crew is needlessly time consuming and a bit of logistical nightmare in and of itself. Surely it’s redundant and resource intensive for all of us to have a bookmark for the tower, the current wormhole or 3, the 10-12 anomalies and signatures. For the 3-4 people who happen to read this, pass the information on and see if you can get any action out of this too.

And so now the search for a new home for the mobile assault base continues with a couple of quick possibilities opening themselves up. Sadly we can find places faster than we can get to them and full utilize them. Perhaps with a larger contingent or a wider alliance we could manage them all, but I am still a bit skeptical of our participation in an alliance.

Finally, we’ve put some finishing touches on our rules of engagement and its application in wormhole systems. We are trying to balance our own carebear tendencies with the ever present need for defense and deterrence.

It’s been a fairly long time since I have managed to communicate anything even remotely resembling a post. I apologize to those of you dropped by earlier, expecting to find something new, only to find the same old missives from before. In the hiatus, I had the great affliction of watching my laptop die a horrible death to multiple internal system failure [hard drive sector errors, screen backlight and cable, inverter board, graphics card, DVD drive failures].

Then at approximately the same time, my 3G modem decided to start acting up. This killed any thoughts of actually seeing the internet from home and abroad as well as piloting any spaceships. I was able to eventually get one of the office computers configured to run EVE, but couldn’t do much more than check orders and run Science/Industry jobs.

It’s become painfully apparent that I was entirely too dependant upon my laptop for getting any of my day-to-day tasks completed. I felt awash in the ocean of reality with out a life-perserver to keep me afloat. Information that I could normally file away and utilise was piling up, flowing through cracks and threatening to break down the dam of consciousness.

Maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to get back to something more approximating a regular schedule. Though, I must forewarn, there is a job change and a move to a new place on the immediate horizon [end of the month].

And so I get back from a couple of days of vacation and what do I find? I’ve been tagged by Godlesswanderer who I enjoy reading, but honestly lost track of for the last couple of months.

The Rules

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

My 7 Facts:

1. I was born in a village of about 400 persons.
2. I am an education junkie with a BS in Biochemistry, MA in Religion and an MBA.
3. I love scented candles but hate incense.
4. I like mountain hiking, snorkeling and being able to do both in the same day.
5. I am the project manager for a first aid/safety training center.
6. I just got a new job as the director of an Arabic language training center.
7. In the last 8 years I’ve moved 7 times.

And Tagging The Following:

1. A Miner
2. A Maker-Industrialist
3. A Mother
4. A Mission Pilot
5. A Macro-Miner Enemy
6. A Merlin Jockey
7. A Mimic

And that’s that. Well, actually they are all me. While I wanted the opportunity to join in, I think we’re about out of people to link to. If anyone wants a link, let me know, but otherwise I’m calling it.

The recent addition of certificates to EVE has started me thinking about how useful they really are for people planning to do something. I certainly don’t think are for everyone or even the best of all possible ways to achieve an end. There is a certain point in EVE when you realize there is no best, only different ways of doing something.

Speaking of information, I’ve been collecting it in copious amounts and links to just about almost every aspect of flying around in the universe of New Eden since I first jacked into my pod. I’m not only a carebear, but a voracious informational addict. If I’m ever looking at doing something, I’ll go and grab as many news, guides and articles as I can find about that subject. Then I’ll look at what I have and where I need to be to do it and get started.

I had the idea to try and put together a list of the resources with comments for others to be able to locate. Some of the resources are getting long in the tooth but most are at least a good place to get started. Over time you will develop your own collection links and places to refer to. When in doubt, try two things first:

1. Right Click
2. Check Google

Let’s start with the basics. First you might want information about creating a character, which direction to head off, etc.
General Information Links:

• EVE-Online FAQ – Who would have guessed they have some good information on their own site?
• EVE Guides – Good general place to get a guide on just about anything. Online versions of many tutorials and walk-throughs
• EVE-Online Newbie Links – A hodge-podge collection of links that are getting ever more out of date, but there are gems in there as well.
• EVE-Wiki – Typical wiki collection of information related to all facets of the game
• Hammer’s EVE – slightly dated look at several basics [Good for WoW immigrants]

And the “Pro” EVE content:

• Massively’s EVE Pages – Regularly updated content from people who actually play
• MMORPG.com’s EVE Pages – Mostly recapping of existing news, some original content
• EVE Places Link Directory – The sheer number of available resources can be overwhelming.
• EVE-Mag.com Articles – Pieces about EVE by EVE pilots.
• BattleClinic’s EVE Pages – Ships, missions, forums, Oh My!
• TenTonHammer’s EVE Pages – Vids, Pics, Audio and News

Next week I’ll try releasing the first group of resources/links on a specific sub-section of EVE. We have many different areas to cover, so if I don’t hit your cup of tea, stay tuned, it is coming up!