Weekend Review 7/15

It was quite a weekend for me in Eve. I was lucky enough to have the Alliance Tournament, Thukk You Frill Me & the corresponding Ganked roam, and my cyno alt finished up the necessary pre-reqs all at the same time. Let's kick it off with the AT.

The group stages in the Alliance Tournament were pretty spectacular. Both of my teams drew a bit of attention. The buzz surrounding RvB was mostly in regard to their comeback win over Rote Kappelle in the boundary violation match, which the Robo-Blogger has of course already covered. The more interesting match was Pandemic Legion vs Rote (Congrats Rote for stirring up some good fights this weekend, by the way). PL dressed to the nines, bringing out their flagship Bhaalgorn and four Malices, which were Alliance Tournament prizes from previous years. If you haven't seen the match yet, watch Michael Bolton III squeal like a little girl here:

I'm still not quite sure how the second PL Bhaalgorn went down so quickly. The Guardian wasn't jammed or neuted from what I could see, and the reps never really kept up. After that, Rote was able to pick off a couple Vengeances and the Guardian, and they took a relatively close match. I was pretty impressed with the PL pilots keeping all of the Malices alive, but that's the only real positive for them here. It was a great fight to watch, but you've got to give it to Rote for not only winning the match but kicking ass in the isk war. I'm surprised the Pandemic Legion fit wasn't able to do more with the ridiculously awesome ships they had on the field.

All while this was happening, Thukk You Frill Me was forming up and rolling out. For the unaware, this is the campaign headed by Rixx Javix and Seismic Stan to bring the Frill back to the Vagabond. The event started in Jita with an official protest by shooting the infamous memorial there. I couldn't make it to this part since my security status was just a bit too low, so I waited patiently in lowsec while the gang moved towards me. 

The Ganked roam featured Stabber hulls in honor of the Vagabond's frill. Personally, I grabbed a Stiletto, as we were a bit light on tackle with no Dictors in fleet, and there's no better way to whore on killmails than a fast locking interceptor ;-).  This was one of the slower Ganked nights I've been on. It took quite a while to get someone interested in fighting us, and we were a bit distracted by the great AT matches wrapping up the evening. Eventually, AAA decided to ~undock~ and fight us. It was a pretty decent fight, finally. I'd say the highlight was knocking down a Loki, since it was a bit pimped out. Perhaps most surprising is that I survived! When I started taking some damage, I burned out of the bubble and managed to warp off before anyone got point on me or managed to take me down. I even made it all the way home! Mangala formally apologized for this obvious flaw in the roam, as he promised that we would all die.

Speaking of Ganked, next week's is RvB's year anniversary of hosting them. The theme should be up soon, but I invite everyone to come. They're open to the public, and they're a blast. The fleets are disorganized, drunken messes, and they're fantastic. Also, I'm sure Mangala has something up his sleeve for this one. Don't miss out.

Weekend Review 3/4

Well it was actually a pretty solid weekend for me in RvB. Initially I didn't feel like being part of the blob and I've been trying to get out and nab some solo kills, so I made for Jan, which is the LowSec system next door to the Blue Headquarters. I hung around there for a couple hours, but not too much came through. I popped a few cyno alts, but that was about it.

I can't believe how quickly security status drops though. I was at -0.4 to start the day, and just after three little cyno alts, my sec status is down to -1.3. I'm still trying to make up my mind as to whether or not I want to go pirate on my main. I actually really like the idea of being a flashy red, but I'm not a huge fan of the logistics strain its puts on me. If any legitimate pirate corps are recruiting now a days though, I'd be very interested in joining up. Play time can still be quite limited during the week due to trying to wrap up my engineering degree, but I'm as active as I can be at the moment.

After waiting out 3 different GCC timers and the intermediate roaming around, I headed back to high sec to see what was going on with my RvB comrades. As I mentioned in my last post, RvB membership went through the roof this weekend for both corporations. Overall there was nothing too crazy here, but there were some good FCs online, and believe me that makes all the difference. Over the course of the weekend, I actually went 42-3, which is easily my most productive weekend to date. I still know its not hardcore PvP, but I'm also still having fun, so I've got no complaints.

I probably won't be able to log in much until the weekend, but Friday happens to be my birthday. I think I am going to go for a faction fit Daredevil to celebrate. I may arse around RvB to start, but I'm going to jump in a no-implant clone and head towards nullsec until I get popped. An early happy birthday to me then!

Weekend Review 2/20

Happy Monday, capsuleers! Sorry, I know that wasn't funny. Anyway, not too much going on here, but wanted to get an update out as a few minor things this weekend. First of all, the interview with Kelduum and Hans Jagerblitzen is now up on the Voices From the Void Podcast. I haven't had a chance to get to listen to it yet, as RL is fairly busy this week. I'm hoping to find some time for it tonight though. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing more from Hans; I hope the V and V crew gave him some tough ones.

Wasn't able to log on a ton this weekend, but I still managed to get a couple good fights. I hopped in fleet yesterday evening, and the Red fleet was pretty quiet. A Vexor jumped into our fleet that was sitting on the Hageken gate, and I managed to get the killing blow, which is always nice. Other than that, it was a lot of hurry up and wait. We did manage to get into a fight with some war targets though. A scout relayed that they had tried to take cover in a dead end system, so we camped them in for a while. A Harbinger came out, quickly followed by a Guardian. The Harbinger was humping the gate, and so he eventually disengaged and jumped, but we made pretty quick work of the heavily webbed Guardian, and he dropped almost instantly. Its a shame none of his faction mods dropped. No big deal though. As it turns out, my trade alt climbed over 10 billion isk over the weekend! I may have to take out some more shiny ships and have some fun. Or maybe a little birthday present to myself (early March, take note of course). Perhaps a pimped Daredevil or something? I'm certainly open to suggestions!

Look for a review of Kelduum and Hans as I get a chance to listen to the V&V podcast later. Fly safe everyone.

Weekend Review 12/4

I've decided I'll start doing a Weekend Review given that I'd like to have a regular series of posts and I'm primarily a weekend player. Fairly straight forward, huh?

Anyway, not a bad weekend in Eve, a bit uneventful. Friday was mostly playing station games, logging off 5-2, which is never too bad. I lost a Rifter and a Punisher before deciding to bring out the Drake. Saturday was a similar story, fleeting up and catching a few kills before dying in a fire courtesy of 18 red pilots.

I think that's one of the most frustrating things about RVB: the fleet warfare is evenly matched to the point where its a push, and without ECM or Logi's there's nothing really to tip the scales. That's why I've been pushing to get some 1v1's recently, although I don't arrange them. Arranged 1v1's are for sissies. I've been trying to get a decent fight in the Enyo since Crucible dropped last week, but it can be tough to pick off a lone guy in RVB sometimes. Its not for lack of effort though

My Enyo fit is pretty standard -- lots of DPS, armor tank and a small neut. Pre-Crucible, it has DPS just short of 300 before overheating. With the blaster buff (to include tracking, and therefore effective DPS), it should be an absolute beast. It is a little bit on the slow side, but I think if it gets within scram range, it should be good to go. Looking forward to testing it out when I find a good target.

I also picked up a Vagabond in Jita this weekend. I was looking at the numbers in EFT (Yes, I am an EFT whore. No, I don't think battles are fought in the fitting window.) and a Vaga loaded with Barrage looks like too much fun not to try. Similar situation as the Enyo though -- I don't want to lose it in a fleet battle where I'll get insta-primaried for flying something shiny. 

Speaking of Jita by the way, I have a very strong urge to suicide gank someone's pod just to see what implants they have on the killmail. I've been dying to get this sec status down. Arty Thrasher, coming right up.

Anyway, I'm feeling the null sec bug start to bite me. I'm going to keep Tommy Rollins in RVB, but I think I'm taking TFirish3 out into the wild. RVB is great, but I'm looking for the real deal. I want small gang PVP for the moment. Blobs are boring, and I'm not too interested in hitting up Sov warfare at the moment. Smashing towers just doesn't do it for me. I'm thinking Syndicate though; it just kind of feels like home. I was actually in touch with a corp today about potentially joining up with them. Watch this space over the next couple weeks; I'm thinking I'll make the change pretty soon.

--Rollins