FFA: The Day After

"The FFA was terrific, This was the best time I ever had in eve." - Saki

Events in Eve are chaos. They are runaway trains barreling down a steep grade into the mouth of a blinding ice storm of hell fire and brimstone. The tighter you try to control them the more they slip thru your fingers. The best you can do is set up the pieces and watch them fall into place.

Nearly 5,000 ships exploded yesterday in Jov. Stay Frosty handed out 3,000 fitted Frigates. For six straight hours the skies were littered with combat, wrecks, derps, station camps, cheaters, victors, a smart-bombing Nightmare and Typhoon, friendly gangs and enemy gangs, boosters, link alts, passerby, lurkers, opportunists and those out to have a ton of fun. Everything you can imagine, the full metal spectrum of Eve, was present in one system yesterday.

And it was all glorious.

I even managed to enjoy most of it. At one point yesterday I believe I had 67 convo windows going at once, I was on two different comms, and three instant messaging systems. Not to mention email and Twitter. On the one side we had our friends along to help with security, Balkan Express and elements of RvB. (Thank you both! Huge help!) And on the other the borderline chaos that is Brave Newbies, at once helping and also being a major pain in the ass. But in a good way. Sorta. I mean, they did manage to pod the event organizer!!! Namely me. But they also managed to help us eliminate a nasty pestering Claymore, so that counts for something.

Between all of us we managed to deal with most of the cheaters. As always there are those that are simply determined to break the rules and take advantage of a system full of Frigates. We did the best we could to track them down and remove them from the field. Within the context of the insanity of the system, we did ok with that. It was challenging, but that is kind of the point isn't it?

Like I said, you can't control a storm. All you can do is try to manage it.

I did undock my Nightmare and warp into the Top Belt. I was surprised at just how long I managed to live. We even had time to re-supply my charges, and at one point, someone even managed to rep my shields for me. But eventually all good things come to an end and the valiant Sansha Battleship exploded in a glorious ball of fire. As she was meant to do. I do apologize for those that I managed to pod during that excursion. I did try to pulse the smart-bombs, but you know how they are. Hopefully every one of those pods also managed to get on my killmail.

We are busy pulling data on kills, just so everyone knows we don't solely rely on killboards for this process. So all of you worried about your kills counting, don't be. We've got you covered and Stay Frosty scientists are pouring over the details right now. In a few days we'll have the results and start handing out prizes.

Just to re-state the obvious. Anyone, who at anytime yesterday, broke the basic rules regarding the FFA will NOT be eligible for prizes. You can try and break the rules, but we can try to keep you from profiting from doing so. Fair is fair.

I admit I am a tad worried about the future of events like these. I'll have more to say about this later on, but upcoming changes and new mobile structures are going to continue to make large scale events more and more challenging to organize.

Special thanks to Stay Frosty. You guys are the best. This event took an incredible amount of planning, dedication and organization to work and you managed to pull it off with class. Thank you, it wouldn't have happened without you.

More later.


"Great Event guys. Had lots of fun." - Rand

"That was amazing... thanks so much for organizing this!" - Ransu

"That was simply an awesome event. Thx, Rixx for setting this up. Your live events are the best!" - Piter

"Only been playing for 6 weeks, first event I attended and had a blast! Cheers for setting this up, next time I intend to do better!" - Se'nizl

"Awesome work Rixx!! It was a blast! (yush, pun intended)" - Arwen

"I had an absolute blast. Thank you for putting such an enormous event on, and adding to my expereience in EVE thus far, the most fun content I've had the chance to enjoy." - Q

"The FFA fight was immensely fun! And I wanted to personally thank you and everyon that was involved in organizing it!" - Demon

Location & Prizes

The FFA will take place this Sunday from 16:00 - 22:00 UTC in the system of Jovainnon, which should come as no surprise since the last three FFAs also took place there.

The reasons are simple, Jov is next door to our home in Hevrice, but it is also perfectly located next to several hi-sec entrances. Only two or three jumps in three different directions is hi-sec. The other good thing about Jov is that, except for Patrick Kasper, no one lives in Jov. So we aren't treading on anyone's toes by taking over the system. (But Patrick says he might be fishing on Sunday, so we should be ok.)

So see you in Jov on Sunday for insanity laden Frigate fights and lots of surprises!



OFFICIAL PRIZES

Top Killer
The pilot with the most registered kills on the event killboard.
Your Carrier of choice + 250m ISK. In addition you will also receive a Dark Blood EM Plate and an Astero.

Second Killer
The pilot with the second most registered kills on the event killboard.
Will receive a T2 Cruiser of your choice, a Gnosis, a Vigilant, 3x Comet + 100m ISK.

Third Place Killer
The pilot with the third most registered kills on the event killboard.
Will receive an Ishtar, 3x Comet + 50m ISK.

Fourth Place
The pilot with the fourth most registered kills on the event killboard.
Will receive a Dominix Navy Issue, 5x Hookbills, 1x Nemesis.

The first 100 Pilots to lose a ship
Each pilot will receive an Inherent Implants 'Yeti' Ice Harvesting IH-1001.

Nightmare Kill
The 15 top damage dealers on my Nightmare will each receive either a Standard or Improved booster. Boosters will be randomly contracted.

Secret Corpses
If you find one of the many "secret corpses" inside one of the free frigates you will win 50m ISK on the spot. Corpses must be named and match the list to be eligible and most be named in public chat.

Punisher Kills
The pilot with the most killing blows in a Punisher will receive 500x Punisher hulls.
In addition, 100m ISK will be divided among those that get a killing blow between 16:00 - 16:05, and 100m ISK will be divided among those that get a killing blow between 18:00 -18:05.

Venture Kills
The pilot that registers the most kills with a Venture will receive 1x Shadow Serpentis Warp Scram, and 1x Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher with 12 of each sisters probe (core and combat).

Venture Kills Part 2
The pilot that registers the most Venture KILLS will receive 5x Dramiels.

Late Bloomer
The first pilot to explode a Comet after 20:00 will receive 5x Comets.

Firetails
From 20-22:00, the pilot with the most killing blows in a Firetail will receive 20x Firetails!


In addition we are holding several other prizes in secret to be awarded for special and unique events that may or may not happen during the event. This doesn't have to make sense. All prizes are subject to change without notice and each has its own special qualifications, winners will be notified as soon as humanly possible within 7-10 of the event. All prizes will be contracted to the winning pilot in a major trade hub when possible. All eligible killmails most be posted to the event killboard for eligibility. Details will be given on the day of the event. This event is sponsored by Stay Frosty and we are entirely responsible for awarding prizes, all decisions are final.


Stay Frosty and see you all on Sunday.

Event Planning in Eve

This Sunday's FFA will be the tenth live event I've organized in the last five years. That doesn't count the countless other events I've helped with, created art for, or attended, over my playing career. That is a lot of experience.

A few people have written me recently asking for advice and I thought, rather than write them each back individually, I'd write a post in response. So that I could share some hard-earned advice with all of you.

So here goes. RJ's Guide to building a live event in Eve.

1. Be Legit

I'm extremely proud of the fact that every dime I've collected, since the very first DeathRace five years ago, has been put back into my events and given back out to those that participated. Every dime. This is Eve after all, and being trustworthy is not an easy place to get to. It takes time, energy and dedication to build that kind of trust in New Eden. It is hard-won, but the rewards are great. Now, when I ask for donations and support, people know it isn't a scam and that their efforts will go where they are supposed to go.

But being legit is critical, unless you want to be a "one and done" scammer I suppose.

2. Start Small

That first DeathRace five years ago? Fifty participants. But everyone that came had a blast and enjoyed themselves. And we still managed to give away nearly 4b in prizes. But what that event did was set the stage for every other event that came after it. You have to start somewhere and keeping your scope manageable, your reach within reach, and your goals attainable is critical that first time.

3. A Great Hook

"DeathRace", "Frigate Free for All", "Thukk You! Frill Me!" these are all examples of a great hook line, something that catches the imagination and helps to clearly define your event. It's catchy and people remember it. And it helps to sell your event. And you are going to have to work hard to sell your event.

4. Hard Work

There are no shortcuts, the more you put in, the more you get back. Breaking thru the clutter of Eve is extremely difficult. Everyone is busy, everyone has a schedule, play-times, RL issues, yadda yadda. Why should they break that cycle and come to your stupid event? Be prepared for an insane amount of work, preparation, coordination, all the million little details that you forgot. Keep good records, plan ahead, anticipate problems and then go right on and never give up. Because that is the key to ultimate success, keep moving forward. Fake it till you make it.

5. Promotion

It helps to be a Master of Media like me, but even the beginner can learn to take advantage of the tools that are available. Certainly this blog makes for a great platform, but Twitter, Facebook, G+, forums, every outlet can be used to get the message out. I've learned that there is a specific cycle to each of those tools and learning when and how to use each one is important.

I am my events greatest advocate. When I am hauling crap thru hi-sec in my alt, do you know what I do? I paste links in local. Does it help? I dunno, but it might.


The most important thing is "want to". You gotta want to. If you are half-assed or unsure, then don't bother. Big things never happen without prep, dedication and insanity. Ask anyone.

So get out there and make things happen. I look forward to attending.

FFA: Progress

The official Event Forum thread is now up and running, be sure to take a moment and "like" it, share it and otherwise give it a good home.

Response and support have been incredible as the donations continue to roll in, we have some incredible prizes to give out. I was supposed to announce the prizes today, but we had an huge amount of donations come in yesterday that messed everything up! In a good way, so prizes will be announced on Friday now.

We continue to struggle in getting everything together, Pirates are not the best at logistics! But things are going well despite our Cynos being killed and huge gangs moving thru at the worst possible moments. lol. Many thanks to our special supporters who came thru with some awesome ISK gifts yesterday, you guys saved us. Sincere thanks.

I got the forum thread up as planned, you don't want to put those up too soon or people forget. This will be the 10th Live Event I've organized in five years and I've learned a lot about how to make them work. I'm still learning to be honest, each one is slightly different. The most important lesson is to never let anything stop you, just keep moving as if everything is going well. No one will know the difference.

The best thing about Events like this is how amazing the real people in Eve truly are. You can say what you want, but after so many events I will never believe the bad things people say about this community. Oh sure, I'm certain a few people will show up on Sunday and try to ruin things for everyone. But to me, that is the spice of Eve, not its ruination. The vast majority of people just want to play. Yesterday alone I got dozens of convo requests from enemies, friends, strangers and who knows what, all asking how they could help. To me, that is Eve.

This event is all about blowing up things. So that's the updates for now, back to moving, buying, fitting and generally being stressed out about every little detail.

Stay Frosty.

7 Days to Go

Click to embiggen

Next Sunday the 26th from 16-22:00 the skies of Low Sec will resound with the sound of exploding Frigates (and then Destroyers later on), as the Stay Frosty Frigate Free for All gets underway.

We've been extremely busy organizing and building and moving assets across the universe and getting everything ready. This Wednesday we will be announcing the prizes, getting the event killboard up and running, all while furiously fitting up about 4,000 Frigates to hand out during the event.

This event is for fun. T1 Frigates that can be flown by anyone, young or old. Feel free to bring your own especially fitted ships or feel free to ask for a Free one in station. Either way the rules will be enforced and provide plenty of awesome kills for our security fleet. This is Eve after all.

The event page is here, so be sure to bookmark it. But tomorrow I'll be opening a thread on Eve Forums as well as posting all the information over on StayFrostyEve.com

I want to say a special thanks to all of those that have stepped up to donate prizes and ISK over the past couple of weeks. Thank you!! It isn't too late to donate and a full list of sponsors will be added to the pages of information this week. You guys are so important and you are helping a poor pirate group put on this event, without you this could never happen, so sincere thanks.

Special thanks also to our Stay Frosty members (especially Gwen!) who actually built 6,000+ Frigates for us to explode. And Oma and Draiv for helping an old-pirate with the logistics involved with securing 1.5b in m0 mods! Sheesh.

Anyway, lots more to do. So mark your calendars and be there or be square.

The Stay Frosty Frigate FREE For ALL!

Click to download additional sizes

Stay Frosty Presents: FRIGATE FREE FOR ALL (FFA): SUNDAY JAN 26TH from 16:00 to 22:00

EVEOGANDA and STAY FROSTY PRESENT an event for ALL PLAYERS young and old - FRIGATE FREE FOR ALL!! 

The event will take place on Sunday, January 26th from 16:00 to 22:00 UTC and you will be free to engage anything that lands on grid with you, including your alliance mates, blues & fellow corp mates - everyone is fair game. 

A wide range of prizes will be awarded to anyone ONE YEAR old or younger that participates! Prizes will be based on the event killboard, details of which will be released 48hrs prior to the event. All killmails must be posted to the event killboard to be eligible for prizes.

RULES ARE AS FOLLOWS:

• No link alts allowed - Any boosters in system will be hunted down and destroyed.
• Gangs and Teamwork are not allowed. The is a Frigate Free For ALL!
• No Podding.
• ONLY Tech 1 Frigate hulls are allowed until 20:00, after which any Frigate or Destroyer is allowed.
• Warping off is allowed. We discourage the use of safe spots and the hugging of stations/gates will be strongly discouraged.
• Cloaks are not allowed.
• A variety of FREE fitted T1 Frigates will be available to all participants, until they are exhausted. Stay Frosty has built nearly 6,000 Frigates for you to explode. We also encourage you to bring your own.
• ECM is not allowed, drones and/or modules.

The system name will not be announced until 48hrs before the event, here in this post, on EVEOGANDA and on the forum thread.

Comm information will be made available during the event in the in-game channel EVEOGANDA, feel free to join that channel to discuss. The Event in-game channel is STAY FROSTY FFA and updates and details will be posted there.

DONATIONS: We are actively seeking sponsors, prize donations, isk support, or whatever else you can contribute. Please contact Rixx Javix to coordinate, thank you.

PERMALINK: The Stay Frosty FFA PAGE is now open, please share THIS LINK with your Corp/Alliance/Forums and whatnot. Updates, prizes, and system name will be announced there!

Stay Frosty!!


All rules are subject to change without notice by STAY FROSTY. Feel free to contact us in regards to donations, prizes, or support in the in-game channel EVEOGANDA or by contacting Rixx Javix by eve-mail or at rixxjavix@gmail.com

The Stay Frosty Frigate Free For All

Click for additional downloadable sizes

Mark your calendar!! On Sunday, January 26th Stay Frosty will be hosting a six-hour extravaganza of Frigate death and destruction with our Frigate Free For All. Everyone is invited, young, old, bitter, carebear and soldier, this is your chance to fight on equal terms with everyone in New Eden!!

We've been hard at work building and fitting hundreds and hundreds of FREE Frigates to hand out during the event, so you have no excuse not to be there. We also have plans for many exciting surprises, prizes and exotic dancers!

The doors are open now for additional prize donations, support or ideas on how to have your blingy ship blown up by a swarm of Frigates! So feel free to contact me in-game, out-of-game, or wherever, and we can discuss. Further details will be posted at the beginning of January, so be sure to mark your calendar today. We're expecting thousands of pilots, so be there or be square.

Sunday January 26th the house will rock! The big red dot on the map will be bigger than the map, and hundreds of Frigates will meet their maker!! How much more hyperbole can I write to get you excited!!!!

OH MY GOD IT'S THE STAY FROSTY FRIGATE FREE FOR ALL!!! HOLY CRAP!! WOWZERS!!

 

Stay Frosty Frigate Bash

So this past Saturday Stay Frosty held its first ever in-corp bash. A "bash", in my mind anyway (which is where it counts!), is an impromptu event designed to have fun and shoot your friends and corp mates.

Since this was the first one, I decided to play the rules easy and straight-forward. Only t1 mainline frigs, no ecm. We would fleet up, warp to a safe spot and have at it. Pure and simple.

Click to embiggen

We had 13 pilots participate. The above chart was produced by Watson Crick using Cytoscape, and it is an excellent way to see a battle graphically. Red arrows show final blows and yellow show top damage, if different than final blow. The rest show damage inflicted by who to whom. Pretty awesome thing.

Considering this was blue on blue action, the battle reports are all wonky, but we had several Tristans, two Punishers, a Tormentor, a Rifter, and a few Merlins on the field. Originally I had fitted up a tricked-out Merlin to bring, but the fit was so weird it required a faction mod to make it work, so I decided against it. I fitted up a Punisher instead, knowing full well everyone would shoot me first, I 'd try to make it hard on them. But also not be able to pull distance. Which worked out extremely well, I did indeed leave the field rather early. lol.

Joffy also had a target on his back, having won several Stay Frosty HICKS Awards for leading our killboard, everyone wanted to make sure he didn't win! Considering that attention, he did manage to hang in there longer than expected.

After twenty minutes it all broke down the way these frigate fights always do, the brawlers were off the field and the only three left were the faster kiters. We weren't able to finish to the death however, our neighbors showed up with probes and we decided to call it and return home. No sense in getting hot-dropped or blobbed.

We are going to have these every so often, next time I'm thinking of having everyone show up in Ventures and fight in the system belts. That could be a lot of fun. But there is an endless supply of ideas to choose from.

We have two videos of the event:







Speaking of Stay Frosty Events, later this week I'll be announcing the date for our Frigate Free For All, so stay tuned for that.

And congrats to Cervantes, Oma and Stan for a great fight. We all had a blast and I'm already looking forward to the next one.