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.

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.

Stay Frosty: Dark Oceans

Click to embiggen

Stay Frosty pilot, freedom fighter, blogger and massively driven icon Roc Wieler has done it again with his second Stay Frosty inspired album Dark Oceans. I've been listening to this for the past two days and it is incredible, moving, dark and inspirational all at the same time. It made me not even care that space was mostly empty of targets yesterday.

So get over to Roc's blog to learn more, or head over to Sound Cloud to listen or download the album yourself.

Meanwhile I have a little over a week to get 6,000 Frigates fitted for the FFA next Sunday, January 26th!!

lolz.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Welcome to another addition of the frustration, glory and charm that is constant player-vs-player content in Eve Online. Oh yes, one minute I can completely pwn someone and then turn around and lose to a newbie.

That is Eve my friends. And she giveth and she taketh away. So let's take a look at some of the good, the bad and the simply butt ugly recent fights.


THE GOOD - Sac Vs Gnosis/Arbi/Rifter/Thorax

This one has to be first as it is one of the best fights I've been in lately. The call went out that we had a neutral Thorax on the gate, so I switched out to my Sac (generously donated I might add, thank you!!) and headed straight to the gate, pointed and started shooting the Rax. He jumped. So I was stuck waiting for gate aggro to drop. Lo and behold a Gnosis lands about 23k from the gate. This is technically called "Holy Shit!" And people wonder why my HAM Sac has a long point fitted instead of a scram, for moments like this!!

Now, the Gnosis is also neutral, so I'm taking gate fire the entire fight. A Rifter lands to help his buddy and I put my drones on him. The Rax comes back, but takes one look and warps off. And then an Arbitrator lands and starts shooting me. Which I do not appreciate. As the Gnosis finally explodes, more Stay Frostians' arrive and the Arbi also explodes. Awesome fight.


THE BAD - Heretic Vs Cormorant

One of the reasons I write this series of posts is to show you that no matter how good you are at Eve, you also suck. It's ok if you want to pretend it's just me, I'm a big boy and can take it. But you suck too, sometimes. I've seen your killboard.

This one is totally on me, no excuses. Totally wrong ammo, I never even looked, totally wrong approach, totally wrong everything. Total Derphead.


THE UGLY - Astero Vs Venture

Yep that there is a Battle Venture with a cloak. While I admire the attempt to create a battle worthy Venture, I have a few fitted myself, this one goes in the ugly because he was caught and killed ugly. When the Astero that wasn't on scan a few seconds ago suddenly disappears you really shouldn't decide to de-cloak.


THE GOOD - Astero Vs Venture

I'm putting two of these up to illustrate why sometimes, killing a helpless Venture can be a good fight. It isn't the actual combat part, which is horrible one-sided and generates some tears in local. It is getting the kill that is the good part.

This Venture was on scan in system but I couldn't find him anywhere on d-scan. So I popped over to System Scan and sure enough, an Ice Belt! Well then, we'll just warp in there and see what we find. Sure enough, the Venture is there and about 64k from my warp in point. So now I need to slow boat over there and try to stay away from the Ice so I do not de-cloak and give the game away. This is hard to do.

Just as I start to get close, two things happen at the same exact moment. He warps away and I de-cloak. Ooops. But I don't think he saw me and from a quick d-scan I see he has docked in station. He may just be dropping off his Ice thingies. So I cloak back up and keep boating over to where he was. Sure enough, he warps back. A lot of work for an easy kill.


THE BAD - Tormentor Vs OMG!

From now on, whenever you start to think that the life of a Solo PvPer in low sec is easy, or glamorous, or amazing (which it can be!) I want you to think of this. I fitted up a Tormentor, because I hadn't flown on in a long time, and set out to find some fights. I went 37 jumps in loops and curls and nothing, nothing nothing. And then GATE CAMP. When I saw the T3s sitting there long with this group, I admit I never even bothered to try. All you can do is align out and hope to get your pod away safely. Which I did.


THE GOOD - Dramiel/Catalyst Vs Astero

It might seem odd of me to put a loss in the good column, but it isn't the first time I've done it. You don't win all the good fights and due credit to Malfy on this one. I had engaged the Catalyst in a plex and didn't even notice the Dram until he was on top of me. So my bad and his good for this one. Normally I wouldn't engage a Dram solo with my Anti-Plexer fit Astero, but once you are pointed and whatnot, you have to fight. This fight did cause me to change my fit slightly, so thanks for that. Good fight.


That'll do it for this episode. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures of death and glory. And join Stay Frosty for goodness sake!

The Stay Frosty Family

The Stay Frosty Family has just gotten bigger and better. Introducing our sister corporation - Lucifer's Hammer.

We are taking the same core philosophy that has made Stay Frosty one of the largest independent corporations in all of New Eden, and are applying it to High Security space. Lucifer's Hammer is now accepting open applications from Industrial minded pilots, led by a strong team of aligned Directors, with the sole intention of building one of the most dynamic and powerful industrial corporations in all of New Eden.

But that dream has to start somewhere and it begins with you. This is a unique opportunity to join a corporation from the ground-up and add your own unique abilities to this opportunity. You have a chance to help shape the future of both Lucifer's Hammer and Stay Frosty, by being on the same team - together.

This is not going to be an Alliance in the normal way you might expect. For many reasons it is best to not "officially" align both Corporations. But this will be a much stronger bond than any typical paper Alliance. A brotherhood, if you will, of philosophy, objectives and intent and most importantly of all - fun.

I believe this is rather unique and new. Two corporations on either side of the High and Low fence, working together. And I strongly believe the sky is the limit on what we can achieve together. We are busy assembling our leadership team, Lucifer's Hammer will be Director led with my alt remaining as CEO. So that common bond will remain the unique tie that binds both corporations together.

I wish I could share all the details with you now, but we are literally building this Corporation from scratch as I type this post. Direction, opportunity, and details are being decided and implemented now.

I was born in Null space, a place where the concept of "Carebears with Teeth" was born. Many of my first Corporations were extremely powerful industrially based, so I want to bring that core concept to play in Low Sec and in High.

Get those apps in and let's build a future.

Mine Ore Die!!

Dear Venture Miner

Just another in a long line of AFK Ventures mining in Low Sec. Nothing special. Except for Stay Frosty pilot Este DeStirr's response and his kind letter to the 3-day old newbie, reprinted here with permission.

Tiber,

Greetings from Stay Frosty, a pirate corporation headquartered in nearby Hevrice, land of Golden Asteroids. Hevrice, Muetralle, and neighboring lands are in what is called Low Sec, or Low Security Space, and are the domain of brigands, pirates, factional warfare patriots, and miners who have learned to apply some wits. In Hi-Sec, where you started out and outfitted your fetching Venture mining frigate, CONCORD will come to your aid (and at least avenge you) if miscreants, gankers or ne’er-do-wells attempt to harm you.

No such aid awaits in Lo-Sec, and if I had not wandered by to marvel that you were mining in Lo-Sec while AFK, someone else would have.

Do not despair, intrepid miner! Heady days of extracting millions of ISK worth of…. well, whatever from space rocks lay ahead of you, if you can remember certain keys to not dying to folks like me:

- Stay in Hi-Sec (system security level 0.5 or above) until you learn to use the Directional Scanner and where all the buttons are on your pod.
- Your Venture is a snazzy little pain in the pirate posterior due to coming equipped from the factory with not one, but two extra warp core stabilizers, which means that you can easily escape all but the most determined pirate simply by pointing to a nearby station, gate, or sun and pressing “WARP TO”, leaving the pirate to curse Outer Ring Excavations engineers. Practice this before setting up in an asteroid belt.

Please understand that this was not personal, it’s like hitting a pirate’s knee with a hammer. We see a venture, we have to try and kill it. Nasty little buggers.

As a token of my appreciation that you’re new to New Eden’s darker corners and this was likely a very confusing experience, allow me to reimburse you for your ship and trouble.

A couple more notes:

- You don’t need the cargo hold expander on a venture. It has a ludicrously large ore hold that the expander won’t affect.
- The webifier is useless to you - train some shield skills and fit a basic invulnerability field along with your shield booster.
- Fit a damage control in the lows - it’s the best and easiest way to survive long enough to get into warp.

Best, 

Este “Not Shaken” DeStirr

Projection of Protection

One of the best things, of many things, about being the CEO of Stay Frosty is the opportunity to just sit back sometimes and watch things happen. It is possible to take a long-term strategic view and watch as your plans unfold around you, change, evolve and generally take shape. It is a journey that is very rewarding and exciting. Who knows what might happen next?

Along that journey there are moments that help to define who and what you are as a Corporation. All Corporations have them. Moments when one path taken leads to another path not taken, and each decision, reaction, plan and opportunity has consequences that often cannot be predicted.

This all being a rather high-brow and unnecessary way of saying someone started shooting our POCOs on Sunday. The whole "Stay Frosty has POCOs" thing is handled by a different department, overseen by me of course, but mostly I stay out of it because I suck at carebear things. I have enough trouble remembering to re-load my nanite paste, much less remember the ins and outs of reinforcement timers on isk-generators. (I exaggerate of course, but I do have an image to maintain!)

So my mail starts blinking on Sunday and I start looking into what is happening. I send out some intel feelers and organize an actual CTA for Monday. (CTA = Call To Action)  We don't call CTAs in Stay Frosty, so this was unusual to begin with. In fact, in some ways, this was our first actual organized response fleet planned ahead of time... thing. So what would happen?

Turns out we had a rather robust and enthusiastic response. Seeing as how most of us were 26 jumps away, this was rather encouraging. In fact, even after the main force started moving, we had even more people x up and join the effort. For our first attempt, this was rather remarkable.

Setting out we had no idea what we'd be faced with on the other end. Intel was sparse initially and only stared filling in as we moved. It is often amazing how quickly the puzzle starts being put together on these operations. I actually fitted up a Scythe and flew Logi for this operation!! I know, crazy huh? I named my ship "wtf am I doing?" and set off.

I want to say up front that I have nothing but admiration for anyone in a 30 ish man Alliance that shoots the POCO of a 160 ish pirate corporation. Kudos all around for having a pair. I'd also like to say congratulations for following through with that initial attempt and not running away and hiding. Well done.

We arrived in force and began repairing the shields on the POCO. For this part of the operation I was the only Logi on the field. We knew they had several T3s and a Falcon around, so we weren't sure exactly what they might bring if a fight started at all. And, of course, the ever present threat of being hot-dropped was present.

Our fleet was rather unique and the only common thread was that we were all shield based, other than that? Well we had a Drake, a Gnosis, a Naga, an Oracle, a Talos, a Caracal, a Gila, a Hawk and a few fast tackle - along with my Scythe. The enemy did show up and landed on us directly. 2 T3s, 2x Omens, a Rupture, Thorax and Vexor. Strangely enough they focused fire on the Gila and the fight was on.

Despite having only flown Logi a handful of times in the past, I have been well schooled in their operation over the years. I had my watchlist properly set-up and immediately started repping the Gila. I had also brought along combat drones so I could get on some friggin' killmails! (Fix this someone!) I know the enemy wanted a Gila km, but picking the one ship in our fleet with the highest resist profile wasn't the smartest move. It was touch and go for a few minutes, but once they started exploding, the amount of dps dropped off quickly.

You can see the Battle Report for yourself. But we came out of this without losing a single ship and got some nice kills. We switched up additional Logi after that and got the POCO back in shape.

Well done to everyone involved. Our FC did an excellent job of organizing the fight and we all had a blast. Which is, after all, the most important part.

I love it when a plan comes together.

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

Engagement

This post has some relation to this post over on MinerBumping.com, so you might want to go read it first. Then come back.

Engagement is the key to success for Eve Online. I've always believed that and have been preaching it from this pulpit for almost five years now. Getting new players engaged is the critical piece of long-term success for Eve. This is not a surprise.

Since last May I've been hard at work building an engagement system in Eve, most commonly referred to as a Corporation. Since May over 200 pilots have responded and joined Stay Frosty. Applications are open and anyone can join. We have no rules about staying and some people come and go freely. Right now we are hovering at the 170 member mark and hope to reach about 200 in the next few months. That has always been our goal.

Running a large corporation is a lot different than running a smaller corporation, in many ways. But one trend that I've noticed involves engagement. Over 90% of the pilots that leave Stay Frosty never even bothered to register on our forums. Which means they missed out on an extremely vibrant, helpful and engaging part of being in our Corporation. It also means they never registered for Comms, since those two things are tied together.

So for a Corporation whose entire purpose is engagement, we are missing out on engaging a small percentage of those pilots coming to us to be engaged. Make sense? I mean, in the overall picture, we are talking about a very small percentage of players - not many people leave Stay Frosty. But it is something that I've noticed.

In the larger picture, if WE are having issues engaging pilots, imagine what Eve must be experiencing on the larger front. Players coming to play with SF are certainly not "normal" players, so I can only assume even worse retention numbers for Eve as a whole.

This is, as I've said before, one of the biggest challenges Eve faces moving forward. And, I believe, it is critical for its long-term success. Something I am rather keenly interested in. As I'd like to continue playing Eve for a long-time to come.

All I can do is continue to try to engage players from my small corner of the Universe. And in 2014 I would like to dedicate myself to upping my own game in this regard. More events, more posts, more people joining Stay Frosty, more engagement of our victims, more of more. Whatever I can personally do to help engage a larger percentage of players, to show them the true nature of Eve, I will try to do.

Isolation is not engagement. Community is. Whatever sense of community helps you stay engaged, a blog, a corp, an alliance, whatever it is, eve is full of it. It is a rather vibrant and amazing place when you jump in. But playing alone on your corner of the sandbox is nothing more than a recipe for boredom and eventually boredom leads to failure.

I've seen it over and over again.

I'll continue to do my part. But I'm only one wittle dood.

The Stay Frosty Workout Center

The 5,000-square-foot Stay Frosty fitness center is fully equipped with state-of-the art cardio and weight training equipment. Upon request, your concierge will arrange an expert trainer to ensure an effective workout.

Workout Center
From: Roc Wieler
To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR]

Morning ladies,

Just a quick note that the squat rack has a bent bar again so is temporarily out of service. It also seems station maintenance is having some issues with the plumbing as the hot water is actually quite freezing ... or I'm incredibly small which some of you know is not the case.

Just a quick FYI for anyone looking to do squats today.

PS. If you happen to see any hydrolized beef protein at any Star Fit Health Foods please pick it up and I'll reimburse you.

Fly strong. Stay frosty. o7

Roc



Re: Workout Center
From: Rixx Javix
To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR], Roc Wieler

Could the person who keeps leaving their wet towels strewn all over the benches please stop doing that.
Next time I see that you're getting a criminal timer from me Mister!

Da Boss

Re: Re: Workout Center

From: astral dominix

To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR], Roc Wieler, Rixx Javix

ok ....the soiled wet towels were me...and those four exotic dancers....sorry boss :(

Re: Re: Re: Re: Workout Center

From: Razesdarked

To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR]

Ok, so before going to the Stay Frosty Officially sanctioned Workout Center last friday I finally got my The Effort Ninja Gorrilian DVD boxset. Somewhere between me arriving, me doing all the pushups and me going home, someone nicked my boxset.

I ain't mad, I understand.

It's a damn awesome boxset, with a awesome 1:25 Evil Overlord Figurine striking a madly awesome pose. I would have my cleptomanic fingers all over it myself. But it just ain't right.

So please, Its only 6 discs, so please return it by the weekend. Its not like you will be able to stop chain watching them episodes anyway. The end of the Rampaging rhino arc where ninja gorilla san punches the rhino stampede so hard the earth cracks is just mindboggling awesome.

Anyways, you should be done by Friday. This weekend I have no date, a bottle of cola and an all The Effort Ninja Gorrilian DVD evening planned. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see what is missing in that plan.

Should the culprit not turn up by friday, then I will probably start popping some caps peoples bitch ass until I start seeing some damn results! I will also refrain from wearing anything below waist height while utilizing the Workout center from now on, and I am sure that will be as traumatic for you as it will be for me. No one wants that so give me my discs so I'm not forced to buy it on Blue ray.



Re: Re: Re: Workout Center
From: Nero Tomas
To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR], Roc Wieler, Rixx Javix, astral dominix


to: all who signed up for the 20:00 EST full contact origami seminar, it has been rescheduled to next thursday.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Workout Center

From: Jushin Dragon

To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR]

What freaking workout center I'm still locked in my captian quaters. Though I have yet to determine if its a good or bad thing having Anastasia's quaters next to mine. There are some very odd noises coming from next door....

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Workout Center

From: SKINE DMZ

To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR]

I AM SO CONFUSED

Re: Re: Re: Workout Center

From: Rixx Javix

To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR], Nero Tomas, Roc Wieler, astral dominix

Gosh darn it, we can't get anything together in this damn corp!

I'm going to my sea salt yoga class then!

RJ

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Workout Center
From: Roc Wieler
To: Stay Frosty. [ST-FR], Razesdarked

Looks like they've fixed the squat bar. Good times.

Raze, sorry about grabbing your box set. I saw it and was amused so wanted to check it out then disappeared on recon for a few days.

Also, I apologize about the noises from Anastasia's CQ - we'll try to keep it down.

Never tried full contact origami, but it has two things I absolutely adore in it, so I'm game!

Yep, that is an actual Corp Mail thread. Stay Frosty is nothing if not serious business.

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!!

 

CapStable Episode 36: The Many Hats of Rixx Javix

Wednesday night I sat down with the gang from CapStable and talked about Eve, Stay Frosty, Propaganda, Twitter Hats, Eve Dumb Ways to Die, and many other things, so head on over to take a listen.

I tend to ramble on and on, but I'm listening to it right now and I actually manage to make some sense! lolz.

I had a blast and I want to thank them once more for having me on and for a great time! Much appreciated.

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.

Stay Frosty Astero PvP Video

METROPOLIS

Click for Additional Sizes

Its Thanksgiving week, the weather is terrible, the kids are insane, my former employer is fighting me on my unemployment benefits, I'm still looking for my next job, I'm way behind on commissions, and finding inspiration to post is tough at the moment.

So I made another movie poster, this one based on the Cronenberg Film "Cosmopolis". I was actually in Metropolis earlier this week and will probably head back down again after the Holiday. As you know, we've opened another office down there to spread things out a little.

Back to normal soon I promise and tomorrow is traditional "what I'm thankful for" in Eve post day.

See you in space.

A Weird Stay Frostian Day of Awesomeness

The thing about having a Corp of 140 active undockers is that... well, something is going on all the time with or without you. It is one of the joys of being CEO of this crazy band of misfits, I never know what they might be doing, getting into, or have up their sleeve from one moment to the next.

What I am about to tell you happened yesterday. Some of it I was there for and some of it I wasn't. All I know is what I was told, what I experienced and what we talked about in chat. Anything I get wrong will surely be corrected for me in the comments.

I logged on determined to get a kill with my shiny new Asteros Frigate. I had tweaked the fit once again and undocked with grim determination. Close call after close call slipped thru my fingers. The mere sight of me in my wittle un-tested white ship enough to cause most people to flee, cloak or otherwise vacate local. Having made a rather long loop I decided to head back to Hev and switch out for something else. That's when I saw the Catalyst and Navitas on scan.

This is one of those moments. That combination of ships, in the right hands, can be rather challenging. Those two ships in the wrong hands, could be an opportunity. Most likely this would fall somewhere in the middle. So I didn't hesitate as I turned into them. I landed perfectly, my approach was cloaked so I think I took them by surprise. The Catalyst was closer, so I went for him first. I locked them both up, I might need my web or my extra scram for one of them.

My Asteros rocked. The fight was close, my armor dipped dangerously low and my hands hovered over the recall button for my drones, but she held together as the Catalyst exploded. The Navitas warped off to safety before I could get my points on him.

During this MIxu had been telling us about his adventures earlier ganking a couple of miners. It all started when he and Gwen ganked a Low-Sec Retriever with expensive mining upgrades that dropped. Which is good. What isn't as good is taking those Mining Upgrades into Hi-Sec when you are still under GCC. Then Joffy and Akirra had a race to see who could pick up his wreck faster, a race I hear Joffy won. Then they all decided, why not have a hi-sec gank now? So Akirra scouts down a Mackinaw and as they warp in Joffy locks Akirra and ends up exploding her ship, then still manages to get top damage on the Mackinaw! Lolz. I don't think Akirra is going to let him forget that any time soon.

I forgot to mention that Mixu had managed to actually kill someone with his Sentry Tristan earlier. He and Gwen jumped a gang of five Stealth Bombers and he managed to grab one of them.

It wasn't all gravy. I had jumped into a Comet for a quick impromptu roam up to Black Rise and once again many close calls and near misses later I found myself sitting on a Gate with two Rooks, of all things. Mixu was scouting the other side and reported a large gang. I meant to warp off the gate, but instead jumped thru. Derp. Yeah I lost the ship and the pod.

So I was stuck spinning in station for awhile, while Akirra was nice enough to fetch me some new head candy. Well, only after she started an International Incident by exploding a Blue that is!

You see, we don't have blues. But do to a mix-up one of our former members, who is planning on returning shortly, was set light blue. As a proper Pirate, this didn't sit well with Akirra and in the confusion that was happening at the time, she managed to explode Natasha's Condor for her.  We managed to get the entire thing worked out to everyone's satisfaction, of course. But it was yet another weird incident.

I decided to go try and have some more luck with the Asteros, for some reason flying the wittle white ship around in space is a lot of fun! I hooked up with two SF pilots I hadn't had the chance to fly with before, and we finally managed to lock up a Tusker Comet in Muet. Julius is a good pilot who often came into Hev looking for Frig fights, I was sorry to see he decided to join the dark side, but more power to him. (This is just an observational statement and no slight is intended on our friends in the other station.) On the way back to Hev I found an Incursus and solo'd him in the Asteros.

Then I noticed a Brutix on scan at the other station. By this time even more Stay Frostians had appeared in local, and we decided to ad hoc a small gang together to see if we could get a fight going. ( You can read another account of this fight on Astral's excellent blog HERE.)

Astral went in to get aggro and while the Brutix docked up in half-armor, Julius' Vexor wasn't as lucky. We all played games for a short while after that, but eventually things wound down and no one else got kilt.

I forgot to mention that Stan became our Hero of the Day when he solo'd our best Anonymous commenter earlier. This would have been better had he not subsequently lost two ships to him later on. Oh well.

I'll also mention that Ezra received his Stay Frosty t-shirt in the mail yesterday, the only one to come out of the Zazzle/CCP Ban Hammer incident. He also managed to get one of those awesome Low Sec Roamer's Map posters.

So I undocked the wittle white Asteros for one last jaunt before logging off for the day. I jumped into Jov and instantly spotted the Megathron on scan. We quickly assembled a gang in the other system and Akirra was nice enough to burn back to provide probes. We finally got him locked down inside his Mission and I warped in, to first one gate, then another and then yet another. By the time my wittle ship arrived he had run off to station. I was too slow. :(

By then local started to get busy again and it looked like we might have missed our chance. But if there is one thing I've learned about Mission runners over the years it is that their play-time is just as borked as ours is. He stayed logged on, so I stayed patient. This time I warped cloaked to the in-gate and sat. I had Akirra sit off the station cloaked, so she could see when he undocked and give me time to de-cloak before he landed.

Sure enough, once local calmed down again, he did just that. Once he was in warp, I de-cloaked and waited for him to land.

Sometimes you can be so focused on your plans that you forget other people have plans too. As soon as I got both scrams on the Mega and started to put the web on his drones, a Pilgrim de-cloaks and also starts shooting me, and neuting me, and generally adding his own drones to the fight. So it is my wittle white Asteros holding down a Mega and getting nueted to Hell by a Pilgrim. Everyone else is jumping and warping to help, but my wittle ship is taking some heat.

But I held him long enough for other points to arrive and managed to get out safely with about 25% armor left. In all the confusion I'm not sure what happened to the Pilgrim tbh, he sorta of disappeared at some point. But the Mega was surely caught. I went to re-ship into something bigger,I decided on a Tempest. But the Mega died before I got there.

For me the day was finally over, but for Stay Frosty and our pilots the day never truly ends. I wake up every morning and look at the killboard wondering at the stories each kill and each death represent. It would be impossible to know them all, to re-tell each victory and each defeat. But I know that every single line represents its own unique story. A challenge faced, an enemy defeated, a personal accomplishment, or a valuable lesson learned. It is one of the truly great things that come from being fortunate enough to have such a great group of pilots around you.

And a truly unique and amazing day, like the one yesterday, can only serve to remind me of why I do it.

Now, let's see what today brings.

The Buck Stops Here

I am the CEO of Stay Frosty. I am not a Dictator however, I take my cues from the members and from my appointed cabinet of fearless Directors. Every member of Stay Frosty has a say in what happens, both in chat, email and on the Corp forums.

It isn't complicated. We don't have Sov or any grand plans of conquest. We are pretty simple folk who simply wish to fight the good fights when we find them, undock and have some fun. So running Stay Frosty is a lot like herding cats.

As CEO I do feel it is my duty to stand for my members, to be their advocate both in and out of game, to encourage them, to defend them, and to help them in any way possible. This is what I do. If one of our pilots gets into trouble I will derp myself in order to help. I've done it numerous times, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. But I never hesitate.

That is how I lead. By example. I play the same way our members play. I take the same risks they take. This isn't some glorious subterfuge on my part, it just so happens that the play-style I enjoy the most is exactly how Stay Frosty is built. Duh. That is kind of the whole point.

I've taken a lot of heat and criticism in the past for how I translate that philosophy here on the blog. It happened back when I was CEO of Lucifer's Hammer and it is happening again. That's fine. I often post wearing my CEO hat and I often post wearing my player's hat. The "heat" derives from other people's desire to put me in a corner and have me behave according to their own rules. If we've learned anything together during the last four years of this blog, it is simply this - no one puts me in a corner.

I say and do what I want both here on this blog and in-game. I listen to my readers, those that have the courage to sign their comments, those on tweetfleet, my friends in the community I serve, and my pilots. But I make my own decisions. This blog has its own voice and will continue to remain so as long as I am writing it. You do not have to like it, read it, pay attention to it, or in any other way acknowledge its existence. That is totally on you.

I will continue to talk openly about events that are happening in-game. And I will use my own judgement when it comes to determining which of those are worthy of mentioning in a post and which are not. No one else makes that decision. The buck stops here.

It has been this way for over four years and it will continue. No amount of harassment, anonymous comments, or anything else will stop that. So get used to it, or ignore it, either way is up to you.

I wrote yesterday's post because I had to. It was the last piece of a puzzle. I tried to write it straight, but in an entertaining way. I am always mindful of my readers and try each day to provide an entertaining read.

I don't expect my readers to know the full story of why, how, or what is behind every post. Especially one like yesterdays. I have my reasons. Sometimes you need to do something just to say you did it. Publicly. Out in the open.

Personally I couldn't give a rat's ass about that other Corporation. I have much more important things to deal with these days. But, as CEO, there remained one last thing to achieve. And yesterday's post achieved it.

Consider it the closing of a chapter if that makes you feel better. A chapter I personally closed seven months ago, but which other forces continue to re-open.

Keep the courage.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

A never ending series of good fights, horrible losses and my continuing stupidity in the face of the world's most amazingly frustrating and rewarding game experience, Eve Online.

Here then are some of the highlights and lowlights from the past week or so.


The Good: Falcon Dies
So there is this Moa about and we quickly grab some ships to see if we can catch it. Nothing fancy mind you. We do grab it, when suddenly The Falcon de-cloaks next to us! Yeah I lost a Caracal, but both the Moa and the Falcon die. And that was worth it. I'll trade a ship for an ECM dishonor boat any day.


The Good: Decisions
Killing a Corax with a Tristan isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, but as is often the case, it is the story that makes the story. I had just lost a really bad fight and jumped into the Tristan when I spotted this Corax. The system was loaded with nasty things, so obviously there were some gangs about. I never hesitate, but I did this time because it sure looked like a bait situation, no one else was bothering the Corax. Finally I decided to go for it anyway and sometimes that works out.


The Bad: 600m Pod
One thing I have learned over the past six months is that my former corp mates are more than willing to stoop ever lower and lower in order to kill me. On their kill-board they proudly predicted an angry blog post about this loss, which sadly means they haven't learned a damn thing about me during the last six months. I'm not angry about this, I don't actually get mad, but this was totally my own fault for not paying attention. They have to live with their own actions.


The Ugly: Linked Cormmies
Who knew that even the vaunted Vengeance is no match for five Tengu linked Cormorants? Ok, I did. But this fight didn't start out with five and the Tengu only appeared on scan at the last minute. They got my pod too, they must be so proud.


The Good: A Coercer
I have never really flown the Coercer much, so I decided to fit two of them up and go see what it could do. It is a fun ship to fly and puts out some impressive deeps, but is extremely prone to dying. But I did manage to get some good kills with it.


The Ugly: Moar ECM
I'm a system over when my Corp mate tells me he is going for a Harpy in a plex. Suddenly he is jammed by the suddenly appearing Griffin. Big surprise huh? I haul ass next door and save him by taking the Griffin down quickly. The ugly part of this story is that this happened again later that same day with a different group and this time they brought a Falcon. He got away again, but when I brought out my Rook, they ran away.


The Bad: Fish with Teeth
Sometimes when a fish runs from you it isn't because he doesn't have teeth, so going back to get the dual scram Atron is not a good idea. This happens so rarely that it isn't worth considering, but it does happen. So be warned.


The Good: And Equal
And then sometimes everything works out perfectly and you find the perfect ship to fight in the ship you actually happen to be in and you have a really good fight on your hands. Thank god this still happens from time to time.


Those are just some of the more memorable fights from the past week or so. What will happen next? Stay tuned.