Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed tocrazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who’ve been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has your gaming style evolved through the years or months since you’ve started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance – say manufacturing. Let’s hear your story!

Getting near to my third year in EVE — I started in August 2007 — and I still haven’t seen it all, though I’ve certainly been around. Being a carrier pilot is something that will get ticked off this year, after which I need a new list. And while I never say never, 0.0 sov and all it entails is something I hold no real interest in, which is the only area I’ve not really poked my nose into.

A short summary of my carreer could be described as carebear gone pirate but remaining true to that carebear side. And then there is the constant of roleplaying all through the years. The specifics? Well, keep reading.

Alts

• Same account: Valnurana, my trader, newbie hauler and alliance executor resides on the same account as Myrhial, as for a long time I was very stubborn about getting a second account and did not have the income to pay one with PLEX. She’s mostly retired now. Also have the placeholder CEO for Ghost Festival sitting in the third slot.
• Different account: Faber Demaunier is my miner and has taken over the role of hauler from Valnurana. She will eventually take over the role of trader too. Will probably go down the path of research and manufacturing in the future, or mission running, or even both.

Carebear

• Exploration: A constant throughout my career, with which I share a love / hate relationship. Have gotten a rare few good catches, an overall steady income when focusing on radar plexes, but also a great many sites that just were a waste of ammo. Primarily focussed on these in lowsec.
• Research: I have personally researched all blueprints in my possession and aided PRELI with researching blueprints which were payment for the POS tower they received in exchange.
• Manufacturing: Mainly making my own ammo when running missions, or produce rigs for my own use to save some ISK on fitting ships. A few months back I finished Production Efficiency V and started buying up cheap salvage to create rigs and sell them at profit. Not a bad income for the slight effort it takes.
• Mission runner: My earliest source of income. Have done both combat missions and couriers in highsec, lowsec and nulsec, and have worked for the Caldari, Amarr, Thukker and Angel Cartel.
• R&D: I’ve got five agents working for me and once every few months I blitz through highsec to collect my earnings. A nice wallet booster but not as good as it used to be back in the days.
• Mining: I once mined in a Procuror — lol terrible ship — in lowsec just for the sheer lulz. I still get poked fun at for that. When I was a wee lil’ pirate I mined a few lowsec gneiss plexes in an Osprey, but other than that I leave this to Faber.
• Wormholes: Potato RR fleets make quick work of Sleepers, and getting near 100 mil a person for a few hours work is great. While quite dull in itself — point drones at broadcasted target and sit back — the vent chatter does get me through it.
• Trade: Mostly marging trading and probably where I’ve gotten most of my ISK. I’ve also invested in shares and IPO’s, all but one payed off, the one that didn’t was due to the player vanishing into thin air. Not sure if that was an intended scam or not. Have also done some resale for people, and selling goods on their behalf with getting a cut of the profits.
• Planetary interaction: Running a nanite repair paste chain spread over two accounts, with Myrhial working on five planets and Faber taking care of the sixth.

Pirate

• Ships of all sizes: I have flown T1 / T2 frigates (with the exception of ewar frigates), destroyers, T1 / T2 cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships into pvp combat, mostly fit for pvp but the few occasional encounters in pve setups have been there as well. I fly mostly in fleets but have also tried my hand at solo combat.
• Faction war: Busting plexes or simply clashing with a militia group, picking off stragglers from large fleets and even opening plexes to bait targets inside, faction war offers a variety of strategies and was where I really learned to pvp. Operation Bold Harvest will always hold a dear spot in my heart.
• Mission busting: This has got to be the most profitable kill till date. Delicious faction loot. Not all are like that though, and it is usually newer players you catch because they aren’t watching the scanner or even unaware of probes. The bulk of targets in Operation Longshot were of that kind.
• Ransoms: A rare occurrence, not because of a lack of trying but because a situation has to lend itself to it and then there is still the willingness of the target to pay up.

Roleplay

• RP corp / alliance: All corporations / alliances I have been part of have had roleplay as part of their activities. My character has undergone quite the transformation, from State loyalist to Cartel loyalist. While this has had a certain impact on her personality as well as her cultural thinking she’s still very Caldari in her ways.
• Channel RP: From bars to political discussions, I’ve been in a fair number of channels. Favorite hangouts are The Skyhook and The Last Gate. I’m one of those eternal lurkers in The Summit as well.
• In character blogging: Been slacking on this a little — and blogging as a whole — since I’ve stepped down as CEO, but for the two years I’ve been blogging I’m at around at least two posts a month.

Leadership

• Corporate: Have been a director and later on a CEO, now serving as shadow CEO while I take out some more time for myself. Don’t worry though, Naraka will be back, no matter what people are saying or assuming. I’ve already got so much ideas on where I want to take the corporation and being in Veto has been a very enlightening experience so far. Someday I hope to chronicle my experiences in a guide for beginning CEO’s and directors.
• Fleets: PVE and PVP, I’ve been FC, backup FC, backup backup FC and logistics coordinator. Having invested in learning leadership skills I’m also serving as fleet booster when needed.

Participants:

1. CrazyKinux’s Musing: The Heroes with a Thousand Faces
2. StarFleet Comms: Life. Evolved.
3. A Carebear’s Journeu: This Carebear Thinks He Is Developing Teeth
4. The Elitist: Our ventures in EVE
5. A Mule in EVE: From a guppy predator
6. Travels of the Ronin: Evolution and Adaptation
7. The Ralpha Dogs: The Past Through Tomorrow
8. Where the frack is my ship: A journey, not a destination
9. I am Keith Neilson: 7 Year Itch?
10. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Evolution Me
11. EVE Opportunist: A long history of a short time
12. Roc’s Ramblings: Things Change
13. Guns Ablaze: Onwards and Upwards
14. EVE On Real Life: Haven’t you grown up yet?
15. The Fang: The path of the ninja
16. EVEOGANDA: Whoops Apocalypse!
17. EVE SOB: Learning to swim
18. The Life of a Dead Jester: My Time with EVE
19. Personal Files, Ciarente Roth: Personal Diary 18.6.112
20. Learning to Fly: Change is Good
21. Depths Unknown: Falling With Style
22. Morphisat’s Blog: Jack of all trades
23. Sarnelbinora’s Blog: Thoughts of EVE
24. Confessions of a Closet Carebear: It’s the yellow box, stupid…
25. Adventures in Mission Running: My path amongst the stars
26. When 11 Ninjas isn’t enough: First days in the North (continued)
27. Lost in New Eden: My EVE Life So Far
28. Life in my Hole: How My EVE Experience Has Evolved
29. The Lathspell of Mithrandir: EVE-olution
30. Chocolate Heaven: Recurring Themes
31. More as they get published…

[Delicious Tag: eveblogbanter18]

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is one of my favorite self-help books because it has helped me a lot both in my professional life as for self-management. For being a good CEO in EVE, or pinpointing where and how I could do better, this book has also been a tremendous aid. That is why I felt inspired to write this blog post where I will illustrate how it can help you get the most out of the game, both in a leadership position and outside of it. This is by far not a complete guide, and I’ve not covered everything that falls under each habit as it would get far too detailed. Consider it an extended summary touching upon what I found most important. Should you want more information I recommend buying the book or borrow a copy from your local library.

Habit one: Be pro-active

There are two mindsets you can live by whenever anything happens, or how you view your current situation: Reactive and pro-active.

The reactive mindset we find in people who say things like “I wish I had a lot of ISK”, “I am a terrible PVPer”, “Can-flippers make me so angry I want to quit”, “I need to rat” and “I can’t do fleet command”.

The pro-active mindset believes that we decide what we do and feel, and will work actively on reaching goals. Pro-active people will look into methods of earning ISK and try them, will read a lot on pvp and go out to learn, will realize that letting a can-flipper spoil you game is silly and take measures to counter the practice, will rat because they want to and not because they are told to do so, and will realize that everyone can be a great fleet commander if you want to learn.

EVE is a sandbox where you can do whatever you want, as long as you are prepared to do what it takes to reach your goals. So throw out all those negative thoughts because they are only in the way of success. You choose how you react to stimulus. Don’t sit around and wait, nothing good has ever come of that. Everyone, from the lowest to the highest rank within a corporation, can make a change. Yes, certain things are simply out of our control but even then you decide how you cope with them.

Habit two: Begin with the End in Mind

Everything starts with a vision. Maybe you want to fly capital ships someday, or maybe you want to teach new players about a certain aspect of the game. To succeed in whatever it is we want to do we need a mission statement, which is based upon our personal principles. You might find it important for example that you do not end up sinking too much time into the game because you have a family to look after.

Once you know what it is you want you begin with translating this to long-term goals. To fly capital ships for example you need to buy certain skillbooks. How will you fund these skillbooks? Keep splitting up each goal into steps until you reach what you can start doing today.

Habit three: Put First Things First

Now you have your mission statement, goals and steps to achieve those goals it is time to start working on them. But where do we start?

There are four quadrants in the time-management matrix:

1. Important and urgent
2. Important and not urgent
3. Not important and urgent
4. Not important and not urgent

Quadrant one should become as small as possible, and this is where you start. These are things that are a problem right now, or have a deadline. If you leave these things they are bound to create more problems and cause stress and you absolutely do not want that.

Quadrant three is tied to reactivity. It could be other players who interrupt you with a private convo about something really trivial, and you’re bound to spend a lot of time chatting but not really going anywhere. While it is important to keep good relations learn to say no once in a while. If you’re getting distracted you can’t give what your doing, nor the conversation the attention it deserves. Dare to point that out.

Quadrant IV is everything you can do when you are done, or when you’ve worked enough.

Quadrant II is where you want to be. As much as possible from Quadrant I, and everything from Quadrant III that matters should end up in here. Like talking to your friends when you have the time to give them your full attention. Or doing things well in time before they become a problem. Stress will be a thing of the past and you will enjoy doing things because you know they matter.

Habit four: Think Win/Win

Win-win or no deal. There are no other alternatives. Having others lose while you win, or lose and letting the others win are out of the question. The first eliminates future win-win deals, while the latter will make you unhappy as well as eliminate the chance you will want to set up a deal with that party again.

Win-win means that everyone gets something out of a deal. Running an academy corporation for example, where in return for knowledge you gain prospective members. Or even if they move on elsewhere they might still direct people your way or be willing to help you out in the future.

When win-win is not possible then agree on having no deal. An example from my own experience is having a few members under my wing who’d like to see things run differently, to which I could not agree. I could have given in to that resulting in lose-win, or I could have kicked them there and then resulting in win-lose. Instead we agreed to disagree and remained on friendly terms, with them going their own way. While no true win-win the fact that we all remained friends and each are doing what they enjoy still beats any other alternative.

Habit five: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Listening to what others say is not enough. Try to find out why they say it. Let’s say a member complains about a certain rule in the corporation’s code of conduct. Why is he complaining? Maybe he doesn’t understand it and needs some explanation, but it might very well be he sees a future consequence you’ve never thought about.

Put yourself into the other’s shoes rather than reacting from your own experiences. Don’t tell them to follow the rules because over time you’ve found them to be the best possible way to run things, but first listen to why others think they might not work. But listen also when they say they really like certain rules.

The same goes for any type of feedback, directed at you or others. There is as much knowledge in the words we speak as in why we express ourselves like that.

Habit six: Synergize

The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Through trust and understanding solutions can be found that are even better than what you could have come up by yourself. While someone might go about solving a problem differently than you would, try to find the merit in their ways. Maybe you want to do things very structured and detailed, and disagree with a fast solution that will need fine-tuning in the future because it seems inefficient. While the fast solution addresses the aspect that something has to be done right now to make a start and get others involved.

Synergism is about taking the best of both to create something even better. In this situation the solution might be set short-, mid- and long-term goals and make sure that the consequences of each step are taken into consideration, and where goals help with getting others involved because you can delegate specific tasks.

Habit seven: Sharpen the Saw

Take the time to evaluate how you have applied the six habits and continue to improve. Also apply them on all new things, and continue to improve there also. Find a balance and take everything in moderation. Make sure nobody or nothing gets left out. Upon failure, evaluate what went wrong and learn from those mistakes. Don’t give up, because that’d be a waste of what you’ve done, but know when it is time to start walking a new road.

I’m sitting here in my office with a big smile on my face. Despite having lost a blackbird, and nearly losing an harpy as well I’m glad to see that Bold Harvest is now fully started. While we had a planned operation this weekend it wasn’t until yesterday I got to put a dedicated ECM ship to the test.

Earlier yesterday things had gone a bit sour when Zukko, Yishal and me decided to match up three assault frigates versus a Myrmidon. Little did we know the ship was fitted to counter frigates and we soon found ourselves missing a Vengeance. Draining the last bits of capacitor I managed to get out suffering only minor shield damage. I am ever so glad I took the time to perfect control of this vital part of the ship. Any less capable and it would have taken too long for it to recharge meaning I wouldn’t have been able to reactivate the MWD.

Returning to base we shrugged off the defeat and planned our next move. More and more pilots were tuning into the Neocom – resulting in a peak number in activity not witnessed since our roster was still double it’s current size! – and we formed up a new fleet with those that were combat ready consisting of several assorted frigate and cruiser hulls. And for once we did not have to look for targets as they came to us instead. A fleet of The Wings of Maak had occupied a site in our home system and we were going to crash their party.

Pretty classic scenario to start off with here. Our fleet drops out of warp and their pilots hightail it. Unlike most pilots we meet however they had the guts to come back and put up a fight. The Claw and Tristan sent in however did not stand a chance against the firepower we took along and the rest managed to get out. Celebrating our victory a little too early and having a hearty laugh about the fact Yishal had given me ECM bursts rather than multispectral jammers to be fitted on the Blackbird we failed to notice that The Wings of Maak had now matched up our fleet. As we noticed several Ruptures, a Blackbird and several frigate size hulls appear on the overview we braced ourselves but upon the quick loss of Yishal’s Arbitrator and my Blackbird alternate FC Vincent Pryce made the wise decision to retreat. During the struggle we did make them part with a Thorax. A rather enjoyable skirmish and the Gistii MWD found intact in the Claw’s wreckage covered some of the costs.

Guilty confession? I like ECM ships. Despite their fragility having the ability to render an opponent unable to fight back has a strange kind of allure towards it. As much as I like to be there up close with my fleet members the lessened need to micro-manage and keeping the oversight of the battle have their advantages. Even more so when filling in the role of FC. Who knows…perhaps I will find myself in a Falcon someday. The irony of proving Athas right would be terrible however.

But enough writing for now. There is work left to be done and I much long to find myself out there in the void again before this day ends.

During our last op I took up command of a small cruiser operation, roaming the neighboring systems for targets. Reaching our first end system our scout noticed a Cerberus on scanner, which seemed to be fairly cozy nosing around the remainders of a Sansha base and not aware that a probe had been launched. Against all odds his location got pinpointed on one of the first attempts. Rushing in and setting course to the coordinates the Cerberus stood no chance against our combined firepower and electronic warfare and went down before the pilot finished pleading us to cease fire.

Now the fight was on. Retreating to a safespot we quickly became the target of a snoop probe ourselves. We went back to the Sansha base, hoping the nearby structures would divert the signal. Soon enough though a Typhoon warped in to our location…only to meet a similar fate as the Cerberus. It seemed his friends, while in system, never arrived to support him. Or perhaps he had hoped to take us on alone.

I can’t help to wonder what would have happened if more had shown up. At the end of the day it goes to show that flying solo isn’t always the way to go.