Apr 22, 2015

The Engine of Interesting Experiences

In 2007 when my first EVE character was a two-day old newbie mining her little Gallente heart out in the rookie system Bourynes, a friendly 2003 pilot named Edohatrem Inur struck up a conversation. He convinced me to join his corp along with a bunch of other newbies he'd recruited. The opportunity to harvest knowledge directly from a veteran player fast-tracked my EVE experience in many valuable ways. 

What goes around, comes around...in more ways than one. Not only do I now find myself leading a corp doing the very same thing for exploration-minded newbies, but in full-circle fashion, Edo recently joined Signal Cartel. A self-styled glittervet (kind of like a bittervet but with more optimism and an interest in helping new players), he is still up to his old tricks in Bourynes and elsewhere engaging "adorable newbies" (as he calls them) with his special brand of tough love and carrot-on-stick recruiting tactics.

Edo is fond of pointing out contradictions and questioning assertions. I learned long ago to be amused rather than annoyed by this, since it can lead to interesting discussions and reflections on how we change and grow as players. Case in point: I grumbled recently about the time demands that leading Signal Cartel imposes on me. He immediately pointed out the contradiction of the situation with assertions I posted just over a year ago upon my return to New Eden regarding what I wasn't interested in, to wit:

  • Leadership responsibility
  • Restrictive corp rules
  • Non-PvP, non-low-sec corps
  • Newbie corpmates

HA! Guess I'm eating those words now, as my peaceful, credo-bound corp is at 275 members not quite 3 months after public launch...


The contrast between a year ago and now is amusing. But I can roll with it because I've been around EVE long enough to know that nothing stays the same. Anything can happen. Being open to new things--like EvE-Scout founders G8keeper and Johnny Splunk approaching me to lead a peaceful exploration corp--leads to new friends and new experiences. As I've said before, the Signal Cartel experience has given me a fresh perspective on the game, a sense of purpose, and interesting new challenges. All of that is made even better when old friends like Edo decide to come along for the ride...and he is by far not the only one who has done so. Quite a few friends and acquaintances--many who were or are pirates, amusingly--have joined Signal Cartel and contribute significantly to the camaraderie and success of the corp.

Relationships are clearly the engine of interesting experiences in New Eden. Whether those experiences are dramatic and sweeping (e.g, BRAVE's recent troubles) or result from taking a path less traveled (as in Signal Cartel), they all create ripples--sometimes with far-reaching and unanticipated outcomes. The unpredictable way that those ripples, even the tiny ones, intersect with others and evolve will trump assertions every time!

9 comments:

  1. Paragraph 1 - i believe the technical term is "blackmailed" rather than convinced

    Paragraph 2 - LIES, LIES AND SLANDER EVERYWHERE!!!
    ..... i've been here for 2 months now, how is that "recently"!? it's 2/3rds of the lifetime of the corp.... i'm practically a fixture!

    What perfidy is this!? In no way am i a "self styled glittervet"!!! That name was just foisted on me!

    optimism OPTIMISM!?!?! I think you must have me mistaken with somebody else. you can't just go around making this stuff up, people will get the wrong idea!
    I've spent a long long time perfecting my image as a bastard coated bastard and here you are pissing it all away just by putting it on your blog which is apparently e-famous.

    The carrot on a stick is only so i can then beat them with the carrot..... people just never expect it

    Paragraph 3 - again "recently"? that was at least a fortnight ago, I've made dozens of snarky comments about you since then!

    Paragraph 4... or is it 5 .... whatever, the next big one - ahahaha, suck it all of your other so called "friends" who never-mind an entire article about them don't even get name-dropped individually!

    last paragraph - ..... i'm not mentioned in this one. That displeases me.

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    Replies
    1. Also, you're even misrepresenting yourself with your silly list of bulletpoints!

      what you actully said was "Corps whose members are on average too young in real life age; I'm old and prefer to hang out with groups that include a majority of older people because it simply makes for more enjoyable and relatable general conversation."

      .... I.e since you're old you said you wanted to surround yourself with irl coffin-cheaters. which isn't the same thing as not wanting to be around adorable newbies! .... after all, even a coffin-cheater can be an adorable newbie on the internet!

      And besides, who wouldn't want to be around adorable newbies!? they're ADORABLE!!

      Delete
  2. "they all create ripples--sometimes with far-reaching and unanticipated outcomes."

    like a turd hitting the water of a space-toilet! ...i guess that makes me the unwanted splashback then?

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    Replies
    1. "The unpredictable way that those ripples, even the tiny ones, intersect with others"

      .... you've clearly spent far too much time toilet-gazing

      Delete
  3. This has just had me chuckling away... I am so glad that you "convinced" Edo to become a "feature" of the Cartel

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    Replies
    1. Shhhhhh...we don't want to scare him away. But now he's on Twitter too. Dare I suggest you join the tweetfray so as not to miss a single thing? :P

      Delete
    2. i do hope you know there's no way that this ultimately ends well for you

      .... RIP positive pr for signal cartel

      Delete