Transitions, and a look back at 2015

2015 was a good year for me in Eve.  I spent the year in Aideron Robotics, enjoying FW for the pew pew with breaks for PVE when I was feeling quieter and wanted to work back up my sec status (and to some degree my bank balance).  The wider Eve world had a great upswing this year as well.  However, there are also times for transitions, so I've made some changes for 2016 that perhaps are echos of changes we've all seen across Eve.

Aideron Technologies

While Jakob was off having fun blowing up squiddies in Aideron Robotics, my industrial alt (and her less skilled sister-in-grime) were busy with Aideron Technologies.  In August I talked about how just plugging away at the tasks assigned to me (without any real thought needed on myside) I was pulling in a nice chunk of change and on course to pull in a PLEX worth a month.  At the same time I was stocking up the market in our home station of Fliet and in particular enjoying being the local drug pusher.

And then somewhat abruptly Aideron Technologies closed up shop.  It sounded like the founders and directors were pretty much burned out, and the margins made on the corporate side (that paid the wages for people like me) were closing down.  I completely get that.  Organizing what we'd be running, bringing materials in, lining up the jobs - all the things needed so that us line wage-slaves could fire up jobs and get paid for it - that's a lot of work.

I understand Lukas Rox has closed out his twitter and stepped away from Eve pretty hard, though at least his blog is still available on his website.  I hope this isn't a sign of anything rough going on for him in real life, and I wish him and the directors of Aideron Technologies the best.

As a result, my alt has now moved to trying out station trading while I liquidate far flung assets.  There appear to be a couple industrial opportunities through other folks (some of whom were involved in Aideron Technologies), so I need to decide how to jump there.

Aideron Robotics

Aideron Robotics is a pretty great group of people.  When I joined in 2014 it was largely due to the reputation I'd heard through some podcasts and some random other connections.  As is the nature of things, after I joined Aideron Robotics some of the AIDER people I had been following in the meta either moved on to other adventures or stepped away from Eve.  The feel of the group was great though, generally mature folks with easy-going attitudes and a real love for the game.

Unfortunately as summer 2015 came along things were waning in Aideron.  I found that most fleets I was joining and finding a lot of action in weren't actually Aideron fleets, but ones from nearby allies.  The old guard leadership largely faded away, but was replaced by some dynamic new people who were de-facto running the joint and trying to make things work.  This was pretty rough on them, and on the whole corp, when Brave plummeted out of null and some remnants decided to join FW and take on the little AIDER corp down in the south.(I would have sworn I blogged on that, but I must have bailed after Kirith covered it so well in his own blog.)  Brave bore down hard on us, but our bigger friendly allies such as Rapid Withdrawal (RDRAW) rode in like the cavalry and helped us push them back.  They pretty much haven't been back since, though they have been pushing other systems in GalMil.

The load was heavy on the new leadership though.  Too much really.  All through 2015 we had people stepping out of Aideron, with a lot of them joining the aforementioned RDRAW. In December I saw some people I really liked flying with make that step and it hit a tipping point for me.  As of 2016, I'm now a member of RDRAW.

There are a lot of reasons, and I'm sure they're different each each person who has moved on from AIDER.  It certainly makes it easier than there are a ton of ex-AIDER people in RDRAW, though that's not to imply the corps are the same.  The culture is definitely different, and that will take some adjustment.  It helps that RDRAW is based in Sujarento three jumps away from AIDER's base of Fliet, and we're still on the same side.  Fleets spun up by one corp often will have pilots from the other, so I expect I'll be hearing familiar voices on a regular basis still.  I did make a few changes to the skill queue to handle the more diverse RDRAW doctrinal line-up, but Jakob was already set to be able to fly most things BS and down across all factions anyway.  Then we'll see about getting back on that capital ship course.

Transitions in Eve

As I read 2015 wrap-up blogs and listen to podcasts, I hear a lot about transitions that have happened across Eve.  I hear Declarations of War talking about the end of Black Legion and Null Secunda.  I read Talvorian Dex deciding to leave the CFC that he had grown up with and move into being a dirty low-sec pirate.  These have a bittersweet component to them, but they are also signs of a game and a player base that is alive.  People come and go and that means that corporations, alliances, and even coalitions comes and go.  This is not a game where the NPC-run "good guy" faction will forever fight against the NPC-run "bad guy" faction world without end, amen.

I'd been meaning to write this blog since I left AIDER, but what really kicked me tonight was zaqq's excellent short video "Progress."  Now before anyone gets upset, I'm not saying that me leaving AIDER or any of the other changes I've mentioned tonight are part of some linear rising line of improvement.  They are change.  Eve is full of change, from the rise and fall of markets to the swirl of T1 frigates in combat, and yes to the small changes of pretty insignificant pilots like myself.  Sometimes that change comes in cycles.  I'm sure nobody would really be surprised if Elo Knight restarted Black Legion from scratch in 2016.  But change is what we expect to see, and we should keep aiming for change that increases our enjoyment of the game.

And bring on the citadel and capital changes...