Eve Blog Banter #22: Honor Amongst Thieves

Welcome to the twenty-second installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic is brought to us by L’Dene Bean of Nitpickin’s who asks: Why, and how, did you pick your corporation? Is your loyalty solid or just until a better placed organization “recruits” you. The shorter version: Who holds your Unshakable Fealty and why?

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I joined Suddenly Ninjas at a time when I was ready to give up on Eve altogether out of sheer boredom and frustration at “the grind”. I was probably 3 months into Eve, bored out of my skull running mind-numbingly shitty level 1 mining missions with a frigate, when I saw someone whining in local about “f*cking ninja thieves” (ninja history lesson: the perpetrator of these exquisite tears turned out to be Brother Nightfall, one of the pioneers of our profession as well as one of the first to figure out how to “break into” other people’s missions). I had no idea what an “eve ninja” was, but after some hunting around, I discovered Kahega Amielden’s original Ninja Salvaging Guide. I read it through, three times, and I never looked back.

So in a sense, you could say that that this corp found me, at a time when I really needed them to. Today, I’ve been in SN for almost 2 years, and in that time I’ve seen ninja salvaging go from being what was largely considered a game-mechanic bug or an exploit, to a full-on, CCP-endorsed profession in Eve. Its been a hell of a ride, and ego aside, I’m proud to have been a part of that history.

As for loyalty? There’s an oft-quoted saying we’ve all heard that there’s “no honor amongst thieves”. I strongly beg to differ.

For starters, Suddenly Ninjas is the reason I play Eve. Really. The day I leave SN will probably be the day I leave Eve. The thing is, “normal” activities in Eve have never appealed to me. Mining, mission-grinding, sov warfare; these things don’t draw me at all, due in part to what I consider their narrow scope. What this corp embodies is everything I could want in this game; it inspires extreme creativity, non-linear thinking, and truly embraces the sandbox ideal that you can do just about anything. What holds me to this game and this corp is my constant desire to push the boundaries; to find new ways of catching people off-guard, new tricks, new schemes, and new ways of thinking like the wolf in a game full of sheep.

Above all, its the people I fly with. If there’s one thing I’ve nailed down being a CEO, its that a corp is only as fun as its members. History, reputation, and ideals only take you so far; after that you better have some great people in your corp if you want things to keep moving. So really, the guys in my corp are what makes it what it is.

What we do as ninjas can turn into a solo-style of game-play very easily, and its the constant stream of wit, humor, scheming, and general goofing-off as a group that make this corp what it is: fun. Stealing loot and ganking bears is good and all, but wheres the fun if you can’t gloat, mock, or tell dick jokes with a bunch of guys afterwords?

And then there’s honor. How does that fit into a corp full of asshats and underhanded thieves? Well, its a video game, we try and keep that in perspective, but there’s also an understood camaraderie and brotherhood amongst SN. We’re all here for the same reasons, which is that we like playing on the edge and coloring outside the lines.

So, raise your glasses to the finest group of gentlemen thieves in Eve. Here’s to you, ninjas.

o7,

-Aiden

• Lie Back and Think of England
• Banter 22: Arise Lady Chumpington
• Blog Banter #22: Corp Loyalty
• Blog Banter #22: Corp Loyalty
• BB 22 Gimme one reason
• The Eternal Ninja
• Chocolate Heaven
• Merry Life and a Short One
• Corp Loyalty (oh how original)
• Loyalty Isn’t For Sale

…if anyone has a fuller list of participants for this BB, let me know.

~ by Aiden Mourn on November 3, 2010.