Kills of the Week

A very good thing happened this week: The New Order continued to strengthen its hold over highsec. Just like last week and the week before! More carebears and bot-aspirants became content recipients. Let's have a look at some of the content they received in highsec during the week of November 9th @ 00:00 EVEtime through November 15th @ 23:59 EVEtime.

KILLMAIL

Korvin Rayton lost a fail-fit Loki worth 470 million isk. Aside from the bot-aspirancy that accompanies all expensive fail-fit ships, Korvin was guilty of a serious crime. You see, his particular fail-fit was more sinister than is apparent from the above illustration.

Korvin was using his Loki as a poor man's Orca! The New Order would shoot more ships that shoot back if combat ships weren't being repurposed for vile industrial uses. Agents loyalanon, karma balancer, Misty Stenier-Tian, reaper Shardani, Quaker Oatmeal, and holdmybeer discovered Korvin's "strategic cruiser" being misused, so they demolished it.

KILLMAIL

Nimian Two didn't bother fitting his 1.2 billion isk marauder. Instead, he spent his time wandering around highsec without a permit. Even worse--his vagrancy took place only one jump from our beloved Halaima. Agents iZaEaRl, Norek Crendraven, loyalanon, Aaaarrgg, Gohman Patrouette, Gallie Crendraven, Ilithyia Borgia, Walter Kramer, Martyr Oira, Code Agent AC, Quaker Oatmeal, and Misty Stenier-Tian happened to be nearby and defended highsec's honour with a prompt gank.

KILLMAIL

Axle Jhem and his 2.1 billion isk Machariel received some startling news about the newest addition to the CODE. alliance: The Glorious Revolutionary Armed Forces of Highsec corp, which specializes in wardecs. Brave Agents Tyr Sigmundr, Egg McMuff, and Syeed Ameer Ali quite enjoy shooting ships that shoot back. Together, they showed Axle that PvP is very different from PvE, where carebears shoot virtually defenseless red crosses. Our enemies don't stand a chance against warriors of the Code. Somebody better beg CCP to nerf wardecs again!

KILLMAIL

Ouch. Min Weh put some shield mods on her flimsy little industrial ship, but she couldn't resist octuple-anti-tanking it in the lows and rigs. Nor could she keep herself from succumbing to the temptation of going AFK and autopiloting through Uedama. Agent Zasar grabbed a suicide Vexor and promptly incinerated the Iteron Mark V and its nearly 4 billion isk worth of cargo.

A zKillboard commenter chimed in, "Well this is how dunce you must be to carry such goods at such a cardboard ship!" Some truths are universal. The Code, for instance.

Judging from the bio, NeverForShaken's story could only end in tragedy. He announced his intention to do hauling in highsec. He did not include a mining permit or a pledge of loyalty to me. Where did that get him? Let's see:

KILLMAIL

His freighter was popped while traveling through Niarja and... Wait, the final blow inflicted 3 points of damage--from a Civilian Gatling Railgun?

Truth is stranger than fiction. NeverForShaken had negative Amarr standing, but he jumped a freighter into one of the Amarr-patrolled sections of New Order space. He was immediately set upon by Agent Imperial Navy Colonel, a representative of the Amarr faction police. As Agent Siegfried Cohenberg kept the freighter bumped, faction police caught up to the poor freighter and began doing damage. What followed was the very first all-rookie freighter gank! Agents Grm Makentor, Chroniccandy 420, Immortalis Vitium, Lament von Gankenheim, Quaker Oatmeal, and SFC Keeper got into their rookie ships and shot at the freighter to get on the killmail.

For all you carebears who love to say, "Highsec doesn't belong to the New Order because your name isn't in the upper-left corner of the screen," remember this kill. You might see Amarr sovereignty, but some of those Amarr are happy to enforce the Code.

KILLMAIL

casperlolz joined a lolcorp, fit out a lolmackinaw, and took a lolgoofus approach to the Code. It was lolz all around--until he met the first Gallants he'd ever seen. Our Agents killed his Mackinaw, and Agent Jaleuth swooped in to destroy casperlolz's lolpod. Three billion isk later, casperlolz wasn't laughing anymore. But don't feel too bad for the carebear: When the lolz end, the compliance begins.

Highsec Miner Grab Bag #67

Every day is better with the New Order, isn't it?

Among the whiniest carebears, if you really want to earn street cred, you copy a GM on your "I'm quitting EVE" mail.

Sometimes people ask what happens if a rebel miner puts an insincere pledge of support to the New Order in their bio, without paying 10 million isk for a permit. Lhama Self provides the answer: They get ganked.

Carebears and Agents have very different perspectives on this game. Dyson Moriarty, for example, thinks autopilot exists "so it can be used free of consequences". That doesn't sound like EVE to me.

Don't expect the New Order to change its name any time soon. It's difficult enough for casual players to keep everything straight as it is: "New Order", "MinerBumping", "CODE.", "the Code", etc.

Quaker Oatmeal > whats up
moverdooverman > WHY YOU RED
Quaker Oatmeal > why not red?
moverdooverman > why you blinking red
Quaker Oatmeal > why arent you blinking red?
moverdooverman > i dont know im new
Quaker Oatmeal > wtf why arent you red dude
moverdooverman > omg
moverdooverman > how do i get to blink red
Quaker Oatmeal > just go shoot at capsules
moverdooverman > will i get killed for shooting them
Quaker Oatmeal > nah, itll be fine. turn the safety to red

I don't know if CODE. corps are set up with the in-game corp-finder tool, but if they are, they'd be marked as "new player friendly".

Agents don't need to be exalted in their own eyes. They're exalted in my eyes, and that should be good enough for anyone.

Did you know the New Order of Highsec has a renter empire in the Drone Regions? Neither did I.

Some miners stand on ceremony more than others. The New Order is pretty casual. Only one rule: Don't be a Goofus. Huger Nalelmir broke that rule.

Although the miners of highsec are virtually identical, they do sometimes find ways of carving out a unique identity.

Between the New Order and the rebel carebears, which side consists of the "good guys"? Here's a hint: The miners are the ones always rooting for people to get cancer. As for me, I've always been firmly in the anti-cancer camp. The reason is simple. When EVE players die of cancer, the game loses subscribers. That means less revenue for CCP.

It's one thing for a miner to issue an empty threat. They do that all the time. Dragon Ellecon, on the other hand, gave me a "formal warning". Much more serious.

I only have one question for Mr. Dragon. What's wrong with our Agents' Catalysts?

Roza Noman thinks gankers work for minimum wage because they can't see the bigger picture. Also, people who blow up ships should be against people blowing up ships, because it makes ships more expensive. Navigating so smoothly from one non sequitur to another is quite a feat. It takes more than WASD controls to pull that off; you need carebear logic.

Roza Noman continued throwing out carebear logic until she had none left to give. "I'm not paying 30 million for a permit because your character portrait shows you're trolling." Those are the kinds of insights you can only discover in highsec.

No Tower Can Withstand the Code

The New Order takes a keen interest in the welfare of everyone in highsec. This interest manifests itself in many different ways, but one of the most important is education. We never stop teaching carebears about game mechanics--and busting the myths to which they so often cling.

One might say the New Order's educational services disproportionately benefit new players. Although we care deeply about new players, the truth is that an old carebear knows little more than a new one does. Frankly, the old carebear probably believes a lot of myths that the new carebear hasn't heard yet.

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And so it was that a group of highsec content creators set out to disprove the myth that large POSes are absolutely safe in empire space.

Agent Tengu Grib joined his friends in the Dirty Stinky Pirates corp on their expedition against a group of rebel carebears. The rebels' corp was called Madagascar inc., and it had been reported that they were engaged in acts of extreme bot-aspirancy.

The reports were true, terrifyingly so. The rebels constructed a series of towers in Niyabainen, a 1.0 security system. The towers were surrounded by countless faction modules meant to keep the towers even safer. It was a monument to bot-aspirancy.

There were no defenders, as the towers, each sporting an impenetrably thick skin of EHP, were meant to defend themselves with their endless array of modules. Dirty Stinky Pirates declared war and sent an elite force headed by its CEO, Snucklefruts.

The expedition appeared to be doomed from the start. Though Madagascar inc. had no pilots in sight, the towers' automated defenses were deadly. Like a good bot, the tower had defended itself. Was this the future--a highsec ruled by the AFK?

The New Order never gives up. Not while there are still humans playing EVE at their keyboards. The Dirty Stinky Pirates regrouped and systematically reinforced the towers. There was no interference from Madagascar inc. carebears, who were all AFK. When the towers came out of reinforced, our heroes returned. Then the towers and their faction modules began to fall, one by one.

As I said, there were a lot of faction POS modules on those towers.

A lot. Pages of them, in fact.

In all, 182 structures, including the towers, were destroyed. The damage total was over 22 billion isk.

The Madagascar inc. carebears never did show up, not to aim the guns or even to evacuate their assets. Theirs was an AFK war. They put their trust in bot-aspirancy and the safety of highsec. All of their assets were wiped out. In the end, they lost everything. Well, almost everything. Though they had disgraced themselves, they remain under the grace of the Code. I will still allow them to renounce their carebearism and pledge loyalty to me. When they do so--and I have no doubt one day they will--the former carebears will be allowed to join highsec society as members of the New Order family. At last, they will be a part of something worth building.

Clean Pod, Filthy Mind

We've reached a new milestone: MinerBumping has accumulated over 3 million hits! It says a lot about the intelligence and sophistication of the EVE community that thousands of its players are regular readers of MinerBumping. Each day, the New Order works to improve the level of discourse in highsec.

In days past, PvP'ers engaged in lots of profane, insulting, juvenile smacktalk. Our Agents have made things so much better. Agent Tisiphone Dira came across a carebear in the Hek system and politely requested the money she was owed. However, John ShadowKnight wasn't ready to join modern highsec. He proudly identified himself as an internet tough guy.

John's caveman attitude was a direct challenge to the New Order. No wonder he lost his pod.

The destruction of John's capsule caused him to lose his temper. He tabbed out of the private convo with Tisiphone and made his feelings known in Hek local:

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John's comments in local didn't qualify as a "GF", Tisiphone felt. Although our Agents are tolerant people, it's their job to pass judgment on the carebears. Someone must make sure the Code is being followed, otherwise all highsec is lost.

Despite his claims not to be a miner, John couldn't resist uttering Miner Bingo quotes. If he were to be believed, he went AFK and autopiloted in a pod to "relax and have fun". Admittedly, bot-aspirants are easily tempted by the lure of automated gameplay. If they weren't, we wouldn't need rules against that sort of thing.

As time went on, John became more and more resentful about the loss of his pod. He vowed revenge against Tisiphone and everyone else in CODE. He went so far as to say he'd kill our pods, even though pods are ships that can't shoot back.

Tisiphone knew in her heart that if the carebear would only read the Code (or listen to Sasha Nyemtsov read it), it would calm him down. But John wouldn't read it, and he wouldn't calm down.

John's vengefulness and hostility grew. He would only be satisfied by killing Agents of the New Order. Sadly, this proved to be beyond him.

More than an hour after his pod was destroyed, John continued to rant and rave. He was completely unwilling to trust Tisiphone to honour her promises--though she had only ever told him the truth. (And ganked him.)

John finally terminated the private convo, claiming all the fun of EVE had been ruined for him. Clearly, he didn't feel blowing up spaceships was a fun part of the game. He only enjoyed AFK grinding in highsec. And as for the pod gank that had angered him so?

...It was empty. Should it surprise us that a highsec carebear would get so worked up about an empty pod? Not really. You see, for a bot-aspirant who only grinds isk and never tastes emergent gameplay, the entire EVE experience is empty.

We should always remember that there are tens of thousands of highsec carebears--perhaps hundreds of thousands--whose life in EVE is as empty of John ShadowKnight's pod. Before the New Order, such players had no hope. Three million MinerBumping hits later, things are a lot better. But we still have a long way to go.