FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | OUELLETTA | YC126

Stay Frosty, a member of the A Band Apart Alliance, has announced that it is committed to fully embracing the conversion of its vaunted Frigate Fleet away from Quantum Fusion Cores and into more sustainable Entangled Electrical Hybrid Cores by the end of YC127. As CEO Rixx Javix explained, "We feel a significant responsibility to be better stewards of the space lanes and reduce our dependance on out-dated, polluting, and harmful technologies." 

This conversion will see the entire Frigate fleet make the switch over the next 18 months. Entangled Electrical Cores do not require the greenhouse producing gases that more traditional Fusion Cores require in production. This situation recently took a dark turn for the residents of Ouelletta Planet IV when their ecosystem became uninhabitable do to the careless over production of their planet's resources. The exodus of inhabitants, which Stay Frosty helped make happen, left a profound mark on the notorious band of pirates. "Capsuleers tend to overlook the impact we have on regular people, on the inhabitants of the planets we ravage for resources," Mr. Javix continued "Until you are holding the poor sods in your cargo hold. All that crying and whimpering really got to me."

We reached out to representatives of the Upwell Consortium for comment but have received no reply as of now. Upwell manufactures most of New Eden's Quantum Core technology. An expert in this field, who requested to remain anonymous, said, "This will not work, Entangled Electrical Cores are not ready for prime time. The infrastructure is decades away from being able to support a fully electric based fleet." Naysayers are always ready to pounce on any new technology, but Mr. Javix believes the risks are worth it. "I do believe the risks are worth it", he said recently from his penthouse offices complex. "And, in point of fact, our tests reveal a 10% improvement in base speed across the fleet from this new technology." Such claims, if proven, could significantly increase conversion efforts across the cluster.

UPDATE: Due to circumstances beyond our control we have had to cancel our plans for Steel City Eve this year. Our sincere apologies but it can't be avoided. Hopefully we can re-start the event again at a later date. Thanks everyone who already registered.

You are invited! Saturday July 27 we will be opening our home to Eve Online players once again for Steel City Eve! 

This will be the sixth time we've hosted this event and we'd like to invite anyone reading this to consider attending. Steel City Eve is a very casual, family-friendly event that we host at our home outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's a day long event where we hang out together, catch up with old friends and make new ones, and enjoy each other's company. Sometimes we end up playing games, or watching some of us practice for the Alliance Tournament (which happened once!), and eventually have some great food and drinks. You are welcome to stay the entire day or just stop by for a few hours.

Over the years we've had players attend from as far away as Germany, Texas, California, Oregon, Michigan, Minnesota, and more. So who knows who might show up this year. The event runs from noon on Saturday until we all get too tired to stay awake any longer. So, how does this work?

Simply join my new Discord server and find the pinned message in the #SteelCityEve channel where you will find a sign-up sheet. All we want to know is your name, email, and how many you'll be bringing with you so we can plan accordingly. This is super important because we need to know how much food and space to prepare - plus we'll be sharing the details concerning the event via email. Including location, links to hotels and local attractions, and much more. So if you plan on attending please be sure to fill out the simple form.

The event is FREE for all who attend. Food and snacks are provided, we will also have non-alcoholic  refreshments for the kids. But the event is BYOB.

Also, by joining the Discord channel you can ask me any questions you might have as the event draws closer.

We hope that you will consider joining us for the day and look forward to seeing you all there.

This is just me fooling around the other day to loosen up the creative bones one morning. I just opened up one of my nebula pieces and started doodling. I didn't think about it beforehand, or plan anything - I just let the process take over. An hour one morning and an hour the next morning. And then I stopped. Once I started drawing the concept started coming to life. I began seeing an alien animal skull shape which made me think of old pirate sailing ships and Chinese junks. The thing I really got excited about was the idea of rigging on spaceships. That's not something I've seen a lot of before. It helps harken back to those earlier designs without borrowing so much from them to be obvious. It also sells the idea of piracy, of less-then perfect manufacturing processes, slapped together from junk sales - which I love.

I've created over 250+ cards for the Eve Board Game now and I'm still working on it every single day. After all that I'm really feeling the need to work on some original pieces again. So I'm thinking about doing more art like this, which may or may not actually have anything to do with Eve. Or it might. It'll depend. That ship design could be Eve Online, or it could be something else. Who knows? I enjoyed creating it and that's all that matters.

I took a year off to work on the board game, which has been awesome, but that also means I have no idea right now what comes next. And that is more than a little concerning. But truthfully, I've never had any idea what comes next. And neither do you dear reader. None of us do. And that has been the state of being my whole career. So something will come along and it'll most likely stem from one of the hundreds of threads I'm constantly pulling. Just like it always does.

Anyway. I didn't have much to say today and just wanted to share this new piece of art. The Pledge Manager is up and running now over at the Board Game Kickstarter, so be sure to get your order set-up just the way you want it. If you missed out on the KS originally, you can now just go over and order a game for yourself if you want. So you don't miss out. I know I went right over and finished up my own order yesterday. 

Speaking of which, back to work.

Today is not only Eve Online's 21st Birthday, but also the 11th Birthday of Stay Frosty. This was not done on purpose, but it does make it easier to remember each one's bday. No question about that. So happy birthday to Eve Online and happy birthday to your friendly neighborhood pirates!

In the early days of Stay Frosty I would often sit down at my desk and pound out yet another post filled with grand statements and proclamations regarding our little band of proud pilots. Call it propaganda, call it marketing, call it whatever words you'd like - but back then I was simply trying to keep it alive and thriving. Those early days were rough as we fought to secure our place among an entire forest of already well-established groups around the neighborhood. Many of whom had long and well-established legacies of their own to fall back on. It was a challenge to stand out from the crowd and generate interest in a new group back in those days. But it worked.

It often worked too well. We grew to insane numbers in the early days and we learned many valuable lessons back then. Or at least, I did. I learned that 300+ members are impossible to keep happy in the environment we choose to play in. I learned that even the most trusted allies, pilots, and friends can turn on you in an instant. And I learned that the most important thing about leadership is being consistent and staying true to the mission. No matter what. Stay true to yourself. 

Over the past 11 years thousands of pilots have spent time in Stay Frosty. And we continue to welcome new members to the group. We still have players who have been here since the beginning and players who just joined us this week. Around the universe you can find players with Stay Frosty in their history running other corporations and alliances in far away corners. And I will always think of them all as family. As we often say in our group, once a Stay Frosty pilot - always a Stay Frosty pilot.

We've managed to weather many storms over the years. And frankly, many storms of my own making. Like an 18 month stretch there when I wasn't playing very much because of real life work and my Directors essentially kept us going. We've survived low sec being boring, low sec being run by huge super capital groups, low sec being ignored, and low sec being swarmed by faction warfare. We've survived the Deathless. Wars. Threats. Harassment. Warnings. The proliferation of structures and the death of structures. We've survived thieves and spies. We've survived players with big mouths saying things they shouldn't have said in local. We've survived them all and more. After all, those events - the positive and the negative - are all part of the tapestry of the past eleven years.

It's easy to get nostalgic and it can be fun to think about all the things you've been through over the years. But I tend to always look forward and focus on what remains to be achieved. Stay Frosty has never been stronger than we are right now. We've never been a better team of players than we are right now. We work together more than we ever have before. Our roams are epic and so much fun. I can't wait for each week to roll around so we can get together and do it again. We're having a blast. And it has been this way for almost two years now. And I hope it continues well into the future.

Because we are going to need that. That forest of pirate groups I mentioned being up against back in the early days? They are all gone now. Gone or moved into another play-style, or diminished, or faded away, or folded, or simply vanished into the dust of time. Outside of a militia, we may very well be the last old-fashioned pirate group left standing. And that is a concern.

We continue to face new challenges. And we will do what we have always done. Face them with humor, with smiles, with Frigates, and laugh all the way into the explosion. And then do it all again.

Stay Frosty my friends. And happy birthday.

Half of everyone I've talked to told me not to write this post. The rest broke down into various forms of advice ranging from the absurd to the ridiculous. Somewhere in the middle rested your weary blogger. So I put my feet up, waited a week and decided that 14 years of sharing details about my adventures in Eve Online deserved to be continued. I've never stepped away from telling my readers what is happening inside or outside of this game - so why start now?

I'm not going to be mentioning any names in this post, so just be aware of that up-front.

So here is what happened. A week before the Frigate Free For All event on April 20th, a small batch of Shuttles suddenly appeared on my kill-board. About 12 of them if I remember correctly. Initially I thought this must be some glitch as I did not recognized any of the names involved. I figured this was some random harassment before the big event. But then 140 more shuttles appeared and I did recognized those names. And now I was sure about the intention behind them. 140 shuttles, give or take, not a big deal. Let's move on to the event.

The FF4A was on a Saturday. I'll ignore the goings on during the event. Let's skip to Monday. I awoke to a cascade of shuttles hitting my kill-board. By the time the day was done a little over 13,000 shuttles had been dumped into my lap. Nearly 320 pages of them. For a moment there I was ranked number one on zKill for total losses in the game and certainly number one in shuttle losses. It was a remarkable act of harassment and aggression. One would think, given the scale involved, that I would have some idea why this was happening. I did not.

I still do not. It is a mystery to me. Those involved showed up to the FF4A and camped the event the entire six hours and got tons of ill-gained kills for it. As they have for the past three years. If anything, you would think they'd be thanking me for hosting an event in which they scored so many free kills. But, instead, I had 13,000 shuttles dumped on my lawn. 

Luckily the zKill spam filter started working on these obvious losses and within a day or two every single one of them was properly labeled as SPAM. They no longer count towards my totals and my kill-board has returned to normal once again. The entire operation was for nothing. Six hours of shooting shuttles and it had zero impact. Well, to be fair, I do have 320 odd pages of shuttle losses labeled as SPAM in my kill-board history. Only CCP could remove those and they won't. I can't blame them, they actually did get blown up.

So how did this happen? I'm no expert in this, but let me try to explain. There is a mechanic in Eve Online that allows you to use the Deliver To function to deliver an item to anyone in the game. If this item, such as a shuttle, is delivered to an abandoned structure and that structure is blown up and the item becomes part of the pinata ejected - it can be destroyed and the loss becomes part of the record for the person the item was delivered to. Like me. There is nothing in this process that you can do to stop it. The item never belonged to you, it isn't your item. You are powerless to stop it from happening.

I remain hopeful that this loop-hole gets addressed and closed before it is used against someone else. But, from what I gather, this has been known about for a long time and nothing has been done to close it. I worry that someone with less experience, fortitude, and history of standing up to bullies could be targeted by this mechanic. That is my primary concern. And frankly, I think it should be everyone's primary concern. This could have ended badly.

This is as big picture as I can write this. I haven't mentioned anyone by name. And I'm leaving out a lot of details on purpose. But this did happen and not writing about it at some point was never going to be an option. I think it is important to expose these events and not push them under the rug. Someone hated me enough to buy up all the shuttles in Jita and spend six hours shooting them one by one just to try and ruin my kill-board.

WTF

This is not an "official" update from the team, just a personal update for those that follow me here in these pages. I haven't posted anything about the Board Game in awhile and thought I'd give you all an update from my perspective.

On my end the work continues every day. As a result of the Kickstarter a lot more work got added into the game for me and the team. Primarily, from my perspective, a lot more cards. And more cards means more art is needed. So that has been my primary focus over the past month since the KS ended. And it will continue to be my main focus for at least another month or so. I have literally created more art for this project than any other project in my entire career. Easily.

In addition, over the past few days, I've also been working with T'amber on the board game related custom skins. Mostly providing inspiration and art for him to work from, but we've also been beating the bushes looking for creative ways to help make these skins something special.

I wish I had more exciting news to share. From my end of things every day is like a normal work day. Some days are more about getting reference that I can use in the upcoming pieces. And some days are more about rendering, painting, compositing, and creating effects. I wish that I could create 100% hand-crafted pieces for every single card in the game, but that would be impossible. So every single card is different and takes a slightly different approach. Some of them demand 100% creation from scratch and others are complicated pieces that require a lot of effects work, like painting explosions, gun effects, nebulas, and other pieces in order to bring something to life. I'm essentially using every single tool in my toolbox to create these original pieces. Because every single card in this game is an original piece.

So where do the ideas come from? I get a google sheet from the team at Titan Forge that includes a title and card description for each card. And then it is totally up to me to figure out how best to illustrate that specific card. Some are more literal and some are more abstract. I've also tried to include a lot of fun easter eggs when it comes to locations, settings, and other pieces into the art. Something for long-time fans of the game and lore players to enjoy. It isn't always possible. And that brings me to the other point.

These cards are small. Poker sized for the ship cards and half-poker sized for the other cards. So I also have to be very, very careful with the amount of details in each piece. This is the big struggle to always keep this in mind. The final pieces are going to be small and need to survive that transition.

But that's the fun of it. Working on Eve Online art every day and creating some really amazing pieces. I'm very fortunate to be working on this project and with the team at Titan Forge. I'm so grateful this opportunity came along and that I was given a chance to work on this project for the past year. I still have a hard time believing it sometimes.

Speaking of which, back to work.

These cards aren't gonna illustrate themselves.

Yesterday nearly 13,000 spaceships exploded in the system of Ouelletta during the 10th Annual Frigate Free For All event. It was by all accounts an unmitigated success and I think everyone had a great time. This year's event was, for me personally, the most fun I've ever had at one of the FF4A's I've hosted over the past fourteen years now. A large part of that was due to not having much to do once the event got started this year. I handed out ships, undocked, and got into a lot of fights. We had a great fleet up and I got to hang out with my Alliance mates for over seven hours on comms. All in all, a truly great day. 

I haven't said anything about this on the blog yet, but I almost died last week. I'm fine now, so let's get that out of the way first. But earlier last week I discovered I was in AFib and admitted myself into the Hospital. I was there for almost two full days while they worked to figure me out. Eventually they used cardioversion on me and shocked my heart back to normal. Which has held ever since. But that experience sure put a whole new perspective on things in my life, including my relationship to Eve Online and our community. It wasn't an epiphany or something mystical, but an experience like that does change things. Or it should. And, I must also admit, I feel so much better now. 

And much more positive. So seeing all the wonderful messages yesterday, local filling up with congratulations, thanks, and appreciation - it meant a tremendous amount to me personally. And I know it meant a lot to our team as well. All of whom put a lot of work into making this event happen, as they do every year. We had players in stations handing out ships who never got the chance to undock. And those people deserve all of our appreciation. I'll share one message I received which kind of sums up all the messages:

"Thank you so much for such a great event!  I was out there the entire six hours losing ships and getting a few kills along the way - 57 kills and 35 losses apparently, it was great fun.

I spent the last eight years away from the game, winning EVE.  I just came back in January and I've been languishing a bit since.  The FF4A was exactly what I needed to get back in the groove.

My heartfelt appreciation to you, Stay Frosty, ABA, and all the many people who helped and donated!  I know it's a lot of hard work putting something like this together, you all did a great job!"

I want to give a very special shout out to all the folks in Lucifer's Hammer who built the ships and mods we used yesterday. They deserve a huge amount of the credit for the success of this event. We are already thinking about next year and taking a fresh look at fits and ships to help us keep up with the meta changes in the game. This planning will be getting started as early as next week, it is never too early to start planning for next year.

We'll try to have the event earlier in the year again next year, hopefully in March. Unfortunately the Anger Games moved into our time slot after we announced our date and we'll try to avoid that issue next year. 

I hope everyone had a great time and enjoyed the event. I know the feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive. Sadly you all missed out on your one chance to see me pilot an Orca in space, maybe we can manage that at another point in the near future.

Thank you all for yet another great FF4A event.

The life of a Pirate in Eve Online is not an easy one. Fiercely independent. Criminal. Constantly harassed. Flagged. Tagged. Suspected. Marginalized. Dropped on. Blobbed. Despised. Oh baby. 

This kind of Piracy creates a special breed of player. A player who stands for independence, freedom, and the right to loot from the blingiest of fits as they see fit. This isn't piracy directed by a deathless NPC, but the kind of piracy that stems from a personal desire to be the best at your chosen craft - the martial art of Player Versus Player combat.

If this sounds like you, and it probably doesn't, then I encourage you to consider joining the tight-knit crazy people you will find flying the flag of Stay Frosty. For almost 11 years this nefarious gang of roughnecks has been sailing the seas of New Eden looking for the good fights. Exalting the merits of solo and small gang warfare built around the abilities of the individual, not the blob. This is no place for F1 Monkeys. 

We live by our Code. A legendary code of self-respect, honor, and support for your fellow pilots. We're not dicks. We give a good fight in local. We fight no matter the odds. And we stand for something. We believe that piracy on the field is not piracy off the field. That we can pew pew each other's faces and be the best of friends. Laughing at danger. And YOLO'ing into certain death. With a smile.

It is not an easy life. And it probably won't make you rich in iskies. You'll certainly need an alt or two to help you make an income. Did I mention it isn't an easy choice? I may have. Look, I get it, there will only be a small group of people reading this who think, this sounds like something I'd be interested in. And that's good. We don't want everyone to join, we only need you. A dedicated and determined few.

Stay Frosty has regular weekly fleets, sometimes two or three. We have daily Wolfpaks you can join. We're a casual, good fun group with an excellent and supportive community of players. We have an Alliance behind us with services you can easily fit an alt or two into. We've been at this for a long time and we know what we are doing.

Join our in-game channel EVEOGANDA to learn more. Or message one of our pilots. Hop on our Discord. Chat with one of us in-game. Find us in space and engage one of our pilots and ask for advice. However you decide to engage with us, we look forward to hearing from you.

Eve is a game. Let's play it. Together. And YARRR around space.

Its also the only way to guarantee we don't shoot you :)

When I started playing Eve almost 16 years ago now, I wanted anonymity. I was running a business and was already six years into a messy divorce before I even started playing this game. It was natural to assume I could just be a regular player and safely hide behind the screen. It was never my goal to cross-streams. But that was not what Eve wanted. Eve literally forced me to cross-streams, being Doxx'd twice will do that to a person. 

Over the last two decades I've made my fair share of mistakes on this platform. And I've owned up to all of them. Taken my lumps, learned my lessons, and moved on. And yet there remains a very small and dedicated contingent of players that simply won't let me do that. They keep the lies alive. Conflating things and mixing them up in a very large game of telephone*. Just the other day one of them tried telling people I was a registered sex offender. Good grief.

Look, none of this means anything to me. I have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide. My life at this point is an open book. You want to know something about me? Just ask. I even have a Discord set up just for that purpose - the link is over there in the sidebar. Come over, ask your questions and get your answers. Easy. You can even plant a spai in there if you want. But that contingent isn't interested in the truth, only in the lies. They believe that by repeating them over and over again... what exactly? One has to wonder, what is the purpose of doing that? Do they imagine I'll be cowered into quitting Eve Online? Or that my friends will suddenly turn against me?

Ain't happening. I'm annoying that way. I just won't go away.

There is more I could talk about. But I'm not going to give them the satisfaction. I encourage anyone to watch the following video which was shot during Fanfest last year if you want to know more.

DENIM DAY APRIL 24th 2024 

Join FUN INC and wear jeans and shoot spaceships with a purpose on the 25th anniversary of Denim Day. 

My first public event in Eve Online was a Deathrace. The idea was to gather a whole bunch of Eve players at one entrance to Providence and then race each other to the other side of the region. In the screenshot above you can see the starting gate and all those that showed up ready to see if they could make it to the other side.

I had no idea what I was doing. I'd never done anything like this before. So it was truly a live learning experience. Luckily back then I had the full support of the community and my Corporation at the time. Everyone was excited for the event and, even though it was full of flaws and miscalculations, it went off rather well. Lots of prizes were awarded and I think everyone had a good time.

Being a notorious perfectionist I was not satisfied however. And while I would host another three Deathraces in the coming years, the last of which drew over 400 entrants. The event never really manifested the excitement that it would seem to demand. What I mean is this - the "idea" of a Deathrace is much more exciting than its actual execution. The entire thing is counter-intuitive. It seems like it should work until you really start thinking about it. Especially with the game mechanic changes that continued to change the entire dynamic of travel in Eve Online. It became harder and harder to justify the event and the effort it took to host it.

What I needed was something that worked "with" the Eve mechanics, not against them. Even before the Deathrace came about, internally many of my early corps would hold internal PvP matches between members. If you are reading this I'm sure many of your own corps have held similar events internally over the years. These were always a lot of fun. I would never even pretend to have invented the concept of a Frigate Free For All - to be perfectly honest I have no idea where the idea came from. I believe it was much more of an organic response to those smaller internal competitions. And I know for sure that plenty of other groups and players have held FFAs over the years. 

Those first few FFA events were small compared to what will be happening tomorrow. In those days fitting ships was a huge barrier as each ship needed to be fitted one at a time. We'd hold hours long fitting parties and work our asses off just to get maybe 2,000 ships fitted in time. Hundreds of players would show up. And the event would usually run for an hour, maybe two. But they slowly and surely started to gain traction. And then two things happened that changed everything for us.

Multi-fit. And Structures. Suddenly we could fit massive amounts of ships at once, which allowed us to accumulate thousands of ships instead of hundreds. And we suddenly had a place to put them all, with the added benefit of tether. Tether was huge, because it removed the potential for one of the worst parts of our events up until then - station camping. This is why I made dozens of agreements with all of the major powers in our region regarding our structures in Ouelletta. We are not an empire building group, all we needed those structures for was the FF4A event each year. Surprisingly everyone agreed. Even those groups that you wouldn't believe would agree. They did. And so, for three years, we relied on those structures as the foundation for these annual events.

Turns out we didn't need them. The event itself has gotten so large that it exists on its own mass now. Over the years I've learned that the event needs very little management beyond planning and prep. After that it runs on its own fuel. It just happens. And letting it happen, on its own, is why it succeeds. It isn't a manufactured event as much as it is a party in local. A party that everyone is invited to. And if some of the guests who show up are asshats - well that is on them. The event is public, streamed, videoed, and experienced by thousands of players. Let Eve be Eve.

What will happen tomorrow? No one knows. All I know for sure is that we have 10,000 ships on hand. I know there are players planning special events and I know I have some special ships to undock. I know I have a lot of skins to hide in wrecks, cans, and other places. I know some people will show up with the intention of ruining the event and I know other players are showing up to ruin the ruiners attempts to ruin the event. (If that makes sense) And, most of all, I know it will be a lot of fun. Insanity. Craziness.

After all, it is a party. So let's party!

I hate having to waste time doing this, but just this week I got accused once again of stealing a donation. This line of BS has been going around since last year's FF4A. Supposedly I stole a donation from a donor. The truth is that the donation was of an officer-fitted Hel and not only couldn't Rixx fly one of those, but I had also forgotten to get it moved. So I contacted the donor and returned it. A FACT they were so happy about they donated an additional 10b ISK to the event.

You can read all that for yourself in the above screengrab of my Discord. Pay attention to the date stamps, they just happen to coincide with the post I made LAST YEAR about this. Especially the update where it says the Hel was contracted back on March 24, 2023. The same exact date in the bottom of the above exchange.

I hope this once and for all closes the door on this silly issue.

This Saturday Stay Frosty & A Band Apart will be hosting our 10th Annual FF4A Event in the system of Ouelletta and you are invited. Participating is easy. Ouelletta has a high-sec entrance as well as close access to multiple points of entry, so it is easy to get to. And we have three NPC stations, each of which is fully stocked with their share of over 10,000 fully fitted frigates we are going to be handing out to anyone that wants one. No matter what you do inside of Eve Online - this is your chance to experience the thrill of PvP with as little effort, risk, and loss as possible within the rules of the game.

This is why we do this every year. To give everyone the chance to experience frigate combat in Eve Online. Young, old, whatever background you come from - this event is for you. All you have to do is dock up in one of the stations and open a trade with anyone from our Alliance and they will hand you ships. Or they will open a trade with you. Either way, you'll be getting some ships to undock and have fun with.

As always there will be live streams running during the event, as well as lots of surprises along the way. Special ships will be undocking, CCP Devs might be in space, and plenty of familiar faces will be in local for you to shoot in the face. Who knows what might happen? 

All you have to do is show up, dock up, grab a free ship, and then undock and enjoy! And you can do that as many times as you like. If you are coming for the first time, let me share some advice:

• When you arrive, set your medical clone to station. We discourage podding, but accidents happen.

• When you do undock, warp off somewhere. Some of the best fights are happening at the Sun, or a belt, or off in space somewhere. Don't get trapped on the station if you can avoid it.

• If you are worried about sec status, turn your activity green and only shoot those that shoot you. It will help. And don't shoot pods! That will really help.

• We also discourage the use of bursts, smartbombs, and edencom ships in general. Feel free to report violations in local. Nothing works better than a thousand Frigates that are angry about something.

• If you want to bring something special, like a Dread or a Carrier, feel free. I appreciate knowing about it ahead of time, but that isn't necessary. You'll get noticed in local. Feeding a ship is a lot of fun and you'll get a fair amount of kills for your effort. But again, try not to fit smartbombs or ecm. Or bring an Apostle along to help you survive. No one appreciates that kind of attitude. This is supposed to be fun.

And that is really the big rule here - have fun. Every year we break our own records over and over again and I think this year has the potential to be the biggest one ever! So I hope to see you there in space with us. I'm sure there will be plenty of CCP Devs in local, famous streamers, and more players you recognize. And yes, I will be there letting you shoot me!

Be sure to share this post with your Corp and Alliance and help us spread the word.

I hope to see you there.

[This is a re-post of an article I originally wrote on July 13, 2022 and I think it needs to be said again. The original post has been edited and updated below.]

I made a miscalculation years ago and decided that I'd like to better understand another aspect of Eve commonly referred to as "the Meta Game".  A large part of what drew me to Eve Online in the first place was the community aspect, the global inter-related network of real people playing a video game together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week - that concept was appealing to me on many levels. So it only seemed natural to explore all of the areas that concept contained. And the "meta" game was one of them.

This post is not going to be a re-hash of my time manipulating events inside of Eve, or of the consequences that I endured as a result of sticking my head up out of the sand for a few minutes at a time. This is all ground better covered in many previous posts. Suffice to say that I stepped away from that cesspool of sewage years ago and haven't looked back since. I can assure you that my time and enjoyment of Eve Online has improved dramatically since then. 

Even so it hasn't escaped my notice that there has been a wave spreading around various channels regarding the actions of certain players. I won't be mentioning any names in this post and you don't even need to know who I'm referring to. It doesn't matter. What does matter is the same things that have always mattered, or should have mattered, and that is people's actions and behaviors. And the consequences of those. Much like the real world, the Eve community is grappling with those consequences. Call this process whatever hashtag you'd like, but the important thing is that victims are being heard and people are being held accountable. This is a good thing, way past due. The dark side is having a light shined in its face right now. Pretty much everywhere. And Eve is not immune.

I brought up the "meta" game experience earlier because during that stretch of time I encountered a lot of Eve players who I had only heard about previously. A few of those encounters were positive and they were good people. But the vast majority of those experiences were not good and I bumped heads with a lot of assholes during those days. Many of whom still play Eve today, others who stepped away for various reasons and have returned under new branding. And many more who have vanished into the mists of time. Which is probably the best solution for them.

Why does Eve attract such people? The truth is it doesn't, at least not anymore or less than other places - because these types of people are everywhere. Sadly. And this is the entire point - they are everywhere. And thankfully that light is sweeping into all the corners and finding them. Rooting them out and exposing them. Personally I believe this is a good thing. We need to reckon with these issues instead of pretending they don't exist. And we need to better understand that actions and behaviors have consequences, especially for the victims involved. Because they do. And they will.

I do want to encourage you however. Eve can be a dark game at times, but not all corners of the universe are this way. Speaking personally for a moment my own Alliance A Band Apart and Stay Frosty has had a zero tolerance policy in place since day one. Over the years we've had our own challenges with edgelords and people with their own issues - and we've dealt with those quickly and decisively. Both in-game and out-of-game. There are plenty of other groups out there who also encourage positivity, enjoyment and community. 

When we work together to keep our edge where it should be, inside of Eve, we benefit all players. The "meta" game is not an excuse for bad behavior and nor should it be. Actions have consequences and the more we tolerate bad actors both inside and outside of Eve - the more those consequences harm not only individual players - but the game itself.

Will Eve ever be a wholesome Disney play-land of sunshine and happiness? No, of course not, and that shouldn't even be a goal. Eve should always be a harsh universe full of consequences. But that doesn't mean we have to be dicks either inside of the game or outside of the game. Doing so is a choice. 

Don't be a dick.

Whew. Every so often everything seems to hit at once. And this week was one of those weeks. I just finished creating my second billboard video for the in-game billboard system in Eve Online - so keep your eyes open for a video billboard promoting the upcoming Anger Games 6 (starting on April 13th and running for three weekends!) and for the upcoming FF4A Event on Saturday April 20th in Ouelletta. Hopefully they should be appearing in-game shortly.

In addition work on the Board Game continues every single day. Although lately it has been pretty quiet while the team at Titan Forge was away at a convention and the Easter holiday vacations. So that was a nice break. Although I've still been working on it, I am waiting on some further developments and decisions. Nothing unusual there, this is all normal. I did finish another package design just yesterday. So we're moving.

I'm also working with another Eve player who is creating an NPSI Fleet event to help promote the fact that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I've created some graphics in support and helped him contact CCP for their help promoting the event. I had never heard of Demin Day before, but you can learn more about this important date by following this link. I'm sure I'll have more information about this event in the coming weeks. So stay tuned.

I also managed to finish two new Alliance logos this week. And I think I'll be appearing over on Talking In Stations on Sunday to help promote the Frigate Free For All - although I suspect we'll talk about all the other things as well. More details when I know more.

Pretty normal week in many ways. Always busy around here.

Anyway, more to come.

NOTE: Feel free to steal the graphic above and use it to help promote the event on your Discord. It is even sized to be used as a Discord Event Banner if you'd like.

On Saturday April 20th in Ouelletta we will be hosting the 10th Annual Frigate Free For All and YOU are invited to participate. We've recently moved over 10,000 Fully Fitted Frigates into each of our three NPC stations - all of them ready and waiting to be handed out in a frantic, insane 6 hours of madness. 

Why do we do this to ourselves every year? The answer is simple - to give everyone the opportunity to experience the thrill of Eve Online PvP, large scale battles, 1v1s in space, and insane chances to get in on some crazy kills you might never see in space again. Over the years this event has seen Dreads exploded, Marshals vanquished, Carriers removed, Orcas scream for help and thousands upon thousands of Frigates, Destroyers, and much more reduced to ash. All in as safe and easy an environment as we can create inside of this universe. 

All you have to do is show up, dock up, grab a free ship, and then undock and enjoy! And you can do that as many times as you like. If you are coming for the first time, let me share some advice:

• When you arrive, set your medical clone to station. We discourage podding, but accidents happen.

• When you do undock, warp off somewhere. Some of the best fights are happening at the Sun, or a belt, or off in space somewhere. Don't get trapped on the station if you can avoid it.

• If you are worried about sec status, turn your activity green and only shoot those that shoot you. It will help. And don't shoot pods! That will really help.

• We also discourage the use of bursts, smartbombs, and edencom ships in general. Feel free to report violations in local. Nothing works better than a thousand Frigates that are angry about something.

• If you want to bring something special, like a Dread or a Carrier, feel free. I appreciate knowing about it ahead of time, but that isn't necessary. You'll get noticed in local. Feeding a ship is a lot of fun and you'll get a fair amount of kills for your effort. But again, try not to fit smartbombs or ecm. Or bring an Apostle along to help you survive. No one appreciates that kind of attitude. This is supposed to be fun.

And that is really the big rule here - have fun. Every year we break our own records over and over again and I think this year has the potential to be the biggest one ever! So I hope to see you there in space with us. I'm sure there will be plenty of CCP Devs in local, famous streamers, and more players you recognize. And yes, I will be there letting you shoot me!

Be sure to share this post with your Corp and Alliance and help us spread the word.

Onward & Upward.

Not going to lie, March was a good month for PvP. I made a special effort this month to try some ships I hadn't flown in a long time and also refine some of our Saturday doctrines for fleet. In total I managed to score 233 kills and only lose 9 ships. 46 of those kills were solo. That's 14.52b ISK removed from the space lanes while losing 2b, most of which came down to two of those losses. It doesn't hurt your month when coming back from a long two hour roam and finding a Kronos on the gate in your home system.

Pretty solid month. Most of my losses were unavoidable or mistakes of over confidence. I attacked a ratting Thorax in my Comet hoping he'd be PvE fit and he wasn't. I landed right on top of a Catalyst with blasters. I was blobbed to death on a bait Vexor and lost a Legion. And I went on a murder spree and killed seven ships before the locals mounted a proper defense and finally stopped me. All of which was good fun. Those kinds of losses are never going to stop because if I ever stop trying then I might as well stop playing. I might have failed 9 times, but I succeeded 233 times.

As always, much room for improvement. Couple of rare moments last month, I did manage to score kills with both a Vargur and a Panther - which is extremely unusual. So that is always awesome. I did mostly stick to the local neighborhoods in March with only three trips to Null Sec and two trips into WH space. Just yesterday I was in four different regions of Low Sec, a WH, and a NS region. But it is always good to spread the yarrr around.

But now it is April and twenty days from today will be our 10th Annual FF4A Event on April 20th. So April is shaping up to be a very exciting month! Can't wait.

Until next time.

Traditionally I haven't shared details about this blogs performance numbers in the past. Mostly because I don't put a lot of weight on those and barely pay any attention to them. They go up, they go down, and generally I write and share here in these pages for myself and all those that stop by to read and look at pretty pictures. I don't make a dime from traffic, or selling ads, or monetize this blog in any way - other than one. It is the driver behind my Eve Partnership Program obviously, and has been since 2010. I've made no secret of that, I've been in the various states of the program for 14 years now. Which is something I am quite humbly proud of.

But yesterday I was changing the link on my new Discord and noticed that a rather large milestone had been passed - so I thought now might be the time to share. At some point over the weekend Eveoganda passed the 5 million visitor mark. And that seemed to be a large enough event that it warranted its own mention. I've been writing this magazine for 14 years and 2 months, or 170 months now. A number which seems insane when it is written out like that. I truly must be nuts. Which means we've averaged about 29,000 visitors a month over that time span. Now, to be clear, these are not "unique" visitors and they do not include my own visits - those are not counted. I used to have a paid system behind the scenes to keep track of all that, but I stopped paying for that years ago. So now it is just a simple counter that doesn't break things down for me very much. Which is fine.

I can tell you that the highest visitor month was way back in April 2013 when a little over 112k people visited the site. Which happens to be the same month I left the Tuskers and started Stay Frosty. And the slowest month was in May 2019 when barely 6k people visited the site, which is when I was barely writing or playing because I was working a new job at the time. The rest fall in-between those numbers with the largest concentrations being extremely cyclical over the past 14 years, lots of ups and downs. As you might imagine, blogs are not the shiny golden things they used to be.

All of which only makes me appreciate my readers even more to be honest. And that is my personal take-away from all the bullshit about numbers. That people still find value in my words, my art, my comics, my stories, and my adventures in Eve enough to stop by and do the hard thing - actually read. I sincerely appreciate that time and effort. And I do strive to make your visit as entertaining as possible.

So I'll keep plugging along. The great news is that I've never had to post twerking videos to generate numbers and I think that is something we can all be thankful for.

Onward and Upward.

The folks at Titan Forge have been away at a convention for the past few days so I thought I'd take the opportunity to explore my art and try something new that I have never tried before. I've been thinking about this for a long time and finally decided on a new approach to drawing spaceships that I've never really seen anywhere. (Who really knows? There is so much art these days.) A more graphical approach but without using Illustrator or any mechanical means to help me. Still hand drawn, but extremely high-contrast flat shapes. With just a limited amount of shading when it comes to some of the lighting. The only shading in that image is for the two main lights, which really works well to draw attention to them.

That represents four days of work. Mixed in with some paying work for a client, a couple of Alliance logos, and whatnots. I'm not getting paid for this kind of thing sadly. But I'm extremely pleased with the results and the possibilities this opens up for me in my work. 

You might not know this but I've been having a slight crisis regarding my work lately. I've been working so hard on the board game this past year and my abilities have really benefitted from the experience, which is all good. But it has come at a cost. I feel like I've hit a dead end when it comes to illustrating and rendering spaceships in space. Like, how much better can I get at it? (Probably a lot better tbh!) But my creative mind is never happy and I'm always trying to challenge myself and try new things. So that is where this all comes from. I got to do a lot of new things on the Board Game project but after a year of working on that project my brain needs a distraction.

So I think this piece will be the first of two pieces, with the other one being the Mekubal. I have no idea when I'll get some free time to complete that one, but it will be the next piece.

The Khizriel will be going up on my store later today or tomorrow. So keep an eye out for it.

PS: A few people have asked me about my process on this piece. So typically I take a shit ton of reference shots. I crank up the video card to MAX settings and go get as much reference as I think I'll need. I have a two monitor set-up in my studio. The iMacPro 5k retina desktop and sitting beside it is my WacomPro 36. So I can bring up the selected reference while drawing on one or the other, it sorta depends on what style I'm working in at the moment. I typically paint on the Wacom and draw on the Mac, but that can change. (Its more a "feel" thing) This ship is a weird one and I wanted to make sure I got the feel of it right, I've drawn a few of these for the board game, but nothing like this. Those two prongs are especially challenging. The real skill in this type of drawing is to get the basic shape right from the beginning and that took some time, but once that was done the rest was just hard work and lots of judgement calls. What to include, what to suggest, what to ignore, how much detail, versus how much does lighting count - really just a thousand decisions.

At some point along the way I realized that I couldn't go flat with everything. The main two lights in the middle would just look like giant balls of color. That actually ended up working better as it helped to create this center-focus for the piece. The lights themselves are still relatively flat, but I used color and a very slight glow to help illuminate them. I think it worked perfectly.

WWI Flying Aces, Dog-Fights, Aerial Combat, The Peanuts, Red Baron, Monty Python, Star Wars - so many historical and cultural references are tied up in my brain when it comes to why I am so passionate about solo and small gang warfare in Eve Online. It's in my blood. Tales of daring, adventure, courage, all pushed into my mind when I was young and impressionable. And refused to let go. Every time I undock into space I hope to capture just a little of that thrill and excitement. At least as much as Eve will allow.

Almost two years ago now I started committing to FC'ing regular Saturday fleets - what I've come to call our Flying Circus fleets. This was a relatively new idea inside of Stay Frosty. Of course we'd had fleets before, but the idea of regularly scheduled weekly fleets was something new for us. My life was too chaotic beforehand to allow for it. These fleets took time to grow and develop, and back in those early days I used them mainly to help teach fleet tactics and strategy to our members. Over time however the teaching has been replaced with doctrines and more refined strategies. Due in large part to the growing experience and skill of our pilots. 

Other players were not overly enthusiastic about these changes in our Corporation. And back then we'd get a lot of angry comments from other players. For some reason Stay Frosty wasn't allowed to be organized, or disciplined, or effective. In their minds we had a lane and we were damned well supposed to stay in that lane. All of which is hilarious of course. Like I said, this was nothing new - it was just that now we were doing it more often than before. 

While we were well-known for our kitchen sink approach in the past, we also often would fly doctrine fleets as well. Most of those stemmed from our long tournament history in the various tournaments and organized events around the community. But we'd primarily relegate those to defensive actions and structure defenses typically. But then other FCs in Stay Frosty would also put together structured fleets from time to time, such as Prda's Null Sec roams and others. Inside of Stay Frosty it has always been my goal to encourage anyone to step up and put something together they are interested in trying - so why not take my own advice?

This Saturday's fleet was a lot of fun as you can see from this Battle Report. It isn't often we come back home to find a Kronos on scan. Especially one willing to stick around and fight.

These regular fleets are something I look forward to each week and I think they have also helped me to become an even better FC. Which has also had a positive effect on my regular flying as well. My history in Eve has been rather chaotic over the years and it was often challenging to find time to play on a regular schedule. So it has been really great to be able to find a more regular schedule over the past two years.

A week ago we welcomed pilots from Eve University into our fleet. And we regularly have guests join us on these roams. Pilots from Mass Hysteria, the Potato Alliance, and others often join up with us on our Saturday roams. If that sounds like fun to you feel free to contact one of us in-game in the EVEOGANDA public channel, or send me an eve mail, or join my new Discord to talk about it.

As always Stay Frosty is constantly looking for new pilots to join us and YARRR around the universe. Just like those flying aces of lore. Except we can't be killed and this is just a game. But, other than that, just like them.

We are one month away from the 10th Annual Stay Frosty & ABA Frigate Free For All, which will be held on Saturday April 20th from 16:00 until 22:00 in our home system of Ouelletta.

Over 10,000+ FREE fully-fitted Frigates and Destroyers will be available to anyone who docks in one of the three stations in system. Simply dock and you will be traded ships. You can then undock and have a blast fighting the rest of New Eden. And keep doing that as long as you'd like. Over and over again. If you have never participated before, you are in for a unique experience. And if you have, then you already know what I'm talking about. There simply is nothing else like it in Eve. A major fleet battle with Frigates in which everyone is trying to kill everyone else. It is madness.

Each ship has been especially designed to be flown by players of all ages. And along the way many other players will be undocking or arriving in local with special ships you can also freely engage. Some on purpose and others because they think the FF4A is a great place to get kills. So I highly recommend keeping your eyes on local chat, because there will be a lot of things happening and you won't want to miss any of them. 

As always we ask that all participants avoid podding other pilots during the event. This makes it much easier for pilots to re-ship in local and undock again. Podding will be monitored and excessive podding will be cause for flagging and organized response. We also ask that you avoid using burst jammers or smart bombs during the event. This is supposed to be a fun event for players to experience the thrill of PvP with minimal consequences, many for the very first time, so let's all try to keep that in mind.

Over the years I've heard countless stories from players about how the FF4A event was their first time experiencing PvP in Eve. These kinds of stories are why I keep doing this event each year. Within the confines of Eve Online this is the best way I could come up with to get players to try PvP and have fun while doing it - all while removing one of the barriers to that goal - personal loss. The ships are FREE, so treat them like you stole them. Have fun.

In the week leading up to the event I will have more posts available detailing more details about the event. But I wanted to once again mention it now, so that everyone can get it on their schedules. We look forward to seeing you in space. I expect that many CCP Devs will be joining us, along with streamers and other players of note. And you'll obviously have a chance to pew pew the Pirate Lord in the face and add him to your killboard.

Let's have a great event and break some more records this year!