[Jester's Trek] Best of 2012: 15 - 11
Best of 2012: 15 - 11
As I stated yesterday, I'm combining a "Best of 2012" retrospective with a good old-fashioned pledge drive.
If anything you've read on this blog this year has made you smile, made you laugh, saved your ship, made you some ISK, or otherwise got you through a boring work day, gate camp, tower bash, or fleet op, I'm here asking that you throw a little ISK my way. It doesn't have to be a lot; just whatever you can afford. Alternately, if you have assets scattered around that you have been too lazy to get rid of or don't want any more, those are just as valuable to me. Contract them over and I'll find new owners for them or I'll put them to work myself.
Either way, send your contributions to Ripard Teg. And let me know in an EVE mail if you want the fact that you contributed to be public or not. Thank you to Xurr, Keirsu, Doc Stryker, Lloyd Derrick, Revman Zim, Tiye Q, and truth87, all of whom sent generous donations, along with very kind comments about the blog. truth87, in particular, in addition to contracting me a big pile of ore and lots and lots of other stuff, also contracted me an enormous pile of rare items: T1 modules. ;-) My industrial alt is going to be flush with minerals for weeks! Thank you so much, everyone. Your support really means a lot.
I'll be shaking the tin cup over the next few days in the "Best of" posts, concluding with what I thought was my best post of 2012 on Friday.
And if you don't want to contribute, that's perfectly fine, too. I blog because I enjoy it, not for profit. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll continue to do so. :-)
#15: Projectionist
Sometimes, people send me questions. And usually, I'll EVE mail them a short (or sometimes long) answer and that's that. But sometimes those questions launch me into full-on blogging mode. I got just such a question today from someone who sent in a donation as a matter of fact, so watch for that post in a day or two. ;-) In the meantime, there was this one. A long post about the importance of damage projection started with a simple question: "Should I still fit HMLs on my Drakes and Tengus after the nerf?" If "damage projection" isn't in your EVE vocabulary yet, you should definitely read this one.
#14: Sow the wind
Jester's Trek is a blog about the big picture. Only rarely do I write posts about stuff that I'm doing, and usually only if I feel that stuff is instructive somehow. This post was more typical. Feeling somewhat philosophical about the new T1 cruisers, I looked for "what it all meant" in terms of how all the T1 cruisers were being modified and what those changes might mean in terms of the big picture. The answer I came up with might surprise you. In particular, it was interesting to see the change of direction CCP Fozzie imposed on CCP in just his first few weeks working there.
#13: Pottermore
This was a CSM-related post, this time about CSM6. I thought it would be fun to compare the outgoing CSM to characters from literature, in this case, Harry Potter characters. ;-) It was a written political cartoon, meant affectionately overall, but it certainly included a lot of sting where I felt that was warranted. And it was such a fun mental exercise -- as well as amusing in its own right -- that I'm doing it again for CSM7 in a month or so. As for this one, it turned prophetic when Mittens -- who I characterized as Gilderoy Lockhart -- did indeed Obliviate himself. More on that further up the list.
#12 (tie): Big pile of stuff with a cover on it
#12 (tie): Dumbing up
People always accuse me of going negative against CCP about just about everything, so I have to remind them that when I think CCP has done something smart, I point it out. Here are two examples of that this year, and in both cases I did my best to cool a little player rage about a new feature that was controversial with the players. In one case, it was the Unified Inventory, which I was a big fan of right out of the gate. In the other case, it was all of the module renaming and simplifying that happened early this year, which I also thought was a very smart move on CCP's part.
#11: Total war
On the other hand, I was not a big fan of the war-dec ally system. At the time, I described the way allies in war-decs worked as a screwed-up bass-ackward system and I still pretty much feel that way. But when I really delved into it -- looking at a "forever war" that was essentially declared against the Goons for a change -- I'm afraid that I felt like CCP was also being a bit hypocritical at essentially protecting EVE bullies from the consequences of their actions. The system itself? It created an environment where it's literally cheaper to declare war on big alliances by waiting for them to declare war on someone, then sign up as that someone's ally. It's silly, and it's where we still are today.
Tomorrow: #10 through #6.
Source: Best of 2012: 15 - 11