Just over a week ago, I ignored my gut instinct – the first ‘suspicious feeling’ I’ve had since opening recruitment for TOURING – and let in a new member who pretty much immediately started attacking and podkilling his new corp buddies. I immediately went into damage control and got people alerted of the fact there was an AWOXer in the corp.
Despite his bragging that he’d be in the corp forever because he couldn’t be kicked out unless he was docked, I kicked him out by logging in after downtime just before he did. I think he learnt a valuable lesson that he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.
Before he left, however, he had a private conversation with me that he would let me kick him out of the corp if I paid him 500 million ISK. And if I didn’t, then he would get his alt highsec wardec corp to wardec TOURING and get that 500 million ISK one way or the other. I told him we don’t negotiate with terrorists and closed the conversation.
The war began, I kicked him out, and now the war is in its final hours – and we haven’t lost any corp members to them. This is something I’m extremely thankful for, that the corp members have been learning what I’ve been teaching them, about how to stay safe when at war. The more experience they have at it, the better they’ll become.
I won’t be ignoring my ‘suspicious feelings’ in the future, that’s for sure. I need to trust that sixth sense of mine.
Moving into nullsec
One of the activities we’ve engaged in during this war is encouraging people to make their way into nullsec, to find relative safety down there that will protect them from the highsec wardec griefers, who won’t go where they won’t be safe. Cowards will always act that way, so if you want to avoid playing the game according to the cowards’ terms, then change the battlefield. Go into nullsec. They won’t follow.
One of our new blues encouraged us to join them in nullsec, in Providence. They pointed out an area they felt would be suitable as a ‘safe haven’, allowing TOURING members to engage in PVE activities around there without being bothered too much by roaming gangs of marauders. And being in Providence, there was also an element of safety provided by CVA and their friends.
So I decided to lead by example. I flew from my last travel location and made my way to Providence, to ‘set up base’ in the recommended system. I then advised the corp members about this, and encouraged all the members to make the journey, to experience something new, to enjoy the travel, and to enjoy new experiences in a new area of the game, away from the hazards of war.
An exodus occurred. Many of our members made the move, at least just to see what it was like. Many of them lost ships along the way, but they learned lessons about travelling through nullsec, and for many of them, they saw nullsec for the first time.
And the bubbles. Some of them had never seen warp bubbles before. It was an exciting time!
Jump clones
And the jump clones. For all of us – including myself – it was a new lesson that player outposts in nullsec would allow jump clone creation. Many of the stations in Providence are opened to neutrals and blues (but not reds), allowing them the ability to create jump clones. We had some interesting discussions in corp chat about how jump clones worked, and there was lots of new things for us all to learn.
There’s always something new to experience and learn in Eve. I love it.
