Focus

I chatted for awhile with Sugar last night about blogs and blogging.  I'm now on Sugar's blog roll, which (while I know she doesn't mean it that way) is a nice acknowledgement of the effort I've put in here.  Some of you are reading this because Sugar linked to me; thanks for stopping in and thanks for putting up with me.

I joked that her adding me was "omg, so much pressure."  As in: oh crap, now I have to produce more content.  There was a short conversation that followed that basically amounted to: write about what you like and let the chips fall where they may.

My kneejerk reaction was "well of course, duh" but as I sit here several hours later thinking about it, I realized that it's maybe time to reflect on what this blog is and where it's going and that might help me figure out what to do next.

I started this as a creative outlet; a means to put a voice to some of the ideas I was having about what PVE could be in EVE, and vent some frustration about what opportunities have been squandered.  Since I am largely on my own as a player, and I am reasonably wealthy enough (I am NOT rich in the modern-EVE sense, but min/max isk/hr isn't a strong motivator in my gameplay), having this blog is something that keeps me motivated and focused on the game.

On an administrative note, I try to post 3x per week in order to a) not kill myself and b) keep some sort of momentum.  Often that dips to 1x or 2x per week, and that's probably unavoidable.

At the start, I used big words like 'manifesto,' made up a term/label (post-bittervetism) and ranted a little bit, sometimes with borderline coherency.

And then something amazing happened.  Things I was stomping around about actually started to trickle into the game.  Frigate-sized lvl4 content.  PVE content.  It isn't how I would have done it, but there it was.  (Note: I'm not taking credit for influencing/creating Anomic Agents; the CSM minutes indicate that CCP was already onto this idea and the timeline is coincidence).

I've spent my available time since the Hyperion patch trying to master all the Anomics as they were offered.

And although I don't write this blog to gain traffic/hits, I did notice immediately that my battle reports got a lot of attention.  People like me were struggling with the new content and were looking for resources.  I was suddenly one of those resources.  And that was pretty cool.

So I narrowed my focus a bit and this blog went from some crazy old-timer's thoughts to a chain of battle reports and how-to's for the Anomics.  I let it run maybe farther than I should have, but I'm happy with the result.  I'm hopeful that the static content on the menu-bar is helping people get through Anomic agents.  I don't claim to be an expert of frigate warfare, but I tried to report my kills as honestly as I could based on what I experienced.

And I learned a ton about fitting frigates in the interim.  I've flown hulls I barely knew existed, I pushed my own comfort level in fitting faction modules (I've always been a t2 kind of guy), and I (finally!) know the difference between all the missile rigs.

Despite the fact that lvl4 Buzz Kill seems to spawn so often (ugh), it's been good clean fun.

So what's next?  It's the holiday season, and I expect things to be a little slow overall.  I'm still focused on PVE content and would like to refine some of my fits.  Ideally, I'd develop some poor-man's fits for the easier Anomics and try to help guys who don't have deep t2 ship skills or the isk to dump on a Garmur or Daredevil.  I've been meaning to try highsec exploration but can't seem to shake the loyalty point grind (precious, precious LP).

In the short term, I'm going to go back to the origins of the blog and post some introspective things about being a post-bittervet.  I might venture into some more personal stuff, although in general I try to stay on topic.

Said another way:  I'm going to widen my focus a bit, try to write about more things.  Maybe some of them will be interesting. :)


What's Playing:  The Black Keys, Psychotic Girl