This post features Mynxee, a long-time Eve player and well-known Pirate, who took a 3 year hiatus from New Eden. You can catch up with her regularly at her blog Outlaw Insouciant.
• Tell us about your background in Eve
I discovered Eve in Feb 2007 when I got the urge to game again a few years after my long-time gaming group had dispersed to the winds due to real life. As soon as I saw the first trailer, I created a trial account. I was awestruck the first time I undocked. Having never played an MMO before and seeing all this gorgeous and endless space with total freedom to just...go there...and knowing that lots of those other ships were flown by real people...just kinda blew my mind. I subbed after only 2 days.
That first character was a carebear and explorer. Within a few days of subbing, I was contacted by someone ingame and invited to a chat channel where I learned about corporations and why it was a good idea to join one. So I joined and luckily they were helpful, friendly folk who taught me a lot about the basics. Over time and several other corps, I learned more and ventured out more and more to do high sec exploration. I decided at some point to cut through Egghelende, a notoriously dangerous low sec system. Predictably, my cruiser was ganked by pirates. Some anti-pirates (who used to be pirates) jumped the pirates that killed my ship but they also got their asses handed to them. However, we started chatting and in that way I learned all about the pirate lifestyle. It REALLY appealed to me and I vowed to create a pirate character.
Mynxee was born in May 2007 but spent the first few months serving my main as a hauler while training up combat related skills. Finally one day I just said screw it, and joined a pirate corp (Death of Virtue). We lived in Deacon and despite it being one of a two connected low sec systems entirely surrounded by high sec, had a great old time ganking short-cutters and camping the gate. I learned quite a lot and also had my first solo kill there (Rifter vs. another frigate, can't recall what it was). Mynxee soon evolved into my main and my first character became a very handy alt (she was later sold and has been a Goon since then).
After spending time in a few corps and not finding quite what I wanted, I formed Hellcats (a women-only pirate corp). We had some fun randomly terrorizing low sec for nearly two years, flying with a lot of different folks in the process. The responsibilities involved in running Hellcats became burdensome so I decided to join Noir. to get a taste of the merc lifestyle. The worst part of all that was grinding my sec status back up so I could participate in high sec ops! Had some great times in Noir., lots of interesting fights and many good memories. While in Noir., I ran for CSM5 and got elected as Chair. During my term as I was busy with CSM, I decided the merc life was too demanding and joined VETO., long a dream of mine. CSM conspired to consume much of my time and I had little actual time (or desire) to actually play Eve.
After my CSM term concluded, I was burned out and decided to take a long (and maybe permanent) hiatus from Eve. I gave all my billions' worth of ISK (mainly won by playing Eve Online Holdem plus character sales) and assets away and unsubbed my accounts. But I kept up with a few blogs and occasionally on Twitter, primarily interested in what the CSM was up to and how it was evolving.
In April 2014, I got a new computer that could actually run Eve (my old PC had died just after my CSM term). Eve had enjoyed a lot of good fixes and I got the urge to fly spaceships again. So I resubbed looking for a no-responsibility, casual low sec pirate experience.
• How did you first hear about A Band Apart?
On Rixx' blog and his posts on Twitter.
• What is it that you enjoy the most about your Corp/Alliance?
The laid-back, no-fucks-given, go-for-it attitude. Despite being in a helpful, friendly alliance full of active pilots, I prefer wandering around low sec mostly by myself looking for solo fights in a Rifter, wormhole-hopping in my Rapier or Hound just to see where it takes me, or simply sight-seeing in low and null sec in a cloaky ship. There's not pressure to fit a certain way, fly a certain way, or anything. It perfect fits the casual way I want to enjoy the game these days.
• What have you learned since joining?
Well, considering it's been 3 years since I played, I am learning something new every day because the game has changed a LOT in that time. I'm sure my corpmates are having a good laugh about my noob questions behind my back! But it's okay because I stumped them the other day when I asked what the shortcut key was for displaying brackets in space. No one knew so I actually had to look it up in the Shortcuts menu. :P
• Do you have any advice for players just getting started?
Do crazy random stuff, try things, ask questions, find a good helpful corp to join (like Stay Frosty or one of the other A Band Apart corps).
• What are your goals for yourself, and your Corp?
My goal is just to have fun, blow lots of stuff up, and try not to lose ships on too grand a scale ;D I'm free of having to think or worry about any corp goals, thank the gods.
• Do you have a funny Eve story you can share?
How much time do you have? Could tell stories all night :)
Myself and another Hellcat (a very new player only a few weeks into the game) were roaming one night with some members of The Bastards. We ransomed a mission ship for 100,000,00 ISK but he accidentally sent 1,000,000,000 ISK instead. The ethics of the situation was considered...should we return the excess or not? One clever Bastard suggested that we were such good pirates that our victim felt it necessary to tip us 900,000,000 ISK. So of course we kept it all. Never heard a peep from the victim about it, so he must have had so much ISK he didn't know what to do with it or else was too embarrassed to admit having made such a big mistake. Either way, it made for a good payout. Everyone--including the Hellcat newbie member--got well over 100M. Pretty awesome, esp. for that few-weeks-old character!
Another night out with the Bastards, 12 of us in frigates and assault frigates discovered a Rorqual about 10K outside the POS shields. This was when they were quite new in the game and very expensive. As I recall, we considered whether to ransom or kill and decided the kill would be more fun because we were all in frigates. So, we tackled him and bumped him further away from the POS, then proceeded to (slowly) kill him. The POS guns failed to do any significant damage as we were about our business due to our frigate speedtanking and also (as we learned later from the victim) the fact that the guns were not properly configured. We kept expecting help to show up for the poor pilot but no one did. Once the Rorq was dead, we had a fleetmate go two jumps to buy a hauler and salvagers so we could loot and salvage the ship...all of which took about 20 minutes. Still no sign of help from our victim's corp and remarkably, no interference from anyone else passing through! The victim later told us that it was a small corp and no one was available. I think we ended up selling the loot back to the victim, who was a pretty good sport about it all considering the cost of a Rorqual in those days. It was another nice payday for us pirates and a sweet kill :)
• What is your favorite thing about Rixx? (lol)
He's chill. :) And quite artistically talented. And oh yeah, good looking. (He paid me to say that.)
(EDITOR: I did not actually pay her to say that.)
Thinking about a life of piracy? Or maybe one just hanging out with Pirates? Either way the Corporations of A Band Apart have got you covered. Wormholes, High-Sec, or scum-sucking Pirates! And we all play together and support each other. How about that? Join our in-game channels EVEOGANDA and or The Frosty Hammer to learn more.
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