I know I already mentioned this in a previous post-FF4A article, but Eveoganda is also a journal of my Eve career and it felt weird not giving it a post all on its own.
For some pilots in Eve, like some of my fellow pilots in Stay Frosty, the 10k milestone is well in their respective rear-view mirrors. For many others however, 10k total kills will remain a milestone they will never achieve. So it remains somewhere in the realm of "finally!" and "What took you so long!?" for me. I will freely admit that reaching this specific milestone has been a goal of mine for a very long time, almost as long as I've been playing Eve. So, in that respect, it has tremendous meaning to me personally. As you all know, if you've been reading this blog for more than a minute, I'm not a kill-board watcher and it means very little beyond being a record of my game career. It is challenging to write about it meaning something to me, while also trying to say that it means very little. That conundrum is at the heart of many of us PvP-centric pilots inside of Eve. And I've had this specific debate for a very long time.
This is when I typically mention that my total is more likely in the 10,500 range, given that way back in the day many old kills were lost when BattleClinic stopped operating and the way kills were tallied was changed. I won't mention it this time, because no one really cares about that ancient history now.
I did try and work it out so that my 10,000th kill happened at the FF4A and that actually worked out rather perfectly. It required me to derp a few more ships than I had planned, but I landed on the number exactly. That precision wasn't planned.
I do take a lot of pride in my kill-board and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I personally believe that every PvP-centric player in Eve should take a measure of pride in their kill-board. Caveats abound when saying something as bold as that, but I feel they are important to mention. Kill-boards should not run your play, nor should they determine outcomes, nor should they be relied upon to determine future actions. They are what they are, but what they are is also a reflection of you as a player, how you choose to play the game, and how well those decisions are working out for you. And that cannot be denied.
I've been -10 for well over a decade now and I play Eve on Hard Mode on purpose. I take fights I shouldn't take, I take risks I shouldn't take, and I love every minute of it. I've also hosted 15 in-game events in which I often derp big ships and small ships, and usually very expensive ships (like the Marshal, Thanny, and BS ships on Saturday) which also impacts my kill-board significantly. My Marshal loss on Saturday was the single most expensive loss of the day.
And yet I still manage to maintain a 79% efficiency and a +75% win rate, both of which are not easy in my line of work. All while being, how to say this, rather easily identifiable in local situations. I do attract a lot of attention in local. But I wouldn't change that. Not for anything. I love it.
I do fear that all of that text above makes it seem like I'm being an apologist for my kill-board. And that is certainly not true. But there it is.
Another milestone, another mark on a long journey. And now on to 15k and 20k.