Yesterday nearly 13,000 spaceships exploded in the system of Ouelletta during the 10th Annual Frigate Free For All event. It was by all accounts an unmitigated success and I think everyone had a great time. This year's event was, for me personally, the most fun I've ever had at one of the FF4A's I've hosted over the past fourteen years now. A large part of that was due to not having much to do once the event got started this year. I handed out ships, undocked, and got into a lot of fights. We had a great fleet up and I got to hang out with my Alliance mates for over seven hours on comms. All in all, a truly great day.
I haven't said anything about this on the blog yet, but I almost died last week. I'm fine now, so let's get that out of the way first. But earlier last week I discovered I was in AFib and admitted myself into the Hospital. I was there for almost two full days while they worked to figure me out. Eventually they used cardioversion on me and shocked my heart back to normal. Which has held ever since. But that experience sure put a whole new perspective on things in my life, including my relationship to Eve Online and our community. It wasn't an epiphany or something mystical, but an experience like that does change things. Or it should. And, I must also admit, I feel so much better now.
And much more positive. So seeing all the wonderful messages yesterday, local filling up with congratulations, thanks, and appreciation - it meant a tremendous amount to me personally. And I know it meant a lot to our team as well. All of whom put a lot of work into making this event happen, as they do every year. We had players in stations handing out ships who never got the chance to undock. And those people deserve all of our appreciation. I'll share one message I received which kind of sums up all the messages:
"Thank you so much for such a great event! I was out there the entire six hours losing ships and getting a few kills along the way - 57 kills and 35 losses apparently, it was great fun.
I spent the last eight years away from the game, winning EVE. I just came back in January and I've been languishing a bit since. The FF4A was exactly what I needed to get back in the groove.
My heartfelt appreciation to you, Stay Frosty, ABA, and all the many people who helped and donated! I know it's a lot of hard work putting something like this together, you all did a great job!"
I want to give a very special shout out to all the folks in Lucifer's Hammer who built the ships and mods we used yesterday. They deserve a huge amount of the credit for the success of this event. We are already thinking about next year and taking a fresh look at fits and ships to help us keep up with the meta changes in the game. This planning will be getting started as early as next week, it is never too early to start planning for next year.
We'll try to have the event earlier in the year again next year, hopefully in March. Unfortunately the Anger Games moved into our time slot after we announced our date and we'll try to avoid that issue next year.
I hope everyone had a great time and enjoyed the event. I know the feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive. Sadly you all missed out on your one chance to see me pilot an Orca in space, maybe we can manage that at another point in the near future.
Thank you all for yet another great FF4A event.