Yesterday I only had about 90 minutes to log-in and play Eve Online. Before I get into the gory details, let me explain that I typically accept convo requests in-game. You never know what someone might want to discuss, or ask, or what roads a conversation might lead you down. Sometimes it can be for advice, or intel sharing, or a question about something important. It rarely is any of these things to be honest. Especially lately. I don't know what is going on right now, but there is a very weird trend at work.
In that 90 minute time-frame I got three different convo requests from three different players that each immediately went right into some of the most hateful homophobic explicit language I've seen since the previous day. Each of these players got blocked by me immediately without retort. I don't engage with this stuff at all. But this has been happening to me almost daily for the past few weeks. This was the first day that I got three of them, usually it has been one or maybe two a day.
Remember this is coming from a player that is not a stranger to these types of trolls. I've been an Eve player for almost sixteen years now, so I'm not being overly sensitive here. And I do try to keep this stuff off the blog as much as I can. To provide some context, yesterday I also had a bunch of people say hello to me in local. And I had one other convo that was a genuine request for advice. I also had two players inform the local community that I was in local and that they should dock up for safety. Thanks by the way. (Sarcasm)
Anyway, I don't know why this is happening. But it is happening.
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A better story.
The other day as I was docking up I noticed an Arazu had popped a cyno on our station. Local was primarily blue and I decided to undock and explode it. So I decided to undock in my Nightmare to get another killmark for it. A fateful decision.
As soon as I started shooting the Arazu a Nag Fleet Issue undocked and then about eight other ships landed, including a Redeemer, Loki and a few others. Oops. Behind me a few blue corp members also started undocking and this was suddenly looking like it could turn into a blood bath. I was aggressed and engaged, so I was stuck. Pointed by several ships and scrammed by the Arazu.
One of the things I always tell anyone who will listen is to never give up. Keep your head, especially under pressure. Even in those dire circumstances, you are not without options. It was, after all, only one scram and that was coming from the Arazu. And while killing that ship might be off the table, although I did keep shooting, neuting it into empty was not. Because my Nightmare also has two faction large neuts in the high slots. And sure enough, after a cycle, the scram dropped. I was ready for it - this was not my first station rodeo. As soon as that scram dropped I cycled up the Micro Jump Drive and popped 100k off the station. As soon as I landed I started warping to one of numerous pings and just in time as the Redeemer landed right next to me. But he was too late.
We all had a great conversation in local about it afterwards. We know most of those involved as they used to live in our neighborhood. But it also shows that, just because we all shoot each other, it doesn't mean we can't also be friendly and civil. It is, after all, just a game.
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I know the trolling isn't going to stop. Some people tell me to not mention it in these pages, it only feeds the trolls. Which I agree. It does. The thing is, you will never know how many instances I don't mention - because I don't mention them. As far as anyone reading this knows, they never happened. And that, to be honest, seems disingenuous. As I've stated before this is also a journal and it feels important to mention things that are happening to me in-game and out-of-game. I don't want to dwell on the negative or empower idiots, but I also don't want to lie either.
Catch-22. But, in the end, silence is not an option.