Day 210 : Just Gimme the Prize : BB43

I will respond to a Blog Banter again one day. Today is that day.

http://freebooted.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/blog-banter-43-celebrating-nation-of-eve.html

For Blog Banter 43 I would like to invite every participant to nominate their peers for whatever awards you think they deserve. Let's start the year with some EVE-flavoured altruism and celebrate the best and the worst of us, the funniest or the most bizarre, the most heroic of the most tragic of the past year. They could be corpmates, adversaries, bloggers, podcasters, developers, journalists or inanimate objects. Go nuts.

I've been playing EVE for over half a year. It's been a revolution. I'm not sure what the hell is happening to my capsuleer career at the moment, or why, but all that can be dealt with in another post. Here are the Noob Awards for 2012. Lets start with something light.

Best Ship Award  

Shiny New Space Ships were my first EVE love. I'm basically a big kid when it comes to games. When could I get a new type of ship? How would I fly it? This feeling has faded somewhat but is in the process of returning as I move back to flight and combat skills in an attempt to try out all frigates and cruisers in combat. What was my favourite ship in 2013? The Federation Navy Comet? I love it for it's looks as much as the fact that I found it a flexible and powerful ship. I managed to speed tank a level three mission in it once. I can't pick it though, it hasn't been used enough and I haven't dared to lose one in PVP. The Dominix? My faithful Space Potato, the roving kennel for the "lads"? Nah. I've not done enough with that either. Level 4 PVE is a little slow for my tastes with my current skills. I'll return to it again once I raise those skills and see what happens. In the end the winner is the trusty, tough, lance weilding all rounder that is the Incursus. I like it's looks, I like it's handling, I've had my favourite fights in it. It was the first ship I wanted a T2 version of (and then couldn't bear to have explode once I had it). Incursus you win. You make me want to explode a lot.

Best Blog Award

Here is an award I wanted to give but almost proved impossible. It could be any of the blogs that appear in the sidebar on this page, plus a few more stashed in various feed readers in a vain attempt to keep up with the entirety of the EVE blogosphere. Who would I choose? Would it be Fiddlers Edge who posts rarely but instantaneously causes me to drop everything and read? He gave me my first review back in the day, dragging me from complete obscurity so I'm glad of that too but it might be a little self serving of me to award it. It could be Mabricks Mumblings, Mabrick who was my first hero in EVE when he defied the Goons way back when. What about  A Carbon Based Life where I often find myself agreeing with Tur and his approach and who has now been joined by Mabrick in WH space? (By the way CCP - not a fansite? Are you insane?) The winner could be Jesters Trek, the indispensible juggernaut of EVE blogging. It could be Poetic Discourse, Poetic who is so forthright and brutally honest that he ends up being a drama firehose while at the same time having the calm to advise noobs like myself without looking down on them. Admittedly I love watching that drama from the gallery. Thanks also for telling me what a fleet anchor was ages ago. I could also choose Freebooted by Seismic Stan who runs this whole Blog Banter thing on top of his own great fiction and EVE journalism, a workload I can't even understand. I think I met him once. I was drinking something blue from a bucket though. It could have been anyone, or a hallucination.

I could go on and on and on, I could mention each blog and why I like it so much. Look at the blog roll in the sidebar. It's any and all of them who posted in the last couple of months. I can't choose a best blog but if I had to choose a First Among Equals Blog Award based on who I read most and most eagerly, every day, at the moment, then that award goes to Sugar Kyle for Low Sec Lifestyle. It's everything about an EVE life and, well, just read it ok - it's good and it gets me through the work day.

 This award was so hard I can't even bring myself to talk about it any more. When you shave your head you look like an idiot trying to tear your hair out over a decision.


Best EVE Fiction Award

More accurately, who wrote my favourite piece of fiction. Rhavas? Sugar Kyle? I read their blogs regularly and I liked both their recent entries to the fiction competition. They both placed and so they already have awards but that wouldn't stop me giving them another. In the end though the winner is the author of the story that got me reading EVE fiction and in particular a short story that saved one Friday in August from doom and gloom. Drackarn wrote the story that had the most effect on me and the prize goes to him.

http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/fan-fiction-rocked.html

Best Thing I've Done In EVE Award

The Tuskers FFA. No doubt about it. I've been to both. I had to leave the most recent earlier than expected but still had a great laugh. My thanks to all the Tuskers for their hard work and ISK generosity in setting it up. My thanks to everyone who attended and made them great evenings. See you at the third one.

Best Thing About Playing EVE Award

Oddly enough the winner isn't just the glory of Internet Space. The winner isn't writing this blog though it could have been. I've never written anything for public consumption before this and it has been a great experience. The winner for the best thing about playing EVE is the EVE community. I've never felt part of something like this via the internet before. Sure, back in my Warcraft days I had the guilds I was a member of, one of which I still miss, but nothing compares with what I've found here. So to the bloggers, the redditors, #tweetfleet, the VETO London meetup players, the people I've talked to in game and the members of my quiet little corporation (Jax, Dave - WTF are you. Log back in already. The holidays are over) this award goes to you. Thanks for making the year of an nerdy internet space noob.

Worst Thing About EVE Award

Was it learning about ship loss? The fact that in EVE, unlike so many games, the "death" of your character has more impact than just requiring some form of simple resurrection?. No, that's a good thing though it took me a while not to learn not to take it personally. It's part of the game and part of what makes the game so compelling even when mucking around in my extensive periods of carebeariness. Could the worst thing be the Noob Tax? Noob Tax is my name for the need to skill up to avoid the split of Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills along racial lines. I know I'm complaining about gaining but I'm a Noob and it took over a sixth of my young capsuleers life to sort it out. The award was still going to the Noob Tax anyway until just the other day when I found out that the skill split had been put back to the Summer expansion. So, for making me remap too early and wasting my December, I nominate you Delayed Reason For Noob Tax! Here is a picture of your boot award.