Roaming Redemption Road

I figured it was time to dust off the old blog and get back to writing. Yes, I know, it has been a while- as my loyal readers like to point out every time I log into EVE (all two of you lol). I have wanted to write for some time now, but I’ve been distracted with the holidays, family, AND the flu.

EVE is an entirely new and different game since I’ve closed the alliance & corp. I log in, and I might have two mails on a good day, a far cry from the 20+ from before. My contracts are mostly empty. When I had the alliance, I’d have a continuous stream of corpses being contracted (I collect them). I’m not being pulled into countless meetings, or onto various comms to discuss all the things. Most of my chat channels are quiet.

It’s a strange new world. It is both exhilarating and unnerving at the same time. I’ve never played EVE without a corp or a purpose. Sure, I’m still in FW, but my heart isn’t. I love the Amarr Militia, but war-zone control has lost meaning for me a long time ago. I just can’t find it in me to care if we own a system or not. Once you’ve seen a system flip several times, it loses meaning. I was ambivalent when the Amarr conquered our entire war-zone, something I cared about a lot at one time. My beloved Huola was reclaimed for the first time since Inferno, and I’ve yet to actually go there and dock!

But I still love EVE and the people I’ve met playing it. I miss my alliance and corp mates, so much so that I’ve decided to repurpose my blog from being mostly about FW, to something broader. I want to focus on the people and the paths they have chosen in the game. I want to, if possible, explore new facets of New Eden- through the guidance of those who flew under the ILAW banner.

And! I’m going to focus on roleplay, another true love of mine on EVE.

So that is my bucket list for EVE 2015. Write more. Experience new things. Roleplay more.

My first new experience happened last night. I was invited to fly under Daisha Voluptia, a former corpmate of mine, on a roam called ‘Redemption Road.’ These public roams take place on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons (if you’re in my timezone).

My initial reaction was oh noes! Null sec! Bubbles! Blobs er’where! This is so far out of my comfort zone lol.

Though I’ve played EVE for years now, 95% of my time has been spent in low sec. I feel safest in low. High sec is all Concordy, and Null is vast and bubbly.

Or so I thought.

Anyhow, I get Daisha to mail me the formup system and time. The system was Berta, a High Sec system. It was only 12 jumps away, but! It was a High Sec system, and I had to travel through High to get there.

I shuttled over (Daisha was letting me borrow a ship) and docked in the scary High Sec station and joined comms.

Sidenote. I am of the opinion that there are two kinds of females on EVE. Those who revel in the attention of men, and those who just want to play the game and cringe a little bit when they have to join a new comm.

I am of the latter. However, it was very comfortable joining because of GreyGal. For those of you who don’t know her, she is absolutely amazing! Love her to pieces. I met her years ago when her former corp joined the Amarr Militia. (I also did an interview with her here, back in the day) Those already on comms were used to being around females and were quite pleasant.

Daisha, our FC, went over the basics. The Redemption Road fleets are open to all skill levels with no skill requirements, which makes it a lot of fun. Once Daisha mentioned bombs and what to do upon seeing one, I’ll admit, I had a little moment of panic. Bombs??!! We don’t have that in low sec. I don’t even know what they look like!

So I had to brace myself for both bubbles and bombs. Got it.

Once our fleet undocked, we had to haul ass to the nearest low sec system because someone (me) is a flashy. No idea how I am the only one who is pirate status here, but okay.

The plan was to travel to Thera and then wormhole it to null. That was another exciting thing for me, I had never been to Thera, and I’ve only been in a wormhole a handful of times.

The roam was fun. There were around 25 pilots, and it lasted for nearly three hours. I was surprised at the lack of bubbles lol, until then my mental image of null was that every single stargate is covered in bubbles with null sec blobs waiting to murder your face.

For the most part, most of the systems were quiet. We had to hunt to find our targets, which was mostly a new experience for me. In GreyGals interview, she said: “The biggest difference in FW vs. null sec or wormhole PVP is the lack of “hunting.” There is no “hunting” in FW – you just undock, and there are targets everywhere. You don’t have to roam 10, 20 or more systems to find a target, you don’t have to chase and bait them, you just undock and explode.”

That is so true. In our warzone, going beyond 7 or 8 jumps requires a lot of effort lol. If we ever travelled over 15 jumps for anything, it was a huge, huge deal with lots of planning and preparation!

I now understand why most null fleets have to be scheduled. When you travel that far, you need to start out with the main group. We had one pilot who tried to catch up with us and died en route.

In FW, any fleet is never more than a few jumps away, so you can catch up, or leave in the middle of a fleet, it doesn’t matter a whole lot.

Another thing I had to adjust to is the weird system names in null, all numbers and letters. What is the purpose of that? I think CCP should let people rename those systems! With proper names. Sure, we might have hard-to-pronounce names in our warzone, but at least it is a name! Not a number!

The fleet got a few kills, though we never were blobbed, surprisingly. I even managed to survive with ship intact.

So all in all, I highly recommend trying out a Redemption Road public fleet. The FCs and leaders are knowledgeable and skilled, the atmosphere is laid back, fun, and very welcoming.

For more information about Redemption Road, check out their website and join their in-game channel, Redemption Road.