pBump explains the recent bout of ennui that Jester is going through:
I think that one of the worst things I’ve done in my career as an FC was hanging out with Rote. Specifically attending Cass Ops, running around with Brent, and working with their guys on SiSi during the tournament preps. It brought a stark and brutal clarity to just how good, and by comparison bad EVE can be as an FC.
An example: Several months ago I was attending a Cass Op on a Friday night (as usual) On comes Cass and goes through the typical pre-op rundown. Who can fly links? Who wants to do Logi? Who wants to scout? And so forth. The difference between his form up routine and mine? Half a dozen people had perfect links. Almost everyone in the fleet could fly logi if need be, and he always used some of his best pilots as scout.
When I go through this, I have the same two people do links because they are the only ones with perfect skills. I have the same four or five people to pick from for logi (Aloe) because nobody else wants to train for it. They just want to shoot stuff. And if I put a good pilot in the role of scout, I’m almost certainly giving up a Logi or link pilot. Fuck.
Another example: We’re doing tournament prep on SiSi. Almost nobody from Clockwork shows up, so my team is almost entirely from Rote. I tell them what I want to comp for the 5v5 and off we go. The fight unfolds and things get intense. Lo and Behold! Shit doesn’t go as planned and the Rote pilots actually adjust what they’re doing without being told to do so. They actually took initiative and did something to compensate for the twists and turns the fight took. If you’ve ever FC’ed a fleet of pubbie retards, you know what a mind blowing crescendo that moment was for me.
So what’s the deal? What am I trying to say? Rote is unique in Syndicate. If you look at Johns handy little map, they are the only entity on that map with the luxury of running their outfit like it should be. They troll out entire corporations because of a low skill level, much less individual pilots. They recruit and kick people based on their abilities to fly spaceships. When they CTA for a certain fleet type, the people who show up actually have the right ship….crazy I know!
What about GROON? Well we recruit exclusively from Asperger’s anonymous .com as if this is somehow going to let us play EVE with likeminded people. We never kick anyone for being bad at EVE, because it’s supposed to be funny. EVE is after all nothing but a big joke and ‘trying’ to play it well is the antithesis of a proper goon. Our blue list is really just the people that can tolerate us on coms. That’s all it takes. Despite some pathetic undertone that we’re somehow better than pubbies, we’ll blue up pretty much anyone to bolster fleet numbers.
To tie this into the politics of Syndicate, I’d be interested to hear from the main FC’s in SynCo, FIGL, etc. if their experience has been more like mine, or that of Rote.
And before everyone jumps out of their seat screaming “holy shits just join Rote aleady!” I actually really like the core group that I’ve been playing with in GROON for the past couple years. They are my spaceships friends and I will never leave them.
Poor Rote; it’s tough being elite.
Serpentine's Eve 