Dee, feel free to explain just how you "believe that Uni can serve the new pilots even better than they do today". As has been said many times, anyone is free to set up their own competitor to E-UNI, and anyone doing so is welcome, but if there are things that can be done better now than when you were in charge, you should know I would be willing to hear them.
Personally, I find your attack against the POS, an asset provided to the membership at below public costs as a non-profit project, to be both disappointing and distressing.
So far, I have seen no actions which could be seen as benefiting Eve University, and in fact you threaten the continuance of its mission to educate players in all aspects of Eve.
The fact that after being Director of Operations for so long, you seem to have forgotten your reasons for leaving E-UNI, is what may be the most worrying aspect.
The question stands however - what, precisely would you do differently?
--
Kelduum Revaan
Director of Operations
Eve University
Hmmm... This is going to be a long one, so I encourage you to take a break, get a drink and come back refreshed. ;)
I'll make only a few specific comments about the POS attack last night and then move on from there.
1. The operation last night had no intention of putting the Uni POS into reinforced. Even a cursory examination of our fleet composition would have made that clear.
2. We had hoped to get a fight since you outnumbered us by at least 2 to 1 (force ratio was more in your favor really, as our gang included scouts, pickets & covops and no EWAR). We even sat still for long periods so your probers could get a warp in spot.
3. After more than two hours of plinking away at a few mods, our long range ships were running low on ammo and it was well into the middle of a weeknight, so we headed out.
4. From our side, we received some practical techniques and approaches to POS shooting and RR gangs (including my getting Concordonkened when I launched the wrong set of drones, to everyone's amusement, including my own!)
5. Your guys received some valuable experience in the techniques of POS repping, including how to deal with folks sniping your reppers.
6. No smack in local from our guys, although the Uni can inside the shield named "NO ASS LUBE 4 YOU" was a homey touch, I thought. ;)
Given that the mods were repped up within 12 hours, I fail to see how this could possibly 'threaten the continuance' of anything, much less an organization with the proven resilience and adaptablilty of Uni.
As for forgetting why I left, nothing could be further from the case, as I previously explained.
Which is more honorable? Attacking the POS of a declared WT in Empire or flying co-operatively with others to launch a suprise attack on the low sec POS of a set of 'pirates' that you are not at war with?
Which is more transparent? Openly declaring a NBSI policy everywhere or communicating NRDS (except in space that we claim sov where it's NBSI, but we don't have any 0.0 space, so that's not a player, and in WH space where we still fly NRDS unless someone enters 'our' wormhole, then we fly NBSI and they can figure out which wormhole is 'ours' when we start shooting them... {And that clear cut explanation only came to pass after ex-Uni folks pointed out the disparity between what your policies stated and what your actions demonstrated.})?
Which is more consistent? "See flashy, shoot flashy!" or "See flashy, shoot flashy, but not my Precious!"
Which is more loyal? Caring enough about friends to try and help them get a clearer picture of the world (virtual though it may be) or unilateraly removing the SA rights of the owner of your TS server's agent (who has been providing you TS service for free for years!), deleting all of the owner's corp channels, selectively purging forum access and using your own standings errors to gain changes under threat of refusing to allow those that fly with someone else to ever fly Uni colors again?
Which is more reasonable? To confine discussions of differences to private threads among higher levels of leadership or to openly call for the members of another corp to, in effect, mutiny in a preemptive fashion?
Uni does a wonderful job of teaching the mechanics of Eve, but presents only a limited view of the mindset of Eve. And, in my experience, the mindset presented is not the one that permeates Eve.
It seems to me, the initial question that you might seek to answer is this: "Can so many people that held, or still hold, positions of leadership in the Uni, including multiple DirOps (or equivalent), multiple Directors, multiple Managers and long time vets of the game, accurately, and without malice, see something from the outside about us that we can't see from an internal perspective?"
If you firmly believe the answer to that question is 'no', there is really nothing more to discuss.
If you can honestly answer that question 'yes', I think you will see the next steps clearly, as well.
As I can no longer post in the Alumni section of the Uni boards, you have my permission to link or quote this response (in it's entirety) as you see fit in the thread requesting feedback. Some of your members are crossposting portions of that thread to the Seppuku boards, where all are welcome and I will be linking it there.
Best regards,
Dee
Posts
29 comments:
We had hoped to get a fight since you outnumbered us by at least 2 to 1 (force ratio was more in your favor really, as our gang included scouts, pickets & covops and no EWAR). We even sat still for long periods so your probers could get a warp in spot.
3. After more than two hours of plinking away at a few mods, our long range ships were running low on ammo and it was well into the middle of a weeknight, so we headed out.
40 BBs against mostly frigates and cruisers...how do you figure we had the force advantage exactly?
You left pretty much exactly when we got the fleet together and a POS gunner showed up. Sorry Dee, I don't believe a word of this.
@ Anonymous
1. Well, since you didn't undock all we could go on was numbers. Uni had between 70-80 in system, with another 10-20 within a few jumps. We had 40 or so in fleet, counting at least 3 cov ops, 2 pickets and 3 scouts further down the pipe. We had no EWAR and expected you to field 5-7 jammers and 3-4 dampners. Using Silentbrick's rule of thumb (1 EWAR negates 1 battleship), that makes it say 30 or so on our side to 65-70 on your side. If you thought the force composition was in your favor, why didn't you engage?
2. Believe what you choose, I obviously have no control over that. We hit system at 01:21:06 and left the field at 03:26:51. Not our fault if it takes you 2 hrs to take the field.
3. Grow a pair. Put your name in your post if you don't have an account.
DC
Let me tackle the POS issue first, then I will move on to answering your questions.
Let me ask both you, and those reading this, what they would think in this situation:
1. It is informally agreed with the CEO of the attacking corp, that if it is kept a 'fun' fight, allowing the members to learn PvP.
2. Hours before the war goes live, various members of both attacking corps (who declared war within one second of each other), make bookmarks around the POS.
3. The CEO and another member of the attacking corp, then suicide gank a members hauler, and threaten to do the same to any others, while the members are preparing their resources for the war.
4. In the days leading up to the war, both attackers are seen moving substantial assets into the area.
5. A few hours after the war goes live, and just as there are no directors online, a fleet of 35 ships, mainly battleships, warps to the POS, and begins systematically shooting the POS modules.
What, exactly, would anyone think from that? Personally, I would think the intention was to destroy the POS, or at least damage it, which, according to your CEO, is a "leadership symbol".
You know full well from experience that E-UNI does not use tend to use BS's in combat, and prefers frigates and smaller ships due to the overall low SP of its members, so just how is 30 large ships, spidertanking, an 'equal force'?
Regarding the jetcan, I would appreciate a screenshot with the ID of the person who dropped it, so they can be appropriately disciplined. You should know the policies as you helped write them.
*) What do SW and VC hope to accomplish by wardec'cing the Uni? What lesson(s) are the students - not the directors - supposed to learn and how do you expect the Uni to change as a result of your actions?
*) How does your wardecs help the new EvE players?
*) What is this mysterious mindset, which permeates all of EvE - except for EvE university? And how does this difference in mindset tie in with your wardecs?
*) You are a director in a player training corp, Seppuku Warriors. Why are you even concerned about the policies and actions of another training corp, if you - as you wrote in a previous blog post - have learned not to take the game too seriously?
Actual number on the field was 29, including 2 Drakes and an Enyo, per the screenshot here: http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2930/posm.jpg
DC
Oh, I love the Blogger comments field... lets try again...
(Questions split up to avoid tl;dr.)
"Which is more honorable? Attacking the POS of a declared WT in Empire or flying co-operatively with others to launch a suprise attack on the low sec POS of a set of 'pirates' that you are not at war with?"
The 'surprise attack' was nothing of the sort, and you would have known this if you had have asked. The POS's (yes, there were two) were already in reinforced, owned by a -10 pirate corp who has engaged E-UNI members for months. It was lead by an ex-member and friend of the Uni, and was an opportunity for members to witness POS warfare. The sum total of the damage done by E-UNI members was practically zero, and would have extended the operations by seconds if the E-UNI members were not present. IVY RoE, as set when you were Director of Operations, allows mixed fleet operations against -10s, but with a fleet lead by a +10, and this was the case.
If you actually don't take the game seriously, then you wouldn't care what the names are, and all the anonymous posts are not the same person in case you actually care (I don't). Names are irrelevant anyway.
Actions speak louder than words, and all that jazz. Regardless of what your actual intentions were, you left almost exactly as a fleet came out to defend with a POS gunner. Whether it is simply a coincidence or not, it completely shoots your argument in the nuts.
"Which is more transparent? Openly declaring a NBSI policy everywhere or communicating NRDS [...]?"
Again, this was a policy set while you were DIrector of Operations, Dee. S-R, off in the drone regions was IVY space, and you didnt have problems engaging neutrals with no warning when you were there. I would hope you would remember this, however, let me also ask you: What is clearer - communicating that TANTO would not engage E-UNI members in HiSec, accepting +10 standings, and then engaging E-UNI members in a wormhole, as "we only won't shoot in hisec". Not to mention the CONCORD response, just how is shooting your prospective 'customers' good for you when 90%+ of your membership are from Eve University?
"Which is more consistent? "See flashy, shoot flashy!" or "See flashy, shoot flashy, but not my Precious!""
I have no idea what this is referring to with this, unless you are suggesting that corp standings shouldn't apply to pirates, friendly or not. If that's the case, then why didn't you mention something when you were DirOps, as it happened then. Or maybe you mean the POS - effectively run for the members, and subsidised by the Uni?
"Which is more loyal? Caring enough about friends to try and help them get a clearer picture of the world (virtual though it may be) or unilateraly removing the SA rights of the owner of your TS server's agent (who has been providing you TS service for free for years!), deleting all of the owner's corp channels, selectively purging forum access and using your own standings errors to gain changes under threat of refusing to allow those that fly with someone else to ever fly Uni colors again?"
Covering TS first, when we have people with super-admin status, who are removing channels, removing SA from members, providing SA to third parties, renaming and deleting channels and generally causing problems, what would you expect us to do? Not to mention that we recently found that the TS service has not been provided for free - we were actually supposed to be paying for it, albeit a small amount, and there is now a sizable back due payment due.
Moving on the forum access, members are asked to update their status when they leave, which removes access to the sections they don't need access to, leaving the student resources and discussion sections, and really now, if you think we would leave the access open to everyone, including those who wardec us, then why not make the whole forum public? Oh, hang on, isn't this something that was in operation during your time as DirOps. Oh, yes, it was!
"Which is more reasonable? To confine discussions of differences to private threads among higher levels of leadership or to openly call for the members of another corp to, in effect, mutiny in a preemptive fashion?"
Then I ask you, what is more reasonable: To allow all ex-members to freely disrupt operations, and still benefit from the resources of the University? Should we then invite corp thieves back in, and provide them will full access to all the hangars? Again, this is something what was in place when you were in charge, Dee.
Similarly, after leaving a corporation, is it reasonable to still attempt to exert control over the operations of it, without the full picture of what is going on, all without any of the responsibilities of being in said corp? One would think that certain persons may be regretting their departure.
Besides, this is "just a contract" is it not? One accepted by a training corporation, who are 'not mercs', by your own admittance. Of course, mercs don't have to accept every contract that comes along. For some time, the Privateers rejected contracts against Eve University, as you should recall, and some may be reading into it that this is some kind of personal vendetta because "you're doing it all wrong!!!", something you should also remember from your time.
Regarding the 'mindset' and coverage of Eve University, it has never, and will never, be able to cover everything. What our mission is (and again, this is something you should recall as you have said it yourself), is to teach the basics - for members to stay for a few months, and then spread their wings and move on, free to follow whatever their career choice may be.
Wars impact on this, as you know, it is far harder to teach anything other than the most basic combat during a war, so months and months of it, as we have seen in the past two years, prevent the Uni from its mission.
"Can so many people that held, or still hold, positions of leadership in the Uni, including multiple DirOps (or equivalent), multiple Directors, multiple Managers and long time vets of the game, accurately, and without malice, see something from the outside about us that we can't see from an internal perspective?"
But those outside, can only see though small windows, and miss the context. They see the actions, but not the reasons. They see the drama, but not the resolution. They see the failures, but not the successes.
So, as has been said many, MANY times before (a number of those times by yourself), and will continue to be said - if you think you can do it better, then please do. Form your own free training corp covering all aspects of Eve, and *do*it*better*. If it is better, students, teachers and management will flock to you. "If you build it, they will come." But of course, as you yourself have said, its far easier to criticise than actually take action.
Finally now...
You do realise your reasons read as justification for the war (which is a 'contract', remember?) and are at odds with the statements from your CEO, Sabre A?
You should both get together and have a chat about just why you are doing this - personal issues should not be mixed with 'business', and to do so is a very bad idea.
@ Kelduum:
I have tickets to the baseball game tonight, so I'll only have time for this:
You are right. It's all my fault because I'm old, I have a bad memory and things are not the same as they were before.
DC
'It seems to me, the initial question that you might seek to answer is this: "Can so many people that held, or still hold, positions of leadership in the Uni, including multiple DirOps (or equivalent), multiple Directors, multiple Managers and long time vets of the game, accurately, and without malice, see something from the outside about us that we can't see from an internal perspective?"
If you firmly believe the answer to that question is 'no', there is really nothing more to discuss.
If you can honestly answer that question 'yes', I think you will see the next steps clearly, as well. '
I fully agree that you may have useful input to provide and suggestions to make. However, I do not see what these 'next steps' that you allude to are. Perhaps you should state what they are, in plain English with no witticisms, homespun wisdom, amusing stories or jokes. Pretend I'm an idiot if it helps.
Seriously. I still don't know what these goals you are seeking to achieve w.r.t the Uni are, despite your voluminous posting here.
Carinosa Peligrosa (E-Uni alumnus) here. I was on the POS op. I can confirm two things:
(1) that all of the comm chatter was about the intention to draw out a WT fleet. This was our main goal. We were aware of the Uni's progress in this regard via normal espionage methods.
(2) that our fleet headed off due to the hour more than anything else.
As it is, I left ahead of the main fleet (EDT zone, day job and all). I'd have stuck it out if I thought we were going to engage a fleet though. I was still on comms when the discussion to head back was taking place. Definitely not an act of cowardice so much as an act of RL rationality!
For those that question the value of the op as a learning experience, well, it was. I learned that POS warfare is boring, and that I need to train for dreadnoughts and hang around lowsec more often.
Despite the fact that I actually USE that POS as an alter-ego, I *will* be there if we try to take it to reinforced again.
I recommend that Unistas do some private research on POS mechanics to understand why there was no significant threat from out fleet on this occasion.
No offense here, but the big question at the end of the mail is still unanswered.
You will know what to do is the lamest answer. Clearly we don't or we would have already done it! Thats why we still havent graduated yet (have to keep learning!)
OK, Dee. I know I'm not as old as you, so I can't claim true curmudgeon status, but I'm probably older than 95% of Uni folks (in my fifth decade), so I've got some decent "get off my lawn" cred. Given that, I’m gonna be the cranky old guy.
You claim that the op last night was not intended to put the POS into reinforced. It is not difficult to see why we might not believe this. Your entire fleet was long range battleships. You were clearly coordinated with Vertigo Coalition – a corp with something like 130+ pvp folks, many (most?) of whom are former Shiva with high SP. (IE – significantly higher numbers could have showed up) The order of targeted modules on the POS indicated a plan to destroy the long range damage potential of the POS so SR high damage setups would be viable. Plus, Sabre A has previously threatened to destroy the POS.
Now, as to trying to get a good fight, are you serious? Yes, we outnumbered you. Honest question: at any point in your tenure as E-Uni director, did we ever field a fleet that could take on 25 battleships (plus at least three Command Ships and 5-10 other support)? And how does your admission of having no Ewar support that you wanted to have a good fight with Uni? It is hard to believe that SW would voluntarily handicap themselves in a fight, given your beliefs about the value of EW.
The part that seems like a smoking gun to us is that when we finally got a fleet together and undocked (a fleet comprising 40 cruisers and frigates) your fleet bugged out. There were Opfor ships on SAK when we undocked. The alt scout at the POS announced your fleet’s bugging out seconds after we undocked. And given your probable infiltration of our Alliance chat, you knew that we were forming a fleet 30 mins before you left. (We really can’t hide that sort of thing.)
Now, to establish my bonafides. My char in uni is Anza Lyu. I’ve been in since 07. You have previously helped me with advice for fittings for Scorpions, as well as tactics for using a falcon. I had a lot of respect for you when you were a director in Uni. I truly want to understand what is going on now. In good faith, Anza Lyu.
@ Anza Lyu
1. Confirmation from testimony of Carinosa Peligrosa in the comments above yours should help, I think.
2. Try the math. Figure out how long it would take 25 battleships to deliver enough DPS to take down all of the jammers, all of the scrams, all of the webs, all of the guns and then take a large faction tower into reinforced. (hint, the tower alone, without giving affect to any of the 9 (I think it is) hardners deployed has 60,000,000 hit points... Each of the jammers has 3,000,000 of armor hit points and each of the medium rails has 1,500,000) I think you'll see that the amount of time required is unreasonable for a single session with so few battleships. We had no plan to put the POS into reinforced because we knew from before we jumped into Korsiki that our force was insufficient to accomplish that task.
3. Look at the results. How many modules were incapacitated during the time that we were there? 4? Based on true run rate, how long would it take to incap all the mods?
4. We didn't bring significant EWAR to the fight because if we did, we were confident that you wouldn't engage and also because our FC's called for battleships.
Hope these items will help you understand what happened & why.
DC
I'll quote my comment from the previous post, as well as the post here, as it seems to have been overlooked:
Dee, feel free to explain just how you "believe that Uni can serve the new pilots even better than they do today".This is, at time of writing, still unanswered and I, as well as others, would be interested to hear it.
Of course, you are free to implement your ideas in Seppuku Warriors, whatever they may be, and make it into that Eve Uni competitor.
what KKAssandra said...
what Kelduum said...
what Cazzah said...
we're willing to take any good suggestions.
The uni is about the 100s of guys in corp chat asking which agent is best, a level 1 quality 20 or a lvl2 quality 0. I'm quite happy to admit that some uni leaders sometimes forget about them but it seems that they're not the only ones...
never mind the pos shooting. So you shot it hoping for a fight, good for you, sorry it didn't work because we're too slow to get our act together. Perhaps go back into your memory to find that we really can't take on 30 vets in mostly bs.
"nothing to go on but numbers" in Korsiki, lol
MM
Dee, I think you missed your vocation - you would make a great politician.
Next time some one asks you a question, please try just answering it.
Wow, so much angst, so much upset. I realized the MINUTE I walked into 0.0 that rules had evaporated. The fact that EvE Uni thinks that in low sec or 0.0 for that matter anyone is going to follow rules, REGARDLESS OF WHAT ANYONE SAYS, is naive.
@MM
Please send me an in game email, just to confirm these are indeed your comments.
DC
@ Ffreyn Moonflower
Now I'm _really_ gonna hunt you down & pod you. :P
By personality, I'm a teacher. Generally, the kind of teacher that prefers to not give you the answer, but rather help you move along the path of discovery so that you 'learn' rather than just accepting and cataloging information.
And, yes, I realize that approach is old school.
And, yes, I realize that approach can be frustrating for both the teacher and the student.
And, no, I'm not inclined to change. Particularly since no one has yet threatened to hold their breath until they turn blue.
DC
Soooo.... You're saying that you have actually been teaching us with all of this? By leaving as director of operations, founding a seperate corporation, supporting a dec on Eve Uni and straining your relationship with the people you want to teach how to improve their ways?
Forgive me but its clearly not working. The Uni not a bunch of children that you guide to personal understanding. The Uni is an independant group of people who you believe are doing things wrong. We have asked you to say what you think is wrong.
Maybe we will not listen. In fact probably we will not listen! Maybe we must discover for it ourselves, in the old school way you endorse, and I understand that.
But either way, it can't hurt to show that you actually have genuine suggestions on what could be implemented to help remedy problems in the Uni.
Being mysterious achieves nothing.
@ Ffreyn Moonflower
Now I'm _really_ gonna hunt you down & pod you. :P
By personality, I'm a teacher. Generally, the kind of teacher that prefers to not give you the answer, but rather help you move along the path of discovery so that you 'learn' rather than just accepting and cataloging information.
And, yes, I realize that approach is old school.
And, yes, I realize that approach can be frustrating for both the teacher and the student.
And, no, I'm not inclined to change. Particularly since no one has yet threatened to hold their breath until they turn blue.
DC
Dee - Asuri Kinnes here. You've helped me, Acacia has helped me, dam near EVERYONE in Seppuku has helped me that ever had a place in Uni... You also know I'm not one of the "young'uns".
Having said that and read through Seppuku's threads -
Having read your posts here -
I think your spreading what we used to spread in Texas and Oklahoma to make the grass grow greener, and I think (from what I've read on your forums) that you guys are forgetting (completely) what its like to be new in the game...
Comments in Seppuku read more like COAD from the Privateers thread than Unistas hoping to help...
God, its like you can't even hear yourselves...
TL;DR -
Your not helping and all the "rationalizations" sound hollow...
Respectfully in disagreement,
AK
I
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